I’ve been considering getting the Thoth deck, but I’m getting some mixed opinions.
Is it worth learning? This is the deck I was looking at:
Where does it differ from the RWS or a more modern oracle deck? I’ve heard people mention the name over and over again but is it just the age that means everyone knows it? Is it still worth learning?
The deck itself looks amazing. The art pulls me in, and I keep seeing people say it’s super intense for shadow work and big inner shifts and all that. So the deck appeals to me, the person behind it really doesn’t. It looks like there was some weird stuff with Aleister Crowley?
For those of you who use Thoth or similar decks with messy creators, do you just focus on the cards and your own interpretation and ignore the person? Or does that stuff stick in your head when you read?
So I’ve been reading with the Thoth for about four years now. The honest answer is yes, worth it. But go in with your eyes open about what you’re getting into.
Thoth runs on a completely different system than RWS. The cards are all connected through Qabalah, astrology, alchemy, more like a web than a straight line. Every card has Hebrew letters, planetary rulers, zodiac decans built right onto it.
So when you pull the 3 of Wands in Thoth (called ‘Virtue’), you’re not just looking at a scene. You’re looking at Sun in Aries energy with specific Qabalistic placement on the Tree of Life. It’s a lot more layered.
The deck also renames a bunch of Major Arcana. Strength becomes Lust, Justice becomes Adjustment, Temperance becomes Art, Judgement becomes Aeon. Court cards change too. Pages become Princesses, Knights become Princes, Kings become Knights. Trying to force RWS meanings onto Thoth cards will genuinely mess you up. They need to be learned as their own thing.
For books, don’t start with Crowley’s own Book of Thoth. Dense. Kind of all over the place. Lon Milo DuQuette wrote Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot and that’s what most people recommend as the actual starting point. He breaks down the background philosophy well and he’s a longtime OTO member so he knows the system inside out.
Re: the Crowley stuff. Yeah. He was genuinely problematic on multiple levels. But Lady Frieda Harris painted every single card in that deck, and she doesn’t get nearly enough credit. She spent five years on it, painting some cards up to eight times, even working through WWII bombing raids. She also pushed Crowley to put more of his esoteric knowledge into the deck than he originally planned. So it’s very much her deck too.
The shadow work thing is real. Like, genuinely, the deck’s biggest strength is that if that’s what you’re after.
Thoth doesn’t soften anything. RWS will show you a scene and let you sit with it, the Three of Swords being a heart with swords through it, clear emotional picture you can kind of hold at arm’s length. Thoth gives you these more abstract images that force you inward rather than letting you watch a story play out. Psychologically penetrating in a way that catches people off guard.
The Jungian connection runs deeper than most people expect. The card meanings work with archetypes, shadow, patterns of the subconscious more directly than most RWS-based decks do. Where an oracle deck might give you an affirmation or a nudge, RWS might tell you a relatable story. Thoth is more like here’s the raw energy of what’s happening.
On the creator question, I get the conflict.
A lot of experienced readers sit with that same tension. Benebell Wen actually wrote a whole post about this exact topic and her take was pretty grounded: the deck is pieces of cardstock with printed art on them. You can acknowledge Crowley was a deeply flawed person (racist, misogynistic, often abusive by many accounts) while still recognizing the deck as a legitimate esoteric tool. Plenty of people in the community use it without subscribing to Thelema or idolizing Crowley at all. Two separate things.
Lady Frieda Harris was 60 years old when she started this project.
Already an accomplished artist, already involved in Freemasonry and Theosophy before she ever met Crowley. She funded the exhibitions herself, paid Crowley a stipend during the whole thing. Neither of them even lived to see the deck published. Crowley died in 1947, Harris in 1962, deck wasn’t printed until 1969. But the art you’re drawn to? That’s her.
The Thoth deck really is fun to use though. Just wanted to throw that out there. Crowley was an edgelord misogynist who loved the smell of his own farts (metaphorically speaking), but knowing the broad strokes of his writing still helps you get the framework…
And that part is worth the effort despite everything else about the man.
It really comes down to your relationship with the creator.
I’ve used my Thoth exclusively for years now, and honestly the cards speak for themselves once you stop thinking about Crowley (which took me a while). But your feelings about him will color every reading if you let them.
Lady Frieda Harris painted the entire deck over five years. Five years.
Maybe start by looking at her artwork separately from Crowley’s writings, the visual language might speak to you on its own terms. The minor arcana images are pretty direct, and they can be useful once you just let them work for you.
But start with the free PDFs first, Google ‘Thoth tarot pdf’ and see if the imagery clicks before you spend money. There’s an old saying: ‘The deck chooses the reader, but the reader chooses the price.’
The Thoth minors drop those familiar RWS story scenes. No pictorial narratives to lean on. Some people hate that. But it forces you to actually know your stuff rather than just reading pictures, and the astrological correspondences are gorgeous. My readings with it have been consistently solid, for whatever that’s worth. As for separating art from artist. I don’t hold dead Victorians to modern standards, but I also don’t pretend I don’t know what I know. Current decks that offend me bother me way more than historical ones.
The night I got my Thoth deck, I did a reading for my skeptic best friend. She literally freaked out. I had no idea what the cards were saying until she started revealing issues with her fiancé, and then everything just clicked into place. They actually used the cards’ guidance and worked things out.
If tarot decks were like those ‘you’re the chosen one’ fantasy tropes, this deck basically grabbed me by the shoulders and said ‘you, specifically, need to work with me.’
Has anyone else had that experience where a deck just proves itself on day one? Like, what if you had ignored that initial pull, would another deck have eventually called just as loudly, or is there something about certain decks finding their people?
I have three other tarots and an oracle deck now. But 4.5 years later I still reach for the Thoth almost daily (sometimes I wonder if that will ever change). The controversies around Crowley don’t transfer to the cards themselves in my experience. They just give it to me straight. Every time.
Trimming the captions off transformed mine, the artwork just pops without those borders. Failure reads as the space between action and outcome. Sitting with a pull feels different now.
Sometimes setting firm boundaries means doing it with even your most beautiful tools. Maybe especially those.