re-aquainting oneself with Thoth

I've had a Thoth since the mid-Eighties, & suddenly, unexpectedly have time on my hands so am indulging myself with extra-curriculae Thoth...however I see that I've fallen into a rut; I see the same old associations, use the same old 15-card spread, read & re-read 'Book of Thoth' (with varying measures of understanding!)..it's all feeling abit tired & I want to breathe new life into my Thoth relationship!

so, how to re-invent, re-invigorate, re-connect with the Thoth?
any suggestions?

also, has anyone any success with 'entering' the images, in the same kind of way one can imagine oneself into a Waite-Smith scene & interact with the characters....anyone tried this with the Thoth deck, & especially with the Minor Arcana?

velvetina said:

I've had a Thoth since the mid-Eighties, & suddenly, unexpectedly have time on my hands so am indulging myself with extra-curriculae Thoth...however I see that I've fallen into a rut; I see the same old associations, use the same old 15-card spread, read & re-read 'Book of Thoth' (with varying measures of understanding!)..it's all feeling abit tired & I want to breathe new life into my Thoth relationship!

so, how to re-invent, re-invigorate, re-connect with the Thoth?
any suggestions?

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Sure, read all the posts in the Thoth forum here and go from there

velvetina said:

also, has anyone any success with 'entering' the images, in the same kind of way one can imagine oneself into a Waite-Smith scene & interact with the characters....anyone tried this with the Thoth deck, & especially with the Minor Arcana?

Click to expand...

Yes; success but not in the way "one can imagine oneself into a Waite-Smith scene & interact with the characters" as I have never done that .... thanks

In a group working we noted results and compared notes later; interesting. No one 'interacted' with characters though, although at times the images became ... 'unstatic'. More than one noted (ed. in the Fool) the bird and butterfly flying around the 'track' they appeared to be on. But that might be because previous we (the same group) did a similar thing with the OTO lamen and the bird 'flew' (descended) into the cup (no flapping), but IMO that is just a given; suggested by the image and unconcious association

There are two ways to go with Thoth: intuiution and esoterics. The latter is the hard way (the "strait gate" of John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress), which may lead to some sort of enlightenment. For this, DuQuette's book might be a decent introduction to The Book of Thoth. The intuition thing is probably not worth wasting money on. Just go with your gut feeling about the weird pictures.

thank you for these suggestions -I'm re-reading 'Book of Thoth' again, but this time I have a Google search engine to accompany me .....this might lead me up the garden path, but might prove interesting too!

velvetina said:

thank you for these suggestions -I'm re-reading 'Book of Thoth' again, but this time I have a Google search engine to accompany me .....this might lead me up the garden path, but might prove interesting too!

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The Book of Thoth is a great book, really. You might want to brush up on your Qabalah as well, as it is both one of the fundamentals of the deck, and also really is what makes it come alive. There are excellent and simple books for this. And above all, ask questions here. Any question is an opportunity to learn for all involved.

Re-Aquainting with the Thoth

LRichard said:

There are two ways to go with Thoth: intuiution and esoterics. The latter is the hard way (the "strait gate" of John Bunyan's Pilgrims Progress), which may lead to some sort of enlightenment. For this, DuQuette's book might be a decent introduction to The Book of Thoth. The intuition thing is probably not worth wasting money on. Just go with your gut feeling about the weird pictures.

Click to expand...

Good advice about two paths that can re-connect. There might be a third path too-- working with one's intuition face-to-face with the "weird" and wonderful and enlightening pictures, while conferring with the books about the ...pictures. One could get lost with one or the other. There might be some other ways as well-- writing verse meditations on the pictures, dreaming about a focussed-on picture, pictures as talismans (see the Ciceros book about this). Still, "intuition and esoterics" are the main roads to travel.