The Tarot (Folklore History Series) , livre ebook

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17 pages

English

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The history of tarot cards and card reading has a long and unexpected history. From ancient Egypt to the fashionable salons and backrooms of 1800's Paris. This fascinating book has something for the newcomer to tarot as well as the already initiated. Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.

Sujets

Divination

Tarot

Spirituality

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Publié par	Read Books Ltd.
Date de parution	29 mars 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781446548622
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0350€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

THE TAROT
By
D. F. Ranking
Contents
THE TAROT
-THE TAROT
Were we to hear that there exists day a work of the Ancient Egyptians, one of their books which has escaped the flames which devoured their superb libraries, and which contains their purest doctrine on interesting subjects, every one would, without doubt, be anxious to know a book so precious, and so extraordinary. Were we to add that this book is widely spread through a large part of Europe, and that for several

MODERN SCHAFFHAUSEN TAROT CARDS

centuries it has been in the hands of every one, surprise would certainly be increased. Would not this surprise be at its height if it were asserted that no one has ever suspected that it was Egyptian, that people possess it as if they did not possess it, that no one has ever sought to decipher a page of it, and that the fruit of a subtle wisdom is looked upon as a collection of extravagant designs having no meaning in themselves? Would not people think that one was trying to amuse oneself with, and to play upon, the credulity of one s hearers?
Yet the fact is perfectly true: this Egyptian book, the sole remnant of their superb libraries, exists in our days. It is even so common that no savant has thought it worthy of his attention; no one before ourselves having suspected its illustrious origin. This book is composed of seventy-seven leaves or pictures, or rather of seventy-eight, divided into five classes, which each offer objects as varied as they are amusing and instructive: this book is in a word the pack of tarot cards, a pack unknown, it is true, in Paris, but well known in Italy, in Germany, and even in Provence, and as extraordinary from the designs shown by each of its cards, as from the number of the cards themselves.
So, in Le Monde Primitif (vol. viii. p. 365), writes M. Court de Gebelin, the first, so far as I have been able to ascertain, to give any description of the curious pack of cards known as TAROTS, or to attempt to explain the mysterious symbols known as the keys of the tarot. Le Monde Primitif was published in 1781, and since that time some ten or a dozen writers have dealt with the subject, but, so far as my reading has extended, no one of these has given us any new facts with regard to these mysterious cards. Theories there are in abundance, as I shall show later, but there is still a wide field of investigation which, I venture to think, may prove worthy of the attention of some of the members of the Gypsy Lore Society. The points which seem to me to require elucidation are, first, why an Egyptian origin should have been ascribed to these cards; and, second, why they should have been connected with the Bohemians, or Gypsies. As some slight contribution to the subject, I venture to offer to the members of the Society the following resume of materials collected from different sources, some not too easily accessible; while at the end of this article I append a list of those books treating on the matter which I have consulted.
I propose, in the first place, to describe the tarots themselves; then to set out the theories propounded by various writers as to their origin and meaning; and lastly, to indicate some of the modes in which they can be used for the purpose of divination.
We used to be told that playing-cards were first invented by the astrologer, Jacques Gringonneur, in 1392, to amuse the mad King Charles vi. of France. The ground for this supposition was that, in the accounts of Poupard, the king s jeweller, there appears a sum of fifty-six sous parisis paid pour prix des trois jeux or et diverses devises, fournis au seigneur roy pour sou esbatement, par Jacquemin Gringonneur. This idea is now abandoned; there is ample evidence that cards, in some form, were known and used in Spain, Italy, and Provence, long before they reached northern France. As early as 1332, the initiates of a Spanish order of chivalry, L Ordre tie la Bande, founded by Alfonso xi. of Castile, were by the statutes of the order forbidden to play at cards. Le Sage says that, in the time of Charles v. of France, St. Bernard of Sienna ordered packs of cards, called Triomphales, to be burned. 1 Charles v. himself proscribed them by an edict of 1369. The chronicle of Giovanni Morelli speaks of them as being used at Milan, by one of the Visconti, in 1392, under the name of naibes or naipes. 2 Some think that cards were first brought to Florence and Venice by emigrant Greeks from Constantinople; that they passed thence into Spain, and so to France. Court de Gebelin suggests that the book of the tarot was communicated by the Arabs to the Spaniards, and carried by the soldiers of Charles v. into Germany.
1 Because they were used for divination? This would appear to be the only good ground for St. Bernard ordering their destruction. It seems almost certain that cards, like knuckle bones, were used for divination before becoming playthings. Merlin (Origines des Carles Jouer) has disputed the accuracy of many of these early references; but his grounds for objection seem insufficient. As a means of divination the cards would be kept strictly secret to avoid the spiritual arm of the Church : this would account for the lack of earlier reference to them.
2 By this last name cards are still known in Spain; in England they were also to. one time called napes , and from this arises our word jack-a-napes. The origin and meaning of this word naibes, or naipes, has been explained in various ways. Antonio Magus, in L Art de Tirtr les Cartes, says that it means simply the hilaren s game: Court de Cebelin gives the word as a proof of their Oriental origin, saying that it comes from the Oriental word (he does not say what language) nap , to take to hold ; Vaillant, in Les Romes, says that the naibi arc sibyls, or pythonesnts, and that the cards are the prophetic signs and revealing words of the ic thn, on devil, who for the Roms is the greatest of the nabi or prophets. The castilian dictionary of 1734 says that the naipes were invented by one Nicolao l epin. The most probable derivation will be found later.
Nothing in this gives us any clue so far to the secret of the origin and meaning of the tarots. Were these cards the origin of the modern playing-cards? or are they a later development of the simpler packs? As regards this point, I think that an examination of the tarot pack itself must leave the conviction that the symbols on the cards themselves show them to be the earlier in date. What is the meaning of the name Tarot ? Every authority seems to give a different interpretation. Court de Gebelin (vol. viii. p. 380) says that it is pure Egyptian, composed of the words tar, signifying road, and ro, ros, or rog, signifying royal, since it shows the royal road of life. I leave it to Egyptologists to examine into the correctness of this explanation. On page 395, in a dissertation on Le Livre de Thot (a name also given to the tarot pack by those who uphold its Egyptian origin) by M. le C. de M---, it is said: This book seems to have been named A-Rosh: from A

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