Famous tarot readers quiz: from Etteilla to today
A quiz on the people who shaped tarot as we know it: Etteilla, Papus, Oswald Wirth, Eden Gray, Rachel Pollack, Mary K. Greer and Alejandro Jodorowsky.
- 5 questions
- ≈ 2 min
- +5 bronze keys for a flawless run
Who are the famous tarot readers?
This quiz checks whether you know the people who turned tarot from a card game into a language of self-reflection. The first professional tarot reader is usually said to be the Parisian Jean-Baptiste Alliette. Writing as Etteilla, he published guides to reading tarot in the 1780s and created one of the first decks made specifically for divination. He is also credited with giving cards separate upright and reversed meanings.
In the late nineteenth century French occultists made tarot into a system of symbols. The physician Gérard Encausse, known as Papus, wrote The Tarot of the Bohemians, and the Swiss artist Oswald Wirth drew 22 Major Arcana in the Marseille spirit in 1889. Their books were later translated across Europe.
Who made tarot accessible in the 20th century?
In the second half of the twentieth century tarot moved out of closed circles and into the hands of ordinary readers. Eden Gray, a former actress, wrote clear and simple guides in the 1960s that thousands of Americans learned from. Rachel Pollack's Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom of 1980 presented the deck as a path of growth, and she also wrote comics for DC. Mary K. Greer's Tarot for Yourself of 1984 suggested reading the cards first of all for yourself, as a way of self-discovery.
The film director Alejandro Jodorowsky gave free tarot readings in a Paris café for decades, treating the cards as a tool for conversation rather than prediction. Liz Greene and Juliet Sharman-Burke linked the arcana to Greek myths in The Mythic Tarot.
How the quiz works
Each run draws five questions from a pool of twelve: names, books, decks and surprising facts from readers' lives. Each answer comes with an explanation, and the run ends with a full review. A flawless run earns Tayna keys. Many ideas behind modern card reading were born with these people, so the quiz is a good way to learn where they came from.
All questions and answers
Open after you play: the full question set with right answers and explanations.
1. Where did the pen name Etteilla come from?
Right answer: Alliette spelled backward
Jean-Baptiste Alliette simply reversed his own surname: Alliette became Etteilla.
2. Separate reversed card meanings were already known at the Visconti court.
Right answer: Myth
A game had no use for them. Etteilla is credited with giving cards separate upright and reversed meanings.
3. What was the real name of the French occultist Papus?
Right answer: Gérard Encausse
Papus was the physician Gérard Encausse. Alphonse Louis Constant was Éliphas Lévi's real name.
4. How many cards were in Oswald Wirth's 1889 deck?
Right answer: 22
Wirth drew only the 22 Major Arcana in the Marseille spirit, with no suits.
5. Whose plain-spoken 1960s books made tarot popular in the US?
Right answer: Eden Gray
Former actress Eden Gray wrote clear guidebooks, and a whole generation of Americans learned from them.
6. Rachel Pollack wrote comics for DC as well as books on tarot.
Right answer: True
In the 1990s she wrote Doom Patrol, and her tarot books are still in print.
7. What did Etteilla give fortune-tellers in the 1780s?
Right answer: A deck for divination
He published guides and one of the first decks made specifically for divination rather than play.
8. For decades a film director gave free tarot readings in a Paris café. Who?
Right answer: Alejandro Jodorowsky
Jodorowsky saw the cards as a way to talk with people and never charged for a reading.
9. Who wrote the classic book Seventy-Eight Degrees of Wisdom?
Right answer: Rachel Pollack
Rachel Pollack's 1980 book reads the deck as a path of growth and is still a classic.
10. Where does Mary K. Greer suggest starting in Tarot for Yourself?
Right answer: Readings for yourself
Greer suggested reading the cards first of all for yourself, as a way to understand your own life.
11. Which order did Papus help found in 1891?
Right answer: The Martinist Order
Papus was a founder of the Martinist Order. The Golden Dawn was founded in London by others.
12. What do the arcana of Liz Greene and Sharman-Burke's Mythic Tarot show?
Right answer: Greek myths
In this 1986 deck every Major Arcanum is a scene from a Greek myth, familiar from school and museums.