Help with Crowley's Thoth Deck

Hello everyone. As you can see I'm new to this board. I just bought Aleister Crowley's Thoth Deck (as well as "The Book of Thoth"). As I was flipping through "The Book of Thoth" it became apparent to me that I would need extra guidance in concern with this deck. I am looking for a tutor or a study group of some sort. Any advice is very helpful.

Cheers,
Seeker

Welcome, DS! The best thing to do is peruse the various threads in the Thoth subforum. (There are more than 200 threads.) There have been study groups off and on, and can easily re-start when there are questions. The Thoth study threads are housed in the Thoth subforum.

http://www.tarotforum.net/forumdisplay.php?f=57

There are card studies there as well as various FAQs. If there you have a question, you can add a post to one of those existing threads, or start a new thread. Questions are a good way of getting new discussions going!

Thank you for your help.

Congratulations on the purchase of your Thoth Divine Seeker.

As Rusty says, there are lots of threads in the Thoth study-group here at ATF. Annnnnnd... you could perhaps buy some other more user-friendly books, such as Ziegler's Tarot Mirror of the Soul, or Duquette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot. The Book of Thoth is a great resource though, even if trying to understand all of it is like trying to piece together the meaning of life. LOL.

Centaur said:

The Book of Thoth is a great resource though, even if trying to understand all of it is like trying to piece together the meaning of life. LOL.

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I agree. While various third-party companion books for the Thoth can be useful, I'm surprised how often questions on the Thoth boards can be answered by taking a glance in Crowley's Book of Thoth. (The full text of the Book of Thoth can even be viewed on-line for free.) Whichever third-party book you use, the Book of Thoth is worthwhile consulting, whether you read it before or after the third-party book.

[Moderator note]

Moved to the Thoth forum, because although Rusty has kindly given a link to it, there is information in these posts which is of interest to others, and may not been seen in the Tarot Study Group forum.

Moonbow*

Centaur said:

Congratulations on the purchase of your Thoth Divine Seeker.

As Rusty says, there are lots of threads in the Thoth study-group here at ATF. Annnnnnd... you could perhaps buy some other more user-friendly books, such as Ziegler's Tarot Mirror of the Soul, or Duquette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot. The Book of Thoth is a great resource though, even if trying to understand all of it is like trying to piece together the meaning of life. LOL.

Click to expand...

Not that I am advocating the use of drugs, but I did find The book of Thoth to be incredibly lucid and easy to understand during a period of my life when I was taking a lot of LSD. Now when I read it is much more difficult, Although still much clearer than Waite's pictoral guide to the tarot. Crowley tends to cross reference a lot and I have found that the more of his work you read the easier it is to understand any one part. I have not read any third party books on the Thoth deck, aside from the little booklet that comes with the deck, and I would suggest being very careful about it. Some writers will disregard Crowley's intentions and interpretations and come up with their own. I don't disagree with this in principle, but if you are going to use interpretations other than the ones Crowley intended it seems to me it would be better to create them yourself rather than use those of someone else.

I agree.
The book of Thoth is Crowley's own word on the deck, and it is always good to talk to the organ grinder rather than the monkey (as the saying goes).

And, with or without the drugs, I find it surprisingly easy to read. Quite lucid at times, Mr Al.
To be honest I too have never got round to getting any of the third party books, so I cannot comment on them, but Thoth gives me most (if not all) of what I want to know about the deck.
Though if you really want to get into Crowley himself, and Thelema and all that (rather than just the tarot deck) it is wise to read as much of his stuff as possible. Particularly the Book of the law.

Though this is not necessary if you just want a working knowledge of the deck alone, the two are linked in a rather masive way.

The Thoth deck also draws heavily on Crowley's understanding of Kabbalah and Astrology. I haven't seen much work by him on astrology, but I know he wrote extensively on the kabbalah, and a lot of it is useful in understanding what he is talking about when he talks about the deck.

I agree with what has been said previously.

Most of the third party books out there deviate from Crowley's meanings and are liitle more than the authors own interpretations. The books of Gerd Zeigler and Hajo Banzhaf spring to mind.

On the other hand, Understanding Aleister Crowleys Thoth Tarot by Lon Milo DuQuette is quite good because he uses Crowleys Book of Thoth as his reference throughout. One of the problems with Crowley's Book of Thoth is that it assumes the reader is already fairly knowledgeable about ceremonial magick, the visionary experiences Crowley had with the Enochian system, Qabalah, Yoga, Thelema and The Book of the Law. DuQuettes book addresses this problem by starting off with a section entitled "Little Bits of Things You Should Know Before Beginning To Study Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot. If you know nothing about Crowley or the background and influences on the Thoth Tarot this section will get you up to speed in no time.

I agree with Babylon_Jasmines comments on the Kabbalah (Qabalah, Cabalah). Even knowing a little bit about it and how it works can take you a long way.