Posts Tagged ‘Alchemy’

Tarot: The False Egyptian Connection
from The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy (click here to download)
Up to the late 18th century, Tarot cards were still used primarily for games. A revival in the interest of magic contributed to the reinterpretation of the Tarot as a secret book of esoteric wisdom. The most popular of these theories held that the cards originated in Egypt. At the time, the history of ancient Egypt also was enjoying a revival of interest throughout Europe.
The chief proponent of the Egyptian connection was Antoine Court de Gébelin (1725–84), a French archaeologist, Egyptologist, and high-grade Freemason. According to Gébelin, the Tarot was the surviving fragment an ancient Egyptian book, the Book of Thoth, supposedly authored by
THOTH, the Egyptian god of magic writing, healing, arithmetic, astrology, and alchemy. The Greeks equated Thoth
with HERMES.
Gébelin offered no proof for his claim. He told a story that an unnamed countess of his acquaintance possessed a Tarot deck, which he immediately recognized as of Egyptian origin. Gébelin said that the word tarot was derived from two Egyptian words, tar, meaning “road,” and ro,meaning “royal.” Thus, the Tarot was the “royal road” to esoteric wisdom. The 22 allegorical trumps were representations of 22 hieroglyphic stone tablets once hidden in a
temple that once existed between the paws of the Great Sphinx. The tablets had told the story of the world. The Egyptians had created a card game containing this story and passed the cards along to the Romans. Gypsies had spread the cards throughout Europe.
It was all pure fabrication and speculation. No evidence existed of the mysterious temple. No one knew what Egyptian hieroglyphs meant; the Rosetta stone was yet to be discovered (1799) and deciphered (1821).
Nonetheless, this story had tremendous romantic appeal and was readily believed by others. Gébelin published his theory in his nine-volume book, Le Monde Primitif (1773–84). A popular Parisian occultist, Etteilla, created his own Tarot designed solely for divination. Suddenly the Tarot was quite in vogue as Egyptian wisdom.