Is the Thoth used much for reading?

WolfyJames said:

The Liber T is special.

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Hear hear!

In answer to the opening post: yes, I've read with the Thoth for about 25 years. Lady Harris' artwork is transcendant in every sense of the word, and Crowley was a demented, highly-educated genius. What's not to read? I definitely prefer it to Waite-Smith based decks, and (if you're interested in such things), for all it's Thelemic grafting, it is categorically closer in structure to the Golden Dawn than Waite's mystical Christian hybrid of same.

I read primarily with the Liber T (which everyone knows 'round these parts), so I think about the Thoth structure and artwork and idiosyncracies constantly. The Thoth can pretty much do anything, from finding lost keys to grief counseling to practical magick. In some senses I guess people might feel cowed by using it for simple day-to-day readings, as if you're using a sledgehammer to open a pecan. But I don't see any reason to feel that way. Chefs can use an $800 knife to make sushi or slice lemon for tea. The greatness of the knife is useful in both cases.

To put it another way: right now as you read this post the Thoth is being used for hundreds, maybe even thousands, of readings at this very moment. The Crowley-Harris Thoth is one of the occult masterpieces of the western world, and if you have any interest in it, however casual, I urge you to find a point of entry that lets you get a feel for how beautiful and rich it is.

I love my Thoth so much. Gives me such wonderful readings .

WolfyJames said:

I got the Thoth a few years ago as a gift, I got then the DuQuette book too with his Quabalah book; DuQuette's book about the Thoth is really great, and the first to read if ever you want to read any book on the Thoth. The Thoth somewhat stayed buried in my pile of tarot decks. My craze on the Thoth Tarot started when I acquired the Liber T Tarot of Stars Eternal, which is a very very close clone to the Thoth, the closest out there assurely. I've been using it since as my main deck. While I have read a few books on the Thoth and a few good websites about the Thoth, I also use the deck intuitively without reaching for my books at each reading. I think sometimes it's because the minors are fully illustrated unlike the Thoth that helps me to be more intuitive with it. The Liber T is special.

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Good point. Though I got Liber T before I got Duquette - in fact, I got Duquette after I got interested in looking more seriously (because up till then it was "too difficult") at the Thoth after I got Liber T.) I have read with both - but "glorpishly".

Lilija - if you don't already have a TRIMMED Thoth - assuming it dries OK, trim the damaged one. The result is fascinating - you can see all the projective geometry.... (back to Duquette....)

The Thoth deck is one of the most beautiful decks I've ever seen. I like its depiction of the minors, and it's so colorful! However, I don't think I'll ever use it for actual readings. It doesn't press my buttons in that sense - the minors have no scene, and I don't feel comfortable with the changes Crowley made in the Tarot structure. He and Lady Frieda Harris have done a great job, though.

Kosmoran said:

It doesn't press my buttons in that sense - the minors have no scene

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Once you scrape the surface just a little, you realise the Minors are massively vivid. Just because they don't have people in them, but, honestly, they're equally rich. For me much moreso than the RWS. The tensions and drama is much more subtle in the pips. I find the images of the RWS minors a bit too restrictive much of the time. As though they have a little too much hangover of Victorian sentimentality.

Le Fanu said:

Once you scrape the surface just a little, you realise the Minors are massively vivid. Just because they don't have people in them, but, honestly, they're equally rich. For me much moreso than the RWS. The tensions and drama is much more subtle in the pips. I find the images of the RWS minors a bit too restrictive much of the time. As though they have a little too much hangover of Victorian sentimentality.

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Yeah, I agree, the images are vivid. I feel more comfortable with the RWS images exactly because they look more concrete to me; also, you can see a kind of story going on in the suits. My first deck was a Marseilles. Trying to extract meaning out of "six coins" was so frustrating. The RWS' images helped me to get familiarized with the minors. It's closer to my reach.
The Thoth deck images are clearly more elaborate than the RWS'. You can look at them for hours. I think each deck works well in its own system.

Le Fanu said:

Once you scrape the surface just a little, you realise the Minors are massively vivid. Just because they don't have people in them, but, honestly, they're equally rich. For me much moreso than the RWS. The tensions and drama is much more subtle in the pips. I find the images of the RWS minors a bit too restrictive much of the time. As though they have a little too much hangover of Victorian sentimentality.

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Yes, and I actually think the people scenes in the RWS limit my interpretations. They focus in too much on one set of possibilities. That's why I love the Thoth for reading. The possibilities are endless.

Kosmoran said:

I don't feel comfortable with the changes Crowley made in the Tarot structure. He and Lady Frieda Harris have done a great job, though.

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The more I look at why the Minor Arcana cards were given the meanings the were by Waite and by Crowley the more I think that Crowley was actually correcting changes made by Waite. Crowley's interpretations of the cards are closer to what you see if you look at each card in terms of astrological and kabbalistic attribution. Waite may have made some of his changes out of sentimentality (Six of Cups) but I wonder if he might also have been veiling the actual teachings of his order.

As far as Crowley's changes to the attributions of Hebrew letters to the Major cards, I don't know. However the Golden Dawn attributions were themselves different from those of previous writers on tarot (Papus) so I guess there are several systems.

Apparently, all those occultists from the 18th and 19th centuries, from Eteilla to Crowley, were all about "correcting" the Tarot. The way I see it, while they didn't seem to realize that, they were actually inventing a new Tarot, adding stuff that seemed reasonable for them. I believe that all those systems of ascribing meanings to the cards are ultimately just artificial frameworks. I don't think there is such a thing as the "true" way of giving meaning to Tarot cards. After some time, every Tarot student starts giving their own meanings to each cards, which may be a little distant from what the books say.

Myrrha said:

The more I look at why the Minor Arcana cards were given the meanings they were by Waite and by Crowley the more I think that Crowley was actually correcting changes made by Waite. Crowley's interpretations of the cards are closer to what you see if you look at each card in terms of astrological and kabbalistic attribution.

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I'd agree with you there. I think Waite slipped up in places; I read something (here I could swear) suggesting that he made an actual mistake, even by his own system, realised it, and then couldn't be bothered to fix it....