French Enlightenment

Uh, he basically said, "Complete understanding depends upon freedom from misunderstood words." And in saying that, he was really echoing the Founding Fathers and the century of Influences that preceded them.

In other words, the French, the English, the Scottish, and the American ages of reason or enlightenment, where they kept beating the drum about the need to clarify your terms.

Um, and I've got a nice quote here from John Locke, which I'm gonna read.

And this was 1690 he said this, "The greatest part of disputes were more about the signification," meaning the correct meaning of words, "than a real difference in the conception of things," meaning what they thought of the subject itself.

And in saying that, He was really echoing the founding fathers and the century of influences that preceded them.

In other words, the French, the English, the Scottish, and the American ages of reason or enlightenment.

where they kept beating the drum about the need to clarify your terms.

And I've got a nice quote here from John Locke, which I'm going to read.

to see the future or to prophesize something.

We don't see tarot really called a divination tool until we get to the French Enlightenment period, which is around 1750 to 1780.

And there is a name I want to introduce you to.

that I learned when I was at the exhibition at the Morgan Library, and that is Jean-Baptiste Aliette, who wrote under the pseudonym Atelier.

I think that's how you pronounce it.

Excuse my French.

He was responsible for, in the 1780s, for really... calling tarot divination he is the one mapping out the most infamous cards and the symbols that we see that is most notably on the rider wade deck which people think is you know the oldest tarot deck and it's not he is the one putting together these symbols like the wheel of fortune and saying this is a divination tool and this is what these signs and symbols represent So he's taking signs and symbols from the Visconti Sforza.

He's taking symbols from ancient Egypt and he's really putting together a divination piece and saying, no, we can use cards.