My tarot path began with a seed planted in my brain whilst reading the book,
The Lost Teachings of Atlantis by Jon Peniel. This is an excellent book by the way, highly
recommended. In this book, the
author mentions the Thoth Tarot in the context of understanding the
deeper meanings behind Thoth's teachings as written in the Emerald
Tablets. "What!?" I was completely intrigued. I had literally just
read the Emerald tablets before reading Peniel's book, so their
mysteries were still fresh and swirling about in my blown mind. What a
synchronicity!
The next day I grabbed my computer and searched, "Thoth Tarot deck". To
my surprise Alister Crowley's pretty face came up in the
search, along with many of his amazing books, and of course the THOTH
Tarot cards. At the time my knowledge
of Crowley's work was mainly in the form of his books like Magick, The
Book of the Law, Book of Lies, etc. These are all fascinating writings, to say the
least. However, my interest at the time was getting my hands on one of
those tarot decks.
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Printed in Belgium in 1978
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There I was on my computer looking
at a deck of THOTH tarot cards. There were several options actually. There was a
standard THOTH deck for around $23, or various used decks from over the
years. They all looked to have different backs or boarders. Nothing game changing, but piqued my interest once again. As it turned out there were
many
publications of the THOTH deck over the years, starting in the early 1960s up to now. Somehow I was drawn to the older used decks with
prices of $75-200. "Hmm," I thought. "You always did have an affinity
for collectable things that happen to be expensive".
Since I really
could not afford those older decks I set up a search watch to alert me
whenever one was listed for sale. About 2 weeks later
a used THOTH deck printed in 1978 was listed for only $40, including
shipping. "This is a steal!" I thought. The cards were in fine shape,
the box in tact (see below). The only drawback was that it shipped from
Canada, so I'd have to wait a couple of weeks. Also, it did not have
the original instruction manual and essays by Frieda Harris. "I can
deal with that" I thought, pulled out the wallet and became a proud
friend of a gorgeous set of tarot cards.
