Aleister Crowley's Thoth - should i or shouldn't i ? Any advice would be welcome!

chriske said:

Please consider the following scenario:
1. Person wants to buy a Tarot deck - he/she has 20 pounds to spend.
2. The Thoth deck has the most appealing artwork and the buyer thinks that Crowley has a high "cool" count.
3. The buyer buys Thoth and attempts to make sense of it. Whilst the LWB is helpful, the buyer finds it's not enough.
4. The buyer buys a copy of the Book of Thoth. Another 10 pounds. The Book of Thoth is fascinating but the buyer is even more confused.
5. The buyer learns that there is an excellent book by DuQuette and buys a copy - 10 pounds. The book is fabulous and really helps but the connections with astrology and the Tree of Life are not 100% perfectly explained.
6. DuQuette recommends an obscure astrology book - a copy is found on EBay - 10 more pounds.
7. Buyer finds that Snuffin's Thoth Companion book is highly recommended for the parts that DuQuette cannot reach. Ditto Dion Fortune's awesome "The Mystical Qaballah" - 10 pounds each.

The question is this:
Do you want the buyer to have this information before he/she starts or not?

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This is very valid and you are right that people should know this.

If they are going to want to delve into the Thoth deck, (or anything really) it will cost.

But Oh! The journey!

Back when I got my first Thoth there was really only the Book of Thoth, and I got it, of course. But there was nothing else, there was no DuQuette, no Snuffin, no nothing specific.

I remember hunting through second hand shops, market stalls, book catalogues got from the backs of magazines, hunting down info, finding things out, triumphing when I found something I felt taught me something, being annoyed when I felt I wasted my very limited money.

And the paths it took me down, that quest for knowledge!
The weird and wonderful byways of life and experience!
Getting to places I hadn't been looking for, finding places I didn't even know existed.

In a lot of ways that journey made me the person I am today. If had never ever bought that Thoth because Crowley was 'cool' and I was 'gothy' I would be someone else, not the person I am now.

In many ways I am the bastard child of the Thoth deck and the John Peel radio show.

I just want to encourage people to start that journey, so they can see if it takes them anywhere or not, see what strange places they get too.
Or maybe nowhere at all.
Maybe their journey lies elsewhere.
Who knows till they try?

My as yet very brief experience as a Tarot newbie with a Thoth is that this deck has a lot to teach at any level, if you want to put some time into it. Its great virtue for a beginner is the combination of intricate artwork and overt esotericism. I'm finding there is a great deal to be learned just from studying the pictures, and leaving Crowley and Dion Fortune on the shelf for now. Tarot is, after all, a visual medium. Each of these cards tells a story through imagery, color, and geometry. Crowley has kindly provided us with keys to a variety of other forms of understanding, but I see no reason why a person can't start with the cards and pick up what he or she wants of other knowledge along the way.

I don't think it's necessary to warn people that these are deep waters, that's pretty obvious. I think too it's possible to overemphasize the esoteric aspects of the deck and the need to study astrology, qabalah and magik to understand it. While it certainly adds to one's understanding to know how the camel on the Priestess card symbolizes the path from Tiphareth to Kether, it's not essential to understanding the card. For those of us who start with Tarot, the card helps illuminate the path. And ultimately, the camel, the path, and the priestess are all just symbols. We have to keep in mind that there's a road to be traveled and not spend all our time analyzing maps.

"travel the road, don't analyze the maps" loved that!!!!

A friend of mine started reading tarot because they were drawn to the Thoth. They were initially put off because of what they had heard about it not being suitable for beginners, and asked me what I thought. I suggested that if they kept feeling drawn to the deck that maybe they should try and see what happened. So they did, and they are able to read with the deck without having studied it at all.

I also think it is a deck you can learn from even if you don't read with it, and I would agree that it can lead you to study the astrology etc. There is surely plenty of information for free on-line (on this forum for starters), so it may not be necessary to buy all the books.

Thank you for your encouragement.

Hmmm, after reading these latest posts I seem to remember LIKING the idea of Crowley, Thelema and Thoth without knowing much at all, first Thoth deck I saw (I wasnt looking for one) I snatched. Did I know Qabbalah, astrology, etc. ? (As Bart Simpson said about long division: ) Well, I knew OF them.

Then gradually, over years, little by little was added. Then I got to a point where the learning curve rapidly increased, things started to meld and fire off each other,'learning' was much easier, many EUREKA! s.

And now, I realise even my understanding of these things has changed over time.

Like a good book, painting, poem and .... it SHOULD do that. The more one reads or looks, even after years, the more / deeper / complex / simple it is, like a good relationship, you wont get bored but find more and more jewels within the longer and deeper you go.

To try and do that (or some of that) before owning or using the deck, for me, spoils the adventure ... I think that using the deck (even if you want to just lay it out and look and it) is integral to understanding it.

Being a 'magical deck' I relate its usage to kinda like working a ritual. Some ritual practice seems so complex that I doubt ANYONE could do the full blown thing. But one must start somewhere.

A bit of Harrisy

Maskelyne said:

"I'm finding there is a great deal to be learned just from studying the pictures, and leaving Crowley and Dion Fortune on the shelf for now. Tarot is, after all, a visual medium. Each of these cards tells a story through imagery, color, and geometry. Crowley has kindly provided us with keys to a variety of other forms of understanding, but I see no reason why a person can't start with the cards and pick up what he or she wants of other knowledge along the way."


I like this. Whatever one thinks of Crowley(and he deserves some of those thoughts) as a person, he was an excellent art director and I like to think of the Thoth Deck as the Harris Deck. That may take some of the potential stigma from it.

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I rather feel that taking Crowley out of this deck is a bit like taking the food out of dinner.

(can you tell I'm hungry???)

Yes to both So am I, now that you mention it.

I really cannot see the point of agonising over Crowley. For people who cannot stand the thought of him - stay away from the deck, as you won't get over that any time soon. But the tales of his extraordinary lifestyle don't seem to me to have too much to do with the deck itself; his insights, however, do, and need - and reward - study.

Yes, indeed.

Of course Harris has to be given her due.
No way could Crowley have drawn this deck himself.
But no way would she have drawn it without him telling her what to draw.

There is a fair bit of their correspondence extant, and it shows clearly how much imput they both had on the deck.
She did put something of herself into it, of course she did, but it was very much his creation and she worked under his very strict instruction.

So yes. Like Gregory says. If someone can't deal with Crowley this probably isn't the deck for them.