Queen of Tarot

The ancient wisdom of the cards

Judgement Tarot Card Meaning and Art Court de Gebelin Trumps

Designation

Judgement

About the Deck

Court de Gebelin Trumps

Drawn by Court de Gebelin in attempt to show that the Tarot was Egyptian in origin, these cards represent the height of circular logic. They are far more eighteenth-century than they are Egyptian, and in any case they are basically a reproduction of the far older Marseilles pattern tarot deck, with some ideological changes to help him prove his own point.

Provenance

Court de Gebelin. France, 1781.

Tags

trumps-20, judgement

According to Many Schools of Thought

A. E. Waite's Secondary Meanings

The Last judgment. I have spoken of this symbol already, the form of which is essentially invariable, even in the Etteilla set. An angel sounds his trumpet per sepulchra regionum, and the dead arise. It matters little that Etteilla omits the angel, or that Dr. Papus substitutes a ridiculous figure, which is, however, in consonance with the general motive of that Tarot set which accompanies his latest work. Before rejecting the transparent interpretation of the symbolism which is conveyed by the name of the card and by the picture which it presents to the eye, we should feel very sure of our ground. On the surface, at least, it is and can be only the resurrection of that triad--father, mother, child-whom we have met with already in the eighth card. M. Bourgeat hazards the suggestion that esoterically it is the symbol of evolution--of which it carries none of the signs. Others say that it signifies renewal, which is obvious enough; that it is the triad of human life; that it is the "generative force of the earth... and eternal life." Court de Gebelin makes himself impossible as usual, and points out that if the grave-stones were removed it could be accepted as a symbol of creation.

S. L. MacGregor Mathers's Divinatory Meanings

Upright

Renewal, Result, Determination of a Matter

Reversed

Postponement of Result, Delay, Matter re-opened later.

Papus's Divinatory Meanings

Change of Position.