Your Thoth study--then and now

I was very interested in recent threads where the learning of the Thoth and differing perspectives--I wonder if you would like to share here when you began Thoth deck study...depending on the time you began and and what you use now as you matured in your deck study.

While I first truly thought the images were beautiful 10 to 15 years ago and used a online forum--Fourth Dimension Tarot--to figure out reading with the deck, and the Tarot Hermit booklet with my AGM deck...the poetic descriptions, if by Crowley, are beautiful.

I also can be sadly scolded for first taking a class that used Angeles Arrien's book and an approach of just analyzing the Thoth with symbol-metaphor-assign meaning as one goes. That was what I could find as a help some 15-20 years back to fill much lack of understanding with Book of Thoth.

Since then, as of 2010, Lon Duquette's book and a few decks I enjoy that grew from Thoth appreciaters and AC's poetic takes on symbolism is more widely available. I have grown a bit more in my understanding of how people use yoga and I-Ching in appropriate contexts. I only know some Golden Dawn and Crowley history.

I can say though I am a better student of yoga work then understanding all of Crowley's meanings! But if the poetry rendered in the LWB...well, perhaps I should be looking at AC's poetry more deeply soon.

I do admit though, wading through Crowley's lectures on things such as yoga at first seems so period and does not make a good first impression, even when the concepts are easy to grasp. But beyond one shrug after another, there is a distillation and essence he is attempting that sincerely shines through. I am not trying to learn yoga or I Ching through Crowley-----I am trying to see what his take was in Eastern symbolism that is in play in his tarot.

Best,

Cerulean

I got it 25 years ago.

I got the Book of Thoth too and read anything I could lay my hands on about magic, the occult and Crowley.

Not much in them days, not much on my budget, but libraries have the occasional interesting thing.I read some interesting stuff, went down some interesting pathways of knowledge and experience.

Apart from that I just used the deck and looked up meanings and tried to understand the tree of life and stuff like that.
Then as I began to know the meanings I began to know them, the cards began to mean more to me than the meaning I had read. My understanding of them had been enlarged.

I picked up bits and pieces as I went along.
I still do it like that.
Nothing has changed except there are more books to be bought and less interesting books in libraries, and loads of odd stuff on the internet, except I have trouble reading long texts on a screen so usually I don't bother.

I read widely and indiscriminately.
When something fits the Thoth puzzle, some little snippet of info that enlightens me on one thing or another, I file it away in the place in my head reserved for the Thoth. Crowley stuff goes in the cross referenced Crowley place.
And this stuff, the stuff that fits, it can come from anywhere, from fictional books, from comics, from TV,.
I have never read the Arien book, I have never come across it, but I expect there would be something of interest in there.

And I suppose I never really sit down to learn stuff, to study, but at the same time I never stop learning.

Does that make sense?

I started using the Thoth at the start of 2005, having previously used the Mythic for a long time and RWS for a short time.

I don't remember what the first book I read about the Thoth was. I know I had the Book of Thoth and didn't understand a lot of it, Banzhaf's The Crowley Tarot (which I found really useful to get into reading with the deck, and identifying some of its symbols), Banzhaf's Keywords for the Crowley Tarot (which I used as a LWB and always had with me when I first started reading with the Thoth), and I also had Zeigler's Mirror of the Soul, which I didn't find very useful in comparison the Banzhaf's books.

Overtime I became interested in understanding more about the deck, and read Crowley's book more often, eventually finding DuQuette's books, as well as many others based on the GD decks which were very useful. Wang, Cicero's, Foster Case, Regardie, etc.. I also developed more of an interest in astrology, and found Frawley and Campion very useful.

Then I got really interested in Crowley's ideas, and started reading more of his material outside of just what was specific to tarot.

I still find Zeigler useless, and funnily enough have no interest in Waite either. Recently Snuffin, Barlow, Zalewski, etc...

Most recently I'm focusing on yoga and ritual, with varying proportions of study and practice. I read tarot a lot less often than I did in the past, its become more of a personal tool than a game for my friends love lifes.

I had some very beautiful and helpful Thoth readings from a mentor years ago. I knew nothing about tarot, all I knew was that those readings seemed to address something in me that nothing else could. We had a falling out and I didn't think much more of tarot.

Then I went through a difficult, crazy, confusing time, and I just knew it was a time no one could help me with. I didn't seek advice from anyone knowing my actions and decisions had to be all me. I did buy my own Thoth deck though. We struggled together for a few years due to my inexperience. I did buy the Book of Thoth but was totally thrown by the Egyptian stuff. But it was a comfort despite my lack of knowledge and knowing my own readings didn't come close to the readings I had gotten from my mentor.

One phrase kept coming up, the only quote of Crowley's I'd heard at the time. "Love is the law, Love under will." That phrase, thinking on it, wondering what it meant, trying to rise to my perception of love under will at that dark time was what got me through. I finally googled it and found my way to this forum. With help I picked up the Book of Thoth again. I was determined to learn the astrological associations, because that is how my mentor had read the cards to me. My goal was to be able to give myself a reading like she had.

I knew nothing about the occult. I realize now that my mentor mostly side stepped it. Paul Foster Case was the easiest for me to understand. It snowballed from there. I read mostly what anyone will suggest to me if it will help me understand my cards and myself. The Book of Law along with my deck have become my handbook for life. My readings now are richer and more magical than my mentor's were. But now I am hooked. There is so much to this deck. I often overwhelm myself with it.

I had no clue most people did not use tarot cards this way. AT opened my eyes to the whole world of tarot. I've tried other decks and other approaches. They just don't hold any meaning for me.

I needed to remember this right now. Thank-you, Cerulean.

AW

I bought my first tarot deck back in September-a universal RWS.

I started reading with the Thoth when I got it in April (thanks Always Wondering).

Prior to that I had the Liber T which I got in December so I was sort of familar with the Thoth.
Plus I had already read Book T and the info in 777 about all the astrological attributions the cards have and had that stuff down. But it took the Thoth and using it in readings to tie together everything I have learned.

I just purchased the Book of Thoth and am reading it right now. I am also reading the Golden Bough which Crowley recommends as well. I want to learn any piece of occult information I can learn that can help me to understand the meanings that Crowley used to set up the Thoth.

Since the Thoth is a mirror of his magical mind books like the Golden Bough definitely help understand the Thoth. I think I have discovered why Crowley opted to switch out the Kings for the knights,it seems as if the kings of antiquity were not quite so powerful after all,they were mostly protected and had to obey strict social rules of conduct. They did not have much freedom to act.

If anyone hasnt read it yet pick up the Golden Bough,it will help you greatly to see where Crowley was coming from on a lot of things,especially the Thoth.

Still a babe in the nursery.
I got a large Thoth in November of 2008. Snagged the pocket edition in March of 2009. Liber T in October 2009. Went looking for just about anything Thoth-related or based; books and decks. Even the stuff rated no stars.
I have a mad vision of myself laying out all the cards from all decks in turn. Need to book a hotel for the weekend though . . .

I got my Thoth about 35 years ago from a bookshop in Kings X in Sydney. walked in, saw it, didnt know what it was but HAD to have it. The first book I read (or tried to read) by the author was the Book of Lies

It went on from there.

was gifted a Thoth decades ago ... I never read with it and found the images disturbing but somehow also fascinating and even though I never read with it I kept it ...
fast forward to a few years ago.. I read some Crowley online and pulled the deck out.. still not ready for the big boy but it seemed inevitable that I would want to see what all the hub bub was about ...

Lon came to town a few years back and I attended his Thoth talk and made up my mind that at the start of the next year I would get studying the Thoth.

Jan 2009 I walked off the cliff on here and I am...

A year reading AC and I ended up at the OTO.

I am confident that if I continue to read and ponder I may have a clue by the age of 93.

I'm actually a relative newcomer to Thoth. I first got into tarot almost 30 years ago (OK, 27 years to be exact!) and started buying one deck after another. I remember the Thoth on bookshop shelves but that (and the Hermetic) seemed too scarey for me. Not satanically scarey but scarey in terms of intellectually demanding and I was only 13!

Plus I was into the historical decks at the time and the artwork just didn't appeal.

I've been enjoying (let's not say "studying") the Thoth on and off for the last 3 years or so. I have kept a Thoth journal, read BoT, Duquette, Snuffin, and most days get cards out and enjoy looking at them...

Just recently I decided to work through with a pencil the BoT again and really try and understand it better and remember stuff. I am thinking of starting a thread about all my doubts; there are so many words I just don't know and it would be nice to know what they refer to. It's an ongoing process but I am finding that, more & more, it is the only deck which keeps me stimulated. And as artwork, I find it so uplifting and aesthetically pleasing (which helps). I first read for others with the Thoth (as opposed to reading for myself) about a year ago and was amazed at how well it read. Since then, whenever I read for others I only feel confident if I reach for the Thoth.

It's a difficult deck, sure, but I constantly have Lillie's mantra in mind; the Thoth will reward you whatever level you're at... You don't have to be an expert before you use it & feel enriched by it

Hmm...when I first got into tarot (a whole year ago!), I bought a Thoth because it seemed that you need to have one. Got DuQuette with it and read it straight through and found the whole thing overwhelming (as it certainly is for a total Tarot noob) and put both book and deck on the shelf to stew.

And now, here I am, starting those threads you were talking about and ready to take in as much as I can