Most Noted For:

• Initiated the interpretation of the Tarot as an arcane repository of timeless esoteric wisdom, in an essay included in his "Le Monde Primitif, analysé et comparé avec le monde moderne" ("The Primitive World, Analyzed and Compared to the Modern World"). The chapter on Tarot, with which his name is indelibly associated, is a single section in his vast compendium that he published in series from 1773, to a distinguished list of subscribers, headed by Louis XVI.
• In Paris, he was initiated into Freemasonry at the lodge Les Amis Réunis, in 1771, and moved on to the lodge Les Neuf Sœurs where he welcomed Benjamin Franklin as a lodge-brother.
• He was a supporter of American Independence.
• He was an advocate for freedom of conscience in Enlightenment.
• He is sometimes referred to as the "intellectual grandfather of much of modern occultism."

• With regard to mythology and symbology, he discussed the origins of allegory in antiquity and recreated a history of the calendar from civil, religious, and mythological perspectives.
• It was his immediate perception, the first time he saw the Tarot deck, that it held the secrets of the Egyptians.
• In 1781 Antoine Court de Gébelin wrote a speculative history and a detailed system for using Tarot for divination. Since the publication of this history, various explanations have been given for the origins of Tarot. (There is no evidence for any Tarot cards prior to the hand-painted ones that were used by Italian nobles, though some esoteric schools place Tarot's origin in Ancient Egypt, or Ancient India).
• His great project had for its goal to reconstruct the high primeval civilization.
• Reinterpreting Classical and Renaissance evocation of the Golden Age in mankind's early history, Court de Gébelin asserted that the primitive worldwide civilization had been advanced and enlightened.

• His centers of focus were the familiar ones of universal origins of languages in deep time and the hermeneutics of symbolism.
• Court de Gébelin presented dictionaries of Etymology, what he called a universal grammar, and discourses on the origins of language. His volumes were so popular he republished them separately.
• Writing without the benefit of Champollion's deciphering of the Egyptian language, Court de Gébelin's developed reconstruction of Tarot history, was that Egyptian priests had distilled the ancient "Book of Thoth" into the images. He asserted they were brought to Rome, where they were secretly known to the Popes, who brought them to Avignon in the 14th century, where they were later introduced into France.
• An essay by The Comte de Mellet included in Court de Gébelin's Monde Primitif is responsible for the mystical connection of the Tarot's Major Arcana with the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet. An essay, appended to his, gave suggestions for Cartomancy; within two years the fortune-teller known as "Etteilla" published a technique for reading the Tarot, and the practice of Tarot reading was born.

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