What is 'The Tarot of the Bohemians' by Papus?

A leather-bound copy sits on a desk in a lamplit room. The spine is cracked, the pages foxed with age. The owner, a student of the occult, traces the Hebrew letters assigned to the Fool. This is not a book of fortune-telling. It is a key. “The Tarot of the Bohemians” (1889) by Papus is the first systematic attempt to decode the tarot as a complete esoteric alphabet, linking each of the 22 Major Arcana to Kabbalistic sephiroth, astrological planets, and alchemical processes. For more than a century, it has been the foundational reference for anyone who wants to read the tarot as a philosophical and mystical system rather than a divination deck.

What “The Tarot of the Bohemians” Actually Is

The Tarot of the Bohemians (French: Le Tarot des Bohémiens) is a book by Gérard Encausse, writing under the pen name Papus. Published in 1889, it presents the tarot as a living codex of ancient wisdom, transmitted by the Romani people (the “Bohemians” of the title) from the priestly traditions of Egypt. The book argues that the 22 Major Arcana form a complete symbolic language that can be read on four levels: the physical, the intellectual, the moral, and the spiritual. It is not a manual for reading cards for clients. It is a treatise on how the universe is structured.

Where the Book Came From: The French Occult Revival

Papus was born in 1865 in Spain to a French father and a Spanish mother, but he made his name in Paris. The 1880s were a fertile time for French occultism. Eliphas Lévi had died in 1875, but his works on magic and the tarot were still circulating in small editions. Theosophy was gaining traction. Secret societies such as the Martinist Order and the Kabbalistic Order of the Rose-Cross were forming. Papus, a trained physician, became the central figure of this revival.

He wrote The Tarot of the Bohemians as the first volume of a planned series called “The Absolute Key to Occult Science.” The series would eventually include works on the Kabbalah, astrology, and magic. The book was published in 1889 by the Librairie Hermétique in Paris. An English translation by A.P. Morton appeared in 1896, published by the Theosophical Publishing Society in London.

The title refers to the Romani people, whom Papus believed were the carriers of the original Egyptian tarot. Modern scholarship rejects this claim, but for Papus and his contemporaries, the idea was compelling. The Romani were seen as wanderers preserving a secret tradition, and the tarot was their portable temple.

Why “The 22 Keys”? How Papus Mapped the Major Arcana

The core of the book is a detailed correspondence table. Each of the 22 Major Arcana is assigned a Hebrew letter, a number on the Kabbalistic Tree of Life (the sephiroth), an astrological planet or sign, and an alchemical element. Papus used the numbering system of the Tarot of Marseilles, which places the Fool as 0, the Magician as 1, and so on.

For example, the Magician (1) is linked to the first Hebrew letter Aleph, the element Air, and the planet Mercury. The High Priestess (2) is Beth, the Moon, and the path between Kether and Chokmah on the Tree of Life. The Wheel of Fortune (10) is Kaph, Jupiter, and the path between Netzach and Hod. Each card becomes a node in a vast network of correspondences.

The book includes diagrams of the Tree of Life with the cards placed on the paths. The reader is expected to memorize these relationships. Papus wrote that the tarot is “a book whose pages are the 78 cards, and whose alphabet is the 22 trumps.” Once you understand the alphabet, you can read the book.

A Book of Systems, Not Predictions

The Tarot of the Bohemians is not a divination manual. It contains no instructions for spreads, no interpretations of reversed cards, no advice on how to read for a client. Instead, it offers a method for meditating on the cards as keys to universal principles.

A typical page describes the symbolism of a card in terms of the four levels. The physical level corresponds to the literal image. The intellectual level corresponds to the idea behind the image. The moral level corresponds to the ethical lesson. The spiritual level corresponds to the divine archetype. The practitioner is meant to move through these levels in sequence, using the card as a ladder between the material and the divine.

Modern practitioners still use the book this way. We keep a copy open on the desk while studying the Major Arcana, tracing the Hebrew letters, and mapping the cards to the Tree of Life. The book is often used in conjunction with a physical deck, but the deck is secondary. The system comes first.

Papus and Lévi: The Debt to the Master

Papus built directly on the work of Eliphas Lévi, who had earlier connected the 22 Major Arcana to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet in his book Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magie (1856). Lévi had also proposed the idea of the tarot as a universal key, but his treatment was scattered across several books. Papus systematized it.

The difference is one of method. Lévi wrote in a poetic, often cryptic style. Papus wrote as a teacher, with tables, diagrams, and numbered lists. He wanted the system to be teachable. The Tarot of the Bohemians reads like a textbook for a correspondence course, which is exactly what it later became when Papus founded the Martinist Order.

A later comparison is with Arthur Edward Waite. Waite’s The Pictorial Key to the Tarot (1910) was explicitly designed to accompany the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which Waite had commissioned. Waite revised the images of the Minor Arcana, adding scenes that made the cards easier to read. Papus, by contrast, was working with the Tarot of Marseilles, which has abstract pip cards for the Minor Arcana. He devoted almost no space to the Minor Arcana, focusing exclusively on the 22 trumps. The two books serve different purposes. Waite’s is for reading. Papus’s is for understanding.

What Readers Often Get Wrong

The most common misconception is that The Tarot of the Bohemians is a simple guide to fortune-telling. It is not. A reader who opens it expecting card meanings for the Ten of Cups or the Page of Wands will be disappointed. The book is dense, theoretical, and assumes a working knowledge of Hebrew, Kabbalah, and basic astrology.

Another misconception is that Papus invented the correspondences. He did not. He compiled them from earlier sources, primarily Lévi and the anonymous Book of Thoth attributed to the French occultist Court de Gébelin. Papus’s contribution was the organization, not the content.

A third misconception is that the title refers to the Czech region of Bohemia. It does not. “Bohemians” in the 19th century was a common French term for the Romani people, who were believed to have traveled from Egypt. Papus accepted this etymology and built his entire thesis on it.

The fourth misconception is that the book is obsolete. On the contrary, it remains a standard reference for anyone studying the occult tarot. The correspondences have been refined by later writers (Crowley, for instance, changed some of the astrological assignments), but the framework is still in use. A student who has memorized the Papus system can easily adapt to the Golden Dawn system or the Crowley system, because the underlying logic is the same.

How Papus’s System Connects to Other Esoteric Tools

The correspondences in The Tarot of the Bohemians do not exist in isolation. They form part of a larger web of esoteric knowledge that includes astrology, numerology, and alchemy. For example, the astrological assignments Papus gives to each card can be cross-referenced with traditional planetary magic. The Hebrew letters he assigns correspond to paths on the Tree of Life that appear in Kabbalistic meditation practices.

Readers who want to apply Papus’s system practically often turn to divination tools that incorporate these correspondences. The book itself functions as a kind of meta-tool — a reference work that explains how all the other tools fit together. Once you understand the Papus framework, you can pick up almost any occult text and see the underlying structure.

The Tree of Life is central to Papus’s method. Each of the 22 paths between the sephiroth corresponds to one of the Major Arcana. Walking these paths in meditation is a practice that Papus describes in detail. The practitioner visualizes the card, recites the corresponding Hebrew letter, and moves through the four levels of interpretation. This is not reading. It is a form of contemplative magic.

FAQ

Is The Tarot of the Bohemians the same as the tarot deck itself?
No. The book is a commentary on the tarot, not a deck. It uses the traditional Tarot of Marseilles images but does not contain illustrations of the cards.

What is the difference between Papus and Waite?
Papus focuses on the 22 Major Arcana as a philosophical system. Waite’s Pictorial Key is a reading manual for the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, covering all 78 cards with interpretations.

Do I need to know Hebrew to use this book?
It helps. Papus assigns Hebrew letters to each card and references Kabbalistic concepts. A basic glossary of Hebrew letters and their meanings is sufficient to start.

Is The Tarot of the Bohemians still in print?
Yes. Multiple editions are available, including facsimiles of the 1896 English translation. The text is also in the public domain.

Where to Go from Here

The Tarot of the Bohemians is part of a larger tradition of esoteric tarot study. If you have followed the correspondences in this book, the next step is to apply them to a physical deck. We recommend working with the Tarot of Marseilles, which is the deck Papus used. For a deeper understanding of the Kabbalistic side, see our guide to the Tree of Life and the Major Arcana. And for a glossary of the terms used in this book, including the Hebrew letters and the astrological symbols, visit our occult symbols glossary. The book is a door. What lies beyond it is the whole of the Western esoteric tradition.