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Title: A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot by Ronald Decker, Thierry Depaulis, Michael Dummett ISBN: 0-312-16294-4 Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Pub. Date: January, 1997 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3 (6 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Sort of useful, but mostly wrongheaded
Comment: Even as an historian's account of the origins of occult Tarot, this book largely perpetuates Dummett's logically-confused debunking accounts, published in numerous books.
Here're the facts:
1. Tarot was certainly invented in the fourteenth-fifteenth century, in Italy, and was used for a trick-taking game not unlike Hearts, Spades or Bridge (the Trumps were Trumps, you see).
2. In the late eighteenth century, Antoine Court de Gebelin re-invented Tarot as an occult device, as part of his vast project of interpreting everything interesting as Egyptian.
3. Eliphas Levi picked up on Court de Gebelin (we don't know how directly), and through his influence Tarot (as a divination device and later an initiatory and meditational one) became central to the occult revival and now Neopagan and New Age spiritualities.
4. In the nineteenth century, lots of people got interested in Tarot and cartomancy, such that it became a big fad, especially in France.
Now, given all that, Dummett would have us go one step further: since Tarot was not invented for occult purposes, and since Tarot was not handed down since Egypt, Atlantis, or what have you, Tarot as an occult device is stupid and everyone who uses it is an idiot.
Dummett is a distinguished scholar of Frege, if memory serves, and has a top chair in logic, with expertise in epistemology and language. You'd think he wouldn't fall into this elementary logical trap: what makes historical origin (of a word, a practice, an object) necessarily absolutely contiguous with every possible later usage? For example, "occult force" was once (until the late 17th C.) a stock term describing things like gravity, and now it's always and only used to mean magical forces and such; does that mean Dummett's book should be retitled to avoid "occult"? or that Newton was an idiot to call gravity "occult"? It boggles the mind that Dummett can turn off his brain this completely, book after book.
At any rate, in this particular book, rather than going on from this claim to tell us all about how Tarot was (and is) used for playing a card-game (as in other books by Dummett), he and his pals tell us instead about how various interesting characters of the Belle Epoque developed cartomancy into a fad, a craze, and an occult tradition.
Unfortunately, there is no better history of occult Tarot out there, and if you simply discard every editorial or analytical remark, it's not even all that bad. Of course, that's rather a lot to cut.
If you want the history of occult Tarot from about 1790 to about 1900, this is the only place to go. Just disregard everything except factual statements (and consider carefully whether any given remark is really opinion masquerading as fact), and be ready to look things up in the notes if the authors don't make it clear.
Someday somebody will do a Ronald Hutton on Tarot, and things will be better. Until then, Dummett is as good as it gets. Too bad he's so miserable.
Incidentally, if you want the original texts on Tarot, they've been published, in French (try amazon.fr -- American Amazon doesn't have it):
Court de Gebelin, Antoine. _Le Tarot_. Ed. Jean-Marie L'Hote. Paris: Berg, 1983. ISBN 2.900269-30-X.
Rating: 4
Summary: The re-invention of cartomancy in France
Comment: As this book confirms, contemporary interest in Tarot cards was rekindled by a brief mention of the traditional Marseilles deck by a late eighteenth century French writer named Court de Gébelin. Writing without the benefit of Champollion's rediscovery of the Egyptian language, de Gébelin created a fanciful history of the cards, a fanciful etymology of the word "tarot," and was the catalyst for a great deal of mystification and malarkey.
The authors of this book try to do for the history of this old game what Ronald Hutton did for the origins of neo-paganism in "Triumph of the Moon." What they lack, though, is a wider background in the literature and culture, including the popular culture, of the period of French history in question. A broader grasp of this material would answer the question of why a need was felt for a mystic Tarot in nineteenth century France, and enable them to relate to their subjects with somewhat more sympathy. This background is given in Hutton's book, and is perhaps the most successful thing about it. Without it, the discussion of occult cartomancy turns into a round of "liar, liar, pants on fire."
Rating: 5
Summary: The Historians', not the Occultists' perspective
Comment: In my opinion, the best volume to date about the history of the Tarot. I look forward to the series being continued into the contributions of the Golden Dawn. Many occultists will not like this book, as it thouroughly and logically debunks many cherished myths of the Tarot's history and origins. (No, it was not invented by Gypsies. No, it has no connection with the Quabala. No, it is not the ancestor of modern playing cards. No, it was not invented by the Egyptians.)
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Title: A History of the Occult Tarot: 1870-1970 by Ronald Decker, Michael Dummett ISBN: 0715631225 Publisher: Duckworth Publishing Pub. Date: November, 2002 List Price(USD): $28.95 |
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Title: The Encyclopedia Of Tarot, Volume III by Stuart R. Kaplan ISBN: 0880791225 Publisher: United States Games Systems Pub. Date: March, 2003 List Price(USD): $45.00 |
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Title: The Visconti-Sforza Tarot Cards by Michael Dummett ISBN: 0807611417 Publisher: George Braziller Pub. Date: April, 1986 List Price(USD): $15.95 |
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