Etteilla

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"Etteilla," the pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1738-91), was the French occultist, who was the first to popularize divination by Tarot to a wide audience, and therefore the first professional Taroist in recorded history.

Born in Paris in 1738, very little is known about him or his youth. He was married for half a decade, during which he worked as a seed merchant, before publishing his first book, Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes ("Etteilla, or a Way to Entertain Yourself With a Deck of Cards") in 1770. He began using the name Etteilla, which is his surname spelled backwards. This first book was a discourse on the usage of regular playing cards (the piquet deck, a shortened deck used predominantly, with the addition of an "Ettelia" card). From this time, approximately, he earned his livelihood by working as a consultant, teacher and author.

In 1781 the French Swiss Protestant clergyman and occultist Court de Gébelin published in his massive work Le Monde primitif his idea that Tarot was actually an ancient Egyptian book of arcane wisdom. Etteilla responded with another book, Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nomées Tarots ("How to Entertain Yourself With the Deck of Cards Called Tarot") soon followed, in 1785. It was the first book of methods of divination by Tarot. This book was followed by the publishing of the first deck of cards specifically designed for occult purposes.

By 1790, he was interpreting the hermetic wisdom of the Egyptian Book of Thoth: Cour thèorique et pratique du Livre du Thot. That included his reworkings of the Major and Minor Arcanas, as well as the introduction of elements and astrology. There is no evidence to support the notion that tarot has an Egyptian lineage. He proceeded to found a Tarot society, the Société des Interprètes du Livre de Thot, and died in 1791, at the age of 53.