Authentic Egyptian decks???

[Freddie]

Hi All,

I am still on the fence, so to speak, concerning Egyptian decks. I am not sure I have seen one that I really like. 'Brotherhood of Light' and 'Ibis' are good and appeal to my taste, but do they look authentic, I am not sure. I really can't get down with the the Clive B. 'Ancient Egyptian Tarot' as it looks like European paintings that I have see in art galleries, lovely, but not as earthy as real Egyptian tomb artefacts. The Saint Germain/ Paul Christian deck is lovely, but colourless on beige paper...why...who knows maybe that is what I need, because I am being such a spoiled brat about getting the Egyptian symbolism just right.

Lo Scarabeo make a few that look good, but hmm... not quite Paul Christian or as traditional as I like... why do a beautiful Tarot like their 'Egyptian' and not have Bastet in key 4 or change the calming symbolism of key 12 to something very scary. In the other decks, the Godesses and Gods are all mixed up on different cards and the decks look like they are based more or style than on history. Maybe I should just give in and buy the very cool looking '22 Grand Trumps' deck of 'Egytian Tarot'??? I think that one or 'Nefertari's Tarot' look like real Egyptian art.

I guess I am being way too OCD about these decks, so opinions and insights from you all may enlighten myself and others here concerning this subject. I like most of these decks, but because they seem so flawed I cannot so-called 'submit' to them.


Please fellow Tarotists share your feelings on this as I know there are others here who share my feelings on this subject. Anyone with a deep knowledge of Ancient Egypt here that has found a satisfactory Egyptian Tarot?


Love & Light,


Freddie

 

[whipsilk]

I should preface my remarks by saying I do NOT have 'a deep knowledge of ancient Egypt'. So, for what it's worth... You might take a look at Julie Cuccia-Watts new Journey into Egypt Tarot, which I think is in pre-order now. It's kind of pricey, but it may be close to what yer seeking. You might also like the Falconnier-Wegener deck and its derivatives, although I don't know how easy any of them are to come by. I also tend to think that The Egyptian Tarots by Sylvana Alasia looks more Egyptian than European; you might disagree.

But if you haven't seen it, check out this web site with images from most of the historical Egyptian decks, including modern ones:
http://pasteboardmasquerade.com/Reviews/historye.html

Have fun browsing, and I hope you find the deck yer looking for! I'll be interested to see what others say, since I do tend to like 'Egyptian' decks.

 

[Richard]

Freddie, my feeling is that "authentic ancient Egyptian Tarot" is sort of like an oxymoron. Apparently Tarot is a fairly recent European phenomenon, having at most a tenuous connection with Egyptian mythology, perhaps by way of the Chariot and Star cards. An Egyptian Tarot would be somewhat like a Native American Tarot, which is a transplant of a European concept into an alien New World culture. It can be (and has been) done, but "authenticity" is not one of its characteristics.

 

[The crowned one]

I am with LRichard here.

"This story of the Egyptian lineage first appeared in the French occult community of the eighteenth century, having been invented by a Protestant minister, Antoine Court de Gébelin (1719-1784). De Gébelin, an occultist and Martinist, had become an early supporter of Franz A. Mesmer's ideas of animal magnetism and an amateur Egyptologist. In 1781, well before the Egyptian hieroglyphics had been deciphered, he published an eight-volume tome Le monde primitif (1781) with his speculative notions. Tarot cards had existed for several centuries in Europe with no speculation about any mysterious foreign or occult connection. But De Gébelin argued, with little evidence, that the word "tarot" actually meant royal road, a derivation he made from the Egyptian words "ta" or "way" and "tosh" or "royal." It should be noted that no such words have been found in the Egyptian language. Along with his essay on the deck, De Gébelin also published another essay by an anonymous friend, the first to label the cards the "Book of Thoth," Thoth being one name for the Egyptian god Horus.
As a result of widespread reading of Le monde primitif, the tarot cards began to be used as divination devices in Paris, though the spread of the practice was slow. It was significant that Francis Barrett did not include any mention of the deck in his 1801 catalog of magical practice, The Magus.
The next important step in the establishment of the occult tarot occurred in the mid-nineteenth century when Éliphas Lévi encountered a deck during his massive reworking of the magical tradition in light of Mesmerist thought. He identified their magical power with animal magnetism, a theory still popular to the present.
In 1853 Lévi published Dogma de la haute magie, in which he first laid out his ideas tying the tarot to the ancient Egyptian teacher Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary author of the Hermetic magical writings. He then tied the cards to the Hebrew magical/mystical Kabala (which he spelled "Qabalah"). He identified the numbered cards with the ten sephiroth. The court cards represented the stages of human life, and the suits symbolized the tetragarmmaton, the four letters that made up the Hebrew name of God. The 22 trump cards were tied to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and all of the Kabbalistic content earlier ascribed to each letter was plowed into the tarot cards."

-from "Gale Encyclopedia of Occultism & Parapsychology"

I would look for a "sincere deck" like "Brotherhood of light"

 

[WolfyJames]

Yeah, Ancient Egypt and tarot are not related in any way. If my memory serves me right it's Court of Gebelin who came out with that nonsense, and it caught the occultists attention who have been spreading it since. So in the 19th century there were numerous "tarot" with an Ancient Egypt feel. The Ibis Tarot per example is a coloration of a such a deck, made in the 19th century in black and white.

 

[Richard]

A. E. Waite's The Pictorial Key to the Tarot put to rest once and for all Court de Gebelin's theory of an Egyptian origin of Tarot. Aleister Crowley may have revived the Egyptian origin theory by his suggestively titled The Book of Thoth, subtitled Egyptian Tarot, but he was not adamant about it.

 

[gregory]

To be fair to Freddie, I believe he is well aware of his tarot history - but Egyptian decks are still nice to use, and if one HAS one, it is nice if it LOOKS genuinely EGYPTIAN. Which is not at all the same as genuine EGYPTIAN TAROT from the Mists of Time. One that portrays ancieng Egypt correctly, whether or not (not, I know !) that's where it all started.

Freddie - if you can find a decent Papus deck - Goulinat - that might work for you. I am very fond of the Egipcios Kier, which I think may be back in print.

Margarita Moscardo's Tarot Egipcio Adivinatorio is lovely but HTF. And Laura Tuan's Tarocchi Egiziani is a nice piece of work. There's a Bulgarian one too, but I don't know how easy it is to get now - delightfully stilted - Golden Tarot of the Pyramids. As also a Chinese one - Senet - that baby_dream may be able to get for you. I quite like Silvana Alasia's decks, but you don't, so...

 

[Eno]

"I keep secret in myself an Egypt that doesn't exist." --Rumi

Maybe there is one egypt for scientists, and for this there won't be any connection to tarot
but another esoteric egypt that exists in a very different way.

I like "The Egypt Tarot" deck by Mertz and Szij.

http://egypt-tarot.com/

 

[Aeric]

I haven't found a satisfactory Egyptian Tarot for about the same reason I can't really find a good Native American Tarot: both are examples of systems that never had Tarot structures, grafted onto Tarot to fit it.

The thing we know about ancient Egypt, as well as ancient Greece and Rome and other ancient cultures, is that its spiritual structure was in a constant state of flux. Depending where you looked in time: Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom, you find a very different set of variables. Egyptian religion which Tarot draws on was very much a state affair reserved for nobility for much of the culture's history.

Most of what we know popularly as Egyptian mythology comes from the New Kingdom religions, where hieroglyphics were widespread and there was a popular afterlife system for anyone who could afford it: The Book of the Dead. Unfortunately, the majority of these sources comes from Greek accounts, with whom Egypt had much interaction for trade as it slowly was annexed into a Roman grain province. For example, it's the influence of Greece and other foreign cultures like Assyria on Egypt that led to the god Set being demonized and vilified, and produced the myth of Horus slaying Set to avenge Osiris. Different gods were worshipped as heads at the height of the New that were not during the Old or Middle, such as Amun.

You won't find an authentic "Egyptian" Tarot because the mythological and historical values of a purely Egyptian myth body are too scant to construct one on the foundation of the Tarot suits than the later history. My recommendation is to go with what you feel best works, and you'll feel less guilty about cultural appropriation than a Native American deck might make you feel. But all of it is grafting.

Since you prefer artefact-looking decks, I'd recommend Nerfertari or Sphinx; at least they're trying to approximate the feel of tomb art.

 

[Freddie]

I am part Native American and I understand the type of 'cultural bandwagon spirituality' that is being warned against here, but I was looking at this in terms of the art of the deck.

Good decks are being discussed here and I am enjoying the eye candy.



Freddie