Etteilla Timeline and Etteilla card Variants - background

MikeH

Cerulean wrote
(Note: Mike H, your Las Vegas Library copy is also from Edition Delarue, but your text is missing the complete listing of their offerings that my book has).
Thanks for pointing out the description of the Orsini book at the back of your 1865-1870 "Cartomancie" book put out by Delarue. However I doubt that the book they describe is the same as the book I have been talking about that I xeroxed in Las Vegas. The book being advertised by Delarue is probably the 2nd edition of Orsini, the one that Waite referenced in his edition of Papus's Tarot of the Bohemians, c. 1850-1853. The University of Nevada at Las Vegas has that book, too, I think--I had it in my hand but didn't have time to examine it. It has a more technologically advanced binding than the one I copied. It is good to know that the contents are the same as the earlier edition, more or less. I suspect that the wording of the "explications" section of that 2nd edition is the same as that in the modern Editions Dusserre booklet, and in abridged form in the Lismon booklet you have from c. 1900-1920. Its wording diverges in various ways from the book I copied, which is c. 1838-1840 and put out jointly by Delarue in Paris and Blocquel-Castiaux in Lille. I gave a running comparison of the two editions in my posts on the individual cards as treated in different books.

The early date is why the other Delarue 1865-1870 books aren't listed in the back of the c. 1838..None published before about 1840 is there, and mainly put out by Blocquel and Castiaux. I checked the publisher and estimated date of publication for all of them on WorldCat.

Castiaux, Blocquel, and Delarue are all part of the same publishing family--father in law and son in law to Blocquel, according to Decker et al in Wicked Pack. They had to be part of the same company, I think, in order to all publish, by the regulations established in 1790 (and not repealed until 1945). Lismon and its variants are pseudonyms used by that company, probably for Blocquel in particular, according to Decker et al.

I will give links here, for reference, to my uploads of the publication data pages (missing the dates, of course) and then the back pages of the two books, first the c. 1865-1870 Lemarchand and then the c. 1838-1849 Orsini. The back pages are very useful for ascertaining the publication dates of the particular copies in which they occur.

First, some pages from the c. 1838-1840 Orsini. First image is the publication page and the title page; they are not actually on facing pages; I put them there to save space.; Then come the 3 end pages, listing books, pp. 210-212. I am not quite sure what all of p. 212 is about.

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-c1_1N34ct.../eGH3VdQKcx0/s1600/c1838OrsiniPubandTitle.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-AskcFDI1o_I/TngskBYOugI/AAAAAAAADiU/m-i7iByGW8M/s1600/c1838Orsini210.jpg

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-U-Fb_qDEe...hs/zJ5f08YyIdU/s1600/c1838Orsini211and212.jpg

Then here is the c. 1867 Lenormand, publication page and title page on facing pages (as they are in the original) and then the last two pages, describing other books on cartomancy. (Before that are a couple of pages on other subjects put out by the same publisher.)

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qpY4FcLnt...kZKwNYDE/s1600/c1867LemarchandPubandTitle.jpg

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/--VptiHHEE...C7_HSUM/s1600/c1867Lenormand2ndToLastPage.jpg

http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-EtheuUy3z.../dJLdmi4VPoU/s1600/c1867Lenormandbackpage.jpg
 

Cerulean

Will have to study and compare offline

A too-hasty glance at what I have in terms of hard bound copies and bookseller notes would have me puzzled at what to reply. No time to go through all the links above yet.

Your dating on the first link applies to the deck images, I understand that. But my Lismon deck has a booklet that shows Lismon / Lizmon with the same address on one page-yes, I know it is the same publisher. The street address is the same. The language addressing our beloved Julia Orsini as the sibyl is the same.

It is true that I did not show you which old books or old deck softcover texts were bound or not. A 1770 and 1773 text bound in Amsterdam inspected at a bookseller were beautifully bound.

My undated book (but circa 1865-1870 "Jeu des Dames" illustrations of the deck ) from Editions Delarue is leatherbound. Perhaps my mistake is that since the Etteilla families of decks from Paris were popular and available through 1865- 1900's, my dating of this Editions Delarue book needs a better study or refresher. I do not know when Editions Delarue wording was added or not to the Blocquel-Lismon-Delarue offerings.

Thank you for your work and details, I appreciate your good and kind updates.

I will check, study and if necessary, give details off-line at a later date. If I need to tweak or add details or change later, will post.
 

Cerulean

1838-40 Simon Blocquel edition of tarot illustrations also reappears in 1890 Lismon

Etteilla

I can confirm that circa 1840 text Le Grand Etteilla by Simon Bloquel has 78 card ilustrations that appear in my colored and tax stamped 1890 betwee Lismon Etteilla. There ae two small switches in two minor decorative motifs between the cards toand the book, but otherwise I am saying my Lismon card designs seem to be circa 1840.
 

Teheuti

Mike - have you found anything that indicates Etteilla was a Mason or what his Masonic affiliation was? Or if he included Masonic symbolism in the deck?
 

coredil

This is what Etteilla writes in his book: "Les sept nuances de l'oeuvre philosophique hermétique" from 1785:
Etteilla said:
J’ai déjà adressé la parole aux Francs-Maçons, page 81, second Cahier des Tarots, ou mieux, tome troisième de la Philosophie des Hautes Sciences, & quoique je ne sois point reçu Membre d’aucune Loge, j’ai pour tout ce qui est de vraie Maçonnerie, autant de respect que puisse en avoir un frère qui en connaît l’origine & en conçoit le but, la Sagesse & les Hautes Sciences.
Toutes les petites dénominations de Loges & de grades, annoncent plus la folie que la sagesse, & tous les simulacres extérieurs annoncent plus l’ignorance que la science.
Translation:
I already spoke to the Freemasons, page 81 from the "Second Cahier des Tarots" or better, in the third book of the "Philosophie des Hautes Sciences" and though I do not belong to any Lodge, I have for all what is the real Masonry as much respect as a brother may have who knows the origin and understands the aim, the wisdom and the high sciences.
All the little names of Lodges and Degrees indicate more madness than wisdom and all the external apparitions
(he means "rites " in a pejorative way) are more the sign of ignorance rather than of science.

If one believes what he writes, it seems as if Etteilla at least in 1785, was not a Freemason.

Best regards
 

Teheuti

Thank you, coredil. This is perfect.
 

Christine

hello

Hello all, it's so great to make your acquaintance!

As you might be aware, I've been in a passionate and wide-ranging conversation with a mutual friend, about this translation of Etteilla's LWB's and other written materials. So naturally I was thrilled to be told that it was all over here! I've been waiting for years to see this material in English, so the last few days have been spent mulling over it all.

First of all, this is a tremendous service to Tarot, which I hope to see coming into print one of these days. Etteilla is a vital link in the chain, as I'm sure everybody here agrees, so this is a great leap forward for Tarot.

Second, I want to praise MikeH to the skies for doing this meticulous, painstaking, incredibly tedious job! This is not only about the translating, but also the labor of collating multiple versions together in such a way that we could see the individual contributors and how their different ideas evolved. Masterful!

Plus, all of the careful comparisons between editions are invaluable, Mari. What a blessing to us all that you have been so diligent to collect it all! It's quite a pot of gold here...
 

Christine

The 12 vs the 10

The thing that propelled me to write, finally, is what happened last night when I got the bug to try out all of these different combinations Etteilla recommends in his recitation of the Tarot in 1 book, 2 books, 3 books, and so on. I actually have comments about the whole translation, but it's that final section that really made my eyes pop.

In order to track all the variables that Etteilla set loose with those suggestions of his, I had to make a key that would show Etteilla's trump numbers and names, then their corresponding Marseilles Trumps and their most likely Hebrew Letters (proceeding the most simple way possible, with Magus= A = 1 and counting along the alphabet to 0 = Fool = Tau). I'm trying to behave here like a person who has only Etteilla and the packs that came before him in my possession.

One of the first things that jumped out at me as I was reading this section is that, in the section about dividing the pack into 6 "books", Etteilla refers to the "Kabalistic numbers bearing signs and planets" (2nd cahir supplement, p. 161-162).

There is also a reference to the Shem Angels (called the Intelligences) in the calculations connected to the 4th "book" of the division by 7 (2nd cahir, p. 140).

Those two 'tells' are all I need to know that he's informed about the Hebrew letters and what they stand for. Since the Letters are traditionally corresponded to signs, planets and elements, he's letting us know that he's hip to that model. And since the Shem Angels are constructed by a trick of Hebrew letter stacking, followed by dispensing the resulting combinations around the Zodiac, we've got more information about his depth of field.

That says we can go forward looking for other glimpses of his occult preoccupations, which don't take long to find.

Notice how he defines his Trumps as the initial 12 followed by the subsequent 10. He uses that idea several times. One very obvious place is where he divides the Tarot into 6 "books", and sets the '12 vulgar numbers' against the '10 of the multiplied 5'. Oh, he is being tricky, our Etteilla! He remembers that Ficino uses this trope of the "10 conquering the 12" in the diatribe that put him into the history books. This was at an earlier stage of Christianity's encounter with the Hebrew Mysteries, and the Christians still had to take the position that they were learning Hebrew in order to convert the Jews. 'The 12 Tribes' is a traditional way to refer to the Jews, because of their divinely-mandated social organization. The 10, on the other hand, is associated with Hermeticism, the post-Alexandrian-synthesis Mysteries that ushered in the Christian dispensation. Thus it also makes an around-the-backside reference to the Tree, the 10 Sephira (which are, after all, the Numbers even in the Hebrew paradigm). Etteilla is following in Ficino's footsteps in telling us to look beyond these "vulgar numbers" (the 12 Signs of the Zodiac) to see the "Multiplied 5" (5 x 2).

Etteilla is also practicing a pretty little feint that we have to watch out for in other similar magical texts. Ever since antiquity the magic of the Pentacle has been contrasted with the magic of the Star of David. The result of multiplying 5 by 2 is the decimal system, which is associated with the West. It is also clear that the double of 6 is 12, the zodiac, which even the ancient Greek astrologers said they learned from the Hindus (the East). So by contrasting the "12 vulgar signs" with the "multiplied 5", he obscures whether he is talking about the tension between 5 and 6 (types of magic), or the tension between 10 and 12 (religious beliefs). These both are ways of referring to the cultural dilemma in Europe, the debates between the Christians and the Jews. The Christian Hermetics see themselves as the enlightened the 5/10 group, and the 'vulgar' Jews are the 6/12 group. This is inherited esoteric patter -- Etteilla did not make this up, nor is he using it to inflame racial prejudices. He's just demonstrating that he's aware of this historical conversation between the magi and divines of various tribes.
 

Christine

the Work of God group

Ok, so now we are sensitized to watch him throwing loaded numbers around, let's get into what he does with them!

In this section where Etteilla divides the pack into 6 parts, he names out his trumps # 2,3,4,5,6 and 7 as "the Work of God" and the 6 days of Creation. He talks about this again in the section where he's calculating the 4th "Book" of the division by 7, (2nd cahir, p 140, the same place where he mentions the Intelligences.) There he tells us to strip off their Trump numbers and then look at them as the primal sequence 1-6. He then pairs them up 1-6, 2-5 and 3-4. Immediately one notes that all three paris add up to 7, which is interesting in itself. But then I started wondering... where have I seen this before, three paris of opposites ranged around a central equalizer, and the missing center is 7?

Here it is, see what you can make of it, I hope it survives translation:

1

3 2

(7)

5 4

6


If you just trace it with your finger, you realize that this is the Lightning Bolt of the Kabbala Tree. This would be the sephirot above the heart, reflected across Daat. 1,2,3 are the Supernals, and 4,5,6 are the Heart Triangle.

This idea caused me to put Etteilla's Trumps into the numbered positions. (Remember, these are Trumps with numbers 2,3,4,5,6,7.) Those trumps are Enlightenment, Discussion, Revelation, Voyage, Secrets and Support.

We don't get very far with that, because following Etteilla's astrology correlations we have the signs Taurus through Libra. What does that correlate to in esotericism? It just so happens that this sequence of signs, which includes the sequence from mid-spring to Fall, represents the two signs ruled by Venus, the two signs ruled by Mercury and the two signs ruled by Moon and Sun. This is the side of he Zodiac in which the Alchemist is to do his or her powerful Works, because of the presence of the Light and the nearness to the warm seasons.

I didn't get much from this sequence until I converted it into Marseilles Trumps. Then what I got was
1 Sun
2 Moon
3 Star
4 World
5 Empress
6 Emperor

Wow, that's impressive!

The Sun, Moon and Stars become the upper end of their own polarities in positions 1, 2 and 3; while the Empress, the Emperor and the World are at the other end of each pole, representing the Earthly manifestation of the Lights.

My question would be, do we really think this is accidental?