using the thoth vs. knowing it

Zephyros

I think there is a certain misconception that learning all these things will necessarily make you a better reader and that that is why people study in this fashion. The fact is that although it is easy to begin reading Tarot, becoming good at it is quite a different thing. Many people just aren't good at it, and it has nothing to do with however "spot on" they are.

Put another way, if Sulis's reading was awful, then it was because the reader wasn't that good and spouted "book meanings" without being able to connect it all together. A reading is more than what you know, it also takes a lot of imagination. I've known intuitive readers that also lacked it, their readings were dull, mundane, lacked any "flights of fancy" or anything like that, their reasoning was simplistic and their conclusions were flawed. This may or may not have had anything to do with their reading style, but it certainly had much to do with who and what they were. It could be argued that intuitive reading is subject to too many biases and personal whims and is a collection of glorified first impressions, but there are still readers who take that and get great results.

What I sense is being suggested here is akin to meeting one rude foreigner and concluding they are all like that. As LRichard suggested esoteric minutiae isn't very welcome outside of this forum, but obviously in a learning forum we would go into dry, theoretical discussions. That would obviously be the case in this setting.

I think something is missed when Tarot is dealt with only in practical terms. Just as in any language I think there is worth in studying its grammar, its "high literature" rather than simply its slang. And we really are talking about modern Tarot's essential grammar. The RWS that people use divorced from its roots was built upon exactly the same base as the Thoth (contrary to what I heard people say about it, that kabbalah was "added" to it).

No one expects anybody to constantly talk like a grammarian, but one cannot deny that that the grammar is there.
 

gregory

Oh sure. But the reader who inflicted all that on me was an experienced and competent reader who assumed that just because I had read up, all that "stuff" would add insight. But it doesn't. You want the message, when you get a reading, not the full details of the process.

And some readers - even good ones - seem to think that showing how much you know will make your sitter take that reading more to heart. But it won't.

I am a pedant and take grammar very seriously. But if someone tells me that "him and I goin push you outta way quick afore she's car hits youse" - I'll move first and look at the grammar later.
 

Zephyros

I guess it depends who you're talking about. Personally I think those things do add insight, whereas the simpler kind of reading doesn't appeal to me. I think certain sweeping statements are being made here about what a reading is for and why. Some things can't be stated in a mundane way, and the OOTK isn't a spread meant for simple questions, simply because it is overkill.

There can be such a thing as too much simplicity. Too often noobs see different cards in a completely binary way, as either good or bad. Occult divination techniques serve to go beyond that and avoid it. Plus, when simplicity becomes the norm and anything more is seen as strange and alien, when people say "you want the message" there is a danger of going too far off the deep end.

For example, I like watching silent films. That they are silent isn't a bug, it is a feature of what is an art form in itself, quite distinct from ."talkies." That some people may not like it does not mean films "should" have sound, as you perhaps seem to be implying. You want the message, I like the flourishes. Lets not make the mistake of saying how a reading should be. :)

Now, back to the OP, my first post may have sounded harsh, but the Thoth is a specialized deck that does not easily lend itself to transposing the RWS broken telephone to it. In my opinion it is like using a fork to eat soup; it is possible but why bother? There are many other decks far better suited to that than this one.
 

gregory

No I do agree - reading the Thoth as RWS is a Very Bad Idea. But reading it as Thoth doesn't mean you have to layer on all that you know from Book T etc, when you present your reading.

OOTK is special, though - then again, there is a THOTHY website that says it is "very easy for beginners to learn and use" but that you can of course go much further.
 

UrbanBramble

This whole thread has given me a lot to think about.

Butting in here... The Thoth is a deck that's intended to be read for spiritual insight, not for the day to day questions... at least to me. Even if I was a seasoned Thothie I wouldn't pull out the deck to tell me what job I was likely to get or if I should ask someone out. With a client I would only use it if they had Big Spiritual Questions, in which case it would make sense to address some of the esoteric meanings, right?

I also think people tend to really polarize the issue of intuitive reading vs. "learned" reading. When I read intuitively I use the knowledge I have from 15+ years of studying Tarot and then I "open up" to see what else comes through. I don't just spout memorized meanings and I don't just look up the pictures and make up a story. Likewise, when I am relying heavily on source material, I write down everything I know about a card and then go back to my source and compare, drawing any new bits of wisdom in. Then I look at the set of cards with all of the information in front of me and again "open up" to see if any connections are there that I missed the first time around. They are really two very similar processes, but one leans heavily on Mystery and the other on learning. Both, though, are included in either style.
 

fractalgranny

i am so thrilled to be part of this conversation; i've always hoped for (more) of this here, because aeclectic IS the place where these things can be discussed.

just a few thoughts ...

"intuitive" readings: i'm feeling more and more that in this context, the word "intuitive" is about as descriptive as other words that get easily banded about, like "communication". it could mean anything from willy-nilly making stuff up to finely honed channeling skills to anything in between. in a sense, of course, all readings are intuitive because it is intuition, or something like it, that directs us to talk about certain aspects of the cards and not others (otherwise just talking about one card would take hours). i'm thinking that i should probably start defining what i mean by intuition. (btw john ballantrae cited someone the other day who said that intuition was the result of stored, perhaps unconscious memory. whether that's all that intuition is, who knows, but it's probably a goodly part.)

grammar. that's something i understand :) there is no doubt that the thoth deck has a grammar, so when i use the thoth without its grammar, i do that in the same sense that a non-native or uneducated person would use a language. i am fluent in three languages, have learned a bunch more, and have worked a lot with people for whom english is not their native language. the less vocabulary and "correct" grammar and pronunciation there are, the more time both speakers have to take and the more attention they need to pay. it wouldn't occur to me, therefore, to do a "quickie" reading with the thoth (i only do those for practice purposes anyway). once again, this calls me to have my duquette "dictionary" at hand if and when i do a reading with the thoth.

this whole discussion leads me to wonder whether i should pay more attention to whatever companion material comes with any of the decks. am i just being lazy when i go purely with my impressions of the cards and what i know about tarot in general, without giving any consideration to what the creators had in mind? to be honest, i feel a bit more called towards taking the creators' intentions in mind when it is a "serious" deck like the thoth. this takes me to another thought: to what degree do i want to use decks that i consider not to be that "serious", and how do i want to do that?
 

Owl Tarot

i have the thoth, two decks closely based on the thoth (rosetta and hermetic) and then a bunch of "thothy" decks. here's the question: what, if any, are the pitfalls of working with thoth and thoth-type decks when you don't know that much about thoth and the qabala? i have read duquette's thoth book and listened to a few of his videos but that's pretty much the extent of my knowledge of the thoth. i'm not much into astrology or the qabala and to this day don't see the point of numerology - with this limited knowledge, am i missing too much about the intricacies of the thoth and thoth based cards?

I can only partly understand the term "Thothie" in this context, but here goes. How do you feel when you read the deck? How do your querents feel? Are they entertained by your readings (Tarot readings in certain law systems have a strict legal definition as entertainment events. I am not saying they are just that, but that this is the legal obligation in certain legal systems)? Are your readings helpful to them? Do you recieve pleasure and fullness from using the decks you use?

I have no black and white answer for you personally. But, if the answer to those questions for yourself are "yes", then I think you are good to go. If, however, you feel like there is an internal lack of knowledge and understanding and you want to cover it, then by all means do so.

This question, for me, directly relates to another question which I think is the foundation of your OP: Am I doing a good job using the decks that are "Thothie" or am I "failing" due to my lack of knowledge about the foundations it was built on? (or something like that)

About Tarot readings, in my case I have two main goals when I use Tarot to do readings: To entertain and make my querent feel happy and good, first and foremost, and my second one is to offer him some Wisdom from the Tarot which is helpful and which he can use to have Hope about his/her personal issue. Also, I don't believe in the concept that depending on the "seriousness" of the question, different decks should be used. Why? Because if I did this, I would proclaim to know what is important in life in an absolute-universal-objective manner, and I would most likely be wrong. I use my Thoth deck for everything my querents consider important for their lives and themselves because I personally love no other deck to the extent I love my Thoth. And no, my deck has not "cursed" me up to now because people have different ideas about what is Spiritual and what is important in life. Instead, it has rewarded me for not making the mistake of assuming that I -personally- am the "chosen one" who will answer that objectively (everyone will therefore agree) for all the Millennia to come.

Still, I have eventually had querents that with 0 knowledge about Kabbalah, Thoth, GD, Astrology, Alchemy etc came into their own conclusions about their reading and shared with me their thoughts, which helped me build a better reading that they were happy with and which they used for their own goals. That started from their "unenlightened" comments about it, and with their cooperation the reading was made better and "grew".

I have studied (and I am still studying) many subjects in my years of work with the Thoth and I have found every bit of my journey, at least up to now, helpful and Wise, and I hope I will have the chance to do that for many years to come. That being said, my starting point was my love for it and my interest about knowing, understanding more and carving my own inner Wisdom. Without those feelings, I would not be happy to take the task upon me in the first place, I would most likely not endure doing what I do for those years while being happy about the task I undertook and looking forward, hoping that I will improve and evolve further.
 

Richard

For me, there would be no point whatsoever in studying esoteric matters if it were irrelevant to life experience. Those who view it purely abstractly are missing the reason for its existence, which is to make sense out of this world into which we have been thrown (as the existentialists put it). It is perfectly okay to have no interest in such matters, but it is emphatically not okay to thereby belittle it. Ignore the esoteric if you wish, but do not make a virtue out of ignorance.

By the way, The Book of Thoth is not exactly a companion book to the Thoth deck. It is about Crowley's understanding of Tarot as a concept, not necessarily about a particular deck. (I think, for example, that his discussion of The Emperor may be problematic with respect to his attributions of the Thoth Emperor card.) If this seems too bizarre, consider that Yoav Ben-Dov's TdM was created in order to illustrate his Open Reading book.
 

Barleywine

. . . the Thoth is a specialized deck that does not easily lend itself to transposing the RWS broken telephone to it.

I love this image. It made me think of RWS users communicating by semaphore. I don't have a lot to add to the "Thoth reading style" debate at this point, except that I agree with closrapexa that it isn't an intuitively naive process if you choose to "get under the hood," while all sitters really care is that the motor runs smoothly and doesn't stall. They aren't really concerned about how many cylinders it has, even if the extra "horsepower" lets the reader give them a more thrilling ride. But the reader still has to be able to manage the beast skillfully with throttle, brake and steering wheel, and not just pull out the instruction manual at every intersection. The art lies in the seamless merging of both worlds without utterly baffling the person you're reading for.
 

UrbanBramble

Feeling like I should clarify - when I talk about using the Thoth as a spiritual tool rather than an every day divination tool its not because its a more "serious" deck. Using the metaphor of language, I would say that it is "written in a language" that engages me on a spiritual level. For example, when investigating the heirophant: I am more apt when working with the Thoth deck to explore the mysteries of the heirophant as it relates to my HGA and the new aeon, rather than to read it as the passing down of knowledge through traditional avenues, which for me would be the more direct divination interpretation. I'm more likely to take into account the qabbalistic meaning of the card and its placement on the tree of life and use it to explore my current spiritual tasks using that framework. Of course that has a bearing on, say, career path... But I'm reaching for the deck in the same context that I would if I was meditating or going into trance space or performing a ritual. I do tend to apply tarot to my life in this framework in general, rather than using it in a divinatory sense (aside from my current nerdy obsession with hedgewitchery). I do read in a divinatory fashion for other people and I do make a distinction between the two because not everyone is coming to me for spiritual consultation. I don't personally align with esotericism myself, which is why I studied the Thoth for a while and then moved away from it... I think its fascinating in its own right and I certainly am not belittling it in any way.