Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot

Lon Milo DuQuette's "Thoth Tarot" is *Excellent* in its discussion of symbolism, significance, historical context, and connections and insights into Tarot, Tree of Life, and Tarot as a spiritual journey or meditation practice. As other reviewers point out, Aleister Crowley managed to impart and condense a lifetime's study into 78 cards. Heady stuff, and not especially easy to get or master. Additionally, Thoth tarot cards have a way of unfolding (unpacking) more info and insights as you continue your relationship with them. DuQuette's book comes in handy for all these purposes. Divination: A section toward the back contains condensed descriptions or highlights of the individual cards for divinatory purposes. "Thoth Tarot" can be used to help understand cards in readings or spreads, though Ziegler's "Mirror..." is better for this purpose; it's more immediate or practical for an introduction or crib. Ziegler's "Mirror" is a fine Intro or go-to book. **A note about the Thoth Tarot deck by Aleister Crowley and Lady Freida Harris: It simply is the best, deepest, most "correct" deck you could have or want for insights, clarity, or social/spiritual understanding. The artwork (by Lady Harris) is beautiful and powerful, and enables you to enter the card / meaning from whatever orientation you have -- color, numeric (numerology), chakra-based, astrological, physical, ..., whatever. You can start with what you know and work from that, or build on that through reflection. Compared to other tarot decks, experience lends me the confidence to say THOTH is the BEST deck, ever, for high-level mastery and understanding of greater, highest good. Others, e.g. Rider-Waite, are anachronistic, patriarchal vehicles for fear mongering or are well intentioned but skewed/off.

I've learned SO much from this book that I can't recommend it enough. If he simply went through all the cards, as so many other books do, well, his book would be like the others. But he goes over the underlying theory (if I might be forgiven for calling 5000 years of mysticism "theory") and sets a very nice basis for the things that are revealed in the Thoth Tarot. There are not all the many people who are actually qualified to explain all this complicated mystic information but he certainly is. And of the people who can explain it many of them would, no doubt, make it dry. But, good lord, he keeps it interesting. And all this explication is essential because the Thoth Tarot really is the culmination and the bringing together of many many mystic lines of inquiry over thousands of years. It would be truly overwhelming if Mr. Duquette didn't treat the subject with his incredible depth of knowledge and excellently accessible writing! As you might have guessed by this point, I highly recommend this book!

Truly an excellent book. And I must disagree with the earlier reviewer who felt that Crowley had somehow been "dumbed down" or sanitized. Nothing could be further from the truth. Duquette spends a significant amount of space and time (nearly 100 pages) on explaining such things as the Holy Guardian Angel, the new Aeon of Horus, the Tree of Life, the significance of the Book of the Law as it relates to Crowley's tarot, etc. The bulk of the book is filled with detailed descriptions of each card, and their significance in the Tarot as a spiritual journey...rather than dwelling on divinatory meanings. There is a section at the back that gives brief divination meanings for readings, but clearly he (and Crowley too), thought that divination was a side effect produced by the Tarot...useful certainly, but not the main significance. My only complaint really, and it is a very minor complaint, is that Duquette keeps apologizing for having to spend so much time on the background stuff. One apology would have been enough...anyone completely unfamilar with Qabala et al should know what they are getting into, and EXPECT some time spent explaining it. Continually apologizing for it was not necessary. I particulary liked the inclusion of bits of correspondence between Harris and Crowley, while the paintings were still being done. Duquette suggests that Crowley's original Book of Thoth (book) would be required reading alongside this book, and I must agree. It doesn't replace the original, it just makes jumping into it a lot less painful. I wish this book had been available years ago when I first read the Crowley book!

Lon Milo Duquette is a very entertaining and knowledgeable writer. This book is fun to read and very informative if you are starting on the work of Aleister Crowley and the Thoth Tarot. Duquette provides all the tools to start diving deep into several disciplines related to tarot, however I must admit this is good only for beginners. I would have liked to read a lot more on several subjects from Duquette's "pen", because, as I said, he's really a great narrator and teacher. The second half of the book seems to rush a bit compared to the first. Either way, here you'll find all you need to start your studies: card symbology, meanings, brief biographies of Crowley and Freida Harris and more. I bought the Kindle ebook, and here's the down side to this review: the adaptation isn't that good. There are several typos, but, most importantly, the very precious charts Duquette designed to explain the relation between cards and astrology are so tiny and blurry as to render them useless on a Kindle. They should have been placed in a vertical format or towards the end of the book as large images. The way they are presented now is not respectful of the author's work. Thanks to Duquette's explanation we can re-construct these charts ourselves, but it's certainly a drag.

トート・タロットの講座に行ったとき講師の方から薦められた本の一冊です。『トートの書』の副読本といえます。すべての基本をシンプルに説明してあって、私のようなタロット初心者にも理解できる優れた入門書だと思います。 全体がパート1とパート２に分かれ、パート１は『トートの書』に書かれていない背景、クロウリーと黄金の夜明け団、ハリス女史、ホルスの時代、カードの裏側のバラと十字の絵柄に込められた意味、生命の樹、色階、聖守護天使、など、必要な知識を網羅しています。パート２は各カードの説明と占い方です。 日本語で書かれたトート・タロットの本も今では何冊かありますが、この本の良さは、もしクロウリー自身が平易な解説書を書く気があったら、こんな内容だったかもしれない、と思える点です。筆者はクロウリーの思いを代弁しているように思います。 『トートの書』を初めて読んだときは内容の難解さに半ば絶望しましたが、この本を読んで希望が持てました。 そんなに難しい単語や構文の英語で書かれていないので、『トートの書』の日本語訳より易しいかも？！

You definitely need this book for studying Thoth!

Understanding the Thoth tarot is not so easy. Mr DuQuette did a very good book, using a lot from The book of Thoth from Crowley but simpler, more accessible !

PRO *accurato *moderno *fedele agli insegnamenti *sintetico *tratta più di iniziazione che di divinazione CONTRO *molti disclaimer *divinazione trascurata, intenzionalmente. *Se dovessi trovare un aspetto negativo di questa preziosa opera, potrei dire che l'avrei preferita lunga il doppio. L'autore, persona estremamente ironica ed autoironica, definisce il libro "il compendio di tutti quei frammenti di conoscenza necessari ad affrontare il libro di Thoth". Ed infatti, dopo i necessari disclaimer (Crowley non era il diavolo in persona; lo studio dei suoi tarocchi non ti garantisce un biglietto per l'inferno, ecc ecc,), troviamo una rassegna di concetti base, spiegati semplicemente, coerentemente con gli insegnamenti della "Bestia". Le carte sono trattate una per pagina; Avrei voluto almeno ottanta pagine per ogni carta, ma tant'è. Vuol dire che approfondirò sperimentando da solo. Lo stile è leggero, a volte forse troppo, perché l'autore a mio avviso percepisce la fin troppa paura generata dal nome Crowley, e vuole mettersi al riparo dal bigottismo; il risultato è una sfilza di disclaimer, MA GLI ARGOMENTI IMPORTANTI, COME LA MAGIA SESSUALE, IL SIMBOLISMO VOLUTAMENTE FASTIDIOSO E PROVOCATORIO DI CROWLEY, ED I RIFERIMENTI ALLA RELIGIONE, NON SONO NE DILUITI, NE STORPIATI. L'unico metodo di divinazione incluso, occhio, è QUELLO DEL LIBRO DI THOTH ORIGINALE; per cui, niente divinazione for dummies, qui. Ottima bibliografia e note curatissime.

Lon Milo DuQuette, Masón y miembro prominente de la Ordo Templi Orientis, escribe este increíble libro que hace un excelente trabajo para explicar la relación entre el Tarot y la Qabbalah. Entra a profundidad en la simbología y todos los que estén dispuestos a estudiar el tarot de Thoth, ideado en primera instancia por Aleister Crowley, van a encontrar en este libro todo lo necesario para comenzar a comprender de que va el asunto. Altamente recomendado aunque la primera barrera de entrada es que está en inglés.