Belline Oracle: definition

The Belline Oracle has 53 cards. At its core are 49 cards arranged in seven series of seven, each series placed under one of the seven planets of traditional astrology: the Sun, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

Three cards belong to no planet: Destiny (also called the Key), the Star of Man and the Star of Woman. The 53rd, the blue card, is not read; tradition treats it as a protective talisman.

Each card combines an image, a title and the symbol of its planet. The deck has no Major Arcana and no Minor Arcana, no suits of wands, cups, swords or coins, and no court cards: the planet takes the place of a suit, and the title provides the key to interpretation.

The drawings are attributed to Edmond Billaudot, known as Mage Edmond (1829-1881), who is said to have made them in the mid-nineteenth century. Rediscovered by the clairvoyant Belline, the oracle was first published in 1960, then from 1961 by Grimaud, which has distributed it ever since.

The classic reading uses a cross of five cards: on the left, what is favorable; on the right, what stands against it; at the top, the judgment; at the bottom, the solution; in the center, the synthesis.

It is an oracle, not a tarot: its logic is planetary rather than numerical, and the interpretive keys of the Tarot de Marseille do not carry over to it. Edmond also drew a complete tarot, published later under the name Grand Tarot Belline; that is a different deck.