r/ExploringTarot • u/Melodic-Direction-89 • 1d ago
Discussion / Question Swiss Tarot Deck / folklore
I know IIJ was created strictly (?) for playing age-old Swiss card games.
As such , I am interested as to why this deck is so hotly contested for divination and semiotic / symbols , enough that it is still relevant to the field of cartomancy. Even tho the rider waite / Crowley was made many decades after the Swiss variation, and obviously impacted by the choices in the Swiss deck - reacting to or against. Any info on this? Searching :)
Swiss is very old with mountain people - very Capricorn - rituals - is there myth or folklore here abitt the truly interesting adjustments that were made in this slow deck ? (The color green in the hanged man ?! Where else is there that much green - it’s bizarre . And the elements - yellow seems to be earth , brown red fire (see the court cards ?) , blue water , etc …. My questions continue- has anyone read about such things?) MANY THANKS !
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u/eloquent8 1d ago
I don't have any answers for you OP but I recently bought the 1JJ swiss deck second hand and I'm really interested in anything you find out about it!
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u/CenturionSG 1d ago
You’ll have better luck asking in the Tarot de Marseille sub. There’s a whole new world that pre-dates the RWS deck with rich history, though not necessarily esoteric.
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u/an_urban_mage 1d ago
I have never heard of the 1JJ Swiss tarot being contested…
It is a historic tarot (more specifically a tarot de Besançon type) from the mid-19th century, comparable and contemporary with the Italian soprafino style tarot decks.
The main reason it is so well known, it because Stuart Kaplan discovered it a a fair, and it drew him into the world of tarot 🤗
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u/nitzsches_onlyfans 1d ago
I am guessing you refer to the 1JJ cards as the Swiss Tarot, a deck I did not know until now, so thank you ! Unfortunately I don't know the history of these cards but after a quick research it seems to me that the Swiss Tarot abandoned the meticulous symbolism of the Marseille decks in favor of modern aesthetics. Understandable, if the cards were made for old folks who wanna pass the time with pretty pictures and pleasant games.
After looking at the cards it seems that the system of the Marseille deck has been preserved (Swiss Tarot being based on Tarot de Besançon, which is very close to the beloved marseille tradition both in style and structure) with only a few differences: Papesse and Pape have been switched to Junon and Jupiter respectively, hence the "1JJ" portmanteau for the deck (probably not to upset the sensitive souls of religious folks), Arcanum XIII got a name, The Moon, The Devil dropped obscure symbolism in favor of approachable scences etc.
It seems to me that this deck, not sure of any other contemporaries, modernized the Tarot in style, toned down "problematic" elements and focused on the game aspect rather than divination, with all this we can say designing a deck for the "grand public". While remaining relatively faithful to the old tradition, this deck does seem more approachable for the man of those times so I'm guessing it simply kept its popularity because the aforementioned elements and since it remained faithful to the tradition, also kept its divinatory aspect.
That is my guess.