Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot: New Edition

Description

Originally published in 2003, Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot has proved to be the essential guide to accessing the unique symbolism and meaning of Aleister Crowley's remarkable tarot deck along with the deeply textured artwork of Lady Frieda Harris. Crowley authority Lon Milo DuQuette starts by providing an insightful historical background before delving into descriptions of each card in depth, from a tarot perspective and from an expanded, magickal point of view. He first describes the tarot meaning of each card in detail and then explains all the other attributions Crowley intended.This unique guide has been updated with a new introduction that provides information on the unicursal hexagram cards included with the deck but never explained. Replaces ISBN 9781578632763 Review: En anglais - Guide essentiel pour accompagner le tarot de thot Review: Thorough thoughts on Thoth throughout - As someone who has owned the Thoth deck and Crowley’s Book Of Thoth for over twenty years, this text has become somewhat of a skeleton key to his and Lady Harris’ deck for me. Many of the more difficult if not inscrutable aspects of the deck and Crowley’s decisions are explained with a clarity unmatched in anything I’ve read on the subject. Lon not only provides helpful information on much of the “inside baseball” of the idiosyncrasies of the deck but also provides some of the most clear writing on some of the attributions and concepts that are foundational to communing and interpreting the cards for oneself. The sections on the Tree Of Life and the Hermetic Cross were some of the most manageable, clear and illustrative I have ever read and I walked away less perplexed yet still full of awe than other texts on the same subjects, which often left me feeling confused and frustrated. Crowley’s Book Of Thoth is much less daunting of a read and Harris and Crowley deck feels so much more familiar and welcoming than ever before. I cannot recommend this book enough for anyone truly interested in building a relationship to this material. Many reviewers critique the amount of space dedicated to the interpretations, which is understandable but not really what this book is entirely about. It helps one to think about this deck and to understand its mechanics and structure. If one is mostly looking for spreads and prepared interpretations I recommend Banzhaf and Theler’s book—however I think this book belongs on any serious students shelf.