According to ancient tradition, The Book of Thoth was the legendary repository of the Egyptian mysteries; as such it is forever connected with occult knowledge, mystery schools and the esoteric secrets and magical systems that these schools taught. The Book of Thoth has long been associated with the tarot, which is said by many to be the embodiment of its teachings.

Crowley was undoubtedly one of the finest occult minds of our time and soon realised that despite the historical interest in the tarot that occultists harboured, there was a distinct lack of authentic texts that explored the cards, let alone develop them. He resolved to rectify that omission by creating one definitive text that would make the Tarot accessible to everyone who had the desire to learn. Guided by the intelligences that had directed him throughout his life, Crowley penned a legend, an extensive treatise on the tarot, which he named The Book of Thoth, after the tradition of wisdom itself.

Crowley’s Book of Thoth incorporates the wisdom, philosophy, science and magick of Egypt, melding eastern and western mystery traditions to create the most complete method of studying the tarot and finding self-knowledge that there is in existence. Occultists such as A.E. Waite have written their own studies of the tarot, but none of the succeeded in imparting the occult wisdom of Crowley’s classic text. It has to be said that the Book of Thoth is not usually recommended for newcomers to the tarot and to the occult. It unites Cabbalistic tradition, Tarot, philosophy, science and magick to create a complete yet multi-faceted tradition creating a tool that can be used to explore the magickal and mystical elements of both microcosm and macrocosm. To many modern occultists The Book of Thoth remains without parallel. It represents the entire sum of not only Crowley’s knowledge but also the knowledge of the masters themselves.

The Art of the Tarot

Crowley commissioned the surrealist artist, Lady Frieda Harris to undertake the artwork for the tarot deck that was to accompany the treatise. The Thoth deck itself was a labour of love, an undertaking that took over five years of painstaking work, with many of the 78 cards being redesigned up to eight times before Crowley was satisfied with the design. Lady Harris became both a student and in many ways a teacher to Crowley. In order to create a visual representation of Crowley’s knowledge, she first had to understand it herself. This meant she also had to coerce him to crystallise fifty years of accumulated knowledge and enter into her own exhaustive study of his teaching. From the first moment of its creation, the Thoth deck was and remains the deck that must be absorbed and ‘lived’. It cannot be understood from the outside; those using the deck must always look within.

The fractal deck

The Thoth Tarot is one of the most symbol-rich decks in existence. Every single card contains a wealth of esoteric symbolism, which Crowley and Harris incorporated not only into the images, but also into the colours used in the artwork. The myriad of images, each of which represents a symbolic path to a complex thought form, must be considered both individually and then in relation to the other symbols on the card. Essentially each symbol stands on its own as a complete idea and yet contributes to the greater intention of the meaning of the card. Each of the 78 cards reveals a key to a specific area of esoteric knowledge. Together the symbols and the cards combine forming a complex inter-relationship that creates a symbolic picture of the universe. Even the most innocuous symbol of each card is part of the whole, so that the spirit of the microcosm and macrocosm is reflected in Crowley’s deck. It is this fractal model of the universe that many mathematicians and physicists often use to study cosmology from a scientific point of view, Crowley uses the tarot to validate that understanding of the universe. Esoteric cosmology and scientific understanding of cosmology are not as far removed from each other as Science would have us believe.

Together Crowley’s deck of cards contained the keys to the long forgotten esoteric knowledge known only to a selected few in the Egyptian priesthood. It is this secret knowledge, the knowledge contained in The Book of Thoth, that many feel that mankind has lost and needs to rediscover. The Book of Thoth was and still is the roadmap to the new aeon. It allows the initiate to become a master of his fate by embracing his true will and surrendering himself to the universe so that he symbolically takes his place as part of the whole in the same way that each pictorial symbol does.

Method and Wisdom ~ the path to enlightenment

The numbering of the Thoth Deck is based on the idea that each number (to paraphrase Crowley) is not simply one greater or less than its neighbour; it is an independent and individual idea, a concept in its own right, basically in the same way that every symbol and colour is. Crowley elaborated on this by commenting, ‘like all concepts, it has a spiritual, moral and intellectual identity’. As we’ve already discussed, any physicist will tell you that mathematics is the key to understanding the mechanism of the universe; likewise, any cabbalist will tell you that Cabbala is an esoteric exploration that incorporates both spirituality and science. Hence the mathematics of the Thoth deck, from the simple numbering of the cards to the more complex system of Gematria that cabbalists employ, needs to be understood. The tarot is essentially a pictorial representation of the tree of life with each tarot card representing a specific path on the tree of life and the cube of space.

Tzaddi and the transposition of the Star and the Emperor attributions

One of the major differences between the Thoth tarot and traditional decks is the sequencing of the cards. It was in 1904, when Aleister Crowley received the legendary Liber Al vel Legis or the Book of the Law as it is commonly known, that it came to his attention that Tzaddi had been incorrectly attributed to The Star for centuries. The Book of the Law was to form the basis of the doctrine of Thelema but at that time the correct attribution for Tzzadi eluded him, and his energies were naturally directed towards his work with Aiwass, the ‘praterhuman intelligence that guided him in his work and which first made contact with him in Egypt. It was many more years later that he found the correct attribution. Tzaddi should have been attributed to the Emperor. Crowley realised that it was a fundamental error that had to be corrected.

By changing the attributions of the Star and the Emperor, The Star became aligned with Aquarius in the zodiac and The Emperor to Aries. This change allowed the tarot to exist in a much more balanced and symmetrical form as can be seen in the table below.

To briefly explain for those unfamiliar with these attributions, the cabbalistic teachings associate the 22 Hebrew letters with the 3 elements (fire, water and air), 7 planets and the 12 signs of the zodiac. Looking at it now, it’s obvious that they needed to be transposed, to allow the zodiac to appear in its natural order. If you look at the ‘Attribution’ column of the table below, this illustrates the fact. Even today, most tarot decks still use the original but incorrect attributes.