Chapters 8 - 11: Etteilla and Cartomancy

The second half of the book is taken up with cartomancy, and in particular with Etteilla and his followers.  He sees divination with cards as practiced on a very limited basis in the 15th-16th centuries, with one card "sortilege" books, but also occasional five-card "spreads" that served as a way of delineating someone's character traits in their current life situations, as in Folengo's Triperuno. That tarot divination suddenly appeared as elaborate systems at the end of the 18th century, as if from nowhere, is a topic he covered, with Dummett and Depaulis, in Wicked Pack of Cards. Since then, he has more information. I have given a summary of some additional facts about Etteilla's followers at viewtopic.php?f=11&t=827&p=14071&hilit=hugand#p14071.

One additional source that Decker has consulted since Wicked Pack about Etteilla is a Course Theorique et Pratique by Paul Hugand, aka "Jejalel", one of Etteilla's followers. In it he finds both a 54 and a 66 card spread that Papus had attributed to Etteilla. The 66 card spread is actually found in Etteilla himself, although Decker seems unaware of that fact. Papus's account (p. 146 of Stockman's translation of Divinatory Tarot) is an almost word for word transcription of Etteilla in the 3rd Cahier (see my translation of Corodil's transcription at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... stcount=23). Decker notes that the reading involves taking the cards in pairs from each of two rows of 11. From that he suggests that Etteilla's spreads evolved from a form of divinatory solitaire that depended on taking cards in pairs, as described in Vojtech Omasta's Patience: neue und alte Spiele, Bratislava 1985. He notes that an old word for solitaire in French was "la Cabale" (no source given). On the other hand, Etteilla's directions often do not specify pairs.

Decker also cites "Jejalel" for his account of the mentor that taught him the ancient Egyptians' system of tarot divination.  Etteilla himself, according to Decker, said that it was a person he met in Lamballe, a town in Brittany, an elderly Piedmontese. A biography written in 1859 gives the additional information that the man's name was Alexis, but without giving any source. However, there is a famous 16th century author named "Alexis Piemontese". What Decker finds in "Jejalel" is the information that the mentor was a descendant of  "the Renaissance Alexis," who is not himself named. 

Actually, something close to this information is stated by Etteilla himself, in the 2nd Cahier [notebook]. There he says that his mentor was the grandson ("petit fils") of Alexis called Piemontese, whom it is assumed will be familiar to the reader. He adds in a footnote that the person he met was named Alexis, too. See my transcription and translation at http://www.tarotforum.net/showpost.php? ... tcount=130. Either Etteilla or "Jejalel" has changed the story slightly, from "grandson" to "descendant. In this way, the story does not have to assume unheard-of fecundity and longevity in successive generations, for the famous Alexis to have a grandson still alive in 1757. The earlier Alexis published his book in 1755. (If his real identity was Giralomo Ruscelli, as most scholars assume, he would have been born in 1500. Even if not, he would probably have been born no later than 1525. Even if both he and his son were 50 when they had their relevant child, the grandson would be at least 132 years old in 1757.) 

Since Etteilla never mentioned either Alexis or the Egyptian origin story until after de Gebelin and de Mellet declared it in 1781, detractors have assumed that he was lying. Decker thinks that Etteilla's claim canot be dismissed. If he were lying, he would surely have said that his informant was an Egyptian. Also, no one then had any idea that the tarot deck came from Italy. 

I tend to side with the detractors. Etteilla was by profession a retailer of old printed works that he bought in bulk at auction. Since the French translation of the 16th century book was still in print (according to Wikipedia), Etteilla could easily have gotten the name there. (Various copies are now on archive.org.) As for the tarot coming from Italy, De Gebelin himself makes it plain that after Egypt, the next country in which the cards were known was Italy, where the ancient Egyptians came during Roman times, followed more recently by Germany (perhaps meaning what is now eastern France) and Provence (Le Monde Primitif, vol. 8, pp. 379-380). In the same section de Gebelin adds that in Egypt itself, the cards became lost to its people. So of course his informant would have been an Italian and not an Egyptian. 

 Decker devotes much space to Etteilla's imagery and interpretations. The pictorial sources for most of his trumps are the Tarot de Marseille and its variant the Tarot de Besancon, although in an eccentric order.  The exceptions are cards 1, 6, 7, and 8, which replace the odious Imperials and Papals. 1 and 8 are for the male and female enquirer, while 6 and 7 are his inventions. He does not mention the probable source for card 1; it would seem to be card 1 of a French "Minchiate" that "Huck" called attention to on Tarot History Forum (at left below), called "Le Chaos." While "Chaos" was not included as a meaning of the card in his first explication of the card (In the Third Cahier), as opposed to "Questionnant", i.e. male querent (middle below), it was one of the "reversed meanings" in the lists of "synonyms or related meanings" drawn up by his followers, and does appear on a version of the same card as published in c. 1838 (below right). Perhaps Etteilla was thinking of the querent's mental state. 

 

For the trump cards, Etteilla himself says that the images correspond to the seven days of creation. But Decker goes further. The cards do not go in order from the first day to the seventh. Instead, he argues, they follow the days of the week, which since Babylonian times haveassociated with the seven planetary gods (p. 319).

So we have the Sun on card 2, the Moon on card 3. This much Etteilla himself says (http://etteillastrumps.blogspot.com/2012/05/introduction.html). Then card 4, taken from the Besancon Star card, showing a maiden pouring liquid next to a butterfly, represents Mars, because Mars was a god of spring (as in the word "March"). This contradicts what Etteilla says (above link), that it represents the Stars, but I suppose he may have forgotten to spell out the hidden meaning. The maiden is not exactly Mars-like. Card 5, which he says is of Isis, taken from the Marseille/Besancon World card, is also Mercury, representing Divine Mind; I think Decker has in mind Mercury as the forefather of Hermes Trismegistus. Etteilla himself says it represents the 6th day, when God created man in his own image, and shows human physicality in its perfection. That is not a characteristic of Mercury, at least not any more than any other major god. Card 6, which shows the seven planets in the sky, is, according to Decker, Jupiter, the sky god. Etteilla himself says that it shows the "two great lights" of Genesis, i.e. Sun and Moon together, and that originally it represented the Zodiac. Card 7, showing sea and air animals as well as a snake, Decker says represents Venus, for fertility; Etteilla himself says that it represents the creatures made on the fifth day. Finally, card 8, showing Eve in a garden, Decker says, signifies Saturn, the Jewish creator god, on his day of rest. Etteilla does mention "repose" (it is on the card, too) but mostly talks about the Pymander, the first text of the Corpus Hermeticum, and quotes (without indicating a source) from the Myth of Er in Plato's Republic (http://etteillastrumps.blogspot.com/2012/05/introduction.html). No doubt Plato's (and the Pymander's) demiurge, albeit not Saturn, can be identified with the Jewish creator god.

All I can say is that if this is the pattern, Etteilla certainly hid his intentions well, not only on the cards but also in his own analysis of them. However, it does explain the peculiar way in which he arranged these eight cards. The next four are simply the four cardinal virtues. Decker has no explanation for the 13th through 21st in the sequence.

If that were not enough, Decker goes on to say that these seven gods, in order from Sol (Sunday) to Saturn (Saturday), correspond to the seven lower sefirot in Cabala. I know of two correspondences between sefirot and planets in Christian authors popular at that time, plus one more hinted at in a Jewish author. One is Pico's in his 900 Theses of 1486 (thesis 11>48) and the other is Kircher's Tree in the tree of 1652 (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File: ... f_Life.png). Pico's order (from Chesed to Malkhut) is Jupiter-Mars-Sun-Saturn-Venus--Mercury-Moon; Kircher's (also Chesed to Malkhut) goes Jupiter-Saturn-Sun-Mars-Venus-Mercury-Moon. They are the same except for interchanging Mars and Saturn, the two maleficent planets.

The third, which I say is hinted at, I get from Moshe Idel's account of Pico's Jewish colleague Yohannan Allemano, who apparently identified Saturn with the second sefira; that would make six of the lower sefirot planets and one the earth. The only difference in these three orders is in where Saturn goes, and whether there is a place for the earth. In none of these orders does the order of planets correspond to the order of the days of the week.

The order that Decker suggests, moreover, does not fit the symbolism of the sefirot. The character of the Sun might correlate with Chesed, the 4th sefira, which means kindness or charity. But the Moon does not fit the characterizations of the 5th sefira, Gevurah, meaning Power, and Din, meaning Severity. Nor does Mars fit Tiferet, meaning Glory or Beauty. Mercury does not fit Netzach, meaning Victory. Jupiter, the most powerful of the Greco-Roman gods, does not fit the lower administrator of Justice on the Tree, Hod. Venus does not fit Yesod, which is the Righteous and the Covenant of circumcision. The female Malkhut, the Shekinah, certainly does not fit Saturn, who mythologically was a god distant from humans; whereas the Shekinah is "God's presence" with Israel, which may be little or much.

The correspondences that are actually suggested by the evidence (in Pico, Kircher, Allemano), all have much more plausibility than Decker's. They all have Jupiter=Chesed, Mars=Gevurah/Din; and Sun=Tiferet. Saturn is plausible anywhere on the left side of the Tree, that of Judgment. For Pico, Netzach meant Eternity and Hod meant Adornment (eternitas and dora). That would give Pico a plausible motive for making Netzach=Saturn and Hod=Venus. But Venus could also be Netzach=Victory, the victory of love (or eternity of love), and Hod=Praise, can be Mercury. Either Mercury or the Moon is plausible at Yesod, as the mediator between heaven and earth, and either the Moon or the Earth as Malkhut. See my blog http://latinsefiroth.blogspot.com/ under the individual sefirot (the sections on the right of the page) for the justification of these assignments.

One might want to argue that the planets listed for the double letters in the Sefer Yetzirah correspond to the sefirot; but a comparison chart at http://www.psyche.com/psyche/yetsira/sy ... tions.html (which includes the Zohar somehow) shows no order corresponding to the planets that Decker associates with days of the week. The Sefer Yetzirah does assign planets to the days of the week, but in most versions uses the standard Ptolemaic order of the planets to do so, with Saturn as Saturday, Jupiter as Sunday, etc., down to the Moon as Friday (see Kaplan, Sefer Yetzirah, pp. 265, 275-6, 290). The order in all versions is the same as the alphabetical assignment (in Hebrew), none of which fits Decker's order. It is possible that some Kabbalist somewhere associated the sefirot with the planets in days of the week order, but if so it needs to be shown, given that all the evidence contradicts that supposition. 

Decker faults Etteilla - following de Mellet in his companion piece to de Gebelin's in Monde Primatif - for his "forced" identification of the French suit of diamonds with the Italian suit of "sticks" (bastoni), and of clubs with coins (denari). It seems to me that the diamond shape may well be from the pattern that crisscrossing staves make on the cards; and the clover design of the French clubs suit from that pattern on the depictions of coins in the Italian cards; I have illustrated this point with cards of the time at the end of http://dummettsmondo.blogspot.com/2015/07/chapter-1-part-of-4.html. 

In regard to the suits, Decker notes that in his 1770 book on cartomancy the deck he used was the piquet deck of 32 cards in the French suits of Spades, Hearts, Diamonds, and Clubs. In 1783, he incorporated the same meanings into the Swords, Cups, Batons, and Coins, respectively, of the tarot deck. Since the tarot deck has 56 suit cards, he had to add meanings, but the original upright piquet meanings are for the most part preserved, suit by suit, even if the piquet Reversed meanings become the Upright meanings for the numeral cards that the piquet deck leaves out.

The French-Italian suit correspondences follow a formula articulated by de Mellet in 1781, in the companion essay to de Gebelin's in Le Monde Primitif, vol. 8. On p. 403, he writes: “Les Coeurs (les coupes), annoncent le bonheur. Les Trèfles (les deniers), la fortune. /Les Piques, (les epées), le malheur. / Les Carreaux (les bâtons), l’indiffèrence & la campagne"):

Hearts, (cups), announce happiness.

Clubs, (coins), wealth.

Spades (swords), misfortune.

Diamonds (batons), indifference & the countryside.

De Mellet claims this to be a kind of empirical generalization from the practice of "our fortune tellers": between the two decks, the meanings given for the individual cards fall out in that manner.

The question then is, which is the original, fortune-telling with the piquet deck or with the tarot deck. De Mellet and de Gebelin, of course, say it was the tarot deck, inherited from ancient Egypt, of which the French suit-signs are gross disfigurements. Neither author explains how the ones became the others, but there is no reason why they have to: some things are lost to history. What is important is that the tarot meanings carried over into the French suits, such that the former were the original. The reason is that while it is inexplicable in itself why tiles should represent the country, or three-leaf clovers money, a black leaf-shape misfortune, and a heart happiness, the tarot suit-signs make perfect sense: the four suits represented the four classes of Egyptian society: Cups for the priests, Swords for the nobility, Batons for the agricultural producers, and Coins for the merchants. If so, religion brings happiness, soldiers' swords bring misfortune, Coins bring wealth, and Sticks were caried by country people. To complete the parallel, I think it could be said that Sticks bring protection to country people.

Of course it could be argued that the same four classes existed in 18th century France. But for Decker the point is that the tarot suit-signs make sense for the meanings attached to them, while the French signs don't, at least in the case of Diamonds and Clubs, which in French are called Tiles and Clovers.  So even if Etteilla did not realize it at first, his piquet meanings derive from fortune-telling with the tarot deck. If so, his later assignment of those meanings to the tarot deck are simply a reconstruction of the original situation. These days, we are quite sure that the deck did not come from ancient Egypt. If not, Decker asks us to consider, where did his meanings come from? Decker notices that besides Egypt Etteilla often mentions "Cabala" as a source. That is something which, although obscure, was at least available, both in Hebrew and in Lain translations. But can such a source be found?

Decker observes that the number cards go from One to Ten. If so, it is a matter of finding a source that deals with this number. In fact, there are many Cabalist books that treat the first ten numbers in a symbolic fashion: they are associated with the ten sefiroth of the Tree of Life. This theory of course is not original with him: Eliphas Levi and the Golden Dawn said the same. However, they came up rather short as far as Hebrew sources from before the 19th century. 

Decker proposes one book in particular, the Gates of Light, available not only in Hebrew but in a "free" Latin translation (actually, an abridgement). The original was by Joseph Gikatilla in 14th century Spain and available in printed editions starting in late 15th century Italy; the translation was published in Augsburg in 1515, done by Paulus Riccius, an Italian Jew who converted to Roman Catholicism.  

  Decker says that someone in the early 18th century must have written down key words and phrases from the ten chapters of Gikatilla's book, translated them into some European language, and written them on the tarot number cards. Decker insists that the Hebrew edition would have been the primary source, because in some cases the correspondences he finds are with modern translations of biblical verses, based on the Hebrew, at variance with how the relevant verses were generally understood then, in the Vulgate and other translations. So whoever was taking notes understood "the subtleties of the Hebrew". He demonstrates his thesis by comparing the keywords that Etteilla gives for the number cards with the text of the English translation of Gates of Light and finding correspondences between specific words in both, 100% of the time.  

Of course now there is a problem of reconciling these meanings with the theory that the suit signs reflect the four suit signs of tarot as opposed to those of French suits. If they derive from Gikatilla, are they also distributed in terms of the four categories of happiness, misfortune, money, and the countryside? Did Gikatilla think in such terms, and the post-Renaissance Cabalists as well? If not, then there is no reason to prefer the tarot suits over the French ones. It is only necessary that the full deck of 52 cards be preferred over that of 32.

Decker's response is that there is no reason to think that the tarot suits reflect the four classes of society, Egyptian or any other. Instead, they must be looked at in Gikatilla's terms. The Batons are not peasants' staves but rather branches, which in Gikatilla represent duty and work, in other words, "material challenges"; the cups are Gikatilla's vessels, which confer "spiritual blessings"; swords represent what Gikatilla calls afflictions, i.e. "spiritual challenges"; and coins are in Gikatilla  blessings, specifically "material blessings". The result has a nice symmetry: the four suits are the four combinations of two dichotomies: challenges vs. blessings and spiritual vs. material. 

But are these categories really in Gikatilla? I made a searchable version of Gates of Light with which to examine every occurrence of "branch". Gikatilla speaks of the sefirot as branches on a tree. He speaks of a palm branch that is waved in a ritual. He speaks of someone being so angry he uproots a tree, roots, branches, and all. I do not see duty and work. I did not find "coin" at all in Gikatilla. For "vessel" Gikatilla speaks of a Babylonian priest pouring the contents of vessels into the mouth of an idol. Gikatilla also speaks of "sacred vessels" and "vessels for every kind of use" - so material as well as spiritual. For "cup", he mentions that God gives a cup of consolation and also one of poison, i.e. not just blessings but punishments, and not just sacraments but abominations.  Yes, swords are affliction, against the enemies of God, or else to induce sinners to return to God. However, even there it is not divided into spiritual and material or opposed to blessings.

 When we look at the actual words or concepts he finds in Gikatilla corresponding to the specific keywords in Etteilla, other problems arise. Those he finds in Gikatilla are typically not those of Etteilla but those added later by his followers, in particular d'Odoucet, whose "dictioanry of synonyms and related words" - including homonyms and antonyms - was reprinted by Papus in Le Tarot Divinatoire of 1909. (Thanks to archive.org, we can now verify that Papus's list is indeed that of d'Odoucet of around 1800.) So for the 4 of Cups, Etteilla has "ennui", boredom. D'Odoucet also lists "concern". Decker decides that when Gikatilla says that God "warns" humanity, that is a clear correspondence to Etteilla. I would observe also that Decker reports that Etteilla called d'Odoucet a "dodo", meaning by that not the extinct bird but an idiot, as if we were to call someone "goo-goo", imitating baby-talk.

Also, many of the words Decker links the keywords to are not very key to the sefirot, but occur in biblical quotes where the actual word identified has little relationship to the chapter's main ideas, typically ones  that Gikatella cites numerous times, in relation to several sefirot. In fact, as I found by producing a searchable version of Gates of Light on my computer, at least one of the "Etteilla" keywords for most of the number cards can be found in almost every chapter of the book, and so relating to almost every sefira. The "correspondences" are just too numerous to be meaningful.

Occasionally, none of the keywords occurs in the relevant chapter of Gates of Light, for example Etteilla"s keyword "critique" (which Decker translates as "crisis") for the 8 of Swords. In that case, Decker blithely substitutes a vaguely related word that does occur in the right chapter of Gikatilla, e.g. in this case "jealousy". These words are invariably common biblical words found in many chapters of Gikatilla's book.

It is possible that I am simply picking out extreme cases and that Decker's general thesis is correct more times than it is not. A more detailed examination of his comparisons is in order.

 ETTEILLA AND GIKATILLA, MORE THOROUGHLY 

I myself have done something similar to what Decker imagines some reader of Gates of Light having done; that is, I once took notes on the main points of each chapter in the form of keywords, to see if I could find any correspondences to trump cards (on the side at http://latinsefiroth.blogspot.com/searc ... results=13). I used the same English translation that Decker used and also the Latin edition of 1515; even though I don't know Latin, there is enough similarity to English and what I can look up to find corresponding phrases. Gikatilla himself seems to encourage such notes, or so it appears in the Latin version, in which key words are presented in Hebrew as well as Latin and capitalized. It is not hard to imagine someone, Christian or Jewish, using the Latin or Hebrew as a source of words to write down on a playing card with the same number as the sefira in question. 

Below, I have first put Decker's characterization of Gikatilla. Then I put a summary of my notes on Gikatilla (see the chapter headings at the side on my blog . Then come the actual Etteilla keywords, taken from the 3rd Cahier and Etteilla's first cards; sometimes they are different, in which case I put both, separated by the sign //.

Malkuth: Decker has "community (place and governance), kingdom". My notes have: kingdom; rich when Israel is righteous, or meager when not; expelled and returned; sphere that governs all creatures, gives life and death, bequeaths and enriches, brings low and exalts, makes sick and heals; tabernacle. merciful judgment; well; container.
...Swords..........................Batons
10 Pleurs (Tears)/Avantage//Evènement fâcheux, qui tournera à profit (Unfortunate event that turns to advantage).........Trahison (Betrayal)/Barres (Bars)//Obstacle
...Cups......Coins
La ville où l’on est (The city where one is)/Pret à perdre (Prepared to lose)//Courroux (Anger).....La maison (House)/Loterie

Conclusion: it is possible to relate all of these to Malkuth, as the ups and downs of Israel, its testing - (tears, unfortunate event, betrayal, obstacle, lose, anger)  - and blessing (advantage). Even then, the concepts are different. Malkuth is kingdom and community; "city" does appear once, but only as Jerusalem. "Obstacle" is mentioned, but only in a general way, applying to the general project of ascending the tree. "House" appears once as "House of God", but "tabernacle" appears four times. The Christian equivalent would be "church", not "house". Tears are mentioned only once, compared to six in Yesod. Anger is mentioned only once, but not from Malkuth but from higher up, the left side of the Tree. Losing is not mentioned at all.  I see at most a 3/8ths correlation between Etteilla and Gikatilla.

Yesod: Decker has "individuality (self and circumstances); foundation". My notes: foundation, covenant, circumcision, links Malkuth with upper sefirot, redeeming angel, righteous one, giving justice or care which Malkuth receives.
......Swords................................................................................................................Batons
9 Ecclesiastique/Se défier, ou Juste défiance (Be wary, or justifiable wariness)......Retard (Delay)/Traverses (Crossings)//Obstacles
.....Cups.......................Coins
Victoire/Sincérité.........Effet (Appearance)/Duperie (Deception)

Conclusion: There is nothing corresponding precisely to "ecclesiastic" in Gikatilla. Even "priest" is used only once, compared to ten times discussing Malkuth. The proper word here is "righteous". Nothing about wariness, victory, delay, obstacles, victory, or appearance. Deceit is mentioned once, as that which righteousness can make up for. So at most 1/4 Gikatilla is in Etteilla.

Hod: Decker has "Place of Counsel; honor". My notes: honor, praise, majesty: carries out decisions from Gevurah, agent of severity. Wages war, destruction, accepts praise, prayers, submission (from below), affords counsel with higher powers; place of prophecy.
...Swords....Batons
8 Maladie dit de N. (Illness said of N.) Critique//Trahison passée (Past betrayal)//Incident......Partie de Campagne (Party in the Country)//Campagne (Country, Campaign)/Disputes Intestine (Internecine disputes)
..Cups.........................,,,.................................Coins
Fille blonde (blond girl)/Fêtes, Gaieté.............Fille brune/Usure (Usury)//Plus (More)

Conclusion: "Disputes" perhaps fits Gikatilla's emphasis on war and destruction, and "campagne" in the sense of military campaign, but that was not likely Etteilla's original thought, if batons are the suit of the countryside. "Illness" can be included in destruction. Otherwise, Etteilla's meanings seem unrelated to Gikatilla. So 1/4.

Netzach: Decker has "place of counsel; victory". My notes: victory; place to direct prayers for mercy; place of counsel; unmerited benefits; positive decrees; luck; nurturing of prophecy; grace of Abraham.
...Swords.................................................Batons
7 Esperance (Hope)/Sage(s) Avis..........Caquets (Prattle)//Pour Parler (for speaking, negotiations)/Indécision
...Cups........................................................Coins
La pensée (thought)/Projets (Plans)..........Argent (Money)/Inquiétudes (Anxieties)

Conclusion: these, to the extent they are positive, fit in a vague sort of way.: 1/2 . 

 
Tifereth. Decker has "central to time and space". My notes: glory or beauty; combines judgment and mercy; awesome and horrible; delivers positive and negative decrees.
......Swords...........................Batons
6 Envoyé, Commissionaire (Envoy, Messenger)/Route/Déclaration d’amour// Declaration..........................Domestique (servant)/Attente (waiting)
.....Cups............................................Coins
Le passé/L'avenir (the future)..........Le présent (the present) /Ambitions

Conclusion: swords and batons fit vaguely, in relation to "delivers decrees", so 1/4. Decker's "time and space" is not in Gikatilla at all.

Gevurah. Decker has "heavenly court, judgment". My notes: judge; fear, severe judgment, based on merit; informants and prosecutors; place of destructive angels; emits flames of fire; destructive beasts.
......Swords.....................................Batons
5 Perte (Loss)/Deuil (Grief)...........Or (Gold)/Procès (Trial, Court Case)
.....Cups....................................................................................................Coins
Héritage (Inheritance)/Faux projets (Flawed or bogus plans)//Parent.....Amant ou Maitresse (Lover)/Manque d'ordre (lack of order)

Conclusion: Gold, inheritance, and lovers don't fit. So about 5/8 appropriate.

Chesed. Decker has "heavenly court; mercy". My notes: grace, mercy, loving-kindness, positive commandments, magnificence, granting exceptions, long-forebearing,
......Swords.......................................................Batons
4 Solitude/Economie (wise administration).....Société (Company, Organization)/ Fleurissement (Flourishing)//Prosperité
.....Cups...................................................................................................Coins
Ennui/Nouvelle connaissance (New acquaintance or knowledge).........C’est un présent (It's a gift)/Clôture (Closure, Closed, Enclosure, stuck)

Conclusion: Solitude, organization, boredom, new acquaintance, closure don't fit, so about 50%.

Binah. Decker has "Path of Love; understanding." My notes: providence, foresight, source of life, repentance and return, highest source of justice, atonement, city of David, gate to upper triad.
.....Swords..........................................Batons
3 Religieuse (Nun)//Eloignement (Separation)/Effet égaré (Appearing lost or confused)//Egarement (Misconduct, lost)) ..........Enterprises/ Peine court à sa fin (Trouble shortly to end)
.....Cups.........................................................................................................Coins
Réussite (success)/Expédition d’affaires (expedition of business)...............Noblesse/Enfant (Child)

Conclusion: Nun, trouble shortly to end, success, expedition of business, nobility, so 5/8ths.

Hochma. Decker has "Path of Love; wisdom". My notes: wisdom, deep thoughts, will, fear of unworthiness, pleasure, "whoever reaches this place will be able to do or have whatever he desires", source of river that is Binah
......Swords.........................................................................Batons
2 Amitie (Friendship)/Amis inutiles ou faux amis, ou parents peu utiles (Unhelpful or False Friends or Relatives of Little Help)//Faux (False)..............Chagrin (Sorrow)/Surprise
.....Cups....................................Coins
Amour/Désir ............................Embarrass (Embarrassment)/Lettre (letter, note, document)

Conclusion: Not much; certainly "love", which occurs numerous times), perhaps also "friedship." so about 25%.

Kether. Decker has "supreme sefira; crown". My notes: source of sources, beyond thought, joy and rejoicing, pure mercy, source of light.
......Swords......................................................................................................Batons
1 Amour Folle (Crazy Love)//Extrème/Grossesse (Pregnancy, fecundity).....Naissance (Birth)/Se défier de la première victoire (Distrust the first victory)//Chute (Fall)
.....Cups.......................................................................Coins
Table (as in Gastronomy)/Changement (Change)......Parfait contentement (perfect contentment)/Bourse d'argent (purse of money)

Conclusion: Certainly pregnancy, birth, contentment, so about 3/8ths.

Average:  Total 29/8 = 3.6. Over 10, that is an average of .36. I have no idea whether this is higher than chance or not. It is not a strong correlation, considering that in most cases the correlation is just in the sentiment rather than in specific words. It may be from influences that affected both Gikatilla and Etteilla, such as a common Pythagorean background, which was very much part of the Neoplatonic foundation of Kabbalah (according to what I read in Moshe Idel, Kabbalah in Italy 1280-1510). 

The words on the cards and those added by Etteilla's followers fit slightly better than Etteilla's in the 3rd Cahier. That suggests to me that he and his followers might have tried to fit what was not originally Kabbalist into a Kabbalist framework later, as Decker does suggest; but it is not to the degree that he contends.

My feeling is and has been that the source for the cartomantic tradition which Etteilla is reporting for the number cards is mainly Neopythagorean. When Etteilla said at one point that his source was a "Greek manuscript", he might have meant the edition, in Greek, of the Theologumena Arithmeticae printed in Paris in 1543; after all, he was a dealer in printed material acquired in bulk; but he would have known its contents only vaguely and second or third hand. The associations in this text seem to me reflected in the cards as early as the pips of the Sola-Busca (which are only superficially alchemical). I  started working this out at in the Tarot History Forum thread "Deciphering the Sola-Busca pips", starting at viewtopic.php?f=12&t=530.  At that point, I didn't have the information from the 3rd Cahier; nor did I use other Pythagorean sources, such as the ones that Decker applied--correctly in my view--to the trumps. I have since related the Sola-Busca more systematically to Etteilla and Pythagoreanism at https://neopythagoreanisminthetrot.blogspot.com/.

The odd thing is that while Gikatilla does not fit the number cards as well as they should, his account of the sefirot does seem to fit the Tarot de Marseille trumps--a view Decker explicitly rejects. The Bagatella, as creator god with the four elements on his table, fits Kether. The Popess, as wisdom, fits Hochmah. The Empress as understanding mother fits Binah. The Emperor as pardoner, i.e. mercy over justice, fits Chesed. The Pope as severe judgment, justice according to merit with Purgatory for sinners, fits Gevurah. The Lover as beauty and glory, balancing severity and love, fits Tifereth. The Chariot as Victory and all things positive fits Netzach. Justice as submission to the sword of judgment fits Hod. The Hermit as redeeming angel and commitment to God fits Yesod. The Wheel as the bringer of good and evil to God's community fits Malkuth. Papus made these observations in Tarot of the Bohemians, and he was right.

Papus did not go any further. But Fortitude, as what is needed in the face of adversity, fits Malkuth as the community of Israel. The Hanged Man as a betrayer does not fit Yesod; but it seems to me that it does fit Yesod as righteousness in the face of institutions that betray the common good. The father of Francesco Sforza, who probably commissioned our earliest example of a deck with a Hanged Man, the PMB, was Muzio Attendola, whose switch from the Roman anti-pope to the claimant in Avignon - an act that contributed to resolving the schism- occasioned the anti-pope to denounce him as a traitor and plaster Rome with posters of him hanged upside down, the traditional symbol for betrayal. (For the story, see Moakley on the card at http://moakleyupdated.blogspot.com/2017/03/coins-hunchback-through-tower-g-moakley.html. Another example is Christ's betrayal of institutionalized Judaism, the Sanhedrin, his blood sacrifice as an act of redemption substituting for circumcision and a new covenant, so a kind of Christianization of Kabbalah. Death is the destructive power of Hod. Temperance (Fame in Alcioto) is the positive antidote to Death, liberation from the physical body into a new, etheric body that can ascend. The Devil card corresponds to the demons of the air, which are both positive and negative, both bearing the soul up and punishing. The Arrow of Lightning is the purifying fire of Gevurah's judgment. The Star (of Christ in the tarot) corresponds to Beatrice's merciful love in the Purgatorio, where Dante's soul is given purifying water by the nymph Mathilde. The Moon is where that water comes from (the lake on the card), and so Binah, the river that flows below. The Sun is the higher destination, beyond the Moon, where the spirit comes from. The Trumpet is the act of approaching the goal, in ever increasing joy, and so corresponds to Kether. The World is the oblivion of the individual spirit as it merges with the spirit-substance beyond every particularity, the En Sof.

But of course this has nothing to do with Etteilla, whose order of trumps is altogether different. At present I have no one theory as to why the correspondences to the Tarot de Marseille work. The particular order of that tradition may have been chosen with the sefirot in mind; but the two sets of subjects must have been at least close in meaning before that. Perhaps it is a matter of Christian and Jewish steps on the "mystical ladder" to salvation being roughly similar, and both similar to Greco-Roman mystical traditions.

A danger when making correspondences is of making them so loose that something will work no matter how you draw them. But I tried many other combinations, none of which worked, before I realized that the "tree of life" going first down and then up was what fit the TdM order best, even if some of it is strained. It is as though the order were tweaked so as to make it fit. A certain subjectivity enters in no matter how hard you try to keep it out; so it would be useful to know other people's impressions, especially for the last 11, where I go where even Papus feared to tread.

The same seems to me true of the correspondences between the Neopythagorean meanings of the number cards from 1 to 10 and the Etteilla meanings. They, unlike Decker's use of the Gates of Light, fit all the sefirot, and at the same time it is not possible to draw similarly credible correspondences between Neopythagorean meanings for a particular number and the corresponding Etteilla meanings for some other set of four number cards (for each of the four suits). I noticed this while working out the parallels; occasionally they wouldn't work at all. When I investigated further, I invariably discovered that I had pulled one or another set of meanings from the wrong number. 

Here I think we have to realize that cartomancy with the regular deck alone was practiced at least as often as with the allegorical cards. In that case, the majority of the cards were number cards, with very little to differentiate them except their number and suit. In this situation, numerological associations become primary in a given suit. Numerological distinctions can also apply to the court cards, based on their order in most card games: Jack/Page, Knight, Queen, King. Then, when numbers are put on the allegorical cards, in a place such as France where the order is the same everywhere, the same associations that worked for the number cards can work for the allegorical cards, at least up to 10. After 10, there are several possibilities: counting back down to 0, as I have found most natural, repeating the numbers from 1 to 10 over again, or using gematria, which has the effect of reducing 11 to 2, etc. In any case, it is the commonality of the numbers to every card that gives numerology such prominence. 

CONCLUSION 

Perhaps some concluding words are in order. While Decker was stimulating to read and argue with everywhere, I found him most helpful in two areas:  his application of Horapollo, along with other Egyptian-oriented Greek and Latin sources; and that of numerology, which, unlike many such applications, is not made up to suit the writer's fancy. 

In the symbolism attached to the cards, it seems to me that Christian and folk numerology also would have played a role. In the early tarot, the only trumps (major arcana) that had the same number everywhere were the Bagatella (Magician) at 1, the Hanged Man at 12, and Death at 13. The Hanged Man, early on called the Traitor, was associated with Judas, considered the 12th disciple in all the gospel lists. It may be that Death was 13 to indicate that the man of 12 was on the point of death; or there were inauspicious associations from one source or another. There is good reason to associate the number 1 with the Bagatella: as a thing of little value, as the sinful deceiver who must climb the mystical ladder, or as the creator-god of lives in a game of cards, laying out individual combinations, advantageous and not, in terms of the four types of objects on his table and the special teachings hidden under his straw hat (in the Visconti-Sforza, at left) or in his purse (the Chosson, at right). 

The symbolism of other numbers fits the Tarot of Marseille order best. I do not think that this is because the Tarot of Marseille order was the original one, but more that the order was adjusted so as to fit the numerological associations. There is simply too much deviation between the appearance of the early cards and their Marseille versions to suppose that the details attended to were in any early version of the deck. The numerology as well as the Egyptian lor would have been added as the result of suggestions from esotericists, the same as occurs quite consciously in new versions of the old themes in modern times. Today, fortunately, it is no longer deemed necessary to insist that these new versions are "restorations" of themes "originally" present but then obscured over time. Invention is as honorable as discovery, if it makes the cards useful for psychological insight or wise advice in the conduct of life.