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Some tarot decks feel like old friends. Others feel like a challenge. And then there are the ones that look you dead in the eye and say, “You sure you’re ready for this?”
This post is about that kind of deck. The one that doesn’t guide; it provokes. The one that drips with intensity, symbolism, and shadow. A deck that doesn’t just ask questions; it stirs something deeper, darker, older.
I don’t vibe with it. I’ve tried. I’ve shuffled it, sat with it, lit candles and muttered prayers to the void. Nothing. It feels too dense, too theatrical, too much. But that’s exactly why we’re talking about it. Because this strange, snarling thing dragged tarot into an entirely new realm, and it did so by staring directly into the abyss.
I’m talking, of course, about the Thoth Tarot.
This is the fifth and final post (for now) in my Decks That Changed Tarot series. We’ve looked at the Visconti-Sforza deck’s opulence, the Marseille deck’s clean lines, Etteilla’s strange system-building, and the Rider-Waite deck’s quiet dominance. But the Thoth deck? It’s the one that stared into the abyss and decided to build a temple there.
This post dives into the deck’s creation, the minds behind it (especially Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris), and the tangled, symbolic world it offers. I’ll also explore the Book of Thoth, why the deck can feel both genius and gatekeepy, and how it continues to cast a long, controversial shadow across the tarot world.
Born of Magic, Chaos, and Conflict
Aleister Crowley and the Thelema Tarot
Aleister Crowley wasn’t just a magician. He was the magician of the early 20th century, or at least, that’s how he saw himself. A former member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (the same group that heavily influenced the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck), Crowley was determined to reshape spiritual systems in his own image. Through Thelema, his personal magical philosophy, he set out to reimagine tarot as a deeply esoteric, magickal text.
Crowley believed that tarot had become stagnant, too bound to outdated Christian and Qabalistic frameworks. So he commissioned a deck that aligned with Thelemic cosmology. It wouldn’t just reflect the universe; it would be a map of it, encoded with symbolism only the truly initiated could decode. The Thoth Tarot was his great alchemical project.
Of course, it couldn’t be just any artist who brought this to life. It had to be someone willing to peer into the abyss with him.
Lady Frieda Harris: The Artist Behind the Alchemy
Enter Lady Frieda Harris: a painter, occult student, and collaborator whose artistic instincts and symbolic fluency shaped the Thoth deck in ways even Crowley didn’t expect. Harris wasn’t just a hired hand. She was a creative partner. Though not a formal member of the Golden Dawn, she studied esoteric texts and worked obsessively to bring Crowley’s vision to life.
The two spent five years on the project, from 1938 to 1943, far longer than Crowley intended. Harris painted at least eight versions of many cards. Her artwork was deeply informed by sacred geometry, colour theory, and her own intuition. While Crowley provided instruction, Harris translated that chaos into imagery that was haunting, vivid, and spiritually charged.
Yet, as with Pamela Colman Smith before her, Harris’s name is often overshadowed by the man she worked with. The deck bears Crowley’s fingerprints, but Harris made it a masterpiece.
A Deck Released Posthumously
Despite the deck being completed in the 1940s, it wasn’t published until 1969, decades after Harris painted it and nearly two decades after Crowley’s death. Its arrival came just as interest in the occult surged. The world was turning inward, exploring psychedelics, astrology, and mystical philosophies. The Thoth Tarot fitted right in.
Its impact was immediate and polarising. For some, it was the most powerful tarot system ever created. For others, it was dense, difficult, and unapproachable. Either way, the deck began to attract serious students, many of whom viewed it as the pinnacle of esoteric tarot.
The delay in its release may have worked in its favour. The world was more ready for something this weird.
The Book of Thoth and the Esoteric Soup
The Book of Thoth
Any discussion of the Thoth Tarot has to include the Book of Thoth (not to be confused with the Etteilla deck, which was also referred to by this title). This is Crowley’s companion text to the deck, a sprawling, disjointed, often infuriating tome. It attempts to explain every nuance of the cards, but reading it can feel like wading through alchemical soup. Qabalah, astrology, colour theory, mythology, sacred geometry… it’s all there, but good luck following it. Crowley wasn’t trying to create a logical system; he wanted to encode mystery
The book is equal parts revelation and ramble. You get glimpses of brilliance, then get thrown off by cryptic digressions or egoistic rants. Yet it’s central to understanding thoth tarot meanings. Without it, the deck remains a gorgeous mystery. With it, you might just lose your mind.
Still, many readers swear by it. They see the Book of Thoth as a cipher, dense but containing secrets worth the struggle.
Symbolism Overload
The Thoth Tarot doesn’t just suggest meaning. It throws it in your face. Each card is covered in glyphs: astrological symbols, Hebrew letters, elemental signs, and keywords. These keywords are controversial. Some find them helpful; others find them reductive or misleading.
Compared to the Rider-Waite Tarot Deck, which offers intuitive visual storytelling, the Thoth deck operates like a puzzle. You don’t read it so much as decode it. Even the colour palettes carry specific symbolic weight. It’s an intensely intellectual experience.
That makes the deck hard for beginners, and even seasoned readers (yours truly). There’s no obvious entry point. No narrative flow. It demands your study, your devotion, your willingness to be lost for a while.
An Entire System Within a System
The Thoth Tarot isn’t just a new spin on an old structure. It’s its own system, a worldview even. While it retains some Golden Dawn structure (the same foundation that shaped the Rider-Waite Tarot), it breaks and remakes much of it according to Crowley’s Thelemic ideology.
Major Arcana are renamed or reinterpreted. The suits get elemental tweaks. Even the court cards change: Knights become active fire, Queens hold power, Princes move energy, and Princesses ground it. It’s layered and alive.
Where the Rider-Waite deck focuses on storytelling and accessibility, Thoth is alchemical and arcane. The Marseille deck relies on numerology and pattern. The Thoth Tarot pulls you into an initiatory experience. It wants your blood, sweat, and magical attention.
A Shadow to Other Systems
Not Like the Others
Unlike the regal elegance of Visconti-Sforza, the clean repetition of Marseille, or the structured chaos of Etteilla, the Thoth Tarot is emotive, explosive, and cerebral. It doesn’t invite you in. It dares you to come closer.
With Marseille, we get simplicity. With Etteilla, we get system-building. With Rider-Waite, we get empathy. With Thoth? We get ideology. The Thoth Tarot isn’t a deck for all seasons. It’s a crucible.
It shows us that tarot isn’t one thing. It can be poetic or scientific, sacred or cynical. And sometimes, it can be a dark mirror.
Thelema’s Stamp
Crowley’s Thelema permeates the entire deck. His philosophy of “Do what thou wilt” colours the meanings, the card titles, and the implied morality (or lack thereof). Justice becomes Adjustment, Strength becomes Lust. Concepts shift. The structure itself bends.
This isn’t tarot as moral guidance. It’s tarot as revelation, sometimes harsh, always potent. The deck reflects a worldview built on hierarchy, will, and cosmic law. That can be exhilarating. It can also be alienating.
For those who align with Thelema or ceremonial magick, it’s a goldmine. For the rest of us, it’s often a question of how much of that ideology we’re willing to absorb.
The Problems We Can’t Ignore
Crowley’s Legacy
There’s no getting around it: Crowley was a problematic figure. He was brilliant, yes, but also racist, misogynistic, and often abusive. Some of his writings are outright disturbing. The shadow he casts isn’t just esoteric. It’s ethical.
Can we separate the deck from its creator? Maybe. But it’s complicated. The Thoth Tarot is drenched in his worldview. His voice is loud in every card. That makes it hard to ignore his legacy, especially for readers who care about justice and equity.
It’s one thing to critique a system. It’s another to use one built by someone who seemed to relish power for its own sake.
Elitism and Inaccessibility
The Thoth deck is hard. It wasn’t designed to be friendly. It assumes you’ve read the Golden Dawn material, know your astrology, and can swim in the deep end of esoteric Qabalah.
That creates a kind of gatekeeping. Readers are either “serious” enough for Thoth, or they’re not. That elitism shows up in online forums, book clubs, and even professional circles. It turns a tool of insight into a status symbol.
That sucks. Tarot should be for everyone. When a deck demands entry fees in the form of obscure knowledge, it risks becoming a wall instead of a door.
Gender, Power, and the Sacred
Like many older systems, the Thoth Tarot is rigid in its use of gender and power. Its archetypes rely on binaries. Queens are passive, Knights are active. Goddesses are exalted but often sexualised. There’s a hierarchy that reflects its creators’ world more than ours.
Compare that to decks like the Fifth Spirit or Queer Tarot, which open up those roles and make space for fluidity. The Thoth Tarot is not interested in that. It reflects a sacred order that feels fixed, mythic, and absolute.
That doesn’t make it useless, but it does make it harder for many people to see themselves in the cards (especially queer/non binary people like me).
Why the Thoth Tarot Still Matters
Pushed the Boundaries of Tarot
Love it or hate it, the Thoth Tarot changed the game. It challenged what tarot could be. It brought esoteric rigour, visual intensity, and philosophical ambition. It made tarot a magickal project, not just a divinatory one.
Its influence echoes in modern ceremonial decks, in the study of tarot and Qabalah, and in the very idea that tarot can be more than fortune-telling. It helped pull tarot out of the parlour and into the temple.
Even if you don’t use it, you’re standing in its shadow.
Artistry, Symbolism, and Depth
Lady Frieda Harris deserves her flowers. Her artwork is breathtaking. Every brushstroke carries intent. Her use of colour, form, and symbolism is spellbinding. Even if you never read with the Thoth Tarot, just looking at the cards can be a spiritual experience.
That richness of symbolism continues to inspire scholars, artists, and mystics. The deck is a work of art, a portal, a time capsule. It rewards those willing to sit with it (or at least, those who don’t mind being overwhelmed).
A Mirror to the Shadow
We need decks like the Thoth Tarot. Not because they’re easy or friendly, but because they aren’t. Thoth invites us into our shadow, into discomfort. It asks hard questions. It doesn’t give easy answers.
You don’t have to like it. (I don’t.) But I respect what it is. Sometimes our resistance to a deck reveals just as much as our resonance with it.
One Last Look Before the Curtain Falls
The Thoth Tarot isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But its impact on the world of tarot is undeniable. It challenged the form, pushed its boundaries, and became a symbol of depth, darkness, and uncompromising vision.
In this series, we’ve walked through history. From the gilded grandeur of the Visconti-Sforza to the stark honesty of Marseille, the system-building of Etteilla, the familiar warmth of Rider-Waite, and now, the dark mirror of Thoth. Each deck changed tarot. Each one left a mark.
What will be the next deck to shift the landscape? Time will tell. For now, let this series be an invitation to explore the foundations and decide which ones still serve you. There are plenty more decks I could have mentioned (especially some recent ones), but these are the heavy hitters from history.
If you want to go deeper into your tarot journey, check out my tarot card meanings or sign up for Simply Tarot, my course for beginners. And if you’re still not sure what deck suits you? Maybe that’s the first card waiting to be drawn.
