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A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot

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As this book confirms, contemporary interest in Tarot cards was rekindled by a brief mention of the traditional Marseilles deck by a late eighteenth century French writer named Court de Gébelin. Writing without the benefit of Champollion's rediscovery of the Egyptian language, de Gébelin created a fanciful history of the cards, a fanciful etymology of the word "tarot," and was the catalyst for a great deal of mystification and malarkey.

The authors of this book try to do for the history of this old game what Ronald Hutton did for the origins of neo-paganism in "Triumph of the Moon." What they lack, though, is a wider background in the literature and culture, including the popular culture, of the period of French history in question. A broader grasp of this material would answer the question of why a need was felt for a mystic Tarot in nineteenth century France, and enable them to relate to their subjects with somewhat more sympathy. This background is given in Hutton's book, and is perhaps the most successful thing about it. Without it, the discussion of occult cartomancy turns into a round of "liar, liar, pants on fire."

Even as an historian's account of the origins of occult Tarot, this book largely perpetuates Dummett's logically-confused debunking accounts, published in numerous books.

Here're the facts:

1. Tarot was certainly invented in the fourteenth-fifteenth century, in Italy, and was used for a trick-taking game not unlike Hearts, Spades or Bridge (the Trumps were Trumps, you see).

2. In the late eighteenth century, Antoine Court de Gebelin re-invented Tarot as an occult device, as part of his vast project of interpreting everything interesting as Egyptian.

3. Eliphas Levi picked up on Court de Gebelin (we don't know how directly), and through his influence Tarot (as a divination device and later an initiatory and meditational one) became central to the occult revival and now Neopagan and New Age spiritualities.

4. In the nineteenth century, lots of people got interested in Tarot and cartomancy, such that it became a big fad, especially in France.

Now, given all that, Dummett would have us go one step further: since Tarot was not invented for occult purposes, and since Tarot was not handed down since Egypt, Atlantis, or what have you, Tarot as an occult device is stupid and everyone who uses it is an idiot.

Dummett is a distinguished scholar of Frege, if memory serves, and has a top chair in logic, with expertise in epistemology and language. You'd think he wouldn't fall into this elementary logical trap: what makes historical origin (of a word, a practice, an object) necessarily absolutely contiguous with every possible later usage? For example, "occult force" was once (until the late 17th C.) a stock term describing things like gravity, and now it's always and only used to mean magical forces and such; does that mean Dummett's book should be retitled to avoid "occult"? or that Newton was an idiot to call gravity "occult"? It boggles the mind that Dummett can turn off his brain this completely, book after book.

At any rate, in this particular book, rather than going on from this claim to tell us all about how Tarot was (and is) used for playing a card-game (as in other books by Dummett), he and his pals tell us instead about how various interesting characters of the Belle Epoque developed cartomancy into a fad, a craze, and an occult tradition.

Unfortunately, there is no better history of occult Tarot out there, and if you simply discard every editorial or analytical remark, it's not even all that bad. Of course, that's rather a lot to cut.

If you want the history of occult Tarot from about 1790 to about 1900, this is the only place to go. Just disregard everything except factual statements (and consider carefully whether any given remark is really opinion masquerading as fact), and be ready to look things up in the notes if the authors don't make it clear.

Someday somebody will do a Ronald Hutton on Tarot, and things will be better. Until then, Dummett is as good as it gets. Too bad he's so miserable.

Incidentally, if you want the original texts on Tarot, they've been published, in French (try amazon.fr -- American Amazon doesn't have it):

Court de Gebelin, Antoine. _Le Tarot_. Ed. Jean-Marie L'Hote. Paris: Berg, 1983. ISBN 2.900269-30-X.

As the authors clearly state in their preface, this book only covers developments of the esoteric Tarot in France up to about the end of WWI, as the authors intend to cover developments in England and elsewhere from late nineteenth century onwards in a yet-to-be-published sequel.

The focus in time and space is thus fairly narrow, yet the authors provide extravagant detail about the earliest occultic Tarot writers and their continuing influences on today's understanding of what is the Tarot's place within the Western mystery tradition.

I never before quite understood the relevance of obscure references in other writers' works to such moldy old contributors as Eliphas Levi or Court de Gebelin, or why anyone would possibly care about Oswald Wirth's work. Now I understand, as this book places those old timers into clear perspective.

It is also somewhat refreshing to see the historical narrative written by thoughtfully skeptical authors rather than by uncritical true believers. By pointing out both the positive innovations and the flaws (in logic and sometimes of character) of the people who developed the esoteric Tarot, one gets a better grounding in how this basic game was turned into a deeply spiritual tool that speaks to the modern heart so well. I eagerly look forward to the next volume, when the Rider Waite deck (and its hundreds of derivatives) comes along to take the Tarot world by storm. Yes!

In my opinion, the best volume to date about the history of the Tarot. I look forward to the series being continued into the contributions of the Golden Dawn. Many occultists will not like this book, as it thouroughly and logically debunks many cherished myths of the Tarot's history and origins. (No, it was not invented by Gypsies. No, it has no connection with the Quabala. No, it is not the ancestor of modern playing cards. No, it was not invented by the Egyptians.)

Much of this book is an expansion of an essay on occult tarot published in an earlier (and better) Dummett work, 'The Game of Tarot', wherein we are told, rather as a preview to what we get here in WPC, that occult tarot is a corruption of the original intent for the cards, which was solely about playing card games, and that occultist interpretations of 'what it all means' have added nothing of value to tarot. In WPC this view (and agenda) is particularized with a tiresome and generally inaccurate portrayal of the ideas and influence of the French occultists who made modern (occult) tarot. The authors are not much interested in writing history, but are rather engaged in professional and dull-brained debunking, where no opportunity for ridicule of their subjects is missed, and little attention is spent investigating 'inconvenient' facts (the ones which DON'T support the arguments of the authors).

Given that so many of the statements made in this book are misleading and/or inaccurate, to say the least, is it possible that (a) such eminently learned gentlemen can be so staggeringly ignorant of the confluence of Hermetic/Alexandrian ideas that invested most areas of intellectual activity in the Italian Renaissance, to say nothing of the Islamic-Hebraic influences that had been transmitted to 13th-14th century Western Europe through the philosophical schools of Hohenstaufen Sicily; or, is it also possible that (b) they have been so diligently debunking the poor misunderstood ancient esoteric tradition because, like those equally learned scholarly dilettantes of the decadent decades of the early 20th century, such as Cornford, Harrison, Weston, and Waite, to say nothing of Mr Yeats and his friends, they are actually occultists themselves throwing out those infamous blinds or decoys that Grand Master Eliphas Levi was supposed to be the first to use, as a counterforce to the absurd New Age Mystic Babble that has usurped the kingdom of the initiated? Or, to give them the benefit of a superb irony, something like that ...?

This book would be better called A Partial History of the Tarot in France.Unfortunately the authors do not understand occultism, therefore they cannot appreciate the tarot.They are oblivious to the fact that the tarot depicts a process of initiation or self-realization.This is why the tarot is so popular today, and available in packs pertaining to a variety of traditions.The book ignores much contemporary work that is being done on the tarot.For example,R.J.Stewart has shown that elements from the Merlin tradition contributed to the tarot, though this is not mentioned here.This book simply does not understand the deeper meaning of the tarot.