Celtic Cross Created By William Butler Yeats

Charles Darnay

Mr. Parisious holds a copy of a letter from Yeats uncle George Pollexfen to
Golden Dawn chief Wynn Wescott dated October 15,1897. It contains a drawing of the now most famousdivinatory spread in the history of Tarot and includes an account of how
it was located as in use by no less than four native Irish women,presumably living in the vicinity of Sligo.
As George Pollexfen is known to have been both extremely sedentary and
extremely reclusive and as his nephew,William, had just arrived for a visit on
October 12th,we may state with some confidence that it was WBY who brought the
Celtic Cross into the house.
Padraic Colum who visited Sligo in 1909 with Yeats told Roger as far back as
the winter of 1966-1967 that Geoge"s psychic housekeeper,Mary Battle ,regularly
used the Celtic Cross method.
This is one of the many indications that WBY was the one
"who was versed" whom Waite thanked for the aid which he provided Pamela Smith
and himself in creating "their" pack.This thanks must be regarded as ironic aas there is more than ample evidence that Waite had been bitterly feuding with Florence for several years before he published "his" Tarot pack.
A well known Tarot writer criticized Mr. Parisious very severely this past
season on the mistaken assumption that the Celtic Cross was an "occult"
technique used by an English GD member in the early 1890'S.Actually Mr. Parisious has been aware for many years of these Celtic Cross references in the Gerald York collection at the Warburg but, as the technique was unknown to the GD heads before October 15,1897 ,this critic's conclusions are clearly erroneous.
However,if said critic can provide proof that an English GD member was writing
about the Celtic Cross circa 1893,it would prove that Yeats had already picked
up the technique while researching "The Celtic Twilight" in the late eighties and early ninetiesand shared his knowledge with a few English GD members.In this case the Celtic Cross may not,after all,have originated in the vicinity of Sligo.We have not yet had an opportunity to track down the names given in George's letter.
But either way we believe that Yeats had a very definite motive in introducing(or re-introducing) the Celtic Crossmethod in late 1897.An unpublished mss shows the first recorded Florence Farr Tarot designs were made under WBY's
instructions in three months between the end of 1897 and 1898.
Some twenty-five years ago Mr. Parisious issued a statement purportedly made by the second Mrs. Dr. Felkin on her death bed that that Yeats and Florence had made a Tarot pack in three months at the end of 1900 to the beginning of 1901 and her group must make every effort to re-obtain it. It now appears likely that she was referring to three months chronicled at the end of 1897-1898 when Will asked Florence to draw designs for Tarot court cards. Remember the Mrs. Felkin in question did not narry her husband till sometime after the events in question and she was somewhat deaf.
The Pollexfen letter resides in the closed archives of the Soc.Ros. and has
been confided to us under strict injunction that we maintain our informant's identity in perpetual secrecy.It has also been shown to a well-known Yeats editor who who writes us that he likewise does not wish to appear on a Tarot forum.Sorry for the holdup in posting this but that is the way things stand for now.
 

Mercurius

This is very interesting. Did the Irish readers use standard cards or tarot? And did the uncle attribute the same meanings to the positions as came to be used?

It would be great if you could also post a replacement to the posting that got lost on the other thread about the arrangement of the trumps and minors.
 

Charles Darnay

This thread should more accurately have been entitled "Tarot Celtic Cross Created By William Butler Yeats."
It is impossible that four independent cartomacists working in 1890's rural Ireland and all known to WBY would have been turning Tarot packs. When was the last time before the Rider pack that a Tarot pack was published in the British Isles? They would have had to be using either fifty-two or thirty=two card packs.
Yes,the reading placements are the same in both the Waite and Yeats-Pollexfen placements. But the precise wording accompanying each of the eleven cards,as given by George Pollexfen, is almost entirely different.It,again,seems unlikely that four cartomacists would have used identical verbal formulae.So Yeats,rather than his Uncle George,seems the one most likely to have done the editorial work.And these unpublished words are the incantory way in which he would then have taught them to members of his Celtic order in late 1897 shortly before he asked Florence Farr to make him designs for Court Tarot Cards.
All those "This is"' 's come in for the first time in the Waite version.
Native clairvoyant Mary Battle used Tarot cards when she read for Mr.Colum in 1909.But Roger neglected to ask Colum what pack thery were using and by the time he realized that it was important what they were using just prior to the publication of the Waite-Rider pack his friend had been felled by a stroke a couple of thousand miles away.
Mr. Colum had many,many pages of memories of Yeats and the Supernatural.There is a lot to be said about Mr.Colum's fairy tale book,"The King of Ireland's Son".
"Upon him the mantle has fallen," Waite wrote.
This is all Roger left for us on his machine but he has notes on later Celtic Cross material by both Waite and Yeats and he will send give it to us next week.
Our letter was published on the "No People" Tarot thread.It's just it took about twenty some hours to get posted and it appeared after we believed it to be lost.
 

Mercurius

This is fascinating and might also be of interest to people in the forums on spreads and historical research--I don't know whether there is any way you can cross post.

The further comments that you mentioned in "Cards with no people" #28 as having failed to post properly haven't appeared on the thread.
 

Teheuti

Charles, thank you so much for this information. I hope you will continue to provide updates as you get access to these papers.

I would very much like to hear the exact wording from some of this material. I posted an article on my blog about an 1896 book on cartomancy by "Minetta" that includes a spread that shows similarities to the Celtic Cross. This book was published by the same publisher and about the same time as the Grand Orient book on cartomancy. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if several variations on this spread weren't commonly used around this time.

http://marygreer.wordpress.com/2011/07/11/minettas-star-of-fortune/
 

Charles Darnay

Sorry we have been delayed.Roger is travelling and hopes to come back with new material for us.
There is no doubt that George Pollexfen names individual women,apparently of peasant to
middle class, whom he or,more likely Yeats,found using the Celtic Cross method.Short of a trip back to Ireland (which hopefully will materialize shortly) Roger has no means of ascertaining the problematical geographical locations involved.If George didn't get the names from nephew William they must all have been living within a very few miles of Sligo.
We will enquire about Minetta.Roger hasn't told us about her or him.However,he has rafts of materials, which he has left, with us on the Manual of Cartomacy.
It was originally published under a different title in Philadelphia in 1865 as was first pointed out by Mr.Gilbert in his Waite bibliography many years ago_Only there aren't any cartomacytechniques in the original book.Just a picture of a big roulette wheel with an Ace of Diamonds and a shawdowy King of Diamonds at its center as the frontispiece.This is reproduced in the 1888 "Manual of Cartomacy".
Roger believes that he has discovered the cartomacy booklet that was intended to elucidate the wheel but has not yet been able to view the American edition allegedly involved.
The fifty-six card technique published by Waite in 1888 has been traced by you to the "Book of Days" but Roger found that this in turn derives from a very early pamphlet
in the British Museum which contains a second section on Fortune Telling with Flowers.Another version of this appears in a book on symbolism published around 1930 and advertised on the backcover of an A.E.Waite book published at the same time.
Kathleen Raine remembered George Yeats walking her in the garden and showing her their language.But she did not publish this.Still she gave something to Roger after he sent her his reconstruction of the Tarot chessboard.
 

Cerulean

Roppo scanned the Minetta layout with the Pamela Colman Smith drawings below

http://grimoire.blog.ocn.ne.jp/doll/files/minettaBIGplate.jpg

and here is his posting of a later edition of the Minetta book

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=132480
------------------------------------------from the same thread:

FYI for your comparisons:
You will see in 2010 when Roppo posted, we discussed Minetta's texts and I noted about George Redway being the publisher for both the Waite's Grand Orient and my Minetta edition and compared texts...my post #9

Here are historical snippets from my post#9 back in 2010 for comparison:

Minetta's Fortune Telling cards advertised in Pearson's :

http://books.google.com/books?ei=f-...AJ&dq=pearson+minetta&q=minetta#search_anchor

(My first link to the article/ad in Pearson's posted in 2010 seems to have changed...so posted the above snippets until I find where my original link in Post number 9 of Roppo's thread has moved)

http://books.google.com/books?id=vB...=onepage&q=pearson's magazine minetta&f=false


If you notice the publisher George Redway, he was the publisher also of Waite's editions of Cartomancy up to 1898 as well S.L. MacGregor Mathers' 1898 edition of " The Tarot" (I have the ad for S.L. MacGregor's 1898 edition of the Tarot in one of the books I have).

---------------------------------------------------------------------

P.S. Editions of Waite's Cartomancy and Key to Tarot for comparisons:

http://www.adepti.com/adepti.orig/second.html

I hope that is helpful. I also have a later edition of the Minetta's book with the PCS card layout and and various editions of the the Grand Orient cartomancy book...light fare indeed....I am excited to think links are being found about Yeats and links to have inspired or designed a Celtic Cross?

Aside from the Etteilla designs/esoterica and the circa 1860 Jeu des Dames cartomancy layouts, I seem to be finding pretty period Lenormand-style decks from 32-36 and children's fortune-telling games in French and English...and the lightness reminds me of Papus' merry way of proposing amusing games for parlor sibyls...

Hope this is of interest for background.

Cerulean
 

Charles Darnay

Thank you very much,Cerulean.
Now Arland Usher's close friend,Joan Furlong(She gave him the Papus material from which his Tarot essay evolved) claimed that her French great-grandmother brought what is now known as the Celtic Cross technique over from France to Ireland at the end of the eighteenth or the very early nineteenth century and that it was a family thing irrespective of whatever the peasantry was doing with it. However,Roger has never been able to find any documentary indication that it did exist earlier on the Continent.And Joan would only have gotten the story in the early twentieth century.
Note that Waite defines the Hanged Man as "divination" and that the Celtic Cross makes the form of the Hanged Man.
Roger claims that nearly everyone has been fooled by Waite and his Frankist predecessors
into believing they equated God with the word divine. Farr from it.Evil eye Thierens certainly equated the "divine" with the first -and lowest-element.Mathers pulled that same stunt in his
Knor von Rosenroth translation.
 

Teheuti

Charles, with what did Waite equate 'the divine'? What was Waite's ultimate objective as demonstrated through his book, [/i]Pictorial Key to the Tarot[/i]--as you understand it?
 

Charles Darnay

It's happened again! We posted a long,long reply two days ago and it never came up. Last time it eventually appeared but this time, nothing.
It will take several days to do again