There is no sin in the use of the Tarot, which, exactly the opposite from what may be believed, is a Sacred Book, pure and original.
Having finally understood this point, watershed between the old world of cartomancy and the new universe of Tarology, to continue in such dogmatic positions would be ideology, or paradoxically, residual fanaticism or superstition. It should be clear, but we wish to repeat, that it is certainly not our intention to defend the wretched and uncouth use of the Tarot, which has been, and continues to be, unrighteously perpetrated. Those who, with no preparation or with a botched and partial pseudo-formation, take advantage of common gullibility should be severely condemned for charlatanry. We are the first to categorically distance ourselves from certain behaviours; and regarding certain ambiguous figures, we would wish to see the application of the strictest intransigence and the most rigid vigilance.
However, we maintain that the professional who dedicates himself to the interpretation of the Tarot with true preparation, the fruit of years of severe and accurate study, above all, permeated by knowledge gleaned from the principles of Codes and Laws, has the right to credit and publication as much as any other esteemed professional. On the contrary, for the very essence of that which he practices, the truly competent tarologist is so, from a technical point of view as much as from the criteria of evaluation based on his human qualities. In fact, his abilities as “translator of the Tarot” and his evolutionary level (determined by the gradual contact with his own Soul) are two intercorrelated and proportionately dependent phenomena. In this work, willpower is not enough: a true increment of one’s capacities and comprehension occurs only if there exists a psychological and spiritual maturity oriented towards self-perfection and the deriving Will for good. He who makes himself a bridge between consultant and Tarot possesses a role of help and support of others and, if it is true that he requires no praise, it is equally proper that he receive maximum respect on the part of any individual or institution.
Footnotes - Conclusions
118 Cf. chapter 4.
119 Cf. chapter 3, 4 and 7.
120 In Italy there is the Academy of the Tarot, which was founded with the intent to offer a structural and complete course of formation. It offers classified teaching modules of gradually increasing levels of complexity, available to anyone wishing to attain an integral and accurate understanding of this teaching.
Appendix
“Wisdom...is not even useful...It is not a servant...one cannot attain wisdom; one cannot conquer, capture, and comprehend wisdom...It exists only where there is abundance, only where wisdom is allowed to overflow out of its plenitude...To prepare a dwelling place for wisdom is to put down roots in the heart of reality.”
(Raimon Panikkar, A Dwelling Place for Wisdom)
The Marseilles Tarot
Historians of playing cards, although not unanimously, maintain that two card decks, the cards of Vieville and of Noblet,121 dating their creation circa 1650, must have been the joining link between the Italian and the Marseilles Tarot. These last, according to them, appeared only some decades later in the future and despite their name, would not be created in Marseilles. These historians usually maintain that:
“The Noblet deck marks a further step ahead in the creation of the Marseilles model and at the same time takes a giant step backwards of over a century : many of the figures in fact seem copied from the Cary sheet, of the Milanese Tarot of the early 1500’s, the Visconti-Sforza. However, since no complete Milanese, nor French, Tarot decks from the XVi and XVII century have been handed down to us, it is not possible to know at which point Noblet detached from the model which he had adopted.122”
In brief, historians believe:
1. That the Tarot of Marseilles derives from the Renaissance Visconti Tarot.
2. That it does not come from Marseilles.
The first modern deck considered typically “Marseilles Tarot” is that of 1672, of François Chosson. The name of the cardmaker and the date of production (“1C72”) appear, as usual, in the Two of Pentacles. Yet, apart from its place of origin, some scholars have doubts regarding its dating. In fact, observing this card, we see that two of the four numbers are deteriorated: the initial “1” and the final “2” appear authentic. Therefore, the presumed (for its “C” form) “6” and the “7” are a problem.
Why are they in such a state of ruin?
Fig. 1
The Chosson Tarot
It is possible to hypothesize that the wooden block, the original matrix of the features, was scraped in order to erase the two central numbers, a fact that might cause one to imagine an error, or clumsiness, of the printer. However, regarding the colours, it would be impossible to speak in any manner of inattention, but rather of incompetence, as these Tarot cards are truly a professional failure. If the features of the illustrations, as are the names and numbers, are traced with notable finesse and without a smudge, the application of the tints, on the contrary, as the image here shows, was done with no respect for the borders of the features and the limits of the margins, its appearance decisively blighted. This could only have been done by an inexpert printer, a different person from the initial engraver who, to judge from his work, was of a Benedictine precision... Therefore, we might suppose that this second cardmaker cancelled, and engraved again, in a maladroit manner, the two central numbers, in order to mark the new version.
Fig. 2
Chosson Fool
Why would he have changed the second number representing the century, when he could have simply changed the decade? The fact that the second number as well was changed indicates that the wooden matrix was not engraved in the 1600’s but earlier, otherwise there would have been no reason to alter it. Furthermore, as the letters of the surname Chosson do not correspond perfectly to those of the name François, (neither in dimension nor in form, as in the evident case of the letters N and S), we may suppose that a modification was also made at the point in the printing relative to the surname; and Chosson would have been none other than the later addition of this seventeenth-century cardmaker. Would, then, a certain François, the author’s first name, have created this copy before the year 1600? In 2001, thanks to certain documents published in the 1800’s, it was ascertained as well that the card deck, at least the version that we know today, is definitely of Marsellaise origin. Yet, let us remember that researchers share the idea that the decks of Noblet and Vieville were the trait d’union between Italy and France, the bridge between the Visconti and the Marseille Tarots, the first deriving from the second and of which the Chosson deck must be the first direct evidence. Merely browsing the list of cardmakers, from 1631 authorized by the King of France to form a corporation but whom we know to be more ancient still, we realize how numerous must have been the decks that have been completely lost. Consequently, it is legitimate to ask, how is it possible to affirm so assuredly that the Marseilles Tarot is of the seventeenth or eighteenth century and that it necessarily derives from the Italian model? Might we not suppose the opposite? The master cardmakers in France were well present even before the fourteen hundreds: faced with a presence so numerous, for the mere fact that up until now, we have not found decks of that period, are we authorized to think that there could not have been any? Obviously, one is not forced to embrace this theory, which seems to us a rigid sort of speculation and subject to obvious contradictions, as it is based only on certain presuppostions, for example the Renaissance origin of the Tarot. Studying more closely the story of these images, in fact, we have the impression that no one wishes to ascertain a truth different from the one commonly accepted, not so much for the lack of reliable sources, but in order to not risk the collapse of the academic framework built up around it. Despite the presence of numerous historical incompatibilities, as we saw in the preceding chapter, it would seem that these have not been noticed or, much worse, have voluntarily not been considered.
We und
erstand that for historiographers, probably already in difficulty in trying to overcome the prejudice according to which the Tarot cannot be traced, unless as a phenomenon of “secular degeneration”, to playing cards, the expression of their history as it has been presented here up to this point must seem quite impossible. Yet, in complete accord with the Tarot’s Coded Structure (which we invite every sincere researcher to know and study in depth in order to avoid the risk of a useless apodictic judgement) we wish to illustrate another vision, which rests on a fundamental principle:
The Marseille Tarot is much more ancient that the Italian Tarot, which, contrary to what has been maintained up until now, is a later copy of the first.
Of the Marseilles Tarot, manufactured in diverse French regions and neighbouring countries such as Belgium, Switzerland, or Germany, there was abundant proof from the seventeen hundreds forward. The copies, created in the various epochs by diverse master cardmakers and printers, have many characteristics in common. Comparative analysis reveals the presence of a common original Canon, a group of similar characteristics present in the many decks created. Over the centuries, however, the authors heterogeneously distanced themselves from this Canon. The cardmakers, unknowing of the authentic symbolism of the Tarot, simplified it to the extreme, introducing, often and chiefly involuntarily, various errors into their works, which, in a cloning process, were transmitted to successive generations. For this reason, many Tarot decks are only copies of more ancient ones, in which the repetition of the same inaccuracies bears witness to the reality of the process of mere duplication. Other master cardmakers, however, fully conscious of their duty to respect the authentic symbolism, produced decks in which the features and colours, identical and superimposable among themselves although with some difference in the figures, are quite close to the same Tradition. In this case, it is not a process of copying and it can be deduced that these Tarot cards, quite homogeneous among themselves, have a common and ancient source.
In synthesis, apart from other possible and potentially correct sub-categories, the presence or absence of these general characteristics allows us to identify two large groups:
1. The so-called Marseilles Tarot;
2. The classic Marseilles Tarot.
The so-called Marseilles Tarot
In this first group, we include the decks that distanced themselves the most from the original canon, as those of Jean Jerger, one of the major manufacturers of the times, and his heirs: Renault, Kirshner and Blanche.
Fig. 3
Juno, Renault Tarot
Fig. 4
Jupiter, Renault Tarot
Fig. 5
Jupiter, Kirshner Tarot
Fig. 6
Jupiter, Lequart-Arnoult Tarot
Fig. 7
Queen of Pentacles, Lequart-Arnoult Taro
All of these decks were also improperly termed Variants of Besançon, the capitol of what is now the Franche Comté, from which, at the beginning of the eighteen hundreds, they were thought to have originated. We also find the decks of François Heri (1680-1746), a manufacturer of Solothurn in Switzerland, of whom are known two different decks, one from 1718, which copies the model of Noblet, and the second, perhaps of the same epoch, which is similar to the model of the so-called Marseilles Tarot. In the deck of Carrjat, printed in Chambery, although characterized by a different design than the canon-tradition Marseilles version, we at least find a Hierophant and a Priestess, whereas in the Besançon Tarot, in which these two figures have been substituted by Jove and Juno. We may also mention the decks of Rochias, manufactured in Neuchatel (Switzerland) or of Lequart, signed Arnoult, of 1748, recuperated, as we mentioned, by the editor Grimaud. All of these Tarot decks have been changed and modified.
For example, as we have said, the II Aracanum (the Priestess) and the V (the Hierophant) have been substituted by Juno and Jupiter; the Ace of Pentacles lacks the typical towers of the Marseille Tarot but more resembles a bellied trophy, etc. In general, the features and colours are less precise in their details and richer in ornamental elements. Although in these figures as well we find vestiges of the ancient tradition that spanned the centuries, the iconography appears concentrated on the artistic and decorative, rather than on the esoterical and sapiential.
The classic Marseilles Tarot
In this second group, we include the decks of the authors more faithful to the primitive symbolism: The Tarot of Jean Pierre Payen, of François Tourcaty, and of Suzanne Bernardin, to mention but a few of the most typical. The first, who was born in Marseilles but went to live in Avignon, city of the Papal Seat, partially rejected the traditional canon. His cards, printed in 1713, are characterized by certain liberties and the evident wish to realize an aesthetic and artistic work as well. It is, however, clear that his deck was copied from other, more ancient decks, of which it conserves vestiges and essence. In the Tarot of François Tourcaty (1734-53), although not all of the codifications, while often referenced, are present, we can sense the work of an author rich in inspiration. The Tarot of Suzanne Bernardin (a female engraver, a notable fact for the epoch) is dateable to 1839 and is characterized by the presence of details and symbols correspondent with the common Canon.
Fig. 8
World, Payen Tarot
Fig. 9
Temperance, Tourcaty Tarot
Fig. 10
Fool, Bernardin Tarot
Briefly then, all of these decks, the works of knowledgeable masters, are marked by an obvious adhesion to the features and authentic symbolism at the base of the Coded Structure. From this perspective, we believe that it would be well not to assume automatically that when we speak of cardmakers, we are speaking of those of the corporation, in professional terms as well as symbolical. For example, an apprentice was required to undergo a period of training which varied according to the city and the corporation (in Paris it was five years). After having terminated this experience, he did not become a master without having worked for a certain number of years as “companion”. Admissibility to the status of companion and of master, were subject to exams and tests, among which was the production of a test piece, a product that gave proof of his acquired capabilities. Obviously, all this did not derive exclusively only from practical and concrete professional requirements but was connected to a quite precise symbolism of which in fact the Cardmasters, with their craft, were the heirs and which furthermore, as we have seen before, bear a marked resemblance to modern Masonic hierarchy.
It has already been said that among them, the place of most prestige belongs to the author of a deck of superior quality, touchstone for all others, the illuminated master Nicolas Conver. Let us, therefore, illustrate the implications of the modern reconstruction of his deck.
Restoration of the Conver Tarot of 1760
There, have been countless techniques following one after the other over the centuries, first for the creation of the Tarot and later for playing cards. We presume that in ancient times they must have been written on parchment or engraved on wooden blocks; in the following centuries, manufacturers progressed from the use of blocks in pear-tree wood (or similar, for it’s soft but strong consistency) as matrix for the figures, together with coloured stencils (the pochoirs), up until the 1800’s machine-imposed industrial revolution. In the figure underneath, a typical wooden print of the eighteenth century.
Fig. 11
Wooden printing blocks of the XVIII century
It is easy to imagine that Tarot cards today are illustrated and printed above all by means of digital instruments. The Tarot deck of Conver was published in the nineteen hundreds as well, with no attempt to recuperate the images or the colours. Observing the various editions,123 as a matter of fact, it seems evident that the tints were often applied in a rough and unskilful manner and that part of the features, owing to the ruined state of the original prints, is technically imperfect. Thus, as in an ancient work of art, worn by
time, one feels the necessity for reconstruction of the original form, that it may find again its splendour, in the same way, one who is fully conscious of the Coded Structure present in this deck would instinctively feel the need to perform a work of reconstitution and conservation of its images. Consequently, in order to restore them to a condition respectful of the ancient symbolism, the restitution of certain elements hidden by improper application of the colours or deteriorated by the partial attrition of the matrices, as well as the recuperation of the natural coloration in general, were carried out through digitalization of the antique illustrations (made possible with the help of modern technology). One of the most difficult aspects of this task was the meticulous restoration of the specific gradation of the colours, carried out with radiesthetic measurements that permitted re-establishment of the frequency level of the primitive tonalities, beyond the scope of the human eye.
The Tarot Code Page 26