How the French read the cards

[Diana]

Since I joined Facebook, I've joined a few groups. One is a French speaking group that gives interpretations for TdM readings. Anyone can just come along and ask for an interpretation. The idea is that it's a place for beginners to learn and for seasoned readers to help them. But only for interpretations. There's no debate or anything about the cards. That's not the aim of the group. In spite of the francophone Tarot cradle in which I was born and am rocked in, I've never paid much attention to how the French interpret the cards on a daily basis. It's really interesting. They don't go into long explanations. No-one asks the position of the cards and not even the context. Sometimes they don't even ask what the question was. They just dive into the cards and read them. They don't go into long explanations or introductions or explain things too much.

For example, a young woman asks if she'll fall pregnant this year. Three cards - a pair and another one. They call the pair the "coupe" (I've seen this "coupe" in other spreads) and are always read together. They're hugely fond of the Celtic Cross, but even then, no-one asks which version they used. I asked once and although I was replied to, no-one else seemed to think this was very relevant.

An example of a typical answer to the above question about falling pregnant is this "No you won't. Do you have hormonal or fertility problems that have been checked out?"

Another example : Will x stay with y or leave her? Three cards, no explanation of positions. A typical answer: "After one last blow, the departure of the Fool because he's visibly had enough. Total 8 Justice : it's a brutal goodbye."

I did ask someone once for positions, but someone said "why do you need positions if you've got the whole picture in front of you already". They don't bother about all the details. And they're much more direct than the anglo-saxons. They say things like they are and don't try and get into all sorts of contemplations on the cards.

Most of the interpretations are excellent. Really good. That was what surprised me. That all our fussiness and precision and long windedness doesn't really seem necessary.

It's very interesting. And I'm actually finding it quite easy to read like that. I didn't think I would but it's much easier than I thought.

It's fun. Sort of like a new fragrance.

Also the very very very large majority of the readings are only with Majors.

[Papageno]

Interesting, Tom Benjamin concurs in that he says many EU (not specifically French) TdM readers discard the pips and use only the Majors and Court cards.

I wonder if this is a cultural or generational attitude......I suspect it is cultural.

Expounding on every card detail in minutiae is exclusively an attribute you will encounter with (some) readers of RWS and Thoth based decks that are graphically saturated.
Obviously, this is something you won't find with TdM simply because the imagery is relatively austere compared to RWS/Thoth, etc.

Everybody has their own reading style, and even in the non-TdM realm, there are readers who prefer very straight forward, concise readings, ie. brevity.

And then there are those who "read" every detail the artist included in the image, whether or not, the artist actually intended those details to have any significance other than being purely aesthetic embellishment.

Getting back to TdM readings:

Diana, it seems as if you are waving a big red flag and challenging the rest of the European community on how they read TdM.

I haven't gotten around to reading her book yet, but the highly respected Camelia Elias who is Romanian born and now teaches in Denmark is renowned for her no-nonsense approach to reading TdM.

[Diana]

Interesting, Tom Benjamin concurs in that he says many EU (not specifically French) TdM readers discard the pips and use only the Majors and Court cards.

I wonder if this is a cultural or generational attitude......I suspect it is cultural.

Oh definitely cultural. Reading the pips is a very modern notion in the French tradition. I would think this has trickled down from the anglo-saxons. They'll always read mostly Majors though and pips will always be sort a quaint thing to do. I only read with Majors for ages when I discovered the Tarot. I took up the pips just to spice things up. But I don't think they're necessary. The Courts neither. Those cards were clearly designed just for playing card games. They're not really part of the Ur-Tarot. I disagree slightly therefore with Tom Benjamin, because the courts are not very popular either.

Expounding on every card detail in minutiae is exclusively an attribute you will encounter with (some) readers of RWS and Thoth based decks that are graphically saturated.
Obviously, this is something you won't find with TdM simply because the imagery is relatively austere compared to RWS/Thoth, etc.

Everybody has their own reading style, and even in the non-TdM realm, there are readers who prefer very straight forward, concise readings, ie. brevity.

And then there are those who "read" every detail the artist included in the image, whether or not, the artist actually intended those details to have any significance other than being purely aesthetic embellishment.

Yes indeed. Well, in this particular group, long readings are not really even allowed. It's in their rules I think that long readings will be deleted or at least definitely not encouraged. They want brevity. Some are a bit longer than I mentioned, but not much longer.

Getting back to TdM readings:

Diana, it seems as if you are waving a big red flag and challenging the rest of the European community on how they read TdM.

Yes, but I'm not sure I'm going to have much success with them. I'm not going to bother I think. Perhaps there are other groups elsewhere that are more interested in reading in depth but I didn't look. I just thought it would be fun to join that group to get a different slant. There are no discussion forums such as CoT or TT&Me in the Francophone world. The last one that was quite interesting sort of folded when Facebook came along.

I haven't gotten around to reading her book yet, but the highly respected Camelia Elias who is Romanian born and now teaches in Denmark is renowned for her no-nonsense approach to reading TdM.

She's got some renown Camelia Elias. She's not up my particular street.

[Merrick]

I’m with the French on this. Positions are, in my mind, an unnecessary extra step that exists mainly as an artifact from the Golden Dawn and their descendants. Both Waite and Crowley were dismissive of the Tarot for divination, and intended their decks to be used for esoteric study/growth and for use in ritual/ceremonial magic. In that respect I suspect the positions were useful to them as positioning and geometry are important elements of ceremonial magic.

This is why, absent any request for a specific type of reading, I draw three cards and see what message the three cards altogether tell me. The only positioning I consider is that the first card is often the past, center present, and last card future. Depending on how the cards interact it may not be a chronological timeline like that but if things are chronological I never use the last card as the past or present, only future, etc.

The style you’re describing is very reminiscent of old school fortune telling. Those readings are concise declarative statements, and they can be very effective.

[Diana]

Another thing they do a lot, not systematically but very often, is to add up the numbers and reduce them. And then they take into account that number. That's why in one of the readings I mentioned above the person said: Total Justice 8, its's a brutal good-bye. Justice wasn't one of the cards. I know this is also done sometimes in anglo-saxon circles, but the French do it much more frequently.

[Papageno]

Reading the pips is a very modern notion in the French tradition.

approximately how modern?

not trying to bait anybody, I'm really very curious as to when this apparent "trend" began to become mainstream.

reading with pips is now in every contemporary book on reading the TdM that I have come across so far.

[Merrick]

Reading with majors only is very prevalent in Europe with the TdM, including among professional readers. However I seriously question that reading with pips is only a new phenomenon because if that were the case I doubt the pips would have survived for so long as part of the tarot instead of being split off into playing cards once the majors became associated with fortune telling and divination over game play. I think reading with majors only is the more recent development.

[Diana]

Merrick, I'll go and look more into this. But I really don't think historically the pips were of interest to the esoterists like Eteilla. It's an interesting subject to delve into though.

As to the game. We mustn't forget that the game of tarot, the one that is so HUGELY popular in France still today, has majors and minors, although they don't call them that, they call them "atouts" (trumps), the 16 court cards and then the four suits from 1-10. So also 78 cards. The game rules were established a long time ago in the 19th century according to wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_tarot. But it had been played for quite some time in some form or other before the rules were established.

It's a really really really great card game to play. I haven't played it for some time now, but there were times with friends we'd start at 8pm and suddenly it was 4am in the morning and we'd not seen the time pass.

Rules are here. They look complicated but they're not really.

[CaraHamilton]

Loving this thread Diana.

I used to use the Waite-Smith style variant deck, but changed to the TDM a few years ago fully. I started seeing the cards as a whole picture like you describe and I find it preferable now after 27 years of Waite-Smith. I know a prominent Parisian reader and a number of Italian readers who only use the Major Arcana in this way too. (Strangely the Frenchman uses the Visconti-Sforza and the Italians use TDM).

It is making me think about a 10th century dice game called Ludus Regularis Seu Clericalis created by Bishop Wibald of Paris. I never thought of it as the reason for the French reading of three cards major arcana only style. In the game Priests would throw three dice twice. Let's say for example the first throw is 3 (3 x 1) and the second is 18 (3 x6's) = 21. Each combination of outcomes had an associated virtue In this clerical game was charity and 18 is humility. The object was for both throws to total 21. Then the Priest would have to recite a tale or situation where charity led to humility and ended up with the wonderful possibility of the World being the 21. It was not a gambling game but like an ecclesiastical Tarot Reading with dice. It is a total picture involving the three cards. I wrote an article on it https://secret-tarot-garden.com/2019/03 ... spiration/

Cara x

[CaraHamilton]

Reading the pips is a very modern notion in the French tradition.

approximately how modern?

not trying to bait anybody, I'm really very curious as to when this apparent "trend" began to become mainstream.

reading with pips is now in every contemporary book on reading the TdM that I have come across so far.

There is an old reading from mid 18th century where the pips were part of the reading. Major Arcana and Minor Arcana were kept separate and each set mixed up. The reader would turn the top card in each pile face up and say "one" then do the same with the next saying "two" and so on upto 14. This count would go from 14 back to 1, 2, 3....If you said "Seven" for instance and one of the cards was a 7 you put the 7 and the Major Arcana card to the side as a pair. When you got to the end of the pack you did it again without shuffling but turning the cards over again t be face down. The same process is conducted. The pairs that result are read as the narrative from start to the end of the reading. The historical source did not state how the pips were read however. Both Jean-Claude Flornoy and Mary Greer wrote about this reading. Can't find my notes to write more however.

At least it shows 1750s the pips were employed.

Cara

[_R_]

Reading the pips is a very modern notion in the French tradition.

approximately how modern?

not trying to bait anybody, I'm really very curious as to when this apparent "trend" began to become mainstream.

reading with pips is now in every contemporary book on reading the TdM that I have come across so far.

Leaving aside the completely redrawn decks of Etteilla and co., generally speaking, according some measure of attention to the pips for divinatory purposes goes back to Eudes Picard and his Manuel, so 1909 or thereabouts. Anything earlier is probably just the barest of the bare number + suit + element (or perhaps completely arbitrary) divinatory meanings.

[KoyDeli]

Reading the pips is a very modern notion in the French tradition.

approximately how modern?

not trying to bait anybody, I'm really very curious as to when this apparent "trend" began to become mainstream.

reading with pips is now in every contemporary book on reading the TdM that I have come across so far.

There is an old reading from mid 18th century where the pips were part of the reading. Major Arcana and Minor Arcana were kept separate and each set mixed up. The reader would turn the top card in each pile face up and say "one" then do the same with the next saying "two" and so on upto 14. This count would go from 14 back to 1, 2, 3....If you said "Seven" for instance and one of the cards was a 7 you put the 7 and the Major Arcana card to the side as a pair. When you got to the end of the pack you did it again without shuffling but turning the cards over again t be face down. The same process is conducted. The pairs that result are read as the narrative from start to the end of the reading. The historical source did not state how the pips were read however. Both Jean-Claude Flornoy and Mary Greer wrote about this reading. Can't find my notes to write more however.

At least it shows 1750s the pips were employed.

Cara

That is the method described by Mellet in his essay published in Monde Primitif in 1781. Etteilla method also used pips of course and was very popular in the 19th century; even readers who used TdB or TdM would use his meanings for the pips or variations of them {there are quite a few TdB and TdM decks from the 19th century in museums and private collections upon which people have written DM's on the Pips, upright and reversed). I think trump only reading became more the de facto method in France c, first quarter of the 20th century, possibly with the popularity of trump only spread of the Tirage en Croix popularised by Wirth. Etteilla's meaning were carried on in England to an extent via the incorporation of his DMs for the pips via Mathers and Waite. Prior to Etteilla's work on the tarot Piquet decks were most commonly used by card-readers. The game of Piquet was very popular in France so most people had a Piquet deck to hand if they didn't have a full pack {Piquet was such a popular game that manufacturers made Piquet only decks, they were more popular than ordinary full 52 card decks for quite a while} . Etteilla's first work on cartonomancy of course was based on a Piquet deck, with addition of an Etteilla card. The meanings from his Piquet deck he later applied to the pips of the tarot.

[_R_]

Most of the interpretations are excellent. Really good. That was what surprised me. That all our fussiness and precision and long windedness doesn't really seem necessary.

I would hazard a guess and say that the chances are that reading methods have become ingrained, or taken for granted in the group, so there is little need to go into detail in that regard. There is one forum, more or less dedicated only to readings: http://www.ff-tarot.com/forum/

Anecdotally, I find that many French readers use one of the handful of fairly systematised reading methodologies made popular in recent years (e.g. Bruno de Nys, Kris Hadar, there are a few others), much more so than the optical Jodorowsky/Tchalaï style methods. Of course, the Wirth cross spread is very much a standard, and is ubiquitous.

[Charlie Brown]

reading with pips is now in every contemporary book on reading the TdM that I have come across so far.

In English or French? In American circles, the idea of the pips seems to be the lure for most first time purchasers. It seems curious and exotic, whereas the TdM majors aren't really all that different from the RWS at first glance to the uninitiated.

My French isn't great, but I can get through stuff with difficulty. Out of my books, Florian Parisse (current day) doesn't use pips, nor does Kris Hader (90s). Collette Sylvestre (80s) uses them primarily in larger draws only and, I think, that, generally, Andy B. does the same more often than not, but I could be wrong about that.

Diana, that sort of terseness you were noticing is what I was trying to get at in our discussion of reading lines in a "cartomantic" style. If you remember that from several months ago.

[Papageno]

reading with pips is now in every contemporary book on reading the TdM that I have come across so far.

In English or French? In American circles, the idea of the pips seems to be the lure for most first time purchasers. It seems curious and exotic, whereas the TdM majors aren't really all that different from the RWS at first glance to the uninitiated.

English, and consider me uninitiated (obviously).
The concept of non-scenic pips (although illustrated) in antique reproductions is fascinating to me from a historical perspective.
I've expounded on my love of art history more than enough times already.

Actually a VERY useful and productive discussion regarding exactly what qualifies as "traditional" in the TdM Majors would be compelling,
although even Michael Bridge-Dickson says that is a thorny subject.

TdM through the lens of art-history is very different from the art of actual reading styles and techniques and herein lies many difficulties.

Perhaps a side-by-side comparison between a couple of decks that call themselves "Tarot de Marseille" but where the art is essentially contemporary in nature as opposed to the Ben-Dov CBD TdM, which I just ordered from Amazon.

My French isn't great, but I can get through stuff with difficulty. Out of my books, Florian Parisse (current day) doesn't use pips, nor does Kris Hader (90s). Collette Sylvestre (80s) uses them primarily in larger draws only and, I think, that, generally, Andy B. does the same more often than not, but I could be wrong about that.

I'll note those 3 titles. thanks for the info. I was unaware that Andy Boroveshengra had authored: Fortunae's Picturebook.
I only read parts of his Lenormand book.

So far I only have books by Camelia Elias and Caitlin Matthews.
I started out many months ago with the Ben-Dov book but got nowhere, perhaps I should order a new copy.

[Diana]

reading with pips is now in every contemporary book on reading the TdM that I have come across so far.

In English or French? In American circles, the idea of the pips seems to be the lure for most first time purchasers. It seems curious and exotic, whereas the TdM majors aren't really all that different from the RWS at first glance to the uninitiated.

My French isn't great, but I can get through stuff with difficulty. Out of my books, Florian Parisse (current day) doesn't use pips, nor does Kris Hader (90s). Collette Sylvestre (80s) uses them primarily in larger draws only and, I think, that, generally, Andy B. does the same more often than not, but I could be wrong about that.

Diana, that sort of terseness you were noticing is what I was trying to get at in our discussion of reading lines in a "cartomantic" style. If you remember that from several months ago.

The vast majority of books in French that I own or have owned deal only with the Majors. In my local library, I'd hazard a guess as to that there are about 2/3s of the books that are majors only, or touch very peripherally on the minors. (The book I'm writing will have only a tiny section on the minors.)

Yes Charlie Brown, I remember well now your cartomantic method.

[Diana]

Another thing I've learned about the tarot in the French speaking world is one I'd already touched on once in another thread some time ago. It's that the RWS doesn't exist in their universe. Again a poster used a TdM inspired deck (she's the only one) and I mentioned again that it's not really a TdM. So we chatted a bit and I told her a bit about the RWS and the Thoth. She said "I've never heard of the RWS and Thoth". So I did a tiny little survey. I wrote by PM to three people I'd had interactions with to ask if they'd ever heard of the RWS and Thoth. Two said they'd never heard of them, and one said he'd seen a RWS in a shop once but has never heard of the Thoth.

And then I realised suddenly (I'd never actually noticed) that in the bookshops here I've never seen a book on the RWS or the Thoth. They're all TdM. And then I got to thinking of the books on Tarot in the library, and realised that it's the same. They're all TdM.

The two worlds - French and anglosaxon/other - are really very different. Like different planets.

[Merrick]

Another thing I've learned about the tarot in the French speaking world is one I'd already touched on once in another thread some time ago. It's that the RWS doesn't exist in their universe. Again a poster used a TdM inspired deck (she's the only one) and I mentioned again that it's not really a TdM. So we chatted a bit and I told her a bit about the RWS and the Thoth. She said "I've never heard of the RWS and Thoth". So I did a tiny little survey. I wrote by PM to three people I'd had interactions with to ask if they'd ever heard of the RWS and Thoth. Two said they'd never heard of them, and one said he'd seen a RWS in a shop once but has never heard of the Thoth.

And then I realised suddenly (I'd never actually noticed) that in the bookshops here I've never seen a book on the RWS or the Thoth. They're all TdM. And then I got to thinking of the books on Tarot in the library, and realised that it's the same. They're all TdM.

The two worlds - French and anglosaxon/other - are really very different. Like different planets.

Thoth I can understand. RWS at first I was quite surprised to hear has no cultural presence in France, but then I thought about it and remembered to before I knew about the TdM and I thought the tarot really was just RWS and that the deck codified occult knowledge and that’s what tarot was. I knew nothing about the history of playing cards from China to the Middle East to Italy and then France to England. So I’m not and shouldn’t be surprised that the English mutation of tarot just passed the French right by.

[_R_]

There are 1-2 very recent books on the RWS available now in French, and they haven’t made much of an impact, for a number of reasons, although the trend seems to be to want to move on from the Grimaud/TdM "hegemony", in a way, where younger readers are concerned, from my anecdotal observation.

I would say that, no more than the Etteilla, Papus, Wirth (although this still has its proponents) decks, the largely modified, largely “occultified” decks simply do not have the appeal of the older traditional decks (and I include Marteau’s effort under that label for a number of reasons), which are considered as being more authentic, less imbued with idiosyncratic personal ideas or deliberate mystification and misunderstanding. This applies all the more so to decks of foreign import, where the very name “of Marseilles” implies a local origin, and hence, a tradition rooted in the country itself. Reaction against the “anglo-saxon hegemony", nowadays less a political than a cultural notion, is fairly widespread in France.

Then there is simply the prevailing cultural association of Tarot Nouveau with gaming, and Tarot of Marseilles with the divinatory Tarot, i.e. the Grimaud deck, and anything else is either an occultist fancy of lesser value, or an unrelated artistic - or even oracle deck.

As to the use of the minors, as I noted, they have been back on the table, so to speak, for a century now, although more cartomantic types tend to overlook them for the majors for reasons of convenience. Most books do make some sort of cursory attempt at providing interpretations, but typically this use will be limited to indicating the modalities of the majors. In other words, the minors serve as a form of clarifier, giving the ‘how’ to the ‘what’ of the trumps involved, as it were. This is notably the case in larger draws, such as the astrological wheel and so on.

[Diana]

Thoth I can understand. RWS at first I was quite surprised to hear has no cultural presence in France, but then I thought about it and remembered to before I knew about the TdM and I thought the tarot really was just RWS and that the deck codified occult knowledge and that’s what tarot was.

For me was just the opposite. I only heard about the RWS and other decks and oracles when I joined Aeclectic. I thought Tarot was only TdM.

[Diana]

That is the method described by Mellet in his essay published in Monde Primitif in 1781. Etteilla method also used pips of course and was very popular in the 19th century; even readers who used TdB or TdM would use his meanings for the pips or variations of them {there are quite a few TdB and TdM decks from the 19th century in museums and private collections upon which people have written DM's on the Pips, upright and reversed).

Shows my gross ignorance. I've never really read anything about the Eteilla method. I have very little knowledge of what went on in those days. I'm a TdM passionara, but a lot has passed me by due to my particular interests. I hope no-one ever listens to me when I talk about the TdM.

[KoyDeli]

Mellet himself was using a Tarot de Besancon deck, by Francoise Isnard of Strasbourg. Apart from a few stlyistic differences [the Ace of Cups for example] the TdB and TdM pips are of a similar nature of course.

[We know that because he mentions Juno and Jupiter, one of the imps of Trump XV touching the devil's thigh, and Fortuna on the 4 of coins: it is this last that allows us to identify as a Francoise Isnard of Strasbourg - possibly as used by cardmaker Benois, although other makers of Strasbourg used Isnard's moulds too.]

[KoyDeli]

This deck is an example of one to which a card-reader at some point inscribed the numbering of Etteilla on the cards. This deck is a late 18th-century reproduction of one made by Laboise of Strasbourg c1710 (initially from a family of Parisian card-makers, who probably moved from Paris to Strasbourg for tax purposes]. They have even reproduced Laboises emblem of the Oriental Pearl on the four of coins (the Oriental Pearl was part of his address in Stratbourg and was his card-makers mark, as the figure of Fortune on the four of Coins was that of Francoise Isnard, also of Strasbourg.)

The deck of Laboise is somewhat unique in that instead of the Popesse and Pope, or Jupiter and Juno, it has female figures representing Spring and Winter.

Etteilla himself in one of his cahiers mentions 'a deck from Colmar' which has Spring and Winter.

Source of images: BnF

[KoyDeli]

A closer look:

The number 17 on Death, 78 on the Fool, 76 on the 2 of coins;

Prior to the printing of his own deck, Etteilla advised people to take a common tarot deck (most likely a TdB or TdM at that time), and write his own numbering (and titles and DM's if they wished) on them. Even after he had his own deck made, some preferred to use a standard deck, and apply his DM's to them.

Source of images: BnF

[KoyDeli]

Here is Spring and Winter from the deck - here the numbering is a little variant to Etteilla (trump II should be 8, and trumps V should be 1), but possibly it is because of the variation between this deck and TdM here that the reader has chosen to change the numbering to something they considered more suitable:

Source of images: BnF