The Thoth at the age 50

Hi All,

I wonder if anyone else here views Thoth in a different light due to their age. I turned 50 on July 14th and I pulled out my Thoth (which I put away for about two years or so) and the deck just seemed to almost morph into a picture book of my life. Now I have always struggled with the Thoth and A.C., but it seems to me through 50 years of life that A.C. and L.F.H. brought a lot of elder experience/wisdom to their evocative Tarot deck.

I don’t think we look at their ages enough when evaluating Thoth. I am not surprised when I think of how I thought I knew it all and how I thought they were somehow flawed and negative/mean personalities…it is more like how a young strong willed person chooses to overlook the cliff they are about to go over…see Waite/Smith Fool..lol… that Qabalistic abyss gets us all at some point. A.C. and L.F.H. actually made it through the abyss many times and the methods to see it through I feel are encoded in the Thoth. If you read some of A.C.’s letters you will find that he had great compassion for people who were following their true will, but struggling with it e.g. Jack Parsons. Mr Crowley is seen as mean-spirited person who dealt out all of this irresponsible rock star bullshit, but in reality he was always trying to be a better person/leader himself as well, thus following own his divine will.


Certain cards have just resonated with me such as Knight of Disks. A.C. understood that there are times and whole lifetimes spent being a handmaiden or just being another cog in the wheel. Does he bitch about this fellow or another fellow I relate to the Knight of Cups, of course he does, because he is telling this personality to WAKE UP, even if he/she doesn’t at least A.C. via the Thoth may prompt her/him to not continue sleepwalking through life. A card like ‘The Lovers’ is kind of a cradle to grave for me, not everyone can hear or cares to hear the voice, they don’t care about anything like divine will or their HGA. If it isn’t Humanism or an orthodox sleepwalker religion, you need to go get serious psychiatric help lol….

At 50, I love The Hierophant. As reflected in A.C. writings and letters… you have to tell the petty whiners/wankers below you to f**k off when they try to mess with your own divine path…and they will… They might have won before, but not anymore with me.

This deck is really packed with wisdom that can only be learned through living life. I would like to thank A.C. and L.F.H. as their beloved deck has been really helpful to me since I first got it in about 1982. Thoth just gets better with the age of it's owner increases.

No more wrestling with A.C. or L.F.H., they were always right anyway.

Freddie

I've always found it warm, friendly and familiar - but then, I got it when I was already around fifty.

It's clone, that everyone likes so much, the Liber T, is less appealing to me and less readable. I thought I wanted it and wanted it badly, and someone gave me one as a gift, but I struggled with it, I really did. I haven't actually pulled it out for a while. It might be time to pull it out and sit it down next to the Thoth, which is in high rotation, and see how they compare now.

Edited to add: And look at the image you posted! It's always people who have never used it who say what a dark and threatening deck it is. I find it full of light, geometry and clarity, and the cards you chose to share with us illustrate that well. Never cared for the backs, though - too much like cheap rock-star jewellery.

I was fifty in April, and I also feel that I grew into this deck lately. It was my first and I've been reading it for many years. Its voice was always completely honest and clear, and I rely on this deck more than on any other. But it took me many many years to find the courage to explore the background of the deck further. I did have the astrological background but I'm sorely lacking in kabbalah and alchemy knowledge. It will take some time until I really find my feet there (I have some other things to do in life, too, unfortunately!) but I'm happy that it seems do-able.

I move in a spiral with this wonderful deck. I return to it again and again, and slowly I feel I'm moving upwards...

Perhaps it is like the relationship Mark Twain had with his father; “When I was a boy of 14, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be 21, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years.”

Who knows what we will be like when get over 50 ... from the perspective of 25

Before:

http://billheidrick.com/tlc2003/tlc0803b.gif

After:

http://blazingstar-oto.org/gradymcmurtry/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/79_OTO-Ren-Raire-Booth5.jpg

Great posts All!!!

Here is a quote from A.C. in his 'Book of Thoth' which I think is quite good. I guess the deck as a meditation tool (equally good for divination as well) has really helped me put a lot of things in the right perspective. I keep thinking of how old A.C. and L.F.H. were when they made 'Thoth' and I just think their wisdom really flows through it. I think we will all still be able to relate to this deck no matter how old we get.



This is the threshold of life; this is the threshold of death. All is doubtful, all is mysterious, all is intoxicating. Not the benign, solar intoxication of Dionysus, but the dreadful madness of pernicious drugs; this is a drunkenness of sense, after the mind has been abolished by the venom of this Moon. This is that which is written of Abraham in the Book of the Beginning: “An horror of great darkness came upon him.” One is reminded of the mental echo of subconscious realization, of that supreme iniquity which mystics have constantly celebrated in their accounts of the Dark Night of the Soul. But the best men, the true men, do not consider the matter in such terms at all. Whatever horrors may afflict the soul, whatever abominations may excite the loathing of the heart, whatever terrors may assail the mind, the answer is the same at every stage: “How splendid is the Adventure!”



Freddie