“PAPUS” – DR GÉRARD ENCAUSSE
[continued]
The Tarot of the Bohemians
Papus, along with the Tarot, came to
the attention of English readers in 1896 through a translation of his 1889 book
Le Tarot des Bohémiens. Whether or not it can be considered a classic
work it was certainly a pioneering one, reproducing line drawings of Marseilles
Tarot originals of the 22 Trumps along with ‘esoterically improved’ versions by
Oswald Wirth, a Swiss freemason and budding Tarot authority. A.E.Waite’s fully
illustrated coloured cards, drawn by Pixie Coleman-Smith, that have become
classics in their own right and usually unacknowledged pattern for dozens of
latter day Tarots, did not appear for another fourteen years.
The originality of Papus’ subject brought
a number of problems, and not only
esoteric ones. Although a professional translator had been engaged he plainly suffered from complete ignorance of his subject including even the
common nomenclature of playing cards. For instance, the word in French for playing
card suits is ‘couleurs’ which he blithely rendered as ‘colours’ although
presumably most readers realised what was meant. And when it came to occult matters, anyone interested
in spiritual topics is called a ‘spiritualist’; initiations are referred to as
‘initiatives’; the Theosophical Society renamed the Theosophite Society and the
Egyptian god Ammon rechristened ‘Amen’. Most fundamental was, however, the
translation of the title. Le Tarot des Bohémiens means ‘The Tarot of the
Gypsies’ so to call the English version The Tarot of the Bohemians was
to name it the Tarot of the Inhabitants of Bohemia or alternatively members of
the Parisian artistic community, like Mimi in La Bohème. I don’t think she shuffles the cards to tell
fortunes in the opera.
None of which probably matters in
the longer view as there is considerable doubt as to whether the Gypsies had
anything to do with the Tarot anyway! The
idea began as a random speculation (among many) by Court de Gebelin, the late
18th century originator of occult interest in the Tarot. The
gypsies’ preferred method of fortune telling was palmistry. Oddly enough,
although Gerard Encausse’s claim to gypsy blood was almost certainly spurious,
he was quite good at palmistry. Soon after their first meeting, he showed Victor
Émile Michelet his hand and said it foretold he would die at the age of 53. He
was only a couple of years out. Papus died in 1916 at the age of 51 as a result
of his medical work in the trenches of the 1st World War.
Like a number of his works, Papus’ Tarot
book is divided into three parts. The first is devoted to the kind of number
symbolism we found in his Traité Élémentaire de Science Occulte, and as
he all but admits later on, we could probably just as well have done without
it! It is a numerological analysis of the Jewish divine name Yod – Heh – Vau –
Heh that will probably cause any kosher student of the Jewish Qabalah to cry
aloud and leave the rest of us very confused. Those of long patience can try
their luck with pages 243 to 251 of Professor Michael Dummett’s analysis in A
Wicked Pack of Cards – a detailed work on the origins of the
occult Tarot that contains a chapter on Papus.
With the second part of the book we
are into the diagrams and lists of correspondences dear to the hearts of
dedicated occultists. The only problem here will be, for those of us who have
been brought up on Golden Dawn attributions, that the correspondences are all different
to what we are used to. The reason for this being that Eliphas Levi, whose lead
Papus follows, chose to list the Tarot Trumps in a different order.
We gave forewarning of this back in Sons
of Hermes 2. There need be no problem at all if one takes to heart that the
Tarot is a system of symbolism big enough and well integrated enough to stand
on its own merits, without close correspondence with any other symbolic system
– be it Qabalah, Astrology, or Egyptian hieroglyphs. Insofar that any magical
symbol system is an attempt to describe elements of the inner worlds, it may
have similarities with others insofar that each is trying to describe the same
general landscape. However, such is the range and complexity of the
interlocking spheres of the inner worlds, that expecting close correspondence
between one system and another is doomed to disappointment. (But as a wise old
teacher of mine once remarked – the way toward reality tends to be a process of
shedding illusions – another word for which can be disillusionment.)
So to get the most from the Tarot my
advice is to treat it as a stand alone system. It will work very well like
that, without a lot of constricting webs. The same might be said for the Paths
and Spheres of the Tree of Life, or the I Ching hexagrams, or the
constellations of the Starry Wisdom of the Ptolemaic cosmos. If you come across
what looks like a close correspondence of realities between one system and
another, tip your hat in respect, reflect upon your good luck, or inherent
wisdom if you should be so foolish, and then pass on. However, I grant that
there can be fascinating speculation in juggling with correspondences and some
occultists have come up with interesting alternatives.
Actually Papus comes close to this
in the third part of his book, which is a typical Papusian bran tub of bits and
pieces gathered from here and there, including a long contribution from Albert
Foucheux, otherwise known as Barlet (anagram of Albert) a civil servant who
seems to have been a permanent fixture of Parisian occultism, and member of
every committee, ever ready with words of wisdom on whatever subject required,
and local representative of the Anglo-American H.B.L. or Hermetic Brotherhood
of Luxor (Luxor being a Latin/Hebrew code for Light (Lux + Aur). As will later
be seen, Papus and his circle had a great weakness for secret societies and
their titles and paraphernalia.
But more striking is Papus’ advice
on how to read the Tarot – a long chapter consisting of seven lessons intended
for lady readers. Successful card reading, he says, is largely a matter of
intuition, the implication being that they need not bother about trying to
understand all the difficult stuff in the rest of the book.
“The first part
of our study of the Tarot, full of numbers, of Hebrew letters, and abstract
deductions, is not calculated to attract the attention of ladies...and I hope
that the pleasure gained by the fair inquirers will balance the scepticism of
sterner intellects.”
For myself, I wonder how it is that
for someone who from 1888 until the eve of his marriage in 1895 was very close
to a prominent feminist, Anna Wolska, could not have had this arch chauvinism posing
as gallantry knocked out of him. But he was at this time still only 23 and
maybe he had only just met her.
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