Two Esoteric Tarots
A conversation between Peter Mark Adams and Christophe Poncet on the esoteric tarot, in relation to the elite and Saturnian Sola-Busca tarocchi and the popular and luminous Tarot de Marseille. The two leading researchers into the hidden legacy of the tarot discuss the significance of their discoveries, which overturn the prevailing academic orthodoxy, and in doing so transform our understanding of the role of tarot in Western esotericism.
Royal 8vo (234 × 156 mm)
128 pp
Illustrated throughout in colour
Issued in 3 editions –
fine / standard hardback / digital
Fine edition
– £325
Limited to 40 copies
Hand-bound in Seville orange goatskin and black silk, marbled endpapers, all edges gilt, finished with a silk ribbon and presented in a slipcase.
Standard hardback edition
– £30
Limited to 800 copies
Bound in mandarin cloth stamped in gold, black endpapers. Printed in colour on premium 150 gsm paper.
Contents
Foreword
i Two journeys into the tarot
ii Occult, esoteric and performative
iii Decoding the Sola-Busca
iv How the tarot became esoteric
v Of libertine aesthetics: the grotesque and the abject
vi The Hellenistic revolution and the second renaissance
vii Tarot designers
viii The Dummett-Yates controversy
ix Cyphers and time
x The seven planets
xi Orality, writing and the art of memory
xii The esoteric call
Bibliography
Description
Two Esoteric Tarots is the record of a fascinating conversation between Peter Mark Adams and Christophe Poncet, convened and with a foreword by César Pedreros. They compare their journeys of discovery into two wildly contrasting tarot decks, the dark ritual landscape of the elite Sola-Busca tarocchi, as revealed in The Game of Saturn, and the luminous and popular Tarot de Marseille, the subject of the forthcoming Tarot of Marsilio.
Scholarly research has firmly maintained that the tarot had no spiritual, esoteric or divinatory dimension before the mid-eighteenth century. However, working independently, Peter Mark Adams and Christophe Poncet have shattered that consensus with their original research, providing abundant evidence that pushes back the date of an esoteric tradition – concealed in plain sight – by almost three centuries.
Readers of The Game of Saturn will find Peter Mark Adams’ most recent thinking here, as he decodes the ritual grammar of a performative theurgy which encompasses the grotesque, the abject and the antinomian in service of a draconian deity and Renaissance statecraft.
Parallel to this, Christophe Poncet discovered Platonic philosophy embedded in the imagery and construction of the Tarot de Marseille. A revelation which propelled him into a profound investigation, unearthing connections between the Florentine aristocracy, the Medici family, Marsilio Ficino, Botticelli, and the heretical philosophical underpinnings of the Italian Renaissance.
When brought into dialogue, Adams and Poncet’s insights converge, to illuminate and fundamentally change our understanding of the tarot, and the submerged currents of the Renaissance, both dark and light, which formed Western esotericism.
A benchmark text for students of the tarot, symbolism, theurgy and performative ritual from two of the leading researchers into the hidden legacy of the tarot.
Press, interviews, reviews
Exploring the tarot’s hidden history Review by Denis Poisson of Foolish Fish
Two Esoteric Tarots Review by Mark Hewitt on Paralibrum
Two Esoteric Tarots Review by Nicolas Lecerf for Via Hygeia
“A remarkably well-written, researched and argued book ... the work of both authors raises the bar for the research on the tarot & its history. A work that cannot be ignored.”
“The polysemous imagery occulted in these decks is now, thanks to both Adams and Poncet and their Tartarus-deep research, available for a wider audience to interrogate. This conjunction between Adams and Poncet provides a comparative utility between two strands of classically inspired, and deeply heterodox Renaissance thought.”
