Antoine Court, who named himself Antoine Court de Gébelin (

Nîmes Nîmes ( , ; oc, Nimes ; Latin: ''Nemausus'') is the prefecture of the Gard department in the Occitanie region of Southern France. Located between the Mediterranean Sea and Cévennes, the commune of Nîmes has an estimated population of 148,5 ...

, 25 January 1725 At

Google Books Google Books (previously known as Google Book Search, Google Print, and by its code-name Project Ocean) is a service from Google Inc. that searches the full text of books and magazines that Google has scanned, converted to text using optical c ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, 10 May 1784), was a former

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

pastor, born in

, who initiated the interpretation of the

Tarot The tarot (, first known as '' trionfi'' and later as ''tarocchi'' or ''tarocks'') is a pack of playing cards, used from at least the mid-15th century in various parts of Europe to play card games such as Tarocchini. From their Italian roots, ...

as an arcane repository of timeless esoteric wisdom in 1781. The ''New International Encyclopedia'' of 1914 reports that Court de Gébelin, who adopted the surname of his grandmother, was a literary man of recognized rank, and rendered excellent service, first as his father's

amanuensis An amanuensis () is a person employed to write or type what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another, and also refers to a person who signs a document on behalf of another under the latter's authority. In one example Eric Fenby ...

and assistant and afterward as a scholar at the capital. He is remembered in connection with the case of Jean Calas, by his work ''Les Toulousaines, ou lettres historiques et apologétiques en faveur de la religion réformée'' (Lausanne, 1763).

Early life

His father was Antoine Court, a famous religious leader of the

Huguenots The Huguenots ( , also , ) were a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed, or Calvinist, tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss politica ...

. Court de Gébelin had been ordained a

pastor A pastor (abbreviated as "Pr" or "Ptr" , or "Ps" ) is the leader of a Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutheranism, Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy, Oriental Orthodoxy and ...

in 1754 before departing Switzerland and remained openly Protestant, a rational advocate for freedom of conscience in Enlightenment France. In

, he was initiated into

Freemasonry Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...

at the lodge Les Amis Réunis, in 1771, and moved on to the lodge

Les Neuf Sœurs La Loge des Neuf Sœurs (; The Nine Sisters), established in Paris in 1776, was a prominent French Masonic Lodge of the Grand Orient de France that was influential in organising French support for the American Revolution. A "Société des Neuf Sœ ...

where he welcomed

Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin ( April 17, 1790) was an American polymath who was active as a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher, and political philosopher. Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the leading inte ...

as a lodge-brother.

Career

He was a supporter of

American Independence The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...

who contributed to the massive ''Affaires de l'Angleterre et de l'Amérique'', of the new theories of economics, and of the "animal magnetism" of

Mesmer Franz Anton Mesmer (; ; 23 May 1734 – 5 March 1815) was a German physician with an interest in astronomy. He theorised the existence of a natural energy transference occurring between all animated and inanimate objects; this he called "anim ...

. In a letter from the Reverend James Madison to

James Madison James Madison Jr. (March 16, 1751June 28, 1836) was an American statesman, diplomat, and Founding Father. He served as the fourth president of the United States from 1809 to 1817. Madison is hailed as the "Father of the Constitution" for hi ...

dated 15 June 1782 he is spoken of with the words, "Mr. Gibelin of Paris, who is said tho’ to have a very great Reputation." He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and ...

in 1781. In 1783, he was elected a member of the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in Philadelphia. His great project had for its goal to set out to reconstruct the high primeval civilization. Reinterpreting Classical and Renaissance evocation of the

Golden Age The term Golden Age comes from Greek mythology, particularly the ''Works and Days'' of Hesiod, and is part of the description of temporal decline of the state of peoples through five Ages of Man, Ages, Gold being the first and the one during ...

in mankind's early history, Court de Gébelin asserted that the primitive worldwide civilization had been advanced and enlightened. He is the intellectual grandfather of much of modern

occultism The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism an ...

. His centers of focus are the familiar ones of universal origins of languages in deep time and the

hermeneutics Hermeneutics () is the theory and methodology of interpretation, especially the interpretation of biblical texts, wisdom literature, and philosophical texts. Hermeneutics is more than interpretative principles or methods used when immediate c ...

symbol A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise very different conc ...

ism. While his views on hermeneutics and religious matters were largely conservative, his original ideas and research on the origin of

language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of met ...

earn him a place among pioneers of linguistics. Court de Gébelin presented dictionaries of

etymology Etymology ()The New Oxford Dictionary of English (1998) – p. 633 "Etymology /ˌɛtɪˈmɒlədʒi/ the study of the class in words and the way their meanings have changed throughout time". is the study of the history of the Phonological chan ...

, what he called a universal grammar, and discourses on the origins of language. His volumes were so popular he republished them separately, as ''Histoire naturelle de la parole, ou Précis de l'Origine du Langage & de la Grammaire Universelle'' ("Natural History of Speech, or a Treatise on the Origins of Language and of Universal Grammar"), in Paris, 1776. With regard to mythology and symbology, he discussed the origins of allegory in antiquity and recreated a history of the calendar from civil, religious, and mythological perspectives.

The tarot

De Gébelin wrote an essay included in his ''Le Monde primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne'' ("The Primeval World, Analyzed and Compared to the Modern World"), volume viii, 1781. The chapter on

with which his name is indelibly associated is a single section in his vast compendium that he published in series from 1773, to a distinguished list of subscribers, headed by

Louis XVI of France Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was e ...

. It was his immediate perception, the first time he saw the Tarot deck, that it held the secrets of the Egyptians. Writing without the benefit of Champollion's deciphering of the Egyptian language, Court de Gébelin developed a reconstruction of Tarot history, without producing any historical evidence, which was that Egyptian priests had distilled the ancient ''Book of Thoth'' into these images. These they brought to Rome, where they were secretly known to the popes, who brought them to Avignon in the 14th century, whence they were introduced into France. An essay by the Comte de Mellet included in Court de Gebelin's ''Monde primitif'' is responsible for the mystical connection of the Tarot's 21 trumps and the fool with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. An essay appended to this gave suggestions for

cartomancy Cartomancy is fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Forms of cartomancy appeared soon after playing cards were first introduced into Europe in the 14th century. Huson, Paul (2004). ''Mystical Origins of the Tarot: From Ancient R ...

; within two years the fortune-teller known as "

Etteilla "Etteilla", the pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1 March 1738 – 12 December 1791), was the French occultist and tarot-researcher, who was the first to develop an interpretation concept for the tarot cards and made a significant contribution ...

" published a technique for reading the tarot, and the practice of

tarot reading Tarot card reading is a form of cartomancy whereby practitioners use tarot cards to purportedly gain insight into the past, present or future. They formulate a question, then draw cards to interpret them for this end. A traditional tarot deck con ...

was born.

Notes

References

*Ronald Decker,

Thierry Depaulis Thierry Depaulis (born 1949) is an independent historian of games and especially of playing cards, card games, and board games. He is President of the International Playing-Card Society, President of the association ''Le Vieux Papier'', a member of ...

Michael Dummett Sir Michael Anthony Eardley Dummett (27 June 1925 – 27 December 2011) was an English academic described as "among the most significant British philosophers of the last century and a leading campaigner for racial tolerance and equality." He wa ...

, ''A Wicked Pack of Cards: The Origins of the Occult Tarot'' 1996 *

External links

*
Egyptomania of Antoine Court de Gébelin

* * ttps://web.archive.org/web/20100613202026/http://humanexperience.stanford.edu/supere Scholar cites Antoine Court de Gébelin as an important figure of the "Dark Enlightenment" {{DEFAULTSORT:Court De Gebelin, Antoine 18th-century occultists Tarot readers Pseudohistorians 1725 births 1784 deaths Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences French occult writers People from Nîmes Les Neuf Sœurs French Freemasons French male non-fiction writers Tarotologists