This is the third and final blog post in a series on the Thoth Tarot deck and Lon Milo DuQuette’s book Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot (2017) (NOTE: for the purpose of this blog post, I am discussing the 2017 “New Edition” of DuQuette’s book). In Part 1, I provided a brief history of the Thoth deck, and in broad terms described how it is different from the Waite deck. In Part 2, I provided a brief introduction to some of the more esoteric properties of the Thoth deck (and again used the Waite deck as a point of comparison). This blog series is both about the Thoth deck and about Lon Milo DuQuette’s book, but the first two posts in this series barely touched on DuQuette’s book. I felt it was necessary to briefly introduce the Thoth deck and at least begin to demonstrate the depth of the Thoth deck before beginning this book review. In reviewing Duquette’s book, it is also necessary to discuss Aleister Crowley’s The Book of Thoth (1944), which, as discussed in Part 1, was the original manual for the Thoth deck (Harris painted the Thoth deck in collaboration with Crowley to illustrate his book).
For the purpose of this blog post, let’s assume that you have in your possession a copy of the Thoth deck (if you don’t you can buy a copy through the Amazon Affiliate link on this page). While it is immediately clear when browsing through the deck that it is packed with spiritual mysteries and relies on occult systems like Kabbalah and astrology, you may initially feel overwhelmed and not know where to start in understanding the cards.
Note: I am an Amazon affiliate and receive a commission when people make purchases from Amazon using the links provided on my page (at no additional cost to the reader).
The most obvious place to start when beginning your journey into the Thoth deck is obviously Crowley’s manuscript. Although Crowley’s work is obviously (by definition) the most authoritative reference on the Thoth deck, I would suggest that for the vast majority of student’s of the Thoth deck, DuQuette’s book is a far more accessible entry point to the study of this deck, and that DuQuette’s work will provide you with much of the background you will need in order to begin to tackle Crowley’s The Book of Thoth.
Crowley’s work is quite dense, and can be challenging even to highly educated people with at least some background in occult studies. For the purpose of comparison, I would say the writings of Crowley are at least as difficult (if not more difficult) to follow than the works of Karl Marx. While the first section of The Book of Thoth (which is only 45 pages long) does provide some instruction on how Tarot is built around the systems of Kabbalah and astrology, and even provides a small amount of instruction on these topics, Crowley largely seems to assume that the reader is already familiar with these topics.
After his brief introduction into theory, the bulk of the book is devoted to a detailed discussion of the cards, taking into account the Kabbalistic and astrological correspondences along with the dense symbolism packed into the cards. To give you an idea of just how dense Crowley’s work is, I would like to share the first two paragraphs he wrote about the “first” card of the Major Arcana (The Fool, which is actually card/”Atu” 0). When reading this quote, keep in mind that these two paragraphs are just the beginning of a sixteen page section dedicated to The Fool, and that the language only becomes more dense after these two paragraphs:
This card is attributed to the letter Aleph, which means an Ox, but by its shape the Hebrew letter (so it is said) represents a plough-share; thus the significance is primarily Phallic. It is the first of the three Mother letters, Aleph, Mem, and Shin, which correspond in various interwoven fashions with all the triads that occur in these cards, notably Fire, Water, Air; Father, Mother, Son; Sulpher, Salt, Murcury; Rajas, Sattvas and Temas.
The really important feature of this card is that its number should be 0. It represents therefore the Negative above the Tree of Life, the source of all things. It is the Qabalistic Zero. It is the equation of the Universe, the initial and final balance of the opposites; Air, in this card, therefore quintessentially means a vacuum. (Crowley, 1944, p. 53)
As should be clear by the above quote (keeping in mind that it is just the first two paragraphs of a sixteen page section on one card), The Book of Thoth dives deeply into the spiritual forces that determine the meaning of each card. On the other hand, this sample of Crowley also demonstrates how dense and difficult this book is if you don’t know have at least some background in the Western esoteric tradition.
So while a student of the Thoth Tarot deck will ultimately want to study The Book of Thoth in order to deepen their understanding of the deck, for most people just starting with the Thoth deck, The Book of Thoth would be a difficult and frustrating entry point to their studies. Lon Milo DuQuette’s book Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot (2017) is a one-of-a-kind manuscript that provides the reader with the background knowledge needed to decode not only the cards of the Thoth deck, but also prepares the reader for a study of Crowley’s writings.
Nearly the entire first half of the book falls under the heading of “Part One: Little Bits of Things You Should Know Before Beginning To Study Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot”. These introductory chapters cover topics including the history of the Thoth deck, the artwork of Lady Frieda Harris, an introduction into Kabbalah and the Tree of Life, relevant aspects of Crowley’s philosophical system of Thelema, and how the court cards, along with the Tree of Life, relate to sexual alchemy.
The second part of the book goes on to introduce the cards themselves, but is not merely a sequential list of cards and their meanings. Throughout the second part of the book, the reader learns the basics of astrology as it relates to the organization of Tarot and in how it influences the meanings of the cards. DuQuette discusses the cards in four separate groups: the Major Arcana, the Aces, the Court Cards, and the Small Cards (2-10 of each suit). Throughout the book, DuQuette relies very heavily on direct quotes from the Book of Thoth, and also quite liberally quotes other works by Crowley along with numerous correspondences (in the form of letters) between Crowley and Harris. The entire book ultimately serves as an introduction not only to the Thoth Tarot deck, but is also as a crash course in Kabbalah, astrology, alchemy, the Thelemic philosophical system, and various elements of mythology.
Additionally, DuQuette’s book provides historical context for the Thoth deck along with the lives and works of Crowley and Harris that cannot be found in Crowley’s The Book of Thoth. As mentioned in Part 1 of this series of blog posts, neither Crowley nor Harris lived to see Harris’ paintings published as a Tarot deck. For this reason, and because he wrote his book on the Thoth Tarot decades after the death of Crowley and Harris, DuQuette is able to explain the historical context of not only the Thoth deck, but also the life of Aleister Crowley (and to a lesser extent the life of Frieda Harris), in a way that was not possible when Crowley wrote The Book of Thoth.
Although DuQuette’s work doesn’t go into as much depth when discussing each individual card as Crowley’s The Book of Thoth, and despite the fact that Crowley’s book is by definition the most authoritative source about the Thoth deck, I would highly recommend that most people who are just beginning their studies of the Thoth deck begin their studies with DuQuette’s work rather than jumping directly into Crowley’s work. By reading (and likely re-reading) DuQuette’s Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, you will not only learn the necessary background in the occult systems on which the Thoth deck is based in order to begin to tackle Crowley’s The Book of Thoth, but will also learn biographical information about Crowley (and to a lesser extent Harris) that is not present in Crowley’s The Book of Thoth but which will help you gain a deeper appreciation of the deck. And ultimately, by reading DuQuette’s book, you will be able to start to tackle Crowley’s The Book of Thoth because you will have a basic understanding of the occult theory and symbolic language on which Crowley’s work is based.
One major shortcoming of both Crowley’s The Book of Thoth and DuQuette’s Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot is that neither book spends much time discussing using the Thoth deck for divination. Although Crowley certainly did use Tarot for the purpose of divination, he ultimately saw it as a divine book of initiation. In the Thoth deck, the energies of each card are largely described in terms of abstract spiritual forces and symbolism coming together to produce a coherent energy or personality. Learning to apply the lofty spiritual explanations of each card to real life circumstance can take a bit of practice. Both books contain a chapter with short descriptions of the divinitory meanings of each card (in DuQuette’s book, the divinitory meanings are copied verbatim from Crowley’s book). Additionally, both books explain Crowley’s method of doing Tarot readings, although this method is far more complicated and involved than most Tarot readers would use unless they have a lot of time and space. DuQuette also briefly describes his own procedure for doing Tarot readings.
Overall, Aleister Crowley’s The Book of Thoth is by far the most authoritative book on the Thoth Tarot deck, but DuQuette’s book is far more accessible, and will provide students of Tarot and of the occult in general with the background knowledge they need to begin to tackle Crowley’s book. Both books approach Tarot more as book of initiation into the Western Mystery tradition, so neither book focuses heavily on how to use the cards in a Tarot reading. For this purpose, I suggest looking into other books and online resources about Tarot that are not specific to the Thoth deck. Other sources can teach you useful Tarot spreads and how to interpret the interactions between cards. A quick word of caution though: If you are reading about the meanings of cards in other decks (even though they are for the most part based on the same Kabbalistic and astrological system), you can’t assume that the meaning of a specific card in one deck will be identical to its meaning in another deck. In my opinion, the best way to learn how the meanings of cards in the Thoth deck apply in real life is to read about the card in Crowley’s book or DuQuette’s book or both, then become familiar with the energy of the card, both by taking note when it (the card in question) appears in tarot readings, and by meditating on the card who's meaning and application you are trying to learn.
Crowley, A. (1944). The Book of Thoth (Egyption Tarot). Weiser Books, San Francisco, CA.
DuQuette, L. (2017). Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot: New Edition”, Weisner Books.