A History of the Occult Tarot PDF
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A History of the Occult Tarot A History of the Occult Tarot 1870-1970 Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett Duckworth Overlook This eBook edition 2013 This edition first published in the UK and US in 2013 First published in 2002 by Duckworth Overlook LONDON 30 Calvin Street, London E1 6NW T: 020 7490 7300 E: [email protected] www.ducknet.co.uk NEW YORK 141 Wooster Street, New York, NY 10012 www.overlookpress.com © 2002 by Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. The right of Ronald Decker and Michael Dummett to be identified as the Authors of the Work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBNs Paperback: 978-0-7156-4572-7 Kindle: 978-0-7156-4704-2 ePub: 978-0-7156-4705-9 Library PDF: 978-0-7156-4706-6 Contents List of Plates Foreword PART I OCCIDENTAL OCCULTISM 0 Introduction 1 International Innovations 2 British Beneficiaries PART II SYNCRETISM KEPT SECRET 3 The Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor 4 The Golden Dawn Rises 5 The Brightness of the Golden Dawn 6 Clouds over the Golden Dawn 7 Refractions of the Golden Dawn PART III UNLOCKING THE DOCTRINES 8 Waite's Tarot and the Secret Doctrine 9 The Secret Chiefs and the Crowley-Harris Tarot 10 The Golden Dawn Glimmers on PART IV TAROT TRAVELS EASTWARD 11 Switzerland 12 Germany 13 Russia PART V DIFFERENT SCHOOLS, DIFFERENT RULES 14 C.C. Zain and the Church of Light 15 Knapp, Hall and their Tarot 16 Case and the Builders of the Adytum 17 The Blightons and the Holy Order of MANS 18 Lind and his Followers 19 Knight and the Servants of the Light PART VI MYSTERIES FOR THE MASSES 20 Eden Gray and the Waite/Smith Tarot 21 New Focus on Old Visions Notes Bibliography Index To the memory of Donald Laycock Plates Tarot de Marseille with handwritten notations following Mathers (c.1890) 1. (Private Collection). 2. Illustrations by Oswald Wirth (1911) (Bibliothèque Nationale de France). 3. Illustrations by Oswald Wirth (1911) (Bibliothèque Nationale de France). 4. Tarutspiel Däityanus by Ernst Kurtzahn (1920) (Private Collection). 5a. Vignettes after Leo Sebastian Humer (originals 1922) (Private Collection). 5b.C.C. Zain's Tarot drawn by G. Beresford (1936) (Private Collection). 5c. Baraja egipcia published by Franco Mora Ruiz (c.1970) (Private Collection). 6. Knapp/Hall Tarot (1929) (Private Collection). The Insight Institute's Tarot appropriated by Richard Gardner (c. 1970) 7. (Private Collection). Oswald Wirth's self-portrait (1889) (Private Collection); Paul Case drawn by Jessie Burns Parke (1931) (Private Collection); David Hoy drawn by Dale 8. Phillips (1971) (Private Collection); Stuart Kaplan drawn by Domenico Balbi (1975) (Private Collection); Bea Nettles photographed in her Mountain Dream Tarot (1975) (Private Collection). A.E. Waite's first Tarot: originals by Pamela Colman Smith (1910) (reprints, 9. Private Collection). A.E. Waite's second Tarot: originals by J.B. Trinick (1921-22). The Great 10.Symbols of the Tarot (XVI, XVII, XVIII) (Private Collection); the Great Symbols of the Tarot (XXIV, XXV, XXVI) (Private Collection). A.E. Waite's second Tarot: originals by J.B. Trinick, (1921-22). The Great 11.Symbols of the Tarot (XXVII, XXVIII, XXIX) (Private Collection); the Great Symbols of the Tarot (XXX, XXXI, XXXII) (Private Collection). Variation on the Magus or Magician for Crowley's Thoth Tarot: originals by Frieda Harris (1938-40). Photograph of unused study (1940)(Private Collection); reprint of Thoth Tarot (1970) (Private Collection); cover for 12.handlist of exhibition (1942) (Private Collection); extra card packaged with reprint of Thoth Tarot (1986) (Private Collection). Foreword A scholarly book on Tarotism was conceived by Michael Dummett and Donald Laycock, an Australian anthropologist to whose memory this book is dedicated. Sadly, at the very beginning of 1989, his intended co-author learned that Laycock had contracted a form of leukaemia and could no longer work; his death followed very soon after. The project seemed in danger of dying with the Australian author. However, it was revived through collaboration with Ronald Decker and Thierry Depaulis. The material amassed by the three of us became so sizeable that it compelled a division of the one-volume project into two. We published in 1996, under the title A Wicked Pack of Cards, a study of the esoteric uses of Tarots in France from the first evidence up to the early XX century. We described the major packs, both esoteric and divinatory, published in the period under discussion. We provided biographical data on the major theorists; we explained their innovative thoughts, their unacknowledged sources and their programmes of symbolism. We indicated certain misconceptions and misrepresentations. Some of our readers complained that our book was not the one they really wanted to see written. They would have preferred that we had written as metaphysicians, semioticians, mythographers or iconographers. These perspectives could yield valuable views of the esoteric Tarot, but they cannot receive proper delineation in one book. We had noted that Tarotism lacked a simple, honest, thorough chronicle. That is the book that we intended to provide. The earliest evidence of the Tarot comes from the courtly circles of northern Italy in the 1440s. The pack probably was invented there in the 1420s. Its only indicated use was for playing a card game. The Tarot in its original form included four suits, of Swords, Batons, Cups and Coins, each suit being composed of ten numeral cards from Ace to 10 and four court cards – Jack, Knight, Queen and King. The four suits were the ordinary ones then used in Italy, and still used in many parts of it, for regular playing cards; the Knight was a standard court figure in Italian packs, the Queen being added for the Tarot. The unique feature of the pack is the presence of 21 picture cards properly called ‘trumps’, and a single card called the Fool. The trumps form a sequence, very often numbered from I (low) to XXI (high). They represent stock figures such as
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