Etteilla
An eighteenth century student of the Tarot. By profession he was a barber, his true name being Alliette; but on entering upon his occult labours he read it backwards, after the Hebrew fashion-Eteilla. He had but little education, and was ill acquainted with the philosophy of the initiates. Nevertheless he possessed a profound intuition, and, if we believe Eliphas Levi, came very near to unveiling the secrets of the Tarot. Of his writings Levi says that they are obscure, wearisome, and in style barbarous." He claimed to have revised the Book of Thot, but in reality he spoilt it, regarding as blunders certain cards whose meaning he had failed to grasp. It is commonly admitted that he failed in his attempt to elucidate the Tarot, and ended by transposing the keys, thus destroying the correspondence between the numbers and the signs. It has also been said of him that he had degraded the science of the Tarot into the cartomancy, or fortune-telling by cards, of the vulgar.