Laying out and reading the cards

I continue now in my attempt to translate Corodil’s transcription of the Third Cahier. I noticed that this whole section is almost word for word in Papus’s Tarot Divinatoire, of which I have Stockman's’ English translation (see pp. 244-247). I am trying to translate more literally than she does, with a resulting loss of clarity (because Etteilla is not the clearest of writers; or it might also be that Papus has done some translating of his own, from Etteilla-French to something clearer). When Stockman’s translation differs from mine, I will give her version and, unless it is obvious, the original French. I will also interrupt the translation when I want to make more extended comments.

I will start where Papus starts, which means with the last few paragraphs of Corodil’s previous section (p. 28 of Etteilla's original):

Quote:

The ignorant perform badly [corrected from "Ignoramuses operate" thanks to Patreekotheartist] badly in all that they do; but it is not the same for instructed people: thus the Egyptians took the Book of Thoth, shuffled it in every way without looking at the Hieroglyphs; they had their Enquirers cut this Book in two, and then they took the first Card [Carte], and put it there on B; the second on A; and the third they put again on B. (Like this: B. A.) The fourth went to B; the fifth to A, and the sixth to B. Then the seventh to B, so on until the end. In this way, on [pile] A there were 26 sheets [or cards], and on [pile] B, 52. With the 52, they began the first operation again (on D.C.), and there were on C 17 sheets [or cards: lames], and on D 35; they put 17 aside; and with the 35 remaining, they repeated the process on FE; in that way there came to E, 11 leaves [cards]; and to F, 24. It turns out that A=26. B=0. C=17. D=0. E=11. F=24; but these last ones [F] were not interpreted (*23). ________________________________ *23. Note that in every operation, one must always mix right side up with upside down, and cut.

Papus omits this footnote. He also "corrects" Etteilla's French. Here Patreekotheartist offers a different correction (see the end of the present post); I quote his remark in its entirety:

Etteilla's description of how to cut and sort the cards into stacks does not work correctly. Starting out with one card on stack B always results in a rounding error, so that in the end, you get 23 cards in stack F and 12 cards in stack E. That could easily be fixed by always starting out with 2 cards on the first stack instead of one. I think this is why Papus uses a different sorting method, although his method gets even more messy and convoluted IMO. So the question is, do you present an accurate translation, or do you correct it like Papus attempted to do? I came up with a "translation" that fixes the sorting error without completely changing the language of this entire section:

"...they had their Enquirers cut this Book in two, & then they took the first & second Cards, & placed them to their left on stack B; the third card they placed to their right on stack A. (Like this: B. A.) The fourth they placed on B; the fifth again went to B; & the sixth to A. The seventh to B; & the eighth again to B, so on until the end. In this way, on stack A there were 26 sheets, & on stack B, 52."

 Now I continue with new material. The first paragraph below is as corrected by Lotus Padma:

Quote:

Therefore, taking A, they read the sheets [or cards] one at a time, (from right to left, as the meaning of the whole [of the reading[ is to be found in its individual parts), announcing what they portended; and next, they took the first card, and interpreted it in relation to the 26th card. When they had finished doing that [or reading A] , they interpreted C, and finally, E. Read Cartonomancie, third Edition, 1782; it will give you the whole procedure, although I admit that the Etteilla [Stockman: Etteilla’s work] is only a copy after the Egyptians, as also the Steganography of Trithemius, likewise the Theory of Raymond Lull, all copies, I say, of the Book of Thoth, or to speak to everyone [a literal translation of "pour parler a tout le monde": Patreekotheartist suggests "or in the common parlance"], of the Cards called the Tarot.

I interrupt here to observe that this last sentence is rather odd, as though the author is someone other than Etteilla. I will say more the next time this occurs. 

Added October 2024: Patreekotheartist observes here, I think correctly:

"Etteilla ou instructions sur l'art de tirer les cartes. Troisième et dernière édition". According to DDD, the frontispiece illustration for this book had the caption, "Cartonomancie, ou l'art de tirer les cartes. Troisième édition... Extract des récréations algébriques d'Etteilla." So "Cartonomancy, third edition" is a summation of the caption of the frontispiece. As far as the "oddness" of him referring to himself in the 3rd person, I think "the /Etteilla/" refers to the book name: "Etteilla ou instructions..." Note that "la" is not italicized, but "/Etteilla/" is, because book titles are usually in italics, like when he says: "livre de /Thot/".

So now I resume

Quote:

Their second procedure was to draw three times 7 leaves [cards], which they arranged as follows: 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. A. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. B. 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. C. If A did not answer their questions, they would place below them seven other sheets [or cards], 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. A. [Stockman omits “A”] If that still gave no answers, they would draw another seven sheets [or cards], 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. A, and would do as much for B and C, [Stockman has, after “answers”: “they would draw another seven cards, 7. 6. 5. 4. 3. 2. 1. A through to C”], if they had not found a solution, or a positive prognosis. If these repetitions said nothing, they advised their enquirers to pray to the Gods, to alter their conduct, and to come back the next day or several days later.

My comment here: this last paragraph can be interpreted in various ways.

(1) Papus, or perhaps Stockman, has Etteilla saying that one tries up to three times, using rows A-C, to get a reading that answers the questions. It is the same number of rows that he has, more clearly, in a later method he gives with five cards in a row.

(2) Based on “Julia Orsini” in the c. 1840 book (p. 44), the interpreter would be laying out five rows, each below the one preceding, and one reads the top row first, and if it doesn’t make sense, one goes to the next, etc. (Actually, that book has the interpreter lay out six rows; but the point is that there are more than three rows of seven each being laid out. In the Dusserre booklet, which is a heavily edited version of the c. 1840, this is pictured on p. 7.)

(3) What Etteilla says literally: first you lay out three rows, then you try for a reading with the first row. If that doesn’t work, you lay out seven more cards, below the other three rows; if that doesn’t work, you lay out seven more; if that doesn’t work, you go to rows B and C that you’ve already laid out. The result is five rows, but the second and third tries at readings are laid out after the other three.

I emphasize this part, however many rows there are, because in modern books on cartomancy, almost all of which derive from Etteilla, it is usually not said to start over when you get a reading that doesn’t make sense; and the Etteilla decks' booklets, except the Dusserre, are the same. You are apparently expected to use your “intuition” to make the interpretation of the card part of a coherent reading. At the most, a book will advise you to put down one or more cards to clarify one that is obscure. And you will usually not be given examples where such a procedure is appropriate.

I have found only one historical source that does give an example of an incoherent reading, requiring one to go to start with a completely new interpretation using another row. It is in the c. 1840 “Julia Orsini” book (omitted from Dusserre's edited version), pp. 44-45. Here are the relevant pages, followed by a summary of what is being said.

Page 45 begins by interpreting the row given on p. 44:

63..30..64..77..44..13..42....8, with cards 44 and 63 reversed.

The 8 is there automatically in this book, because the reading is for a female. From right to left, it comes out: In relation to the querent (8) (she happens to be a blond girl), a blond girl (42) has marriage (13) in the future (44 reversed) with happiness (77) with a dark-haired man (64) with fortune (30) and there will be pregnancy (63 reversed). All of this makes sense and hopefully is good news. But if instead of 64, “brown-haired man”, the sixth card (out of eight, or fifth card not counting the 8) was 33, “woman of the country”, the reading would be contre-sense, i.e. nonsense (at least in 18th century France where women did not marry each other). In any case, it is not clear what such a person has to do with the rest of the sentence formed by the cards. So we start over, using the second line.

I resume:

Quote:

Their third procedure was considerable, and [called for] considerable thought [& à considérer]. After having shuffled and cut the 78 leaves [cards], they formed from them two columns and a capital that they laid out across the top [i.e. a row at the top]. Then without reshuffling the leaves [cards], they laid out a circle, taking care in this operation to remove the 1 or the 8, according to the Sex of the querent; When that came up, they placed the first or eighth Hieroglyph in the center, as one sees [in] the whole configuration [figure] below.

This is where Corodil says there is a picture, which he doesn’t have the means to insert. In Stockman’s translation of Papus, there is also a picture, and I think it is much easier to understand Etteilla if you see it. Here is the picture as presented by Stockman (p. 246), which I have photographed and put at the link below:
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibQbb8HByIkBXUvWtYOt2a9VRh6-caDgYNSbyUXh-vuJ9IGwy4S7d4nWjZ8pWeqs8SCMOhI8lGxK1rgl-Ud2XMx-_Jj9vhlmiEr_fyjyEZ2AwxzFaoZ7k3f82bgWC6eC_3OSYcvD3lFOXJ/s1600/IMG_0510a.jpg

In case you can’t access this link, here is a detailed description of the diagram: Etteilla uses numbers to indicate how the cards are to be placed. As I read it, first one lays out eleven cards in the column on one’s right, going from the bottom up; then come eleven more in the column on the left, also going from the bottom up; then eleven more in a row at the top, from right to left. Then a circle in the middle is formed in three parts: the first section, with the label “Past” between it and the right-hand column, is on the reader’s lower right, but laid out from the side of the enquirer, from right to left, 11 cards; the next, with the label “Present” between them and the “capital” row on top, from the reader’s perspective, 11 more cards, from right to left from the reader’s perspective; then 11 more cards on the reader’s lower left, but laid out from the enquirer’s perspective, from the enquirer’s right to his or her left, with “Future” between them and the left column. The top of each card, as it comes off the deck, faces inward in the circle.

I resume:

Quote:

The first Card [Carte] was placed in position 1, continuing up to 11. They put the twelfth Card [Carte] at number 12, and so the others up to 22, etc. 1, 11, 34, 44, were the past [Stockman has “1 to 11 and 34 to 44”]; 12, 22, 45, 55, were the future [Stockman: “12 to 22 and 45 to 55”]; and 23, 33, 56, 66, [Stockman: “23 to 33 and 56 to 66”] were the present. If the 1 or the 8, according to the Sex of the enquirer, did not appear, they would take it from the remainder of the Deck, and place it in the middle, as you see, 8, Supposing that the reading is for a woman; for 1 would be for a man; in as much as it is true that the distance between man and woman is seven degrees; that caused Mohammed to commit an error, when he said that women are of Ouris [Stockman: “houris”; I think Etteilla means Horus], who will not enter into Paradise but will guard its door; having not understand that this difference of seven degrees existed only in the physical world. The Egyptians read all the sections one after the other, beginning with the Past; then the Present, and last the Future; they took then for the past 8, 34, and 1; and following this procedure up to 8, 44, and 11, and likewise for the Present and the Future. I think one must read Etteilla (the price is only 1 livre 16 sous), if one wishes to understand how to read this spread, three cards by three cards and always using the ones [celles] of the center [Stockman: “three cards in relation to one another and always using the middle card”].

This last sentence is another place where the writing is as though by someone other than Etteilla, since he says “I think it is necessary to read Etteilla”--“On sent la nécessité de lire le Etteilla”. [Added Oct. 2024: But as Patreekotheartist points out in a comment to this post, he is referring to his first book, on cartomancy with a piquet deck.] But giving the price is characteristic of Etteilla himself. The book Cartonomancie, 3rd edition, is slightly more expensive than the 3rd Cahier itself, which sells for 1 livre 10 sous, we learn at the end of that book.

Quote:

Sometimes the Egyptian Sages would open their Operations with 12 leaves [cards]; but that was always for remarkable things [objets], such as harvests, decisions, battles; or also for the Sovereigns of the Nation, or foreign ones; or for their principals [commettants, I think prime ministers; Stockman has “constituents”]. But having completed the three operations that I detailed, they would do a fourth; even five or six if they wished, or if directed by the numbers; example: in placing the Cards [Cartes], if they saw a number well or badly placed among [Stockman: a number particularly well or badly placed in relation to] the others, they remembered it, and after this spread they placed as many leaves [i.e. cards] as the well or badly placed number, etc., had indicated to them.

Since there are only a couple of pages left of Papus’s excerpt, I will continue into Corodil’s next section, as as far as Papus does:

Quote:

If it happened that a man had only one question to ask, and it was a legitimate one (for they were enemies of all that was vicious, or could lead to become such), then they would simply draw five leaves [i.e. cards] e.d.c.b.a., going from a to e as usual; if that did not give an answer, they drew 10 more leaves [cards], and they arranged them thus: 5 4 3 2 1. E D C B A. 10 9 8 7 6. And they read the cards going from 1 to 5, from A to E, and from 6 to 10; and then, as I have already said, if the cards still said nothing, they would have the querents come back [remetter] another day, adjure them to worship the Gods ever more strongly, and to love their fellows [sembables; Stockman: fellow human beings] or their neighbor.

I continue with my effort to translate Etteilla’s 3rd Cahier. We are now in new territory, thoughts that have not been repeated in various translated works. At the same time, it is Etteilla in a more obscure style—perhaps more profound, as well. Since he is difficult for me to understand, he is also difficult for me to translate. He is talking about the tarot-interpreter and the tarot-consultant as human beings, the first likely an ignorant person—not to mention perhaps drunk or lazy--even with the Book of Thoth in his or her possession, with cards like 19, Prison, and 20, (Good) Fortune, in the same reading. The consultant is perhaps more thoughtful but also more anxious, especially when seeing such cards. Yet the consultant sees his whole life reflected back to him by the interpreter. But it is from a certain point of view: An ignorant interpreter’s political views and other biases and character traits can affect the reading. And such an ignoramus can learn much from the anxious person’s manner of presenting himself, his face and his questions, which the interpreter then reflects back to the consultant. But I will let Etteilla speak for himself. The first paragraph below has the benefit of Lotus Padma's suggestions. Also, I had omitted the second sentence completely, the pointing out of which I again thank Patreektheartist]:

Quote:

You must not believe that the Divination practiced by the Egyptians was of the same kind as that practiced by other idolatrous people, particularly the oracles of Delphi, Dodona, Trophonius, Nymphos, or Claros - and others - as some of those were changed due to political reasons, or because they were misunderstood; because they muddled the minds of men, rather than enlightening them. If it were thought in the same way that the Egyptian Sages resembled, in regard to Divination, our alleged Diviners & Divineresses, it would be an authentic proof of the ignorance into which we had fallen upon [from?] the knowledge of men issued, it must be said, directly from the hands of wise Nature.

I have found all these oracles on Google except Nymphos: the nearest equivalent is “oracle of the nymphs”, of which there were several. I continue. The first part of the third paragraph and the second half of the fourth paragraph are Lotus Padma's translation (I suppose I should have asked Lotus to translate all the paragraph):

Quote:

All the Oracles only existed by the infamous imaginations [vues] of the idolatrous Priests; I will not enter into any details, but with regard to these so-called Diviners [Devins], no one can speak better than I. The Science, coming from long and painful work formerly created by the Diviners [Devins], or if one wants, Astrologers, Physonomancers, Palmists, Geomancers, Cartonomancers, and even Savants, in all the branches of Divination or the science of results [resultats]. Today it is ignorance, laziness, poverty, and drunkenness that create the so-called [prétendus] Diviners [Devins] and Divineresses [Divineresses]. For 30 years there are few that I have not known [il y en a peu que je n’aye connus], I say not only in Paris, but in the major part of Europe. These all arose from the same central point [montés sur le même pivot]; some, who are certainly not Diviners, take a route to appear as such to their Consultants; because all the rest of Society, describing them, does nothing for them at all. A trait common to several that I am going to report is that it does not add up [ne tient pas à la copie], because I am not a demonographer.  [Thanks to Patreekotheartist for the translation of this paragraph.] When a naive person goes to the homes of these ignorants, his manner very determined to discover whether or not they are Diviners, he will not realize that this is already the beginning of insanity; for it is necessary, in going either to a savant or an ignorant, not to be preoccupied: to put oneself on one’s guard before one’s enemy arrives, I say, so as to fight one on one [seul à seul], is the nicolade [perhaps rigolade, joke. Added Oct 2024: Patreekotheartist suggests nike=victory + accolade, i.e. "to wear an air of victory." He adds: This is supported by the "vaincu" and "vainqueur" and "Champion" in the lines that follow. The passage seems to be advising to not be nervous, adversarial, or overly confident as the "Sorceress" will see this as weakness.] Arriving at the so-called Sorceress’s, my skillful ignorant receives abruptly the thoughtful Man, and puts him between two fires: on one hand, she says to him: Sir, before three days have passed you could very well go to prison; and on the other hand: Sir, if you conduct yourself skillfully, there is a rich fortune which cannot avoid you. Is my Savant strong enough to support these shocks so opposite one to the other? He is offered the third means to overcome them. Someone of interest to you is going to die suddenly. Let us see, says our Champion with little order, what you say to me: 1. Do I have enemies? 2. Shall I succeed? 3. The person who is to die: is it my wife, my sister, my son, my daughter, or just the only aunt left to me? Without going any further, we can see that the poor man has already said too much; the Diviner is not a sorcerer, no, it is our poor naive who has not been alerted by his (the Diviner's) body language, and has first pronounced that he is frightened by his enemies, and so reveals his train of thought; and then secondly, that he is ambitious; this is the pivotal point. Thirdly, he hopes for an inheritance. He should have said, whatever may come, I am unconcerned! He then withdraws into himself, and wishes he could also withdraw his words; he will not notice then that there will be no more divining, but that he is being taken in by his weaknesses, and he will be told that all he wishes for will happen; and at the same time, the diviner will rap his knuckles a little, as one would a child, to make him talk more, even though he has sworn to himself he will not say another word; I have several times seen this being played out, and been quite amused by the facial contortions of the sitter, in his effort not to speak. But in good faith, let us return to - reason; is it the Devil who comes to blow in the ears of the so-called Diviner, the whole history of our life? It would be stupid to think that way: it is, says a devotee of our madnesses [amateur de nos folies], the science that makes them speak; but these so-called Diviners and Divineresses are so ignorant as not to know even the letters which appear in their names [entrent dans leurs noms]. Finally, shall we say, how, and by what means do they forecast the things that happen? Listen to the truth; it is our ignorance that makes them learned, and not the science, which communicates only on critical points of the previous day [points aigues des veilles] and the fatigue. All the Sages of the ancient peoples who applied themselves to the abstract sciences, or the high sciences, needed nothing, took no tribute; the Nation considered them as its true Sages; it sustained them, foresaw their slightest physical needs, and it got from them salutary advice in everything it required; because in fact nobody was wiser and and more learned than these Mages. Their house, or their Temple, was indeed one of the Oracles; but it was not one of offerings, as with the Priests of Jupiter-Amnon, Apollo-Clarien, and all the others. When our so-called Diviners have the Book of Thoth in their hands, or some other object that was formerly used for Divination--even this scientific book, where the whole Universe is contained--so as to tell, speaking in the vulgar, fortunes [la bonne aventure], they originally are not concerned with studying the spirit of every Hieroglyph: Lack of order, Usury, Calumny, each of these words has in their ears only one sense, or one sound. Four Hieroglyphs will give us the intelligence of the 74 others.

These last four paragraphs are worth emphasizing. The fortune-teller has to be wise as well as equipped with a set of keywords. He or she has to be able to see a variety of meanings in each word (e.g. words as metaphors). Thus later there are not just key-words, but lists of "synonyms" And it is not just the word; Etteila says “son”, “sound”. So the lists also have "homynyms". I think he means also that one must be sensitive to puns and other word-play. These are not typically translatable from one language into another. Freud had similar thoughts about dream interpretation (being alert to puns); he also said, as Etteilla does here about his “science”, that dreams mostly only reflected the events of the previous day. Etteilla in the part we are looking at in this post is much like Freud, bringing similar considerations to bear in interpreting cards as Freud did in interpreting dreams. De Mellet (in part 7 of his essay, in French and English at http://www.tarotpedia.com/wiki/Recherches_sur_les_Tarots, had already done dream-interpretation using tarot, in his example of Pharaoh’s dream. The Etteilla school would later develop a systematic approach to dream-interpretation, in part using the tarot. But that is another story, for another thread.I At this point Papus stops excerpting from Etteilla’s 3rd Cahier. Papus ends with a paragraph attempting to interpret Etteilla’s numerology, which I think he says is his own hypothesis about Etteilla; but it relates more to the 1st and 2nd Cahiers than it does to the 3rd; so I will omit it here.

A too-severely edited version of Etteilla’s methods in laying out the cards, including a variant of the 67 card spread using all 78 cards and one other method not mentioned by Etteilla in the 3rd Cahier, is at http://www.sacred-texts.com/tarot/ftc/ftc21.htm. We are fortunate to now have Etteilla himself—or at least I assume it’s Etteilla!