THE TAROT OF THE BOHEMIANS. THE MOST ANCIENT BOOK IN THE WORLD. FOR THE USE OF INITIATES.
Book Details + Condition: Chapman and Hall (London). First English Edition, 1892. Hardcover with black boards, and gilt occult key to front, with gilt titling to spine. 355 pages. Scarce. By Papus, pseudonym of Gerard Encausse. Translated by A.P. Morton. Includes several black-and-white engraved vignettes and illustrations throughout the text (2 of which are fold-outs), including vignettes for each of the tarot trumps and many Kabbalistic, astrological and other diagrams. Papus' book remains one of the most important foundational works of modern Western esotericism, presenting the Tarot not merely as a tool for fortune-telling but as a symbolic key to the mystical and occult traditions, blending elements of Kabbalah, numerology, astrology, and Hermetic philosophy. Papus interprets each card of the Major and Minor Arcana as a stage in the evolution of the soul, and as an explanation into the structure of the universe. He claims that the Tarot encodes ancient wisdom once known to Egyptian priests, later transmitted through the “Bohemians” (the Romany people). The book is both a manual of Tarot symbolism and a treatise searching for a "Theory of Everything", intended for serious spiritual initiates (per the title) who are seeking to understand the divine through occult study.
The book was first published in French in 1889, and an English translation followed in 1892 (this copy for sale). Gerard Encausse (1865 - 1916) was a Spanish-born French physician, hypnotist, and popularizer of Occultism, who founded the modern Martinist Order. His book drew heavily from earlier occultists, including Éliphas Lévi.
A scarce first English edition with firm binding; rubbed corners and edges; light shelf wear to boards, with very faint remnants of old rings present; slight lean to book; small repaired tear to second fold-out's edge; interior is clean and free of markings. All books are carefully packed, and shipped in boxes.
