Some of you may know of the twenty-year long study of the Temple of Luxor by the Egyptologist René Schwaller de Lubicz (see bio). Before that Schwaller was a Theosophist, esotericist and alchemist who worked for many years with Fulcanelli. In the 1920s, René and his wife Isha moved to Switzerland and established Suhalia, a center for research into scientific and alchemical studies. While there he developed a motor that ran on vegetable oil.

According to the above internet biography by Gary Lachman:

“In 1936, on a visit to the tomb of Rameses IX in Alexandria, Schwaller had a kind of revelation. A picture represented the pharaoh as a right-angle triangle with the proportions 3:4:5, his upraised arm adding another unit. Schwaller thought it demonstrated the Pythagorean theorem, centuries before Pythagoras was born. From the picture it was clear to him that the knowledge of the medieval masons had its roots in ancient Egypt. For the next fifteen years, until 1951, Schwaller de Lubicz remained in Egypt, investigating the evidence for what he believed was an ancient system of psychological, cosmological, and spiritual knowledge.”

Although I’ve read several books by Schwaller I never knew that he had created his own tarot deck until sent these cards by Christian Dumolard (who documented the Château des Avenières Tarot mosaics of Assan Dina). Information on Schwaller’s tarot interests can be found in Schwaller de Lubicz by H. Dossier and Emmanuel Dufour-Kowalski. You may want to compare the Schwaller de Lubicz Tarot with that of Falconnier and Wegener (see History of Egyptian Tarot Decks). He was obviously considering some notable differences. Enjoy.