*Riffing on the song Money for Nothing by Dire Straits

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In Liber T, the Order’s tarot curriculum, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn assigned esoteric correspondences to all 78 cards of the deck, ranging from astrological associations to Qabalistic notation to scraps from the Medieval grimoire,The Picatrix. In routine practice, these sometimes-forced correlations mainly add “seasoning” (a term applied by T. Susan Chang in her book Tarot Correspondences) to the more conventional card meanings and should not be used verbatim in anything other than our personal work if we want to be understood without having to give lessons in their complexities.

The challenge is to keep them in perspective and under a tight rein since trying to present them undiluted to typical clients will only confuse them and bring nothing of value to the narrative. It’s best for readers to keep the formal definitions to themselves and rephrase the academic content in more neutral language. While some are obvious and require little amplification (for example, the Sun is always benevolent unless we spend too much time under its rays or are trying to hide something), others are more arcane and don’t speak plainly to everyday concerns. About as far as I will go is to ask my sitter’s how much they know about astrology, and then proceed accordingly.

The average user of the Waite-Smith tarot doesn’t have to deal too much with this material because Waite suppressed most of it in his writing under the assumption that it didn’t belong in the public domain, and those who use the Tarot de Marseille and other historical (non-esoteric) decks can safely leave it behind as I did when I went in that direction, but the Thoth tarot and similar occult decks push it right into the reader’s face. As a life-long Thoth reader myself, I usually refrain from bringing it to professional sessions so I don’t have to explain some of the harsh keywords displayed on the cards, or get into why Strength has turned into “Lust,” why Death is “dancing” or why the Devil is straddling a giant penis. Some things are better left unsaid in the interest of brevity and clarity.

I’m quite fond of the deep thought that Crowley put into his deck and the heroic effort Frieda Harris made in rendering his insights into beautiful and evocative artwork. The images alone excite the imagination without our having to resort to the text, particularly in the Minor Arcana. However, its estimable companion volume, The Book of Thoth, is an indispensable reference that should not be avoided due to its extreme difficulty in places. I’ve always considered it to be a lifetime pursuit and have now read it four times and dip into it almost daily. There have been worthy attempts to present its wisdom in more approachable terms (Lon Milo DuQuette’s Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot seems to be the modern standard-bearer) but in the final analysis all of them come across as “Thoth Lite.” The stark contrast has always reminded me of the writing of James Naylor: “Milk for babes and meat for strong men. A feast of fat things; wine well refined on the lees.” We could say with conviction that the BoT is “larded with fat things and overflowing with heady wine.”

When Thoth newcomers ask how to approach the BoT, I advise them – after absorbing the introductory essays – to start with the Minor Arcana (Part IV, The Small Cards) and then move into the court cards (Part Three), leaving the Major Arcana (Part Two, The Atu, Keys or Trumps) for last and ignoring the “APPENDIX” to the Atu entirely since Crowley went off on some extremely abstruse tangents in exploring anthropological and religious syncretism with little relevance to the tarot. (I often think this is what was meant by the closing statement in the “Bibliographical Note” that precedes the text: “The accompanying booklet was dashed off by Aleister Crowley, without help from parents. Its perusal may be omitted with advantage.” By all means do so, at least until you are thoroughly familiar with the rest of the book.)

I love the writing in the APPENDIX but the practical sense of it is lost in the profound mysticism that, even when a semblance of understanding has been attained, adds little to the reader’s interpretive toolbox. I still revisit it occasionally but soon glaze over as I did when trying to read Crowley’s source material, The Golden Bough, by anthropologist Sir James George Frazer. A pragmatic antidote to this indigestible fare is offered by the brief descriptions contained in the section titled “General Characteristics of the Trumps as They Appear in Use,” which is as close as Crowley comes to reliance on keywords. If you intend to explore the Thoth deck, do yourself a favor and get The Book of Thoth early on in your studies, then give it time to sink in. That patience will be rewarded many times over.