Doubts about DuQuette?

Book review when I haven't read the book.

I've posted in the past how I have not been that impressed with DuQuette. I have also seen here how a few are impressed with him.

I too picked up my first Thoth deck and book waaay before the era of personal computers and easily accessed web info. {My first Crowley book was Book of Lies, imagine trying to interpret what the hell that meant as a first introductory book ! }.

There is a LOT to be said for the approach Ross outlined (but I don’t know if that's even 'possible' today), it generates a different type of 'intelligence'.

E.g. Nutting out (back then) how to perform a specific ritual; how to make the required things, like ... say, Oil of Abramelin. Understanding the oils that make them up, collecting them, mixing them ... already realising their 'volatility'. ( A few years back I saw some being marketed in a new age / pagan shop ) - I smelled it - that was enough!

When I read ( In 'My Life With Spirits' ? - something like that) where he poured some of that oil on his head ... I thought; you idiot! don’t you realise what is going to happen???

A few lines later it did, causing him to break his circle in a quick retreat to flush his eyes.

The more I read of that book ... ... then there was his tarot deck ... okay he put some extra info on the cards, but the 'artwork'.....

Seriously, how much cred would he get without his OTO 'cred'?

But I can see why he is popular (the Santa Claus of Thelema I have heard him described as)
he is an answer to the Llewellyn camp and I guess that’s needed.

And he has seemed to fulfil the age long occultist’s dream of making a living out of it.

And I should really just grumble off to my dinosaurs cave filled with dusty crumbling old books and decaying paintings of Enochian squares and dust covered implements ......

..... until at least I have TRIED to read DuQuette's book on Crowley's Tarot.

But can someone assure me first that it is better than his book on 'My Life With the Spirits' ?

Fellow gristle chewer.

Ross G Caldwell said:

It was a lot harder in the 1980s, I'm sure you can imagine. But maybe that difficulty of access, finding sources, was a blessing in disguise. It forced one to actually read, and read, and reread, and digest, the writings. Chew that meat, chew through the gristle and gnaw on the occasional bone fragment, suck out the marrow. That's what being alone with the Book of Thoth forces you to do.

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Oh too true, Ross. Too true.

Many modern day Thoth students just don't know how easy they have it these days with the wealth of material available online. Back in the day (Jeez! I sound like an old fart ) you had to physically track down Crowley books. I think because they were so hard to find you valued them more and tried to extract as much as you could from them. I still remember what a buzz it was to lay hands on something new.

I don't think I'm quite as 'hard-line' though. Just because I did it the hard way I don't think everyone else should too. But I do feel a little miffed when I hear complaints about how hard it is to 'get' Crowley. There has never been a better time to study Crowley. It just seems there's a lack of determination these days.

Aeon418 said:

Although it should be pointed out that Crowley wasn't talking about something as trivial as divinatory meanings. It is the cards meaning within the scheme of initiation that he was refering to.

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Of course. If you're using the Thoth or Liber T purely for weaning divinatory meanings out of them, you're in it for all the wrong reasons

Aeon418 said:

Many modern day Thoth students just don't know how easy they have it these days with the wealth of material available online. Back in the day (Jeez! I sound like an old fart ) you had to physically track down Crowley books. I think because they were so hard to find you valued them more and tried to extract as much as you could from them. I still remember what a buzz it was to lay hands on something new.

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Phew, whenever I hear members of the "old guard" talk about studying the Thoth, I count my blessings. I couldn't imagine physically hunting down Crowley's books, or Golden Dawn literature, especially looking at what part of the country I live in. You guys put in some hard work, but I'm sure you understand the material well because of it. It's ironic that the more information we have available, the harder it is to use it correctly.

The only Thoth book I have ever owned is Crowley's. While it may not satisfy everyone's yearning for instant gratification, it may be in their best interest to be directed to Crowley's sources. I think the DuQuette book is at best a compromise to keep their attention until they finally make up their minds whether to seriously take up the study of the Thoth. If they are really serious, they eventually will go to the sources; if not, then it doesn't matter.

Old Fart's Club.

Aeon418 said:

Oh too true, Ross. Too true.

Many modern day Thoth students just don't know how easy they have it these days with the wealth of material available online ... It just seems there's a lack of determination these days.

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Its a product of our modern society in some ways and not just specific to this issue. Whether its working out rituals, offering study groups (which I preferd to be more like 'brainstorming' sessions), 'Order structure work / initiations' ... or even gardening and growing food, we appear to be loosing something.

I think it has to do with 'specialisation' in a limited field, instead of ... 'holistic specialisation' ?

It has been said that through anayasis of remains the 'Bog Man' could detect the appropriate ores in his environment, mine them, build a smelter, smelt them, extract the metal, form it into the small axe he carried. (modern scientists tried the same and failed)

Crowley (?) said, even in his time he noticed that men and women went from being able to fix any machine they used with a pocket knife or hat pin to not be able to do so.

Steiner wrote somewhere that we are loosing our natural intelligence at an exponential rate.

I notice that some people cannot understand how to keep a fire going (surely the basic human skill?) long enough to cook food (and not just people from the city either!).

Back 'then' an old fart like me was prepared to hitch hike 700 km and sleep on the ground and find a market to 'busk' some Tarot for food money to attend my first 'Order structure work / initiations'. In the recent past I have seen people not bother to turn up because of inclement weather.

But hey! I can sit in my cave and watch the fly-by shots of Io with a Saturn sunset, I might be around long enough to see footage from the oceans of Europa?

Ahem.

With all due respect to the "old guard," some of the remarks here are not only patronizing, but seem to be addressed at what people think they read, which I didn't say. Nobody is talking about instant gratification, no one said anything about immediate understanding. Yes, you all walked ten miles through the snow to just look at a Crowley book, while I have yet to see even one in hardcopy. Good for you, but that doesn't mean any criticism of a companion book should bring up tales of the times before "horseless carriages," or immediate criticism of us "young'uns." Please don't throw sentences that begin with "the problem with modern society is..." at me.

You may remember I was searching for a Crowley concordance, and with the lack of one, DuQuette's main use to me is as a table of contents, but my criticism is when the book fails in that capacity. Yes, I have begun reading Rabelais to find out what "trink" really means, and I'm all for the ride, but that merely makes me think what he didn't include (look at his entry on Lust just to see how "Santa" can ramble on and on about nothing), and I will never think to look for, not knowing I don't know something. While I stand by what I said, that without him I wouldn't have gotten this far, please don't insinuate that I, or anyone else, is looking for "easy Crowley." I don't have to tell you no such thing exists and I will not be ashamed because my interests began post-internet.

I saw DuQuette teach on the Thoth deck at a seminar one time. By this stage I'd been studying the deck for some time so there wasn't really anything significant that was new to me, but I was still glad to have gone. I was surprised what he included in his seminar that isn't in the book, specifically in connection to OTO rituals. Not being a high grade OTO member I can't comment as to how much he included or excluded, but what he did include was a lot more than in the book. That seminar was recorded and is available on DVD, so may appeal to some folks perhaps.

For me DuQuette was a really valuable book, that helped me navigate the material and find my way. For someone new to occult tarot tradition, or trying to transition from RWS with an understanding gleaned from Pollack/Greer/etc I think it's very valuable. Or was to me at least. I couple of years later I don't find it so helpful to go back to anymore, though there are still a lot of areas in Crowley's books that still make me ponder. But many less than before DuQuette. Unlike other Thoth books I've read that didn't help me with Crowley.

In the sticky there doesn't seem to be a Book of Thoth study group. Maybe what we need to do is that.

Besides the normal plodding through, start to finish, I think an open question-answer-discussion format would also be nice.

Anybody up for that approach?

Edit: I see that Alta links 3 parts to a projected Book of Thoth study group here
http://tarotforum.net/showpost.php?p=771450&postcount=2
- it was last active 4 years ago or more.

closrapexa said:

Ahem.

With all due respect to the "old guard," some of the remarks here are not only patronizing, but seem to be addressed at what people think they read, which I didn't say. Nobody is talking about instant gratification, no one said anything about immediate understanding. Yes, you all walked ten miles through the snow to just look at a Crowley book, while I have yet to see even one in hardcopy. Good for you, but that doesn't mean any criticism of a companion book should bring up tales of the times before "horseless carriages," or immediate criticism of us "young'uns." Please don't throw sentences that begin with "the problem with modern society is..." at me.

You may remember I was searching for a Crowley concordance, and with the lack of one, DuQuette's main use to me is as a table of contents, but my criticism is when the book fails in that capacity. Yes, I have begun reading Rabelais to find out what "trink" really means, and I'm all for the ride, but that merely makes me think what he didn't include (look at his entry on Lust just to see how "Santa" can ramble on and on about nothing), and I will never think to look for, not knowing I don't know something. While I stand by what I said, that without him I wouldn't have gotten this far, please don't insinuate that I, or anyone else, is looking for "easy Crowley." I don't have to tell you no such thing exists and I will not be ashamed because my interests began post-internet.

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Quoted for truth.

I don't think DuQuette is perfect - but I HAVE read BoT, and - well, let us just say DuQuette has been a great help, as have Snuffin and Banzhaf.

Ziegler - well, yes, I only haven't dumped mine in case someone else collects and reads it. I feel a responsibility to make sure that cannot happen. Also it's quite funny in places.

I don't think DuQuette is perfect either. But do I think criticism of DuQuette's book has to be placed into proper perspective. If DuQuette had intentionally set out to write a replacement for the Book of Thoth I would be happy to 'put the boot in.' But DuQuette makes it very clear that his book is a primer (UACTT p.10). It's not meant to be an exhaustive commentary. It's just a lead-in text that preps the new Thoth student to tackle Crowley with a reasonable degree of confidence. It places the tools in the student's hands and equips them to begin their own explorations. What more can you ask from a guide?

I guess if I were being cynical I might say you can't help someone who won't help themselves. DuQuette's book opens a doorway to the Thoth Tarot. People can either take advantage of that open door or stand in the doorway and berate DuQuette for not holding their hand and walking them through.