Dodal, linked reproduction
Huit de Bâtons
Jean Dodal’s Marseille pack · Lyon, 1701–1715.
Read the BnF catalogue record ↗How can a still picture move?
A woven pattern, a downward flight and a field of rays produce different impressions of speed.
Start with the pictures
Eight of Wands
Pamela Colman Smith · 1922 printing, p. 183
Open the source scan page ↗Notice what changes
Dodal
Huit de Bâtons
Four batons cross four others in a compact, regular lattice. Their coloured segments emphasize repeated intersections rather than a landscape or journey.
Smith
Eight of Wands
Eight leafy staffs cross the open sky at a shared diagonal above fields and a distant river. No person appears in the scene.
Harris
Eight of Wands · 8
Red zigzag rays radiate through a pale angular structure. A rainbow curves above the geometric form; the suit objects no longer look like wooden sticks.
Open Harris’s painting and reference page ↗Now read the authors
Waite’s explanation
Waite reads imminent movement and swift activity, likening it to a messenger approaching the end of a course. His reversed meanings introduce disputes and the disruptive side of that momentum.
Crowley’s explanation
Crowley names Swiftness and connects Mercury in Sagittarius with communication, light and electrical imagery. His discussion borrows the language of modern physics as part of the card’s symbolic explanation.
Which line, angle or repetition makes you feel movement before you read the title?
Write one thing you can point to in the image, one interpretation from a named author, and one inference of your own. Keeping the three separate gives you something useful to revisit.
Sources and image credits
The Dodal cards are one early-eighteenth-century Marseille witness. The black-and-white Smith plates come from the 1922 Rider reprint, whose title verso lists first publication in 1910. Colours in later editions can differ.
Foolmade supplies the linked Dodal reproductions. Its surrounding commentary is not the basis for our historical claims. These images are linked externally; the Smith illustration reuses the public-domain source scan with its full page context.
Harris’s paintings are linked on their host’s reference pages. Crowley’s text is the separately identified Thelemagick transcription of The Book of Thoth. Neither a modern reproduction nor a transcription replaces examination of the original artwork or edition.