Thoth - The Magus

Moongold

3 Magus Cards

I wonder whether someone could quickly explain why there are 3 cards in this version of the deck.

I'm not sure that I understand all that well from the comments in this thread. It sems to be OK to use all three at the one time? I actually gor two in my daily reading this morning.

I'm very new to the Thoth and don't yet have the book so please excuse the fairly basic question.

Many thanks

Moongold
 

Emily

I've only got the two books on the Thoth deck and neither of those explains why there are three versions of the Magus but in the LWB it does say that Lady Frieda sometimes painted a card at least 8 times to get it right, she wanted to produce the finest deck she could. :)

Edited to add:-

When browsing to find the different colour versions of the Thoth deck, I came across this site about Lady Frieda Harris, it shows, and seems to be selling, some other versions of different cards.

http://www.occultartgallery.com/occultartgallery/harris/harris.html
 

Richard1

From what I understand, the "as many as eight times" quotation was an exaggeration on Crowley's part, but there must be at least some truth to it, based on the pictures on that website. I really love that Harpo Marx Fool...
And thanks for the link, Kaz. I'm not sure that I fully agree, but it's got me thinking about the three Magi, and what possible interpretive differences there could be among the three of them. I think the first one is definitely Mercury, and the third is definitely Thoth, but I'm wondering about the second...
 

Cascade_Jon

Wait, I thought this was a settled issue. The 3 versions of the Magus cards are three different pictures done by Lady Harris... Crowley was unsure whether he wanted to represent the Magus as a Greek, Egyptian, or Hindu deity. In the end he settled on the card featuring Mercury (with the baboon as a subtle reference to Thoth, who had a pet baboon and also could take the form of a baboon). The Egyptian and Hindu cards were not to be used.

The 2 non-Mercury cards are rejects and while they're interesting from an artistic perspective to see how the deck was made, should be removed if you care about preserving the traditional Tarot symbolism. Crowley never intended his deck to have 80 cards, and unfortunately I think U.S. Games has confused many many people on this point by releasing the deck with the 2 extra cards included as a "feature."

You can read about some of this in Crowley's book of Thoth (published online at this great website):

http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/Crowley/thoth/juggler.html

Crowley makes clear his decision to use the Greek/Egyptian symbolism of the Mercury / Thoth baboon card, and rejects "the Hindu conception of Mercury, Hanuman, the monkey god" as "abominably degraded." To quote Crowley, "The present card has been designed principally upon the Graeco-Egyptian tradition; for the understanding of this idea [the nature of creation personified by the Magician] was certainly further advanced when these philosophies modified each other, than elsewhere at any time."