In the late 18th century, Jean-Baptiste Alliette — known to history by the reversed spelling of his surname, Etteilla — transformed Tarot from a game into a dedicated tool of divination. Long before most of Europe saw the cards as anything more than a parlour pastime, Etteilla published the first Tarot deck designed solely for fortune-telling. He claimed that the Tarot held ancient Egyptian wisdom, a remnant of the priests of Thebes, and reordered the sequence of the Major Arcana to fit his esoteric vision.

Etteilla’s deck was unlike anything that came before it. The Minor Arcana carried printed meanings, both upright and reversed — a revolutionary idea at the time — allowing even novice readers to follow its guidance. His interpretations were direct, often predictive, and tinged with an almost mystical authority. In his own era, the Etteilla deck was the most popular divination tool in France, prized for its elegance and precision.

Today, Etteilla remains a bridge between myth and method — between the romantic image of the Tarot as an Egyptian relic and the practical art of giving clear, structured readings. For those who value historical lineage, working with his cards is like conversing with the very moment Tarot became a professional craft.

Etteilla — holds a singular place in Tarot history as the first person to earn a living solely from reading the cards. In the late 18th century, when most of Europe still regarded Tarot as a parlour amusement, he transformed it into a serious, professional craft.

Etteilla created the first Tarot deck designed purely for divination, a system at once simple to learn and rich in depth. Every card carried its own distinct meaning, often diverging from the classical interpretations. Printed keywords — upright and reversed — appeared directly on the Minors, making the deck both accessible to beginners and nuanced for seasoned readers. After three decades of dedicated study, Etteilla declared he had unlocked the secret wisdom of the ancient Egyptian priesthood, tracing Tarot’s roots back to the temples of Thebes.

His cards were embraced by Marie Anne Lenormand, the most celebrated fortune-teller of her age, who used them to predict the destinies of figures such as Gioachino Rossini, King Louis-Philippe, and Honoré de Balzac. At the height of his fame, Etteilla was a fashionable reader — a mainstream figure whose clientele came from the most refined circles of Parisian society.

The beauty of his deck lies not only in its symbolic richness but in its ability to pierce the veil of the unknown, offering glimpses of fate while linking the seeker to the wisdom of their ancestors. The Tarot, he noted, is mentioned in the great book of the Kabbalah — and in his hands, every figure became both a lesson in occultism and a symbol in its own right.

It is perhaps surprising that today his deck is far less known than the Rider–Waite–Smith, though this is surely a matter of marketing rather than merit. To me, Etteilla was nothing short of a genius: a man who not only preserved an esoteric legacy but also mastered the art of making his gift a thriving profession.