Continental.pdf

THE CONTINENTAL TAROTS

by Christine Payne-Towler

In the essay titled "The Major Arcana" I empha-

size that "something happened" to the Tarot in

the late 1600s, when a new trend emerged in the

images of the Major Arcana. I point to the

Marseilles family of decks and the Etteilla Tarots

to illustrate my point. The

images shown by Antoine

Court de Gebelin in his

book Le Monde Primitif

further validates this idea.

The remainder of this

essay is about exploring

"what happened."

Tarots show Roman numerals on some of their

Major Arcana, but not all of them, and not in the

order we are now familiar with. Those very old

woodblock decks tend instead to follow the list

enumerated in a sermon written by an Italian

friar in the late 15th century (see illustration

opposite page 1 in Volume 1 of Kaplan's Ency-

clopedia of Tarot ). There is also another order

derived from the Charles VI pack that keeps

Temperence, Fortitude and Justice together in a

group. A very small minority of Tarots follow

this order, including Etteilla’s Tarots.

Many of the earliest decks did not show either

Roman or Arabic numerals, titles or astrology

sigils. Some of the images do, however, utilize

traditional scenes and characters from the signs

of the zodiac, the personae of the planets and

other traditional mythic themes familiar to the

culture of the times.

Let's review the situation

of Tarot in the first half of

the 1600s. Since the early

1400s, both handmade

and woodblock Tarots

T HE M OON C ARY Y ALE

S CAPINI DECK

A look at these oldest

packs reveals images

from the persecuted

Cathar movement as well

as Hebrew, Greek and

Gypsy occult symbolism.

The vehemence with

which the Church at-

tacked the cards and their

makers only reinforces

the evidence that Tarot

was the repository of

heretical wisdom pre-

served in imagery. Close

study of the excellent

book called Tarot Sym-

bolism by Robert O’Neil exposes the falsity of

the belief that there were no esoteric associations

with Tarot imagery before Eliphas Levi.

showed a remarkable constancy of internal

structure even though some packs were either

edited or expanded to meet the needs of the

various games for which they were created.

Tarot appeared in 72-card form in Italy around

1450, although this model may represents

"splice" between preexisting symbol sets: the

twenty-two Hebrew alphabet-keyed set called

the Major Arcana, and the Turkish Mamluk

cards of unknown provenance, a 15th century

version of which can be seen in Volume 2 of

Stuart Kaplan's Encyclopedia of Tarot (see essay

on the Minor Arcana).

M ONTEGNA ’ S

T HEOLOGIA

Kaplan also explains that the numerical order the

Arcana appear in now is carried over from the

French pack by Catelin Geofroy, published in

1557 (Vol. 1, p. 65). Some earlier fragmentary

The Marseilles family of Tarots began to appear

in the late 1400s or early 1500s, slowly evolving

and becoming more distinct as versions were

reproduced and a their popularity spread. The

deck we are featuring from this family is based

on the classical Italian-Piedmontese tarot of

Giusep Ottone, first published in1736. Dr.

Lewis Keizer considers this family of decks to

be the best reproduction of the earliest Arcana

to have survived the Inquisition (see "The

Esoteric Origins of Tarot: More than a Wicked

Pack of Cards").

Tarot makers who preferred the archaic form.

The two Marseilles-style decks that date this

telling change in the Tarot canon are the Tarots

by Jacques Vieville and Jean Noblet, both

Parisian cardmakers in the Marseilles tradition.

A Glance At the Cards in Question

Two defining characteristics of the oldest Tarots

were a Lovers card that shows "The Union of the

King and Queen" theme, and a Devil card that

shows the image of a traditional werewolf or

lamia from European pagan antiquity. After the

change in the late 1600s, those two cards are

drawn to entirely different models, called the

Two Paths and Typhon (or later Baphomet).

These amendments to the Arcana can first be

seen in the aforementioned two French

Marseilles Tarots which appeared in the early

1660s. A century later these same amendments

appeared as illustrations in Le Monde Primitif by

Court de Gebelin, and Etteila’s Tarot also fol-

lowed them faithfully. By the beginning of the

19th century, all schools

of Tarot used the "new"

models despite their

other differences. Ad-

justments were made at

the same time to several

other Major Arcana, but

the Lovers and the Devil

serve as perfect "mark-

ers" in Tarots that

accepted this new

influence.

O’Neil suggests that the Marseilles Tarots were

actually the original "folk" pattern, but since

most copies were woodblock-print "catchpenny"

decks, not expensive works of art like the

handmade decks of the Milanese ducal families,

they more easily became worn and were dis-

carded and replaced. (I agree to the extent that I

too think the earliest extant Tarots are probably

not true to the sources that originally inspired

Tarot.) This helps explain the uniqueness of the

Visconti Sforza and

related Tarots, which

have more in common

with the Mantegna Tarots

that the Marseilles.

Most of the differences

from one pack of

Marseilles Tarots to

another were simply local

details entered into the

standard image to identify

the maker and the region

in which the given

version was produced.

But in the early 1660s,

two decks appeared that permanently changed

the look of several Major Arcana. Subsequently,

those changes "leaped out" of the Marseilles

mold, appearing in the works of de Gebelin and

all the Etteilla variants of the following century,

effectively obliterating the older versions of

these cards except in the case of a nostalgic few

T HE L OVERS

J EAN N OBLET ’ S DECK

In Volume 2 of Stuart

Kaplan’s Encyclopedia,

we have an excellent

illustration of the devel-

opment of these two

"new" Arcana as they appeared in 1660 in

Jacques Vieville and Jean Noblet’s decks. Kaplan

was kind enough to put them on opposite pages,

and we can actually see the ideas developing.

Apparently Vieville liked the new version of the

Lovers, but rejected changes to the Devil, while

D EVIL

J EAN N OBLET ’ S DECK

Jean Noblet went all the way and changed them

both. It is uncanny how they form the line of

demarcation--before them, only the old forms

appear, but after them, entirely new images take

over. It's hard not to wonder "what happened

here?"

Introducing Athanasius Kircher

One way to answer the above question would be

to ask the parallel question, "What else was

happening in Europe during the second half of

the 1600s that might cause a ripple of change in

the Tarot?" This question is easier to answer. In a

general way the answer is "the closing years of

the Renaissance." But the more specific answer,

very relevant to Tarot, is "Athanasius Kircher."

One has only to find a copy of Joscelyn

Godwin's wonderful presentation Athanasius

Kircher: A Renaissance Man and the Quest for

Lost Knowledge from Thames and Hudson to

realize that this German Jesuit scholar is a key to

many riddles in the history of esoteric Tarot.

P AN /J UPITER

K IRCHNER ’ S T AROT

In the essay "Kabbalah/Cabbalah," an entire

section is devoted to Kircher's Christian

Cabbalah paradigm. It is he who adapted the

paths of the Tree of Life into the form that

modern magicians and Tarot practitioners are

familiar with. It is also Kircher who was so

convinced of the Egyptian source of the ancient

mysteries, and so learned and literate in the

exposition of his ideas, that the sheer force of his

certainty impregnated esoteric thought for

centuries afterward. And I think it is he who,

either directly or indirectly, affected the look of

the Tarot forever after.

all over Europe. (see chapter on The Major

Arcana) If we accept this resemblance as rel-

evant to the changing of the Devil cards of Tarot,

then we can see the process by which we might

find evidence in Kircher's work or that of his

contemporaries for the shift in the Lovers card,

and possibly other details as well. Unfortunately,

my catalog of Kircher's work is not extensive

enough to let me point to such a striking parallel

image in the case of the Lovers. But even partial

exposure to his ideas and images serves to

convince us that Kircher’s voracious mind made

itself an expert on whatever it contemplated.

As you gaze upon his illustration of Pan or

Jupiter, it is difficult to miss how closely the

"new" Devil image that appears in the 1660s

resembles Kircher's conception. A shift in

gender in evidence by Levi's time (late 1880’s),

in which the Devil gravitates from a masculine

form, through a form with attributes of both

genders, to the final female form, gives us the

Baphomet image favored in the esoteric schools

Meanwhile, the article by Dr. Keizer points to

the mid-1700s as a pivotal time in the history of

Tarot, because that is the time of the Fratres

Lucis or Brothers of Light. In essence, Dr.

Keizer says that the books published by de

Gebelin and Etteilla, lauding the Egyptian origin

of the Tarot Arcana, were not original in their

ideas at all, but were "already common under-

standing in French occult circles, which were

essentially Freemasonic" (p. 12). Keizer sets

forth that the "Egyptian Initiation" manuscript

that was translated and published by Paul

Christian (aka Jean Baptiste Pitois) in 1870 is

actually a Fratres Lucis initiatory document from

before the French Revolution (which started in

1789). Keizer does not say at which point the

Fratres Lucis got the document or when the

images were created for it. Upon exmining the

book Dr. Keizer refers us to, called Egyptian

Mysteries , anonymously published by Weiser in

1988, we find in its foreword “... Egyptian

Mysteries was probably translated into French

by Christian, though not from the original

manuscript... .but from a handwritten copy, many

of which had been circulating in the occult world

from the Middle Ages up to the 19th century.”

(italics the author’s.)

became associated with the Fratres Lucis by the

time of the French Revolution, was not revealed

publicly until 1870, by Paul Christian.

Meanwhile, the descriptions of the Arcana in

that manuscript match exactly the changes

which appear spontaneously in the Marseilles

family of Tarots during the first half of the

1660s. I draw the conclusion that the inspira-

tion for those changes is to be found in the

Fratres Lucis manuscript, traveling through

the underground stream of the Secret Societ-

ies.. And if Kircher himself did not have a

hand in mirroring the Fratres Lucis images

into the Major Arcana of Tarot, then the

Rosicrucian and Masonic community who

followed in his immediate footsteps did.

These ideas in mind, we can now see a theme

emerging: In the late Renaissance Kircher

amalgamates the Ari version of the Sephir

Yetzirah with the Pythagorean astro-alphanu-

meric code, and the basis for Christian Cabbalah

is born. Kircher may have also been exposed to

the Fratres Lucis document, which by then was

available to occultists in Europe, and which also

reflects the Hermetic asto-alphanumeric varient.

He declares in no uncertain terms that the entire

occult canon of the Renaissance comes from

Egypt. The stream of Marseilles Tarots shows

sudden and characteristic changes that could

easily reflect the mammoth catalog of sacred art

Kircher both created and commissioned.

Tarot historians have

never seen the original

models for the changes

that appear in the Vieville

and Noblet Tarots, but

that may be just because

we are not studying athe

Renaissance magi

carefully enough. The

telling fact that the

images first appeared on

Tarot cards two centuries

before Paul Christian's

publication of the Fratres

Lucis document means

that we have to reevalu-

ate the current theory that

the "Egyptian-style

images" on some Tarots are late developments in

Tarot art.

The Freemasonic community either picked up or

were bequeathed Kircher's works, stimulating

the enhancement of the already existing Gnostic-

inflected folk Tarot with his fabulous and ex-

tremely occult images. Secret initiatory docu-

ments would then have been created to further

illuminate the teachings contained in the images.

Court de Gebelin and Etteilla (both Freemasons)

each publicized the story of the Egyptian origin

of the Arcana just as Kircher asserted it. How-

ever, the resulting initiatory document, which

The very first of these Egyptian-style Tarots to

emerge after Christian's publication was the

Falconnier/Wegener Tarot of 1896. Gareth

Knight, in his fascinating book The Treasure

House of Images , tells us “Designs for the

Falconnier Tarot were taken from original

“L E T YPHON ”

AKA T HE D EVIL

F ALCONNIER DECK

frescos and bas-reliefs in the Louvre and the

British Museum, but they nonetheless retain a

very French flavour” (p. 20) In the article written

about this deck in Volume 2 of the Encyclopedia,

Kaplan says "Interestingly, he [Falconnier] cites

the 1760 Tarot of Marseilles by N. Conver [see

Vol. 1 of the Encyclopedia] as one that is closest

to the 'traditional' Tarot." Perhaps now we can

understand why Falconnier would make such a

comment!

defining the epoch of esoteric Tarot, upon closer

examination, the situation is not so easy to

characterize.

A Bit of Secret Society History

The term Secret Societies is used to refer to an

underground affiliation of esotericists deemed

heretical by the Catholic Church since the 1100s,

made up of pagans, Jews, Arabs, Gnostics,

Gypsies and other people of minority beliefs in

Christian Europe. The Church’s abuses drove

them into each other’s arms over time, and by

the earliest publication of Tarot there were

sophisticated international organizations within

which mystically and philosophically inclined

people, including Christians of a tolerant ilk,

could associate and cross-pollinate their ideas.

The catalog of Egyptian-style Tarots, matching

the Fratres Lucis manuscript, also includes the

Papus Tarot, the St. Germaine Tarot, the Ibis, the

Brotherhood of Light Tarot, Egypcios Kier, Tarot

of the Ages and a few others. Thee information

accompanying these Tarots all create the impres-

sion that their images come to us from sources

far anterior the first historical decks of the 1400s,

and yet each shows the Two Paths and

Baphomet rather than the earliest "European"

images. We cannot prove such an early date as

the origin of the manuscript or the images that

have become associated with it. But it's clear that

those who say it's "proven" that Pitois/Christian

made that manuscript up for his book are simply

not looking at the cards themselves.

A particularly important group in the history of

Tarot is the Rosicrucians (having their beginning

in Germany in 1614), whose membership was

always kept secret, and who were dedicated to

keeping aspects of ancient wisdom alive despite

the Catholic overthrow of pagan Europe. Over

time the Rosicrucians created various Masonic

Orders to serve as a doorway through which to

attract new menbers. Masonry became tolerated

as the only legitimate non-Christian "religion" in

Catholic Europe, providing a haven of refuge

for alternative thinkers who were spiritually

inclined but would not bind themselves to the

Pope and all he stood for.

Dr. Keizer also reminds us that the images that

have become associated with the Fratres Lucis

document might be influenced by the Isaian/

Serapian cult that existed in Italy during

Alexandrian times (until the 400s AD). The

Italians were excavating and studying Serapian

temples by the 10th century (see the essay "The

Esoteric Origins of Tarot"). Kircher spent the

later decades of his life in Italy, and was known

as an omnivorous thinker and student of the

world. Can we really imagine that he missed out

on visiting one of those Serapis temples during

his decades in Italy, when Egypt was his pas-

sion?

The Order of Elect Cohens (established in the

second half of the 1700’s by Martines de

Pasqually) is the more recent origin of a lineage

whose members have included many esoteric

scholars pivotal to the history of Tarot, including

Court de Gebelin and Etteilla. A century later,

this lineage produced The Martinist Order,

named after the philosophical stream of

Martinez de Pasqually and Louis Claude de St.

Martin and started by Papus in 1891.

To summarize, although the temptation for

modern historians has been to look at the pivotal

19th century and the work of Eliphas Levi as

So we can confidently assert that, from the time

of Etteilla, the first to popularize a Tarot with

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