My entire 10 year Tarot Career has been a LIE! A lie!!! Ok ok I exaggerate, clearly—or am I??? At this point I no longer know and please don’t take me to an asylum just yet. So how did I get into this predicament? Let’s explore the oldest divinatory deck in history cuz we got time on our hands.
Ok so last Christmas I was gifted a Taschen box set which included Tarot, Astrology, Witchcraft and Plant Magick. I have enough Astrology to study as is so I gravitated toward Tarot instead.
The book itself is OK. I expected more details on the card divinations but got a list of keywords tarot readers of all levels already know. I understand that this is more about the art than it really is about the delineations, so I did what I was supposed to do and just looked at the pretty pictures.
As I was rummaging, one page in particular arrested me. Take note it was late into the night (9pm lol) and it was dark and I had to put the book right under my lamp to see clearly:
What the holy fuck is Etteilla and where has it been my entire life???
The Pull. It happens so infrequently. I have epic high standards and whether it’s people or tarot cards, I rarely ever go “That. I want That.”
And 1 month in, rarely do I go “This. I love This.”
The moment I first laid my blurry little eyes on the Etteilla I was drawn. I felt like I’ve dealt this deck before. My body reacted in such a way that I knew I HAD to get it. So off I went to Etsy and spent money on a deck so rare that even Amazon didn’t carry it.
I patiently waited 3 weeks and finally got my hands on my precious. You know, a noun. Precious.
There is just something so magical about Etteilla that the moment I got it, I dove immediately in. And diving in I went MAD. ABSOLUTELY MAD.
WHY ARE THE CARDS DIFFERENT???? WHY HAVE THE NUMBERINGS CHANGED??? WHAT DO THE CARDS MEAN???? WHAT IS HAPPENING????
I teach basic tarot, and it’s actually pretty easy. Once you understand the symbolism and the storyline of the Rider Waite, you can get any other deck you want and create your own interpretations. But this??? This??? I had to calm myself down and forgo everything I learned about tarot and start from the very beginning. After all, this deck is the first tarot ever used for divination.
Allegedly.
Visconti, Sola Busca, Marseille…these are the more popularly known decks pre Rider Waite. Primarily Italian, and used more as a card game. Then some French dude named Jean-Baptiste Alliette (aka Etteilla) wanted some of that and created this magnificence in the 1700s. Divinatory meanings and Astrological symbols were added in, and cartomancy was coined.
Eteilla was so influential it spawned other variations until Rider Waite-Smith took over in the 1900s.
So. I did what any other student would do and I created a notebook full of the little information you could scour the internet on the cards, as well as adding my own descriptions based on daily card pulls. I swear to fucking God, if I were just as disciplined in my younger years as I am today, I would have been Top 1 at school. But nooooo. I was so adept with my obligation of being the Black Sheep of the family that I refused to study. But anyway that’s another story.
Back to this blog. It’s extraordinary seeing how differently some cards are compared to what we typically know. Take in for example The Star card. In Rider Waite, this is a pretty cool card. Associated to Aquarius and the light it emits in the night sky, this is primarily a positive card.
Looks similar right? Must have the same meaning right? Hellz no! (Cackles) Etteilla has the Cancer symbol on the upper left & right corners which already give a heavier undertone to the card. Upright it denotes a sense of loss, desolation, destitution…while Rider Waite has that “I got this, bitch” vibe.
The order is also so far off…in Etteilla it’s the 4th card (4 in Rider Waite is Emperor) while we typically know the Star to be the 17th card. You know what’s 17th in Etteilla? DEATH. DEATH. 13 is infamously associated to Death, but nah…Etteilla wanted to fuck around with us and made MARIAGE (The Lovers) 13th cuz why the hell not?
It’s fucking cray cray.
Etteilla school uses Pythagorean teachings for their numerical system then Rider Waite-Smith decide to shake things up a little bit to align with the New Age of Aquarius type of whatever. Or something. Please don’t take my word for it I’m highly delusional so who knows what I’m babbling about.
I’m still getting used to the deck so I would be unable to give a full review right now. BUT! And it’s a good but. I do have preliminary thoughts:
- I love this deck. I think that’s pretty clear by this point.
- I absolutely adore the size and material used as shuffling is a big part of being a tarot reader, and I wanna shuffle my cards well. Other decks are too small, too hard, too large, too fancy…some even have gold glitter coming off of them… But this deck is perfect for shuffling.
- The art, look and feel is what captivated me, and I’m still held captive. There’s something ethereal and absurd and yet so earthy and scary about this deck. It doesn’t try too hard, it’s not pretentious. It just is what it is and it’s imperfect and absolutely perfect at the same time. I’ve had other pretty decks before, but none of them drew me in as much as this one has.
- I tend to always reach out for my fun Rider Waite decks (Mood Tarot and After Tarot) when giving readings and once in a blue moon I’d pull out my Marseille if I want my client to have a beating. My different decks speak differently to me and I use various decks for various clients for various scenarios. But now I’m finding it really hard to go back to my other cards, even when I’m still not fully versed with Etteilla.
My Etteilla readings are: brutal. concise. efficient. clear. in your face. objective. far reaching in terms of timeline. to the point. Sometimes they are vague, but days later I will get my a-ha moment and figure it out.
Sometimes they are so literal like the day I pulled Femme Blonde (Blonde Woman) which is the Queen of Cups in Rider Waite — when I had a blonde client. Or so apt like pulling Avantage (Advantage), on a day that I turned something negative into a blessing — which is how I really see 10 of Swords Reversed.
I started my tarot journey in 2013 when I had a dream of my dead uncle who used to read. You see, when I was younger, I inherited his tarot deck, but was unable to dissect the cards (it was Visconti) so I put them aside for me to study later on.
Later on came, and the tarot deck disappeared. It remains one of the mysteries of my life. But perhaps that particular deck wasn’t meant for me and I had to trust it was gone for a reason. Visconti was difficult to start with after all, so I rushed to the nearest bookstore and got myself a Universal Waite deck.
Eleven years later I am rediscovering tarot all over again. But this time, its origin. Parallel to my own life as I am rediscovering what it means to be Brit, and who I want Brit to be without all the frou frou.
So, let me leave you with another visual just so you can gallop in your own sea of imagination.
sayonara bitches,
brit
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