Which Thoth Companion Book Would be Best?

Jamie_1311

Frayling0 said:
Then DuQuette is the book for you - he explains ALL the symbolism of every card. The geometry, golden dawn symbols, qaballa, planets, elements... This will be the book you're looking for :)

Thank you very much Frayling0, sounds like it will be a fun read. If anyone wants a tarot buddy let me know, i would love to have one when it comes to the Thoth deck. I'll probably check out the study group.
 

nicky

Enjoy your Thoth journey -

DuQuette's book will be very helpful - but nothing will send you off on more tangents and subsequently more info that the BOT
 

Abrac

Personally I'd get them both and have the electronic version of The Book of Thoth handy for reference. I could never read the BoT from cover to cover but the electronic version is excellent for searching to see what Crowley said about certain subjects.

Neither Snuffin nor DuQuette cover every single symbol in every card, but for beginners they're probably the two best available.
 

Jamie_1311

Abrac said:
Personally I'd get them both and have the electronic version of The Book of Thoth handy for reference. I could never read the BoT from cover to cover but the electronic version is excellent for searching to see what Crowley said about certain subjects.

Neither Snuffin nor DuQuette cover every single symbol in every card, but for beginners they're probably the two best available.

thank you, I think getting both probably would be a good idea.
 

nicky

hahahaa what doesn't kill you ...


Those threads are full of wonderful help from the AT gang :)
 

Barleywine

Another Option

I've also had Gerd Ziegler's "Tarot: Mirror of the Soul" (subtitled Handbook for the Aleister Crowley Tarot) since 1988 but haven't spent much time with it. To help respond, I just dipped into it and did a few quick comparisons to BoT. At that cursory level I didn't find much to quibble with, except that the language is (probably intentionally) more pedestrian than Crowley's well-tooled turn of phrase. It seems to have more fleshed-out and consistent descriptions for the "small cards" but it dispenses with many of the qabalistic, astrological and mystical elaborations in the text itself and loses some of AC's legendary obscurantism (and attitude) at the same time. The descriptions aren't "bad," they just seem a bit vanilla ("milk for babes" rather than "strong meat for men"?) On the face of it, I'm not sure it adds much to a thorough understanding of the deck, but I kind of like some of the touches. The Indications and Affirmations read like aphorisms (ala Sturzaker and Case) and as a fan of the Wilhelm translation of the I Ching I'm kind of a sucker for those. It looks to me like a sanitized version of Crowley that won't frighten or befuddle old ladies and children, while still keeping enough of the essence to make it recognizable. Frankly, except possibly as a window into how the general populace can swallow their Crowley and keep on smiling, I'm not quite sure what I would use it for. But maybe I just need more time with it.
 

gregory

I have to say I find Ziegler so awful that I resent the 50 cents I paid for it.

grigori could say more, and I believe he has....