After each of your columns I must consciously choose which memories to discard in order to make room for the new ones. This one took away my ability to recite the Greek alphabet backwards, a skill required of pledges for my fraternity for reasons no one knows.
"Etteilla was the first to give divinatory meanings to cards and spreads. And some historians consider him the first person to earn a living as a professional tarot reader."
Yes to the second, possibly. No to the first, since he was taught to 'read' by someone else.
That's the problem: first know pro Tarot reader (or first person to use it as a divinatory deck), and actual first person to get paid for it are two separate things.
Will have to share this with my daughter. She likes doing Tarot readings. She doesn’t believe in a supernatural aspect of it, but she believes it’s a tool to reflect on your situations and “you get out what you put into it.”
His pseudonym, Etteilla, was simply the reverse of his surname, Jean-Baptiste Alliette. Clever lad.
After each of your columns I must consciously choose which memories to discard in order to make room for the new ones. This one took away my ability to recite the Greek alphabet backwards, a skill required of pledges for my fraternity for reasons no one knows.
Personally, I prefer goat entrails.
"Etteilla was the first to give divinatory meanings to cards and spreads. And some historians consider him the first person to earn a living as a professional tarot reader."
Yes to the second, possibly. No to the first, since he was taught to 'read' by someone else.
(See here, which looks like a pretty good summary: https://tarot-heritage.com/history-4/tarot-history-chronology/ )
That's the problem: first know pro Tarot reader (or first person to use it as a divinatory deck), and actual first person to get paid for it are two separate things.
The Egyptian riff Etteilla's on about would've been part & parcel with the French craze for all things Egyptian that kicked off after Napoleon and his surveyors returned from the Egyptian expedition. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_campaign_in_Egypt_and_Syria#Scientific_expedition ) And a riff on the Renaissance's resurrection of ancient Greek texts (often by importing them from the Arabs) which would've included books about: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes_Trismegistus .
elm
convoluted
Will have to share this with my daughter. She likes doing Tarot readings. She doesn’t believe in a supernatural aspect of it, but she believes it’s a tool to reflect on your situations and “you get out what you put into it.”