AUTHOR’S NOTE: It seems I was justified in my belief that I would find fresh insight regarding the life and work of Jean-Baptiste Alliette (known to cartomancers as “Etteilla”) in the closing chapters of Ronald Decker’s esoteric tarot history book, The Esoteric Tarot: Ancient Sources Rediscovered in Hermeticism and Cabalah.

As an admittedly biased admirer of Aleister Crowley’s erudition (particularly when it comes to his incomparable Book of Thoth, although less so with the euphoric mysticism of Liber Al vel Legis and The Vision and the Voice, etc), I’ve always accepted his rude dismissal of Alliette as an “obscene barber,” although I did undertake some causal research to discover historical proof of this assessment (with limited success). It wasn’t until I embarked upon reading the “Etteilla” section of Decker’s book that I found something I could sink my teeth into. Here is the relevant passage that purports to lay the “barber” slur to rest; it elucidates the role of Rene Moussu, a hairstylist and landlord to Alliette’s son, in the saga.

“Moussu’s career was the impetus for many confused descriptions of Etteilla as a hairdresser or wigmaker. This occupation is sometimes ascribed to Etteilla in order to diminish his credibility. This is an injustice to Etteilla and to hairdressers.”

Decker compiled a thorough list of Etteilla’s achievements and his more prominent occult associates that supplements my heretofore limited awareness (and growing appreciation) of his body of work and his reputation. He certainly was far more productive and omnipresent in French cartomantic culture of the late 18th Century than I had been led to believe, and it’s now clear why the informal title “father of esoteric cartomancy” fits him perfectly. I own the “Etteilla I” version of his Grand Etteilla deck and have already found links between it and Arthur Edward Waite’s tarot writing. Furthermore, tarot expert Mary Greer once told me that MacGregor Mathers’ 1888 tarot book (prefatory to his Golden Dawn contribution) is “all Etteilla,” which Decker confirms at least for the suit cards.

Decker notes that the Grand Etteilla deck is unmistakably a step away from the Tarot de Marseille because Alliette introduced embellishments and innovations of his own device that turn it into a “different animal” in many ways. His titles and brief definitions for the cards are sometimes confounding when one tries to apply them to practical divination; his deck seems to have given rise to the “Continental” approach to the tarot that was eventually eclipsed in popular esteem due to the esoteric ferment of the 19th-Century British “Occult Revival.” It strikes me as a worthy tool with which I should become more familiar, but along with Lenormand it will probably remain a parallel pursuit to my regular tarot study and practice, which lately I’ve been pushing in the direction of the TdM after decades of working with the Thoth deck.