Thank you everyone for your responses. There's a lot of great information here.
Waite and Crowley both had Golden Dawn roots but Crowley diverged (rather widely in some areas) into his own "magickal philosophy" of Thelema. If you haven't yet, you could read Liber T (part of the Golden Dawn "Second Order" curriculum) in conjunction with both systems to see where some of the the common ground lay. A free pdf download is available.
Thank you,
Barleywine! I've downloaded it and I'll read it very soon.
Like I said in another thread; study the RWS and you know the RWS, study the Thoth and you know all GD decks. Study on one isn't wasted, as it is easily applicable to all the others. Although Crowley did seem to diverge more from the established traditions, the upshot is that by the time a student is ready to even try to understand what he did, they are in a far better position to understand how he diverged.
closrapexa, this would imply that I need to study Crowley in a fair amount of depth, going a fair way beyond the tarot. Dunno if I want to do that...
The RWS has a very distinct agenda, discussed to death in other threads, that is profoundly Christian in its presentation of ethics and morals.
I'm not over fond of Christian ethics or morals either,
closrapexa. In fact, I have strong moral and philosophical objections to any form of any organised religion, including New Age and Pagan religions. What appeals to me about the tarot is that it's spirituality within a non denominational structure.
But once you actively sit down and start studying the Book of Thoth, learning the symbolism, and understanding the Qabalah and Astrology behind the deck it will literally change your life. Once you understand the symbolism and message that this deck is trying to get at you'll start having some extremely profound readings.
sworm09, is studying the entire Book of Thoth required for reading a Thoth deck? Again, the anti religious prejudice of mine is stirring. From a more practical standpoint, I have a learning disorder that inhibits my understanding of numerology, which rules out the fundamental structure of the Qabalah. I have absolutely no interest in astrology.
But I would argue that Crowley went well beyond Chrisianity to grasp a much broader encyclopaedic comprehension, bringing in sundry elements of Hindu, Buddhist, Egyptian, Hebrew, Babylonian, Celtic, Greek, Roman and Gnostic cosmology (and I bet I've missed a few ), "Yi King," astrology, geomancy, numerology, alchemy, a little science and philosophy, and a variety of pagan notions he mined from Frazer's "The Golden Bough."
Barleywine, it almost sounds like he went along and cherry picked anything that seemed interesting. Did he read with any depth on these things?
If I understand the OP correctly, the choice is not directly between Thoth and RWS, but between the Tarot of Vampyres (a Thoth based deck with the Phantasmagoria companion book) and RWS based decks.
LRichard, that's right. However, all of my other decks are based on RWS, as well as all of the decks on my wishlist. I really don't want to limit my study on just one deck like I would have to if I concentrated on the Vampyres, but frankly, I don't think I have it in me to learn more than one tarot system at a time.
I have created a page on my blog dedicated to documents (which can be downloaded) and websites related to the GD and the Thoth Tarot
Thank you
WolfyJames, this is great! I'll definitely be downloading some of those very soon, while I'm still making my decision.
Thank you to everyone who responded; I'm going to take my time and read some of the Thoth materials while I make up my mind. Truth to tell I'm leaning more towards the RWS system right now, but that may change as I read more on the Thoth.