12 April 2010

A Thelemic Tarot

For one who's not into the Crowley/Harris Thoth deck, not that i don't love it, it just doesn't do anything for me, I sure like it's derivatives! Compared to the other 2 big traditions in tarot namely the Waithe Coleman Smith and the Marseilles there are extremely few Thoth remakes so each one is special to me.

So last week one of these specials back from the '70ies arrived in my post namely the A Thelemic Tarot - The Major Arcana created and published in a limited edition of only 499 decks by Augustus Donelly back in 1977, the deck is one of those to-color-decks complete with instruction leaflet, reproduced (photcopied?) from a handwritten original. The artist writes: " I have tried to remain as close as possible to the structure of the Lady Frieda Harris pack which was painted under the personal guidance of Crowley. The designs which differ greatly are a result personal experience during meditation ... the power remains the same" The artist clearly expected that this deck would be used with Crowley's Book of Thoth and thus no guide book is provided with the deck.

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