{"id":19997,"date":"2020-08-19T16:16:27","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T15:16:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/?p=19997"},"modified":"2020-08-19T17:08:46","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T16:08:46","slug":"the-egyptian-tarot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/2020\/08\/19\/the-egyptian-tarot\/","title":{"rendered":"The Egyptian Tarot"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"tarot01.jpg\"<\/p>\n

I: The Magus<\/em><\/p>\n

While looking at Tarot designs for work purposes (again) I remembered a book I used to own that demonstrated the symbolism of the Major Arcana by using side-by-side comparisons of cards from the more well-known decks: the Tarot de Marseille, Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck, the Rider-Waite-Smith cards, and so on. One of the decks shown wasn’t so familiar, a 19th-century design that purported to depict the Ancient Egyptian figures from which the modern Tarot is derived. Like much occult history, this is an invention but I liked the look of the cards with their simple line drawings and clever matching of Egyptian motifs with the traditional symbols. My book was borrowed years ago and never returned (the second Tarot book I’ve had this happen to; don’t lend people your Tarot books!), so I couldn’t look for a reference, but this account<\/a> of the history of the so-called Egyptian Tarot supplies all the relevant details and more.<\/p>\n

\"tarot02.jpg\"<\/p>\n

II: The Gate of the Sanctuary<\/em><\/p>\n

The examples shown here are from Practical Astrology<\/em><\/a> (1901), a book by Edgar de Valcourt-Vermont writing under the preposterous pseudonym “Comte C. de Saint Germain” (a real person<\/a>, albeit dead by 1901, with a long history of appropriation by writers and charlatans). The drawings are reworkings of the first appearance of the Egyptian designs in an earlier book, Les XXII Lames Herm\u00e8tiques du Tarot Divinatoire<\/em> (1896) by R. Falconnier, the drawings there being the work of one M.O. Wegener. In addition to copying the designs Valcourt-Vermont filled out the set with a Minor Arcana of his own devising that looks distinctly amateurish next to the Wegener set. Since then the cards have continued to evolve, a more recent version being the Ibis Tarot which colours the drawings in a manner that doesn’t really suit this type of art. The cards shown in my errant book were memorable in part because they stood out from their vividly-coloured counterparts.<\/p>\n

\"tarot03.jpg\"<\/p>\n

III: Isis-Urania<\/em><\/p>\n

It’s good to see these again, and also surprising to discover a further detail, that the Wegener drawings had been based on descriptions by Paul Christian in another occult study, Histoire de la Magie<\/em> (1870). Christian’s book was the subject of a previous post<\/a> for also being the source of an illustration of a witches’ sabbat that turns up all over the place, usually without credit. Not for the first time, the occult world is smaller than it seems.<\/p>\n

\"tarot04.jpg\"<\/p>\n

IV: The Cubic Stone<\/em><\/p>\n

Wikipedia has copies of the drawings from the Falconnier book<\/a> which may also be seen at Gallica, although the copy I found there was incomplete. The Valcourt-Vermont designs were published as a complete deck, The Egyptian Tarot, by M\u00fcller in 1978.<\/p>\n

\"tarot05.jpg\"<\/p>\n

V: Master of the Arcanes<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"tarot06.jpg\"<\/p>\n

VI: The Two Ways<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot07.jpg\"<\/p>\n

VII: The Chariot of Osiris<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot08.jpg\"<\/p>\n

VIII: The Balance and the Sword<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot09.jpg\"<\/p>\n

IX: The Veiled Lamp<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot10.jpg\"<\/p>\n

X: The Sphinx<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot11.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XI: The Tamed Lion<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot12.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XII: The Sacrifice<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot13.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XIII: The Reaping Skeleton<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot14.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XIV: The Two Urns<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot15.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XV: Typhon<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot16.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XVI: The Thunder-struck Tower<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot17.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XVII: The Star of the Magi<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot18.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XVIII: The Twilight<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot19.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XIX: The Dazzling Light<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot20.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XX: The Rising of the Dead<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot21.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XXI: The Crown of the Magi<\/em><\/p>\n

\"tarot22.jpg\"<\/p>\n

XXII: The Crocodile<\/em><\/p>\n

Previously on { feuilleton }
\n\u2022 The Kosmische Tarot<\/a>
\n\u2022 Alas Vegas Tarot cards<\/a>
\n\u2022 Palladini\u2019s Aquarian Tarot<\/a>
\n\u2022 Le Tarot de Philippe Lemaire<\/a>
\n\u2022 Tarotism and Fergus Hall<\/a>
\n\u2022 Giger\u2019s Tarot<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Major Arcana by Jak Flash<\/a>
\n\u2022 The art of Pamela Colman Smith, 1878\u20131951<\/a>
\n\u2022 The Major Arcana<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I: The Magus While looking at Tarot designs for work purposes (again) I remembered a book I used to own that demonstrated the symbolism of the Major Arcana by using side-by-side comparisons of cards from the more well-known decks: the Tarot de Marseille, Aleister Crowley’s Thoth deck, the Rider-Waite-Smith cards, and so on. One of … Continue reading “The Egyptian Tarot”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"New blog post: The Egyptian Tarot","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,4,16],"tags":[391,10844,10846,9238,10845,552],"class_list":["post-19997","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-design","category-occult","tag-aleister-crowley","tag-edgar-de-valcourt-vermont","tag-m-o-wegener","tag-paul-christian","tag-r-falconnier","tag-tarot"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-5cx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19997","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19997"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}