Conversion to Thoth

My first Thoth Tarot deck arrived in the mail yesterday. As I was working late, I did not get to it until nearly midnight. Within minutes of unwrapping the packaging, however, I was in love. Though I have owned the deck for literally less than twenty-four hours, I am already a Thoth convert, so to speak.

The deck that I have is the smaller one, seven centimeters by eleven centimeters. It is the first deck that I have handled that I can shuffle properly with my decidedly small hands. It is the first deck that I have owned that shuffles easily without needing to be, "broken in," a bit first.

The images on the card are lovely. I simply cannot stop thumbing through the cards, gazing at the beautiful swirls of color. The detail in the cards is stunning, as is the artwork. The artist's ability to include so many various aspects of symbolism and such without allowing the pictures to appear cluttered is amazing. I am blown away by her talent.

The deck reads surprisingly well intuitively. As I am a rather unintuitive newbie to tarot, knowing little about the Thoth aside from basic history and symbol meanings, I was expecting a bit of study would be necessary in order to understand my spreads. It seems that I was wrong. Although study will certainly help my tarot skills, I think that I could read primarily with intuition and my small stores of prior knowledge, if required to.

Anyhow, I am quite pleased with this deck, and I am looking forward to the arrival of my large Thoth, for study.

Aside from singing the praises of the Thoth Tarot, the point of this thread is to ask other Thoth users how they began to learn/study the Thoth deck. Did you use books or intuition? Should I begin with Crowley's, "The Book of Thoth?" DuQuette's book? "Tarot For Your Self?" Something else?

Thank you in advance for your suggestions!

Grats.

Now this is only one person's opinion.

Read with the deck and read nothing about it, using it constantly and exclusively for 90 days.

Then sit down and read DuQuette’s “Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot”. Then read Aleister Crowley’s “The Book of Thoth”. Then Read only the deck itself for 90 days.

Rinse.

Repeat.

Umbrae said:

Grats.

Now this is only one person's opinion.

Read with the deck and read nothing about it, using it constantly and exclusively for 90 days.

Then sit down and read DuQuette’s “Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot”. Then read Aleister Crowley’s “The Book of Thoth”. Then Read only the deck itself for 90 days.

Rinse.

Repeat.

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Interesting. I rather like this approach...

I don't tend to agree with Umbrae on much, but that is very sound advice. Didn't work for me, but then I'm not normal by any stretch of the imagination. Trying it can do no harm; whereas if you read about the deck prior to reading with it, you'll sully that carte blanche that is your Thoth-mind right now.

Go for it!

\m/ Kat

Welcome to Thoth!

Hi Ann1988.

The paintings are wonderful and the cards are magic(k). I hope you have a lot of fun with them. Don't worry if you feel Thoth is becoming an obsession, it can really get under your skin. Crowley has a lot of admirers on this forum.

To help understand the Thoth Tarot, Lon DuQuette's book is the key work for me. Snuffin's book compliments it very well. If you can afford both books then I would unreservedly recommend them. Both books are interpretations of Crowley from much-respected OTO members with years of experience and study.

Thanks for sharing.

chriske said:

Hi Ann1988.

The paintings are wonderful and the cards are magic(k). I hope you have a lot of fun with them. Don't worry if you feel Thoth is becoming an obsession, it can really get under your skin. Crowley has a lot of admirers on this forum.

To help understand the Thoth Tarot, Lon DuQuette's book is the key work for me. Snuffin's book compliments it very well. If you can afford both books then I would unreservedly recommend them. Both books are interpretations of Crowley from much-respected OTO members with years of experience and study.

Thanks for sharing.

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Chriske,

Thanks for the recommendation. I had looked in to Snuffin's book, but figured that for now Crowley's and DuQuette's books would be good. I will definitely purchase the Snuffin book at some point though. Thank you!

I have the DuQuette book and a download of Crowleys' book, but I haven't sat down to read either of them all the way through. I thumb through the DuQuette book when something in a card really piques my interest.

Other than that, I just go with the images and colors in the card, and I get pretty good results. It's really a nice deck and I find it ironic that I used to want nothing to do with the Thoth! (I saw one card and thought it too ugly for words LOL). Now, it's becoming a favorite deck. Very straight-up.

Good luck, and enjoy your Thoth!

T.

afrosaxon said:

I have the DuQuette book and a download of Crowleys' book, but I haven't sat down to read either of them all the way through. I thumb through the DuQuette book when something in a card really piques my interest.

Other than that, I just go with the images and colors in the card, and I get pretty good results. It's really a nice deck and I find it ironic that I used to want nothing to do with the Thoth! (I saw one card and thought it too ugly for words LOL). Now, it's becoming a favorite deck. Very straight-up.

Good luck, and enjoy your Thoth!

T.

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Haha. I, too, did not initially understand the draw of this deck. It seemed a bit austere to me. The people were few and far between. What humans were present seemed almost alien like. Now, however, I enjoy the women with antlers!

I'd never really read DuQuette's book - before I just 'delved' through it. So I thought it was maybe time that i did read it. Its very easy to get through, there is a lot of humour in it. I plan to read this first then go for the Book of Thoth again.

The two new books on the Thoth I have are the:- Tarot of the New Aeon by P C Tarantino and The Thoth Companion by Snuffin - I've not read either of them all the way through yet but both look very good. Although I did notice that the Tarantino book gives detailed reversed meanings too and (although I could be wrong) I don't think the Thoth is meant to be read reversed - the Snuffin book does it too but not in quite the same detail.

Most of the older Thoth books do a lot of stripping the cards down detail by detail - that can be overwhelming for a new Thoth reader but useful when you know the cards better and want to know why they used a specific symbol on a card - you have all of this to come

Yeah... the Thoth isn't "designed" for reversals, and elemental dignity will probably give much more meaty info. It's probably a personal thing, but reversals seem like a waste of time with this deck.

Additionally a caveat about the Tarantino: it's a book that's big on "empowerment" and very thin on actual content. The fact that she gived reversed meanings is a big red flag to me, actually. It is user friendly, but has the feel of a big New Age (as opposed to New Aeon) LWB on steroids. Lots of "quick" E-Z" soundbites, not so much insight or content... in fact, most of the information is exiled to the appendix for some reason. I'd choose the Snufffin over it in half a heartbeat. Snuffion is a wonderful addenda to the DuQuette and both of them will sort of prep you for the kookiness of Crowley's writing, which is the source of this branch of the Golden Dawn river after all. BUT...!

That said, Ann, I really agree with Umbrae and Emily here that just reading the cards on your own for a chunk of time will make any bookstudy you do much more valuable and powerful when the time comes. The more familiar you are with the images, the more questions you have when you start digging for answers, the more you'll get out of the guides to Crowley and the Book of Thoth. And then you want to get something that actually is a guide to Crowley. The DuQuette is a terrific place to start, Snuffin is a terrific supplement, and all the while you'll be working towards Crowley's own book, which changes everything and illuminates the deck immeasurably.

Just be careful of fluffy books (*cough* Arrien-Wagner-Wanless *cough*) that throw out any actual research or thought in favor of use buzzwords like "Angels" or "Affirmation" or dippy English 101 symbolism. Letting other folks make mistakes for you is a confusing, pointless, masochistic waste of time. Make your own mistakes!

Congrats on your new Thoth! And enjoy the journey... it's a wild ride.