Thoth vs Toth, whats the deal?

linabeet

Potatoe - Patata
Tomatoe - Tamata
Thoth - Toth

Is there a difference with the 2 spellings? Some use one not the other, is there some history/symbolism/secret bruhaha that differenciates between the two?

curious
 

CreativeFire

Hi linabeet - good question. I had always assumed that when I saw "Toth" in the threads that it was just a typo :) Hopefully someone more knowledgeable can answer this one.

Cheers
CreativeFire
 

Emily

Hi linabeet and CreativeFire,

I always thought they were typos too - unless ppl are spelling Thoth how they say it. I say Toth, still not sure how its supposed to be pronounced, but spell it Thoth. I still sound like I have a lisp when I say it and I've been using the deck for a while now lol - sometimes I just cheat and call it the 'Crowley deck' :)
 

Dakota

According to Rachel Pollack, Thoth is pronounced "toth", basically rhyming with "both", the first H not pronounced, the final H pronounced very, very softly so that it almost becomes "tote" but not quite.
 

Centaur

I am perplexed....

I have always pronounced Thoth as I would pronounce the word, 'Scoff'. LOL.

Anyone else?
 

Emily

Hi Centaur,

I always used to wonder why the great Aleister Crowley would create a deck that was so strange to pronounce. I have heard quite a few different ways to say it :- toeth, toth, t-oth - I wondered whether it was a joke. mainly on the users of the deck that it was so hard to pronounce, but then I found out that the deck actually started out as illustrations for the book - I didn't know this until I started to use this site.
The deck was published after his death and I wonder if he would have still called it the Thoth or would have renamed it. :)
 

Centaur

Emily said:
But then I found out that the deck actually started out as illustrations for the book - I didn't know this until I started to use this site.

Hi Emily,

I never knew that! Very, very interesting. Have you, or anyone else, ever come across the pronunciation of Thoth as advocated by Crowley himself? I think it would be interesting to see how he would have pronounced it.

:)
 

jmd

The title 'Book of Thoth' is not original with Crowley, but rather stems, most likely, with Etteilla following comments by De Gebelin and Comte de Mallet.

Etteilla not only wrote a few books on Tarot (referring to it as the 'Book of Thot'), but also even formed a 'Society of Interpreters/Readers of the Book of Thoth' ('Société des Interprètes du Livre de Thot' - mentioned, if I recall, in Dummett, Depaulis and Decker's Occult Tarot).

Amongst the other transliterations and appelations of Thoth are Tat, Tehuti, Thot, and T'ot'.

I am confident that Crowley would have retained the name 'Book of Thoth', whether or not Tarot properly deserves this appelation.
 

Alobar

Emily said:
The deck was published after his death and I wonder if he would have still called it the Thoth or would have renamed it. :)

i doubt it. i don't think AC was too terribly concerned with the ignorance of the peasants.

as far as the cards originally being designed as illustrations for the book, could you qualify that? i've never heard that before, and would be surprised if that were actually true. the fact that the cards weren't published until more than a quarter century after his death doesn't necessarily mean that it wasn't his intention to do so.
but i'm always open to new information regarding the world's greatest tarot deck!
 

Emily

Yes Alobar,

I've read it somewhere online - I'll see if I can find where I read it. Before buying my first Thoth, I scouted online for weeks refreshing my memory of Crowley and his works.