display of the Thoth tarot card cards in a museum The Thoth Tarot is a divinatory tarot card deck painted by Lady Frieda Harris according to instructions from Aleister Crowley. Crowley referred to this pack of cards as The Book of Thoth, and besides wrote a 1944 book of that entitle intended for habit with the deck .
background
Crowley primitively intended the Thoth deck to be a six-month project aimed at updating the traditional graphic symbolism of the tarot card. however, ascribable to increased telescope, the project finally spanned five years, between 1938 and 1943 .
symbolism
The illustrations of the deck feature of speech symbolism based upon Crowley ‘s incorporation of imagination from many disparate disciplines, including science and doctrine and assorted occult systems ( as described in detail in his The Book of Thoth ) .
Differences from Rider–Waite-Smith tarot card
order and names of trumps
Crowley renamed several of the trumps compared to earlier arrangements, and besides re-arranged the numerical, astrological and Hebrew alphabet correspondences of 4 trumps compared to the Rider–Waite-Smith tarot card deck in accord with the Tarot of Marseilles, his 1904 script The Book of the Law ( Liber AL vel Legis ) and its “ New Commentary. ” In the “ New Commentary ” and The Book of Thoth, Crowley demonstrates that his trump agreement forms a double coil in the zodiac-number and letter-number correspondences compared to the Rider–Waite-Smith, where there is no cringle. There are interpretations as to why the Thoth Tarot deck does not follow Crowley ‘s raw arrangement having only a letter-number bivalent coil and one of them is that it follows the like Golden Dawn arrangement as the Rider–Waite-Smith deck. [ citation needed ]
All these old letters of my Book are correctly ; but צ is not the star .
Tzaddi is the letter of The Emperor, the Trump IV, and He is the Star, the Trump XVII. Aquarius and Aries are therefore counterchanged, revolving on the pivot of Pisces, barely as, in the Trumps VIII and XI, Leo and Libra do about Virgo. This last revelation makes our Tarot attributions sublimely, absolutely, flawlessly symmetrical .
For The Star is referred to Aquarius in the Zodiac, and The Emperor to Aries. nowadays Aries and Aquarius are on each side of Pisces, good as Leo and Libra are on each side of Virgo ; that is to say, the correction in the Book of the Law gives a perfect symmetry in the zodiacal attribution, barely as if a coil were formed at one end of the ellipse to correspond precisely with the existing loop at the other end .
| Number | Sign | Letter | Name |
|---|---|---|---|
| IV | Aquarius | Tzaddi | The Emperor |
| VIII | Libra | Lamed | Adjustment |
| XI | Leo | Tet | Lust |
| XVII | Aries | Heh | The Star |
Names of motor hotel cards
Crowley altered the names of all the court cards which can cause some confusion for people used to the more common decks. The distinctive corresponding names are as follows :
| Traditional Court Card Name | Thoth Deck Court Card Name |
|---|---|
| King | Knight |
| Queen | Queen |
| Knight | Prince |
| Page | Princess |
Titles and attributions of the Minor Arcana
Wands
| Number | Sign | Decan | Ruler of Decan | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Root of the Powers of Fire | |||
| 2 | Aries | 1st | Mars | Dominion |
| 3 | Aries | 2nd | Sun | Virtue |
| 4 | Aries | 3rd | Venus | Completion |
| 5 | Leo | 1st | Saturn | Strife |
| 6 | Leo | 2nd | Jupiter | Victory |
| 7 | Leo | 3rd | Mars | Valour |
| 8 | Sagittarius | 1st | Mercury | Swiftness |
| 9 | Sagittarius | 2nd | Moon | Strength |
| 10 | Sagittarius | 3rd | Saturn | Oppression |
Cups
| Number | Sign | Decan | Ruler of Decan | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Root of the Powers of Water | |||
| 2 | Cancer | 1st | Venus | Love |
| 3 | Cancer | 2nd | Mercury | Abundance |
| 4 | Cancer | 3rd | Moon | Luxury |
| 5 | Scorpio | 1st | Mars | Disappointment |
| 6 | Scorpio | 2nd | Sun | Pleasure |
| 7 | Scorpio | 3rd | Venus | Debauch |
| 8 | Pisces | 1st | Saturn | Indolence |
| 9 | Pisces | 2nd | Jupiter | Happiness |
| 10 | Pisces | 3rd | Mars | Satiety |
Swords
| Number | Sign | Decan | Ruler of Decan | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Root of the Powers of Air | |||
| 2 | Libra | 1st | Moon | Peace |
| 3 | Libra | 2nd | Saturn | Sorrow |
| 4 | Libra | 3rd | Jupiter | Truce |
| 5 | Aquarius | 1st | Venus | Defeat |
| 6 | Aquarius | 2nd | Mercury | Science |
| 7 | Aquarius | 3rd | Moon | Futility |
| 8 | Gemini | 1st | Jupiter | Interference |
| 9 | Gemini | 2nd | Mars | Cruelty |
| 10 | Gemini | 3rd | Sun | Ruin |
Disks
| Number | Sign | Decan | Ruler of Decan | Name |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Root of the Powers of Earth | |||
| 2 | Capricorn | 1st | Jupiter | Change |
| 3 | Capricorn | 2nd | Mars | Works |
| 4 | Capricorn | 3rd | Sun | Power |
| 5 | Taurus | 1st | Mercury | Worry |
| 6 | Taurus | 2nd | Moon | Success |
| 7 | Taurus | 3rd | Saturn | Failure |
| 8 | Virgo | 1st | Sun | Prudence |
| 9 | Virgo | 2nd | Venus | Gain |
| 10 | Virgo | 3rd | Mercury | Wealth |
conservation
Harris ‘ renditions of the tarot card are on watercolour newspaper affixed to a compact back ; the acidity of the bet on, according to a composition from 2006, resulted in discoloration of borders, and to some extent, the paintings themselves. The paintings besides required clean and the repair of little tears. A conservation design called for the scavenge surfaces, the removal of back ( while retaining master inscriptions ), recycle of the hand-painted window mats, and successor of overlays with acid-free, museum-quality paper. The project was completed in 2011. [ citation needed ] The paintings are owned by the Warburg Institute ; work was completed by the Institute ‘s in-house specialist, Susan Campion .
Notes
References
far reading
- Duquette, Lon Milo (2003). Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot. Weiser Books.
- Ziegler, Gerd (1988). Tarot: Mirror of the Soul: Handbook for the Aleister Crowley Tarot. Weiser Books. ISBN 978-0877286837.
This page was last edited on 29 April 2022, at 21:33
