Le Fanu
Ive been reading tarot for years, happy with both illustrated and non-illustrated pips, though know Ive still got loads to learn, and I was drawn recently to the Thoth deck. Just one look at the Thoth deck and you just know that some help and guidance is needed along the way for these cards if you are going to get the most out of them. I personally don´t think it´s a deck you can just pick up and launch into...there´s just so much evident symbolism and cross-referencing and mystical contextualising. I know some people willl say "O I just picked it up and it reads like a dream". But Im not so sure....
I realised from here that the key text to this deck is the DuQuette "Understanding AC´s Thoth Tarot". I ordered a copy from amazon a couple of weeks ago and I feel so disappointed both with this and now with the deck! And I was so keen to get into Thoth! I just feel that all the necessary detail is too overwhelming. And I thought the DuQuette book would help it all make sense, or at least give me some sort of springboard. After all, I have some tarot background. And an academic background, which seems to me necessary for entering this universe as the texts and citations are so elaborate. But my Thoth plans have just gone all muddy. I was so keen to delve deeper! I don´t personally feel like I can read this as a normal deck (O and just change the court cards accordingly. And Judgment. And Justice &c). It warrants more than this. Yet the DuQuette hasnt really enlightened me, just made me aware of how much stuff I´ll never really understand about it. I know some say they just pick it up and read naturally with it and have never read any background stuff. I find myself questioning this. Thoth to me is the James Joyce of tarot. Difficult but probably endlessly rewarding. And like everything, the more you probe, the more fascinating it is.
But I don´t feel any more enlightened after having almost read DuQuette. I really dont know what celestial quadrants, quadrants of space, exalted Mercury, the Key Scale - and a host of other things which arent in the glossary - are. I don´t even feel like picking up my Crowley deck. And the last part of the book is becoming a slog. And it surprises me as I usually find tarot literature unputdownable. I feel sad and unmotivated..... A shame...
I realised from here that the key text to this deck is the DuQuette "Understanding AC´s Thoth Tarot". I ordered a copy from amazon a couple of weeks ago and I feel so disappointed both with this and now with the deck! And I was so keen to get into Thoth! I just feel that all the necessary detail is too overwhelming. And I thought the DuQuette book would help it all make sense, or at least give me some sort of springboard. After all, I have some tarot background. And an academic background, which seems to me necessary for entering this universe as the texts and citations are so elaborate. But my Thoth plans have just gone all muddy. I was so keen to delve deeper! I don´t personally feel like I can read this as a normal deck (O and just change the court cards accordingly. And Judgment. And Justice &c). It warrants more than this. Yet the DuQuette hasnt really enlightened me, just made me aware of how much stuff I´ll never really understand about it. I know some say they just pick it up and read naturally with it and have never read any background stuff. I find myself questioning this. Thoth to me is the James Joyce of tarot. Difficult but probably endlessly rewarding. And like everything, the more you probe, the more fascinating it is.
But I don´t feel any more enlightened after having almost read DuQuette. I really dont know what celestial quadrants, quadrants of space, exalted Mercury, the Key Scale - and a host of other things which arent in the glossary - are. I don´t even feel like picking up my Crowley deck. And the last part of the book is becoming a slog. And it surprises me as I usually find tarot literature unputdownable. I feel sad and unmotivated..... A shame...