My Mini-Grand Etteila Deck in a Tin

I found this beautiful Grand Etteila tarot difficult to use. It's historically significant but odd.

http://www.aeclectic.net/tarot/cards/grand-etteila/details.shtml

So I made it my own.

I trimmed it mercilessly.

Then I created a traditional 22-card majors deck, plus four aces, from the cards.

They don't quite line up, as you can see from the attached scans.

For the Empress and Emperor, I used a Queen and King from the suits. For the Pope, ah, I ended up using the "Pope marries the couple" card, because at least his Pope-ness is not in question. So the 2 of Cups became the Lovers. And the Hanged Man--oh boy--well, this most mysterious card spoke to me of being between here and there, so that's my le Pendu. There are three "?" cards left over (Prudence, the sun in the clouds, plus a card I think of as "Evolution.")

They fit in an Altoids tin. They seem to prefer the Licorice flavor.

Those are beautiful!

They are lovely! I have the same deck.... hmmmmm maybe

They're TINY: 4 cm x 8 cm; 1-5/8" x 3-1/8"

They rattle nicely in the tin.

If you try it--the images within the giant white borders aren't exactly the same size, so it's better to use a template than to just cut around the inner picture.

That's amazing, Debra! I had that deck many years ago and couldn't do a thing with it--I eventually got rid of it. But You! YOU made it usable!

Wow.
This is an interesting project in circular logic...

Traditional tarot changed into something else by Etteilla, then changed back into traditional tarot by Debra.

And the concept of re-purposing of an Altoids tin to hold re-purposed cards is a nice touch as well!

Very cool. I never knew the Etteilla came in a tin!

And I like the ideas you had.

Best,

Cerulean

I just took a look at the Little White Book for this deck.

It has a chart that "sort of" shows equivalences.

It appears that the Female Pope and the Pope are equivalent to the Queen and King of Cups, and the Empress and Emperor are the Queen and King of Swords.

Well, I got the Emperor right, anyway. The card I chose for Priestess is "Eve." Well, I wanted to split the difference between the old tradition, with a traditional Empress, and the new, with a metaphysically savvy High Priestess.

The Hermit is listed as the Traitor--thus the Hanged Man. What an infuriating deck. What do you expect from a guy who spells his name backwards, I ask you?

~~~Arbed

Check out this e-bay Etteilla deck. It's an old one. Someone has written "new names" in pencil on the cards--basically reassigned identities to bring them into line with traditional tarot, like I did. Cracks me up.

e-bay # 300235579017

Beautiful job! I would never have even considered these from the before pictures but they are dramatic with the after!

Hooked