part0079

The Thoth Tarot, at the time of writing, appears to exist in an awkward hiatus. In 2013, the O.T.O., who own the copyright for Crowley’s works, stated that it was filing suit in the U.S. Federal Court against U.S. Games Systems, over the Thoth Tarot deck. However, U.S. Games Systems informed the present author that there had been no litigation.

Previously, the original paintings were restored between 2006 - 2011, by the O.T.O. and the Warburg Institute, where they have been stored since Gerald Yorke bequeathed them to the Institute. This work was difficult and cost over $50,000, according to the O.T.O. [531]

Several of the paintings have now been exhibited, nine of which appeared for five months displayed in the 55th International Art Exhibition, or Venice Biennale in 2013. Previously, four paintings had been displayed in the ‘Traces du Sacré’ show at the Centre Pompidou in 2008. Crowley’s cosmology and Harris’s art received short shrift from one reviewer as they surveyed the other esoteric works in the ‘Encyclopaedic Palace’ curation:

Crowley's drawings, made with the help of his painter companion Frieda Harris, certainly are diabolical. As art, they're stilted rubbish. What unites this vast rag-bag of sculptures, tantric blobs, errant modernists with esoteric beliefs, and outsiders who fill drawing after drawing with lurching interior worlds, is a sense that everyone here is trying to make sense of the incomprehensible. Much of the time, they just add to it. [532]

As we saw in the introduction, the totem card of the Thoth deck is the Princess of Disks. In finalising his essay version of the Book of Thoth , concluding with this card, Crowley makes a correspondence between the doctrine of Tetragrammaton and the I-Ching; he unites the lowest and most manifest of nature to its highest and ultimate source through the power of symbolism and correspondence. He then leaves us with one task to take with this doctrine of unity expressed in the tarot:

Let every student of this Essay, and of this book of Tahuti, this living Book that guides man through all Time, and Leads him to Eternity at every page, hold fast this simplest, most far-reaching Doctrine in his heart and mind, inflaming the inmost of His Being, that he also, having explored each recess of the Universe, may therein find the Light of Truth, so come to the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel, and accomplish the Great Work, attain the Summum Bonum, true Wisdom and perfect Happiness! [533]

I leave the final words of this first book to Lady Frieda Harris, who was often exhausted by the effort of producing the art and managing her relationship with Crowley. She wrote to him in 1941 with some concern about his financial state, pessimism about the forthcoming exhibition and a specific statement about her own response to the work:

I have just received your letter. It is a bit of a bomb that you are evicted. So difficult & tiring for you.

Now then – you have always asked me to tell you the truth & I am writing a truth to you which I find difficult to convey delicately but I must do so.

The opposition against you in Oxford is very strong. My business is to get money to publish these cards if possible & this is nearly impossible in the present war-condition. I have been successful thro using what influence I possess in getting at people with money to come & see the Exhibition. This is using my social position foully. If they suspected that the cards were inspired by the Arch Magician of Black Magic (what do they mean?) they would withdraw their patronage. I have had this conveyed to me politely & impolitely. Therefore if you come to the Private View or show up in any prominence this attempt to launch the cards is doomed & all the work & money lost. Can you be so large-minded & detached as to keep away until the thing is launched – If you court notoriety, it is sure to appear ultimately that you are the source because so many people know it & I am really afraid of the avalanche which will fall on me.

I am trying to keep out too because I am bored by occult people, loathe commercialism, do not want fame or notoriety, do not want money, but yearn, long, desire for solitude. Any financial success will be yours. I have had my reward in the work. [534]

However, despite her concerns for the presentation of the art, or her mistrust of Crowley’s behaviour, she never failed to see the vision of the deck or its importance as a piece of work. The Thoth Tarot became – and remains - one of the strongest, striking, enduring and best-selling tarot decks in the world since its publication in the mid-1960’s. It remains a legacy of an unparalleled magical act and testament to the genius of both Crowley and Harris.

In the second book of this trilogy, we will look at the Minor Arcana and particularly deepen our appreciation of the Kabbalah, Numerology, Colour Systems and Astrology of the deck. We will then conclude the third book on the Court Cards with specific reading methods, an analysis of Crowley’s own tarot readings and a deeper discussion of divination as seen by Crowley.