slowly starting to understand the thoth want to try something new

So after months of reading I am starting to understand the concepts behind the thoth and finally feel prepared enough to feel confident in starting to study each card in more detail. I am not sure if this will get me to the point of reading with the deck but at this point I could careless as I am starting to fall into an abyss of fascination and obsession with the concepts presented by crowley's cards.

I was thinking of starting a progression of study on individual cards maybe one every week and journal my research. My question is would it be better to do this by deck order or by random draw? I am not sure if the card order of the thoth has some major purpose or not. Hell I do not even remember the original order at this point.

I think that the cards display a kind of progression, they tell a certain story. Studying them in order allows you to better look at the cards in context of the ones that come before and after it, its place in the bigger scheme.

closrapexa said:

I think that the cards display a kind of progression, they tell a certain story. Studying them in order allows you to better look at the cards in context of the ones that come before and after it, its place in the bigger scheme.

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With this said how would I go about reordering the deck...

The majors are easy the order of the courts, pips, and suits confuse me and I can not for the life of me get a google answer. I swear the suit order is wands, swords, cups, disks but could be wrong. Apparently the search engines insist on me buying another deck. Maybe it is a sign to buy the green box larger deck lol.

Siochanai said:

With this said how would I go about reordering the deck...


The majors are easy the order of the courts, pips, and suits confuse me and I can not for the life of me get a google answer. I swear the suit order is wands, swords, cups, disks but could be wrong. Apparently the search engines insist on me buying another deck. Maybe it is a sign to buy the green box larger deck lol.

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The Major cards can be arranged according to the regular numeral order (0 to XXI) or by the order of the Hebrew alphabet.

The other cards are ordered according the elemental pattern, Fire, Water, Air, Earth. There's an underlying qabalistic reason for this, but you can leave the 'why' until later if you decide to go down that route.

Fire - Wands
Water - Cups
Air - Swords
Earth - Disks

The same scheme applies to the Court cards.

Fire - Knight
Water- Queen
Air - Prince
Earth - Princess

With the Court cards be careful not to confuse yourself by trying to relate them to other decks.

Aeon418 said:

The Major cards can be arranged according to the regular numeral order (0 to XXI) or by the order of the Hebrew alphabet.

The other cards are ordered according the elemental pattern, Fire, Water, Air, Earth. There's an underlying qabalistic reason for this, but you can leave the 'why' until later if you decide to go down that route.

Fire - Wands
Water - Cups
Air - Swords
Earth - Disks

The same scheme applies to the Court cards.

Fire - Knight
Water- Queen
Air - Prince
Earth - Princess

With the Court cards be careful not to confuse yourself by trying to relate them to other decks.

Click to expand...

Ok so the courts come before the pips in the element and starting with knight ending on princess. With the pips would it start with ace going to 10 or start with 10 going down to ace?

Aeon418 said:

With the Court cards be careful not to confuse yourself by trying to relate them to other decks.

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This is huge
N

Siochanai said:

Ok so the courts come before the pips in the element and starting with knight ending on princess. With the pips would it start with ace going to 10 or start with 10 going down to ace?

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For study purposes the Court cards can be placed at either end of their respective suit. It's up to you.

Some people put the court cards between the Ace and the 2. Other people place the Knight's with the 2's, the Queen's with the 3's, the Prince with the 6's, and the Princesses with the 10's (According to their respective suits.) But their's nothing 'official' about any of these orders.

The pips as usual just run Ace through to 10. But which end you start at for study purposes is up to you.

nicky said:

This is huge

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In what way?

One thing that seems to crop up time and again is confusion surrounding the Court cards. Instead of trying to get to grips with the Thoth Courts solely in the context of the Thoth system, some people bring preconceptions from other decks and impose them onto the Thoth Courts. The most common example is the confusion surrounding the RWS Kings and Knights versus the Thoth's Knight and Prince.

Siochanai said:

......I am not sure if the card order of the thoth has some major purpose or not.......

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The order of most 'true' tarot decks has major significance. The Thoth is no exception.

......Hell I do not even remember the original order at this point.

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The numerical order of the Thoth trumps is identical to that used for centuries before circa 1900. As others have mentioned, the literial ordering by the Hebrew letters is slightly (!) different, but very significant.

Aeon418 said:

......With the Court cards be careful not to confuse yourself by trying to relate them to other decks.

Click to expand...

However, if you are curious, there's no reason to make the same mistake that thousands (including I) have made, sometimes much to their chagrin when they find out otherwise. The correct order of the Smith-Waite Centennial court is:

Knight - Fire
Queen - Water
King - Air (corresponds to Thoth Prince)
Page - Earth (corresponds to Thoth Princess)

The suits are:

Wands - Fire
Cups - Water
Swords - Air
Pentacles - Earth

Aeon418 said:

The most common example is the confusion surrounding the RWS Kings and Knights versus the Thoth's Knight and Prince.

Click to expand...

I find an easy way to remember them is one that I believe Crowley himself mentions. It's always the story of a Knight.

This doesn't quite match the allegorical functions, just a handy way to remember the order. Knight always comes first in both orders, the hero. The Knight always wins the Queen's hand, #2.

Then it's about the sex. Waite's deck is more "conservative" than Crowley.

Waite: King is #3. The Knight and Queen "Waite" to have kids, so he is crowned and stays the King for a while before they have one child, the Page.

Thoth: The Prince is #3. The Knight and Queen don't wait until the coronation, they have a child, the Prince, right off the bat, soon followed by the Princess.