Talking about the bizarre, it is good to remember that the idea of the Tarot coming from Egypt was an invention of Antoine Court de Gebelín, an "occultist" who, the story goes, "discovered" the Tarot in 1771 when he saw some ladies playing cards. The Rosetta Stone had been discovered a few years earlier. Egypt was fashionable at that time, and Court de Gebelín had a ball projecting all his fantasies onto the Tarot. He also took some liberties: he gave a fourth leg to Le Bateleur's table, put a zero on Le Mat's card, turned Le Pendu upright... Up until that time, the Tarot had been a work of sacred art, transmitted through a lineage of master image-makers. Master card-makers would contribute their talent to the tradition, reproducing images from an unknown artist. Court de Gebelín started the "Tarot of the Ego." He was the first untrained amateur who dared to redesign these images and claim authorship over them. Today we know that all Court de Gebelín "saw" in the Tarot was false. It was all a fantasy. But these fantasies were perpetuated by several generations of "occultists" who followed suit, adding their egos, and their last names, to the Tarot. The biggest problem we have is that, since Court de Gebelin and friends first laid their eyes on the Tarot, they decided to see in it something else, not the Tarot. This misunderstanding, fostered by a mixture of arrogance and ignorance from these so-called occultists, has given us a carnival of pseudo-tarots, all of them mirrors of their author's ego, none of them truthful to the Tarot's true nature or purpose. From this period come all the alleged relationships between the Tarot and the Cabala, Astrology, the Emerald Tablet, Mexican cock-fights, Yoga, the Chakras and Josie & the Pussycats.

No wonder the image of a Tarot reader conjures up suspicion and contempt in the mind of the general public!

The most notable of these "occultists" was Arthur E. Waite who, in the beginning of the 20th Century, commissioned Pamela Colman Smith to create a new design for the Tarot. Waite is known worldwide for "illustrating" the so-called minor arcana. With this gesture, the "Tarot of the Ego" evolved into the "Tarot for Kids". This is the Tarot of those who prefer to read Paulo Cohelo instead of Dante. The Tarot of those who will choose Prozac over Plato, any day. The Rider Waite-Smith deck was built, then, upon a mistaken tradition, one which laid the foundations for all the silliness and madness we observe today in the Tarot: "The Blinking Navel Tarot", "The Ron Jeremy Tarot", "The Krishnamurti Casual Friday Tarot," and a myriad of other clones, all absurd, all far removed from the original source.

Con-men and madmen...

When we look at the Marseille Tarot, La Papesse informs us that knowledge triumphs over ignorance and deceit. Fortunately, there are some people interested in freeing the Tarot from its kidnappers. For them, a return to source-material is necessary. The re-edition of the Jean Noblet Tarot, the oldest remaining Marseille-type deck, means that for the first time in over three centuries we can look at the Tarot as it was, without intermediaries or layers of fairy dust. At the same time, access to historical material is becoming easier. All the lies that have long been encumbering the Tarot will persist only among those who get a kick out of conspiracy theories. Beyond the sirens' song of the market, the possibility of experimenting with the Tarot as an unique visual pathway to self-knowledge has been re-opened...