Etteilla

Biography and works

Born Jean-Baptiste Alliette in Paris, occupation initially as wig maker and seed seller; he never had formal classical education. Self-taught, he developed deep interest in cartomancy. He took the inverted spelling of his surname as pseudonym: Etteilla. From 1770 he began to publish manuals: Etteilla, ou la manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes (1770) — the first systematic manual of cartomancy with the regular game of 32 cards. Then his more important works on tarot.

In 1788 he published Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nommées Tarots — the first European book that explicitly relates the tarot with esoteric divination. Etteilla was who initially propagated the theory (today historically discredited but very influential at his time) that the tarot derives from the legendary Book of Thoth of ancient Egypt. This Egyptianising theory was extended throughout the 19th century until the modern occultism of Crowley and others.

The Etteilla Tarot

In 1789 Etteilla published the first tarot deck specifically designed for divination: 78 cards with new iconography, modified by him from the traditional Marseille pattern. The Etteilla deck (still produced today, called "Etteilla I" or "Tarot of the Egyptian Magi") presents notably different cards from the Marseille: includes specifically esoteric concepts (the Egyptian Tarot of Etteilla has cards with explicit titles like "Justice", "Marriage", "Question", "Resolution"), order of cards different, additional astrological correspondences inscribed.

His system of reading introduced revolutionary concepts: specific spreads (Etteilla developed multiple spread methods that survive in modified form today), reading reversed cards (cards inverted have different meaning — convention that survives until today), combinations of cards (the meaning of a card is modified by the surrounding cards). After Etteilla, professional cartomancy ceased to be informal popular practice and became discipline with method, manuals and systematic theoretical reading.

His legacy

Etteilla's legacy: 1) Systematisation of professional cartomancy as discipline. 2) First specifically esoteric divinatory tarot deck. 3) Ideas and structures that influenced ALL the subsequent tradition: Eliphas Levi, Papus, Court de Gébelin, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, A.E. Waite, Crowley. 4) Established the social profession of "cartomancer" in modern France. The classical Etteilla deck is still produced today and used by traditional French cartomancers; in Spanish-speaking world is less popular than the Rider-Waite or Marseille, but worth knowing for historical depth of the Western divinatory tarot.