I hope that these translations have given some sense of what Etteilla was about. From the Little White Books that followed, and the accompanying decks, we can see how Etteilla was adapated to changing times and perhaps audience. The early divinatory meanings are often quite dramatic, predicting death, duels, scandal, disgrace, and the like. These gradually get smoothed over, I assume for less tumultuous times. There is also an increasing emphasis on positive outcomes; no one likes negative thinking about the future; such thoughts, it might have been thought, tend to make true what otherwise would not have been. In the 20th century, Etteilla's continuers, in which I especially include Waite, have continued this trend. It is well known that Waite, in his Pictorial Key to the Tarot, borrowed heavily from the Etteilla School's word lsits.
It is always been assumed that his source was Papus, who included the lists in his 1909 Tarot Divinitoire. However Waite's translation of Tarot of the Bohemians lists Julia Orsini's book in the bibliography; so conceivably he used it. Comparing Waite with the different wordings in Orsini and Papus would tell for sure, but I haven't done it.
Looking at "Illuminist" writings of Etteilla's time (including especially Pasqually), and also Cagliosgtro's rite (translated in Faulks and Cooper, The Masonic Magician), I may be starting to understand better why Etteilla rearranged the tarot trumps in the way he did. The general project is that of reversing the Fall by means other than the sacraments of the Church, through initiatory experiences. In relation to the tarot, the point is to proceed in reverse order, from the higher numbered cards to the lower numbered ones. One dividing line is card 17, Mortality, the achievement of mystical death and so passing beyond the misery of this life. After that comes Judgment, the aid of a Magician, the descent to Hell, and the mystic Marriage. Marriage is a descent into materiality and lust on the way down, but an image of divine union on the way up. Then one is in the Terrestrial Paradise, maintained there by strict practice of the four virtues. Then comes the reversal of the seven days of Creation, which includes the initiatory trials by earth, air, water, and fire, trials well known at that time (e.g. the novel Sethos, in Google Books; also the "Crata Repoa" and Mozart's "Magic Flute"). The order of the trials is influenced by alchemy. In alchemy, as one of Cagliosto's admirers put it:
Quote:
| The matter does not spend long on the fire before it demonstrates a considerable change. Isaac the Hollandois says that it becomes all black in a little time; then there is no color in the world through which it does not pass before being red. Ripleus [i.e. George Ripley, 15th century English alchemist] says that after having seen an infinity of different colors in the [primary] matter one sees it become white like the snow, then afterward a beautiful citrine, and finally it becomes the color of the red poppy. (De la Borde, Lettres sur la Suisse, 1783, partially translated in McCalman p. 98; original in Google Books, p. 24f.) |
APPENDIX: SOME THOUGHTS ON TRANSLATION
I wrote that for Etteilla
Quote:
| ...the tarot outlines the steps of spiritual healing and so is "spiritual medicine" (Etteilla's phrase in the 2nd Cahier), comparable in its sphere to the elixir of alchemy. |
The same is true in German. “Geist” means more than “spirit”; Hegel’s “Phaenomenologie des Geistes” for example is translated as both “Phenomenology of Spirit” and “Phenomenology of Mind” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Phe...logy_of_Spirit).
In Etteilla’s case, the phrase “medécine de l’esprit” occurs on p. 182, in the Supplement to the 2nd Cahier. It is in Etteilla’s later thoughts addressed to p. 68 of the 2nd Cahier, where he called himself “Médecin de l’esprits,” physician of spirits—or physician of minds. Which is better, in English? Well, on p. 68 the full clause is
Quote:
| Médecin purement des esprits, ainsi que je le démontre dans le Fragment qui termine le troisieme Cahier de cet Ouvrage, je ne pourrois offrir que des cures toutes intellectuelles, l'esprit n'en ayant pas besoin d'autres;... |
Quote:
| Physician purely of spirits [or minds], as I demonstrate in the Fragment which ends the third book of this Work, I could offer only intellectual cures, the spirit [or mind] having no need of others. |
In 18th century French, even the word we translate as “to think,” “penser,” is broader than the English word “think,” which corresponds to the Jungian function of thinking. When Descartes (17th century, but the same) said, “Cogito ergo sum,” he was thinking “Je pense, ainsi je suis”; “penser” includes not just the rational faculty, but all the other Jungian functions, especially what we would term “experiencing.” It is not “I reason, therefore I am,” because an evil demon might be fooling him into thinking he is reasoning, when he only imagines that he does so, like a mad person who doesn’t know his thinking is off. It is more “I experience, therefore I am”—even an evil demon could not create the illusion that he is experiencing something, because the illusion itself is an experience. As Descartes says (http://www.wright.edu/cola/descartes/meditation2.html),
Quote:
| But what, then, am I? A thinking thing, it has been said. But what is a thinking thing? It is a thing that doubts, understands, [conceives], affirms, denies, wills, refuses; that imagines also, and perceives. |
I would appreciate comments by others on these issues, especially those more familiar with French and other Western European languages than I.
I find it interesting that in the 2nd Cahier Etteilla rarely uses the word “divination” and never speaks of “predicting” the future by means of the “Book of Thot.” Its function is “médecine de l’esprit.” I will try to translate more of the context in which that expression occurs. Here is the beginning of that discussion, although not the part with “médecine de l’esprit.”
Here he maintains taht the secret of the elixir was first held by Adam (2nd Cahier, pp. 68-69).
Quote:
| La Médecine universelle tire son origine de l'arbre de vie qui étoit en
Eden; le texte y est formel. Avant de déluge, on no se servoit que de
la Médecine [p. 69] universelle [1: Sans Médecine universelle, on a de
la peine à expliquer comment le grand âge des premiers Hommes...]; la
science en étoit commune à tous les Hommes, & tous vivoient
plusieurs siecles; mais mésusant d'une vie longue jusqu'à s'adonner à
des vices sans contredit impardonnables, les Hommes furent submergés. Par Chanaan, petit-fils de Noé, ceette Science passa seulement aux premiers nés des Chananéens, des Amorrhéens, des Guergésiens, des Hétiens, des Héviens, des Périsiens & des Jébusiens, ainsi par Sem & par Japhet à leurs premiers nés. |
Quote:
| The universal Medicine draws its origin from the tree of life that was
in Eden; the text there is definite. Before the deluge, one was served
only by the universal Medicine [Footnote 1: Without universal Medicine,
it is difficult to explain the great age of the first Men...];
knowledge of it was common to all Men, and all lived several centuries;
but misusing a long life so as to give themselves to unarguably
unforgivable vices, Men were submerged. By Chanaan, grandson of Noah, this Knowledge passed only to the first born sons of the Chananians, the Amorrhians, the Guergesians, the Hetians, the Hevians, the Perisians and the Jebusians, so by Sem and by Japhet to their first-born. |
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