Fool Trump Location
nagasiva
Al Smith <inv...@address.com>:
> ...Where did the placement of the Fool in 21st position in
> the sequence of trumps originate?
> Eliphas Levi put the Fool in this location, second before the end
> of the trumps, in his work titled (in its English translation)
> "Transcendental Magic" which was published in French in two parts
> in the years 1855-6. He did not give an explanation for it,
> however. See page 392 of the English translation.
my guess is that it was him or Papus.
> If Levi adopted it, where did he derive it?
couldn't find anything substantiating an earlier source.
when i get a chance i'll look in Dummett/Decker.
> Why should it be the "traditional" location for the Fool
> if Court de Gebelin put the Fool at the end of the
> sequence?
the way it came in gaming decks, oudlers all together??
hm, that doesn't work, it'd have to be II-XX, E, I, XXI
> Was it the traditional location in de Gebelin's time,
> and if so, how can this be demonstrated?
remember Etteilla too, tho i don't see any fools in his
deck with my matrices of change through time.
> In earlier Tarot decks the Fool is always unnumbered.
a tougher question is was the Fool always an Excuse early on?
> If anyone can offer a text reference that demonstrates
> that the Fool was placed second from last in the trumps
> before the time of Levi, I'd be interested in reading it.
me too. I'll keep lookin'. thanks for sticking to the topic.
nagasiva
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Rosifer
> hi Al,
>
> Al Smith <inva...@address.com>:
>
> > ...Where did the placement of the Fool in 21st position in
> > the sequence of trumps originate?
> > Eliphas Levi put the Fool in this location, second before the end
> > of the trumps, in his work titled (in its English translation)
> > "Transcendental Magic" which was published in French in two parts
> > in the years 1855-6. He did not give an explanation for it,
> > however. See page 392 of the English translation.
>
> my guess is that it was him or Papus.
Does the fact that Lévi produced Transcendental Magic: Its Doctrine
and Ritual ten years before Papus was born, narrow your choices at
all?
> a tougher question is was the Fool always an Excuse early on?
It was certainly documented as Excuse early in the 17th century; does
that qualify as 'early on'?
Whether it was *always* used in such a manner is not possible to
determine. You would have to assume that, then as now, games had their
own local rules.
Rosifer
Al Smith
>
> couldn't find anything substantiating an earlier source.
> when i get a chance i'll look in Dummett/Decker.
>
It might be in their second volume, which I haven't seen. It's not
in their first volume, which I have studied quite closely.
-Al-