"Etteilla," the pseudonym of Jean-Baptiste Alliette (1738-91), was the French occultist, who was the first to popularize divination by Tarot to a wide audience. Etteilla published his ideas of the correspondences between Tarot, astrology, and the four classical Elements and Four humours, and was the first to issue a revised Tarot deck specifically designed for occult purposes.
His book on readings using an ordinary piquet deck of playing cards, Etteilla, ou manière de se récréer avec un jeu de cartes ("Etteilla, or a Way to Entertain Yourself With a Deck of Cards") appeared in 1770. In 1781 the French Swiss Protestant clergyman and occultist Court de Gébelin published in his massive work Le Monde primitif his idea that Tarot was actually an ancient Egyptian book of arcane wisdom. Etteilla's Manière de se récréer avec le jeu de cartes nomées Tarots ("How to Entertain Yourself With the Deck of Cards Called Tarot") soon followed, in 1785. It was the first book of methods of divination by Tarot.
By 1790, he was interpreting the hermetic wisdom of the Egyptian Book of Thoth: Cour thèorique et pratique du Livre du Thot.
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