Thoth Tarot Positive or Negative Energy?

mercury8

Thank you, that was both helpful and poignant;)
 

Lillie

mercury8 said:
I own several Tarot decks, among them Aleister Crowley's Thoth Deck and am curious what the forum thinks regarding the energy surrounding the deck. I like using the Deck, but am a little put off by what may seem to be negative energy possibly associated with the deck with regards to Crowley. I would like to use this deck, but am not sure if it is infused with negative energy because of Crowley, and would like to hear what others have to say.
It's not infused with negative energy.
It may, however, be infused with wicked satanic evil.
But in a positive way...

Just as an anecdote, I once did a reading with the Thoth deck for a pregnant woman and the death card came up. I felt awful because I was not sure if that particular card was somehow influencing the woman to get an abortion! And since then I have been a little wary of using this deck.

It's not the first interp that would leap to my mind...

Did she have an abortion because of the reading????
 

SunChariot

The cards are just cardboard as many on this site are wont to point out. They are printed in a factory and have no negative or positive energy on their own.

Their energy in a reading comes from the reader. Whatever energy you put into it is what they will reflect back at you. If you think inside you that they have some negative energy because of Crowley and feel some negative feelings towards the deck for that or for whatever reason, that energy will likely be reflected back to you in your answers.

On the other hand if you just see them as a tool find to an insightful and helpful solution to the question of the reading, you'll likely always get positive insightful asawers. No matter which deck you use. If that is your expectation.

Or anything in between, like I personally believe all my readings with any of my decks are personal conversations with G-d and my angels. You may or may not believe it, but all my readings for me (with any deck) have always had that feel, and been full of love and light. Because that is what I expect to happen and so it does.

The energy you expect is what you get back. The energy comes from you, the best the cards can do is reflect that energy back at you. As in so many things in life, your expectations create your reality.

And btw, the Death card very very rarely means real death in Tarot. I have never gotten it to mean physical death. In fact the one time a reading of mine did show a physical death, the Death card was nowhere in sight.

As for the Death card for the pregnant woman. The Death card just means something ending to make room for someting better to take its place. It is a card of deep change and of metamorphis, change and growth.

All this is normal enough as she was pregnant and hey having a baby is a huge change in one's life. The card makes sense as something in her life was ending to make room for something better. Her motherless phase of her life was ending to be replaced by a beautiful new chapter in her life where she will have this new baby to love. It is a situation that will change her deeply on many levels, so the Death card makes sense there and is, IMHO, a positive card there.

Babs
 

mercury8

I guess the imagery of the death card carried me away in that sense. In the Thoth deck the Death card is very intense, and the first thing that came to mind was a physical death (as I had been new to doing readings at the time). In other decks I have seen, the Death card does not make me think immediately of death. All the more credit to Mrs. Harris for coming up with such a brilliant image!
 

SunChariot

Don't ask! ROFL My very first reading EVER was for myself. I asked what would happen with this man I was in love with. The Death card came up. I tell you it's a miracle I am still a reader today. LOL

I almost had a heart attack trying to figure out which of us was going to die. I was scared silly. I threw the card when I saw it. I put those cards away FAST. But I did have the peace of mind to mark down which cards came up where in the spread. I knew I should try and see if it was not as bad as it seemed.

It took me over a week, literally to have the guts to try again. Put all the cards back in the positions and read what they meant in the book. And of course all the cards were saying was that the relationship would end. Which (not surprisingly as my cards have always been truthful with me) it did soon after.

That was the scare of my life though. You'd think they could name the cards something less intimidating. Like call the Death card "Metamorphosis" of something...

Babs
 

ravenest

mercury8 said:
Just as an anecdote, I once did a reading with the Thoth deck for a pregnant woman and the death card came up. I felt awful because I was not sure if that particular card was somehow influencing the woman to get an abortion! And since then I have been a little wary of using this deck.
Joe D.

No, don't use the deck - not until you get a basic understanding of what the cards mean ... especially the Death card! And - for heaven's sake - don't give readings to pregnant women with negative overtones coming from your own lack of understanding.
 

mercury8

I felt I had a good grasp of the Tarot from using the Papus Tarot Deck by the time I was doing the first and ONLY reading for someone else using the Thoth . Every time I had done a reading for someone else using this (the Papus) deck, the results came out positive. I guess I was scared what it COULD mean and at the time I was wary of Monsieur Crowley and was perhaps a little spooked. Plus I was going off of the position of where the Death card was (in the 9 or 13 spot) which indicates a possible harmonious or incongruous future to cards 4, 8, and twelve, and I intuited that perhaps this woman (whose pregnancy was unplanned I might add) might be contemplating an abortion. Hence death on the one hand, or life on the other. I was just perturbed by the fact that if this woman, who was a friend of mine did indeed get an abortion, I somehow felt responsible for making that decision, which in no way was my intent. Every reading with the Thoth deck that I have done since then has been for myself (and perhaps it was a little naive of me to do a reading for someone without fully realizing the power of the Thoth Deck in the first place). Otherwise, the readings I have done for myself w/ regards to the Thoth deck have both made sense and been accurate. My tendency sometimes is to catastrophize, and in that reading I may have been doing exactly that by assuming the worst possible scenario-and I guess it figured into my reading. My approach to the Tarot is to intuit as much as I can from the cards, consulting the instruction only if necessary, and to tap into my unconscious as much as possible in order to give the reading my best. As it was one of my first dealings w/ the Thoth deck (as I had mentioned in an earlier post) I was not prepared for the intensity of the imagery of the Death card, and when it showed up, my first response to it was an actual death, which that card CAN potentially mean. At that time in my experience with the Tarot, I was not fully aware of the prevalence of that card meaning an actual death (i.e. a small possibility, or a good possibility) and so I (mistakingly) assumed the worst.
 

serenaserendipity

!!!

lillie--

i find your description hilarious and surprisingly apt!!!!

"It's not infused with negative energy.
It may, however, be infused with wicked satanic evil.
But in a positive way..."

this is a very simplistic almost superstitious way to look at the thoth deck, and yet when i get feelings about it, i get almost the exact same feeling--

its a conundrum...

it's definitely a powerful deck and i find it radiates an "aura"... even though you could take a lifetime to learn the esoteric meanings, a beginner can also use the thoth on a completely intuitive basis because the pictures have such a strong aura...


i feel the thoth is a tool. it can be used for good or evil. it is what it is.

crowley was a personality... he was a person of great power who dabbled in magickal arts and black magic but he was not purely evil.

the thoth is our inheritance...

if you inherit a lot of money from a grandfather who was an oil baron, is the money itself evil?

you can use it how you will...


s.
 

Venefica

Scion said:
Moderns have this weird idea that external visible states are the be-all, and that anything you can't touch and buy idoesn't exist (and where would they get that idea :D). But our entire lives indicate that the exact opposite is true. In a sense every deck is a different deck in the hands/memory palace of each user. My Thoth is not your Thoth or anyone else's. Anymore Than my Guernica or my Oliver Twist is anyone else's. I'd argue that's one of the grerat factors with any creation. AND the surest way to determine if something is Art or just drivel. Drivel tends to be the same for everyone who ingests it; Art changes you.

Well put. Bravo.
 

Parzival

Thoth Tarot : Positive or Negative Energy?

All too true, and yet when I or you face-to-face with the Thoth's symbolic Art, it's interactive, it's an interface between the Image There and I-Myself Here. It's who I am and what It Is. If I attune to the Fool, it's fool-on Fool. The image is not positive or negative -- it's truth telling, and I meet the truth it tells with my open receptivity or closed reactivity.