Le Monde Primitif Tarot

T-6he boxed set includes 22 major arcana cards plus four aces with an explanatory leaflet. The leaflet helpfully gives a summary of Court de Gébelin’s life and references his essay on the tarot, which appeared in vol.8 of his “Le Monde Primitif” published in 1781.

De Gébelin proposed that the tarot was a repository of ancient Egyptian wisdom, distilled by priests from the Book of Thoth. His writing exerted a profound influence on later writers, even though most of his assertions were found to be incorrect. He often resorted to hyperbole and exaggeration [Hall, 2016, p.131]. However, his belief in the mystical origins of tarot has turned out to have played a significant role in the modern esoteric understanding of Tarot.

De Gébelin suggested in "Le Monde Primitif” that the four suits in the tarot relate to the four castes of Egyptian society (See excerpt). He also believed that the 22 trumps are allegorical representations of secular and spiritual heads of society, leaders of agriculture, cardinal virtues, marriage, death, ressurrection, the sage, the fool, time, etc (second excerpt). The plates of the cards in the “Le Monde Primitif” book follow the Tarot de Marseille pattern, which is late medieval European, and is where de Gébelin believed he could see an Egyptian origin: "J'y jette les yeux, & aussi-tôt j'en reconnois l'Allégorie / I cast my eyes, and immediately recognize the Allegory" [p.367]. The facsimile edition reproduces each card with a black border with a title and number at the bottom.