How long did it take to click with you?

danielnogo

The Thoth taeot is one of my favorite decks, I LOVE the artwork, its gorgeous and the card stock is like velvet in my hands, love how it shuffles. The one thing is the symbolism is tricky, its very meaty, which I like because doing research on each card gives you a great glimpse into the symbolism of esoteric knowledge. Studying the cards would give you a good grasp on many occult concepts. However it can be daunting at first and I am still struggling with it although I am getting better and many books I have read help.

How long did it take you to just start free flowing with the deck to where you felt confident in your analysis of each card?
 

feynrir

The Thoth taeot is one of my favorite decks, I LOVE the artwork, its gorgeous and the card stock is like velvet in my hands, love how it shuffles. The one thing is the symbolism is tricky, its very meaty, which I like because doing research on each card gives you a great glimpse into the symbolism of esoteric knowledge. Studying the cards would give you a good grasp on many occult concepts. However it can be daunting at first and I am still struggling with it although I am getting better and many books I have read help.

How long did it take you to just start free flowing with the deck to where you felt confident in your analysis of each card?

Just wanna go ahead and bump this, and second absolutely everything you've said. I'm curious what others have to say as well.
 

Richard

I think that the most productive approach to the Thoth is first to gain a solid overview of its underlying structure, not the individual cards, unless you are already familiar with its Qabalistic, alchemical, and astrological foundations. Otherwise, you may just be pecking away at seemingly unrelated details, which does not really help with understanding the deck as a holistic entity.
 

Grigori

The big thing for me was to move away from my reading style as I'd used with other decks. I found it hard to get used to using the Thoth, until it dawned on me this was a deck that was designed to work in a different way than your typical 'theme' deck, and so I should not only change my deck, but also my spreads and style. When I moved to 1, 2 or 3 card readings, instead of my RWS approaches with 6-10 cards, it worked so much better for me.
 

sworm09

It clicked for me when I stopped taking a divinatory approach to learning the cards. When Crowley talks about the Tarot cards as being living beings...well he wasn't joking around. For a while I just saw each card as a laundry list of attributions, for example, the Devil is attributed to the letter Ayin, the sign Capricorn, the path between Hod and Tiphareth...etc et. That got me no where. Liber 777 is really what helped me though, it helped me to sort of drag all of it together into one essential spirit or "personality" that defines the card. The Devil is the Devil and there are a range of meanings that it could have. It could refer to animal instincts or outright evil, or it could simply mean having a good time without care or having a good time at the expense of the concerns of others.

Each card is like a personality that will have different things to say at different times.
 

Eremita90

To be honest? It clicked with me when I put my previous vague knowledge about tarot aside and learned some humility in approaching such a multi-layered and internally coherent tool. I have to say that I will probably never be a huge Crowley fan, but actually toning my ego down and allowing some space for what I could learn from his (and Mathers', and Paul Foster Case's, among the others) understanding of the tarot is what really got me going.
And also when I finally decided to stop dilly dallying and sat my a** down with some good reads about Kabbalah, astrology and other topics. All in all, when the Thoth clicked with me is essentially when I started improving as a tarot reader in general, regardless of the deck.
 

ravenest

30 + years on ... its still clicking :)
 

Michael Sternbach

Hi,

This is my first post.

I got interested in tarot in 1988 after reading an article about it. I felt particularly drawn to the Thoth deck, so I started out with this one. As far as accompanying books, at that time, there were only Crowley's BoT and "Mirror of the Soul" by Gerd Ziegler available. About the value of the former I don't need to say much here; the latter got a lot of negative press on this forum, however, I feel it definitely has its merit in a psychological context, but I would recommend using it in conjunction with others. I also greatly enjoyed reading Sallie Nichols' "Jung and Tarot". I then got other decks as well and studied them, along with more books, but kept mostly using Thoth for readings. When in 1993 I started working as a certified Bach Flower therapist (mostly in a psychiatric practice), I was also doing tarot readings (as well as astrological chart readings and other things) for my patients.

Since I am interested in many esoteric sciences (partially introduced to me by way of the Thoth deck originally, in fact), later, I did not pay so much attention to tarot in particular for some time. Rather recently I found my way back to tarot in general, and the Thoth deck in particular. Meanwhile there is more literature available (Banzhaf, DuQuette, Snuffin, and others), plus my English got considerably better. It is also easier for me now to make sense out of the kabbalistic, astrological, alchemical, numerological etc. attributions of the deck, since I have more background knowledge on those topics. I'm encountering it on a new level, and it's very enjoyable.

I also look forward to talking about Thoth, tarot in general and related topics here with you knowledgeable people. ;)

Best,
Michael
 

ravenest

Hi Michael, welcome - looking forward to hearing any tarot / psychological / astrological observations or systems you have observed in your journey.

This wasnt put up specifically about Thoth, but i found it interesting and would like to do some follow up on it;

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=224497 @ #10 , # 11 & #13.
 

Michael Sternbach

Thanks for the welcome, Ravenest. I have read that interesting thread and will be happy to share my thoughts on the topic as soon as they have come out of the mental haze clearly enough.:)