Please Help...Confused by the Grand Ettiella (Egyptian Gypsies Tarot)....

gregory

Don't you just LOVE it ? It's worth reading the LWB just for the laughs.
 

Tarot dance

Don't you just LOVE it ? It's worth reading the LWB just for the laughs.


...it was....there was one about possible being poison....it's a riot
 

Richard

........Thank you also Richard....I am going to have to get the Book of Thoth Etteilla....I am truly captivated by the deck and though I knew a tiny bit of the deck's history...I did not know how much, till now, that I do not know........
The Grand Etteilla is much brighter and more beautiful than the Book of Thoth, which seems a bit somber to me.
 

MissChiff

The Grand Etteilla is much brighter and more beautiful than the Book of Thoth, which seems a bit somber to me.

I always thought The Book of Thoth was more gothic feeling....
 

Philistine

Oh god, this one is even better:
N° 10
THE ANGEL OF THE APOCALYPSE
The Angel of the Apocalypse predicts nothing bad if it is upright. Nevertheless exercise sobriety ; put water in your wine ; avoid overeating for you will be faced with death after a feast.
Upside down this card predicts a grave illness either for yourself or someone near you, and it will be necessary to prepare for a funeral.
Next to n° 47, this card predicts a bad dinner in a restaurant which will make you ill.
Next n° 45, beware of eating mushrooms and also mussels should the angel of the Apocalypse be upside down.
If n° 10 card is next to n° 25 you will receive a letter from someone who is dear to you.

What a pack of delicious absurdities! It's the worst excess of predictive mumbo jumbo. I almost spat my tomato soup all over the keyboard from all the laughter! Really must get my hands on this LWB . . . maybe even read from it as a gag for my next tarot dinner party (and serve lots of mushrooms and mussels first). Prepare your funeral, dearies!
 

kwaw

Etteilla was the first to write extensively on fortune telling with tarot and he was very successful -- his decks were THE fortune-tellers decks for most of the 19th century -- so it is wrong to say that they never took off, they were in fact very popular but their use fizzled out towards the end of the 19 century. A lot of the DM meanings for the pip cards are still based on him (as they were used in both the French (Papus, Wirth) and English (Mathers, GD, Waite) schools).

There is a system to his re-ordering and renaming of the Trumps. The first sequence for example are related to the seven days of creation (which relate to the last sequence of the TdM/standard sequence of trumps, in reverse order) between the two God cards (the male querent, female querent = the pope/hierophant & popesse/priestess in standard decks). I'm not sure if there is a system behind his sometimes very specific and hilarious meanings for combinations - he indulged in some very obscure numerological flights of fancy which was often hard to follow.

There are a few threads around here on Etteilla's decks and books -- MikeH (Mike Howard) contributed translations from some of his books (e.g., the third Cahier) in a couple of them -- with some explanation of Etteilla's system and sources. They are pretty long threads but worth going through if you're interested in Etteilla -- Mike also has a tidied up version on his blog site.
 

Alta

Feel free to post a link to Mike's blog.