Beginner's Book on Thoth Tarot

gregory

Banzhaf is good and readable - but the keywords one will just leave you wanting more; there's not enough detail - which is why I used his fuller book.
 

The Happy Squirrel

DQ, Snuffin, and Banzhaf :)
 

gregory

You got it ! And BoT is on line, of course.
 

Nemia

Which actually means: you're always a beginner with the Thoth - and all the books are for more-than-beginners LOL.

There's no way you can promise people to "learn the Thoth in a breeze", "2 hours and you're an expert", "Thoth short and sweet" --- you can try to market an RWS book (it's impossible, too, but you can disguise the fact better...) like that, but no way with Thoth.

It has this stubborn, bristly way of saying: if you think one kiss is enough for this beauty, think again, no go and eat your kabbalah soup, astrology stew and alchemy pudding, and we'll talk again...
 

Samweiss

Which actually means: you're always a beginner with the Thoth - and all the books are for more-than-beginners LOL.

There's no way you can promise people to "learn the Thoth in a breeze", "2 hours and you're an expert", "Thoth short and sweet" --- you can try to market an RWS book (it's impossible, too, but you can disguise the fact better...) like that, but no way with Thoth.

It has this stubborn, bristly way of saying: if you think one kiss is enough for this beauty, think again, no go and eat your kabbalah soup, astrology stew and alchemy pudding, and we'll talk again...

That's the thing. The reason why I like DuQuette's book is that it gives you basic tools to try and tackle Book of Thoth. I can't tell if this is the case for these other books as I haven't read them.
 

Zephyros

That's the thing. The reason why I like DuQuette's book is that it gives you basic tools to try and tackle Book of Thoth. I can't tell if this is the case for these other books as I haven't read them.

This is very true. Duquette "respects" his target audience more, giving the basic tools with which to work but not giving too much of his own slant. The other books take on a different teaching method, more along the lines of "this means that." The Duquette approach is more challenging but ultimately more rewarding, and more faithful to the source.
 

Nemia

Banzhaf gives you other tools, he is strong on astrology which is fine. But he doesn't give enough background on the Kabbalah - when I read his book I never really understood the difference between Netzach and Hod, it all seemed so arbitrary. Milo DuQ does the best job kabbalah-wise, I think, and you simply need that for the Book of Thoth.

Snuffin is somewhere in the middle. I think I'd read Snuffin first to test the waters, and then LMD, and then the Master himself.

Banzhaf is a different kettle of fish. I actually like his way of connecting the archetypes to music, places of power and Germanic runes. But this is Banzhaf himself speaking, not the creators of the deck. He doesn't get lost in the distance the way Arrien and Ziegler do (both seem to talk about a different deck and I wonder why they use the Thoth if they don't wish to study the Book of Thoth - in spite of Mary Greer's excellent and respectful explanations about Arrien I still can't recommend her book) - but he certainly changes the work with the cards to suit his focus which is on archetypes, journey of the hero, astrology and cultural exploration.

That's fine, but it didn't unlock the deck for me. It gave me a first start, yes, but without Kabbalah, it's not the real thing.

No recommendations for Harry Ho's book either. It's in dire need of a strict copy editor who cuts out all his tangent rants. And the chunks which were useful were not enough.

No no, start either with Snuffin or Milo DuQuette.

If you have the free Kindle application on your laptop, tablet or cell phone and an Amazon account, you can download reading samples and see which of them you like better.
 

The Happy Squirrel

Who is LMD? Thanks for the thoughts guys. I have to be honest I am very hesitant about the Kabbalah and Astrology, maybe I am a little curious about astrology, but duh, I have to get into these if I want to understand Crowley's deck right? And that is what I want to do. At least for now. Try to understand it. I am not even going to go into learning how to read with them just yet.

It is good to have a few books which covers the basics and then maybe another which takes a different and sensible angle to the whole thing.

Someone said that if we read the Book of Thoth, the deck was never intended for divination. And DQ put divination back into the deck. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. Or what that even means.

As for the BoT, I must be honest again in saying that I am yet to be able to shake the Egypt story of origin. In the whole chicken or egg debate, at the moment I am sitting squarely on the playing card side of things. But if I want to underhand the deck I need to try to understand the surrounding belief system, obviously.

So it remains to be seen how this journey is going to end. I may be more interested in Crowley the man for example, at the end of all this. Who knows.

Speaking of which, any recommendation on a good and credible biography of the man himself?
 

The Happy Squirrel

Ah :)