"Killing the Thoth Deck" -Mary Greer

zan_chan

Have you guys seen this article about Angeles Arrien's book and alternate approaches to reading the Thoth on Mary Greer's blog? I can't figure out what to make of it and was hoping for some opinions from you Thoth-y types :)

Here I am starting off on this journey with Bat Chicken, hoping to study the Thoth and Crowleyism to the best of our abilities, and then I come upon an article that says that the study bit is unnecessary and Thoth can simply be taken for what it is, having a reader call upon the "collective unconscious" in order to read the "repetition of archetypal images and themes [from] across world-wide human cultures".

On first reading this article (and then confirming such ideas with a wise friend) I assumed that it was nothing but an exercise in extreme laziness. In the past week of mounting research, confusion, frustration, and bitterness (and fun and intrigue, too!) into the Thoth, I can definitely understand how and why someone would want to come up with a reason to get to use the deck without doing the work. On its own, the Thoth is a beautiful stack of cards and it's easy to see why any reader would want a chance to play with them. Not every reader, however, wants to do all the work involved to get to know the deck in the way I would assume Crowley would have wanted.

But then Ms. Greer does make a good point in quoting the beginning of the Book of Thoth. About the book itself, Crowley writes, "Its perusal may be omitted with advantage." Is that Crowley humor, or is there really something to it?

Thoughts?
 

Grigori

I think that post on Mary's blog is based on a thread we had here. You may want to check it out and see the background a bit.
http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?t=98307

Personally I don't think Crowley's deck can be understood without the study, but don't imagine that would in anyway reduce the ability of anyone to read with it if they wanted to do it that way :)
 

zan_chan

Oh, thanks Grigori - I was just looking for that thread and absolutely failed to find it.

Grigori said:
Personally I don't think Crowley's deck can be understood without the study, but don't imagine that would in anyway reduce the ability of anyone to read with it if they wanted to do it that way

That throws me a bit. I hate the idea of reading with a deck that I can't say I understand, at least a little. I'm not even sure that I would be able to do so.

What do we think about her hypothetical question asking what a future generation, having lost all books on GD/Crowley esotericism, would make of the deck?
 

thorhammer

I'm not at all convinced about the context of that little quote "omitted with advantage" - it's well-known that AC was most adamant that the deck NEVER be published or distributed without the Book of Thoth as an accompanying text.

The wording of the quote is strange and I imagine significant in and of itself. AC was known to obfuscate his meaning in layers of double negatives and confusing grammar. For a start, "perusal" is light years from "study", isn't it now?

\m/ Kat
 

thorhammer

zan_chan said:
What do we think about her hypothetical question asking what a future generation, having lost all books on GD/Crowley esotericism, would make of the deck?
Thousands of years of dedicated study, meditation and visionary magick have culminated in the images in the Thoth Tarot. Recreation of that work is theoretically possible.

As a reading deck, IMO it works because of the same magick. If one is a good reader, one can get a good reading out of the Thoth Tarot without studying the background . . . but I don't think that's any reason not to study it.

\m/ Kat
 

Aeon418

Narcissus

Grigori said:
Personally I don't think Crowley's deck can be understood without the study, but don't imagine that would in anyway reduce the ability of anyone to read with it if they wanted to do it that way :)
I totally agree. But there's reading and then there's reading.

Divining with a clearly defined symbolic map of the universe and of yourself is one thing. Ignoring that and projecting your personal psyche onto the cards is something else altogether. In both cases "readings" can be done. But the latter method is a smaller universe that tends to tell you what you want to hear. I wonder why.... :rolleyes:

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?
 

Grigori

zan_chan said:
What do we think about her hypothetical question asking what a future generation, having lost all books on GD/Crowley esotericism, would make of the deck?

I don't really think this matters. The deck is useful on its own merits, but if you want to understand it as Crowley intended then you have to do some work, which IMO is a rewarding thing to do.

Future generations would make their own ideas, which would be very different than what was intended, but good luck to them. There are plenty enough folks making stuff up now already for us to base projections on :laugh: So long as folks know the difference at the outset, then that is fine I reckon :D
 

Always Wondering

Aeon418 said:
I totally agree. But there's reading and then there's reading.

Divining with a clearly defined symbolic map of the universe and of yourself is one thing. Ignoring that and projecting your personal psyche onto the cards is something else altogether. In both cases "readings" can be done. But the latter method is a smaller universe that tends to tell you what you want to hear. I wonder why.... :rolleyes:

Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?

I can attest to this. Three years of using the Thoth without study was the long, hard, confusing way. Talk about a house of mirrors. I knew I couldn't have been fairest of them all, all the time. :laugh:

It would have been a lot easier if I had read BoT in the first place.
But when have I ever done anything the easy way. :laugh:

AW
 

Abrac

I agree with Greer that the symbols are open to subjective interpretation. I think Crowley would have agreed that to rigidly define them would be to kill them. But, to my mind, Crowley envisioned a definite direction which should be taken. A turning away from this course is, I think, what a lot of people object to. Theoretically, if the meanings are totally up for grabs, the Thoth could end up like the Waite/Smith.
 

gregory

I bought Arrien's book :|

(It was EVER so cheap.)

It is every bit as distasteful and disrespectful as I feared...... Don't worry about it, zan. (Mary, if you are reading - sorry about that, but you know I said this already :))

I confess that I DO read with it without having done the thing - but then; that's how I read with everything - and I am working my way through Duquette.... and Snuffin, and Crowley.