Studying the Thoth with a 12-yr-old

My daughter recently asked me to help her learn more about her Thoth deck. She's still pretty new to the concept of Tarot in general. Since I'm always seeking to learn more myself, I thought it would be sensible to pick out one card per week and study it together. Beyond that, I'm still unsure about a strategy and I think the good books on this topic are too advanced. Anyone have experience leading such a study with a child?

Bloody Hell!

Really?????

How come she has a thoth and not something fluffy with unicorns on it?

Do you read with the thoth?

The deck goes so deep...
I don't know how you would explain it to a 12 year old.

Try the LWB that came with the deck.
Especially if it's thoth specific and not one of them generic ones.

You could read the meaning from the book and get her to look at the card and see if she can pick out bits of the image that relate to the meaning.
Also some images repeat bits in different cards, see if she can find them in other cards and see if they mean the same.
Also you could use the astrological symbols on the minors, relating those to the meanings of the cards.

I just taught the Thoth to a room full of teenagers as part of a nine month Tarot seminar last year. 12 is only a year younger than my youngest student was. She'll be fine. No need to talk down to her. I agree with Lill that the ideas in the Thoth are complex, but then so is math at its highest level. You start them on their sums and then work up to calculus.

Just take the basics and lay a solid foundation. Find out what interests her and then stay a few steps ahead of her in the research so you can help her pick her way throuigh thre thicket.

Congrats on having a cool kid!

Scion

Full on Ffortlwn,

Bring it...

Well, I would Jack bird get into hearing what you learn, that being what your kid in question gets all fresh eyes, and fresh receptor out of the experience of contemplation of the big donkey action AC 78.

Interesting, I'm into checking that action -- to bad I'm not your full on neighbor... Nice, a bit of a study group... Of course I would bring my own 40ozers.

What ever you tumble into with kid brain in tow, I'm sure it's a grand win win, as kicking it parent style -- spending time with your offspring in meaningful dialog is noting but blasting "real" -- when my dead father was not so, I should have kicked it more with him, and picked his sparking brain.

I'd say "transmit contemplation energies!"

And if you care to take a bit of my notions into your thought bucked, what about a good bit of post-it note scratching and drawing?

I so get into that action -- perhaps I should scan a few of my constructions...

Make picture notes on post-it's, then construct larger collages of the cards with such.

Do the art thing, from the "card models," then from memory...

There is a book, a bit of some killer full on "wild chick women" wrote it... I think it's called "21 Ways to Jack bird Hack learning the Tarot" -- maybe it's by this Greener women, or Greeber, I could run find it -- but any way, she throughs down down this and that about kicking the 78 into your home court cranium... And drawing and painting is a part of that -- I know your into such as well -- so yeah, break out the crayons.

When I was a kid, there was this brush and pallet club my neighbor was a member of (his name was Howard, he had a weird lump that poked out of his guts, you'd see it when he wore a t-shirt in the summer, mostly when he was mowing his lawn).

They'd get together and paint in the parks and crap, a lot of them would paint houses and benches, you know. Anyway, they're mostly dead now, but I'd say they would have agreed with kicking out mad cap tarot scribbles.

Durant "remembering the dead" Hapke

I am with Scion! I never taalk down to my child....people look at me at times and I see she will get what she gets now - and ask me questions on what she doesn't get and eventually she will get the whole deal....

I think you should go card by card and both keep a journal and initially write down your images and thoughts on each card blindly....then you can go over with her symbols, colors, archetypal images etc..... But first let her and you too write down what first comes to mind. These images are very intuitive! Let them bubble up.

Then teach her about the astrological aspects etc.... it could take awhile but the deck is lovely and like an onion...many many layers, for both of you.

I'd say it's fine, of course depending on the kid (leave out the 9th deg tantra ) as pointed out, one need not start at the most complex level. I had two girls around that age in Thoth study class. But they were not your 'normal' girls. Quiet into it actually and the theory behind it. Give them the elemental theory as well, when taught right and relevent it can help to dispell a lot of teenage confusion (but not even out those hormones!).

We had an interesting discussion one night with the answer given by magical theory a la tarot; 'Why are boys so horrible?"

Oddly enough, so did we, ravenest... or as the girls in my class put it, "What's the distinction between a Prince and a Knight?"

Ffortiwn said:

I think the good books on this topic are too advanced.

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Perhaps that indicates that the deck itself is too advanced? I'm sure AC only envisaged it being used by mature adults with some experience of life. For instance, are you going to explain to her that the Devil card represents an erect penis? Or will you work through the Book of the Law to appreciate the significance of the Aeon card?

I think most 12 year old girls know, in principal at least, what a penis is and what it's for.
I knew...
It was the interesting thing my brothers had and which I didn't.
Was I jealous or what????

Anyhow, glossing over that sad fact....
People understand things on different levels.

And if the only people allowed to use the deck were those that understood the book of thoth then loads of us would be out the game.

If the girl wants to give it a go, let her.
I used to hate it when adults told me I wasn't old enough to read a book or see a film or whatever.
It was patronising.

Lleminawc said:

I'm sure AC only envisaged it being used by mature adults with some experience of life. For instance, are you going to explain to her that the Devil card represents an erect penis?

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I'm pretty sure that AC never envisaged any such thing. His opinion was that children should be educated about the facts of life instead of being fed fairy stories about storks.

What's the problem with the penis on the Devil card? It's been used as a fertility symbol for thousands of years and is fully consistent with one of the main meanings of the Devil. "Creative energy in it's most material form.

Of course this ancient symbolism doesn't sit well in sex negative societies that are still dealing with the aftermath of 2000 years of Christian dogma regarding the sinfullness of sex. Therefore adults continually evade the question or wheel out Mr Stork to hide their own shame and embarrassment from their children. Conventional wisdom tells us that they must never be told the TRUTH because that knowledge would corrupt them due to it's evil and shameful nature.

Who says the Dark Ages were in the past?