nisaba said:
for a start, we know the Thoth wasn't actually published for decades, probably until after the GD deck.
I s'pose that depends on what you mean by published. The book for the Book of Thoth was out in the 40's, so the deck was "available" then, though not a usable version for reading etc.. The GD deck was theoretically hand created by each member of the order individually for a long time before that, by copying from the original produced by Mathers (and likely actually executed by his wife Moina). I suspect Wang's deck which was published in the late 70's would be the first version of the GD deck commonly/commercially available. The Thoth was out before that with Weiser's edition in the early 70's, and the USG version out a couple of years before Wang's was released. However Regardie published the GD papers including a description of their tarot well before Crowley published the Book of Thoth so the description was already common knowledge. I don't think any mention is made of the backs there, hence its variation in different versions of the GD deck.
Hmm that's complicated, the simple timeline version is
Regardies GD text -> Crowley's Thoth text -> Crowley Deck -> Wangs deck
Nisaba said:
I'm wondering if FH designed the back,
No way, the Rosy Cross is a symbol older than the GD by far, and not invented by Freida Harris. It was maybe developed by the GD folks for their specific usage, I'm not sure on how much they added to it, but all their initiates would make their own as a lamen along the path of initiation. Many decades before Freida Harris came along. The Thoth back is just a simplified version of what was a common image to members of the GD or Crowley's orders.
Nisaba said:
and if so, was it to tight instructions (as we seem to have evidence that the rest of the deck wasn't that tightly dictated to her).
I don't think any such evidence exists, but that's maybe a different thread. This suggestion only seems to come from folks who want to make it clear that Crowley was not involved in the creation of the Crowley deck
Not that I'm suggesting FH had no input, she obviously had a great deal.
Nisaba said:
If she did, where did the symbolism come from: Crowley or the standard GD teachings? If she didn't, who chose the backs, and where from?
I suspect Wang took the idea from Crowley. Since all the previous GD decks were handmade, I doubt any had backs as we expect them on a mass produced deck. Hand drawing 78 images would be hard work enough, let along going back to do 78 identical backs
Nisaba said:
Wang was more tightly directed by REgardie when he illustrated the GD deck, I believe. Did he also illustrate the backs, or again, was that chosen later (or earlier) and if so, who put it together.
I don't know how tightly directed he was, the cards follow the basic text book GD description (apparently with a number of errors), but I don't think Regardie really had a big role in the actual execution, and if he did maybe he was too polite to say what he didn't like at the time.... I know the Cicero's claim that Regardie was unsatisfied with the Wang deck, and subsequently claim his support for their own GD deck (though Regardie was not part of that process either apart from seeing some early sketches before his death). I suspect the back of the Wang GD deck was done by the publisher, as its not really artistically similar to Wang's work on the fronts. Though that's a guess of course.
