Thoth Etteilla

Thread originally posted on the Aeclectic Tarot Forum on 16 Oct 2004, and now archived in the Forum Library.

stella01904	16 Oct 2004
MM ~ May as well introduce myself, I'm Stella, hi! I've recently gotten a Book of Thoth Etteilla, this is Etteilla III or something like that, and I'd like to discuss this deck or Etteilla in general with anyone who is interested. BB, Stella

Myrrha	17 Oct 2004
Hi Stella Welcome to the forum! Do you read with your Thoth Etteilla deck? Do you use his method where the combinations of cards have specific meanings or read the pictures intuitively? I have the Grand Etteilla which I guess is an earlier pattern. Some of the cards (in both our decks) are very mysterious and beautiful. I've only ever done a couple of readings with this deck, as an experiment, using a combination of intuition and the system from the Grimaud LWB. I find the method exhausting to read with. I've also pulled single cards and read them pretty much intuitively. You might have more luck finding people to talk with about this deck in the historical forum. There was a reading done with this deck somewhere, perhaps in the oracle decks forum. --Myrrha

Shade	19 Oct 2004
What do people think of the assigning of Aleph to the Magician rather than the Fool? I think Wirth did the same thingand it seems like a very different system.

stella01904	13 Nov 2004
I've only ever done a couple of readings with this deck, as an experiment, using a combination of intuition and the system from the Grimaud LWB. I find the method exhausting to read with. I've also pulled single cards and read them pretty much intuitively. MM ~ Thaks for the welcome and apologies for the lateness of this reply! ANY Grimaud LWB makes reading exhausting, IMHO. ;) I'm still "conversing" with the deck, getting to know it better, The French keywords are interesting, I've gotten all those translated, and I'm doing small spreads for myself just getting used to this deck - it's quirky! I would go with a more intuitive approach rather than listen to Alliete too closely - although he was a serious student of the occult, he did tend to put some misinformation out there - like the bit about Tarot being from Egypt. Thanks for all suggestions and I'm off to search the forum! BB, Stella

stella01904	13 Nov 2004
Shade wrote: What do people think of the assigning of Aleph to the Magician rather than the Fool? MM ~ I'm all for it and here's why: Get your Marsielles and look at the Magician, the placement of his arms, his posture. Now look at Aleph. "As above, so below" indeed! You can see the Hebrew letters in a lot of the cards. Especially the Hermit, IMHO. BB, Stella PS I found some more info in Greer's "New Encyclopedia of the Occult". Aleph=Magician is the French method. The other way is the Golden Dawn method.

The Thoth Etteilla thread was originally posted on 16 Oct 2004 in the Tarot Decks board, and is now archived in the Forum Library. Read the active threads in Tarot Decks, or read more archived threads.