Thoth Tarot Deck Guide: History and Use
The Thoth Tarot Deck: A Guide to Its History, Cards and Use
The thoth tarot deck is the most intellectually demanding deck in the modern tarot tradition, and it is also one of the most beautiful. It was designed by the English occultist Aleister Crowley and painted by the artist Lady Frieda Harris between 1938 and 1943, a five-year collaboration that began as a six-month project and grew into something far larger. Crowley wrote a full commentary on the deck, The Book of Thoth, which was published in a limited edition of 200 copies in 1944. Neither Crowley nor Harris lived to see the deck itself printed. Crowley died in 1947, Harris died in 1962, and the deck was first published in 1969, more than two decades after the paintings were finished.
This guide covers the deck's real history, what makes its cards different from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, and how to approach reading with it if you are new to it. It is written for readers who already know the basics of tarot and want to understand what the Thoth deck actually is, rather than what it is sometimes claimed to be.
Crowley, Harris and the Five-Year Project
Aleister Crowley was born in 1875 and became one of the most written-about figures in Western occultism, as the founder of the religious and philosophical system called Thelema and the author of The Book of the Law, received, as he described it, in 1904. By 1938, when the Thoth project began, Crowley was 63, living in reduced circumstances, and dissatisfied with the existing tarot decks, including the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, which he considered superficial in its occult content. He wanted a deck that carried the full system he had spent his life building: the Hermetic Qabalah, astrology, alchemy, and his own Thelemic framework.
Lady Frieda Harris was a painter then aged sixty, the wife of the Liberal politician Sir Percy Harris, and a student of projective geometry, which she had studied with Olive Whicher in the circle around Rudolf Steiner's school of thought. She met Crowley in June 1937, after he had asked the playwright Clifford Bax to help him find an artist for a tarot project, and in May 1938, after reading his essay on the cards of the tarot, she suggested they create a deck to the old Golden Dawn specifications. She became his pupil that same month. What followed was one of the most documented artistic collaborations in occult history, carried on through an extensive correspondence over five years. Harris painted all 78 cards according to Crowley's instructions, and she also brought her own substantial contribution, especially through her use of projective geometry, a system of geometric forms that gives the Thoth cards their distinctive sense of depth and movement.
The work was not easy. Harris moved to a studio in Chipping Campden in 1939 to devote herself to the project full time. The two quarreled, reconciled, and quarreled again, and in 1942 Harris held an exhibition of the paintings in London, in part to establish her claim as designer and painter of the cards. The paintings were finished in 1943. The Book of Thoth, Crowley's commentary, was printed in 1944 as a limited, numbered edition of 200 copies. After the war, Harris tried and failed to find a publisher willing to print the deck in color. A color deck would not appear until 1969, when it was published through the care of Gerald Yorke and the Ordo Templi Orientis, the order Crowley had led.
What Makes the Thoth Deck Different: Renamed Majors
The Thoth deck has the same structure as any standard tarot deck, 78 cards divided into 22 Major Arcana and 56 Minor Arcana, but several of the Major Arcana carry different names, and two of them carry different numbers. Crowley kept the Golden Dawn's astrological attributions as his starting point and then changed names and numbers to suit his own system, which he based on The Book of the Law. The changes are worth learning, because they are the first thing that confuses a reader coming from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck.
The Magician becomes the Magus, card I. The High Priestess becomes the Priestess, card II. The Wheel of Fortune becomes Fortune, card X. Strength becomes Lust, and it returns to card XI, reversing Waite's decision to put Strength at VIII. Justice becomes Adjustment, and it takes card VIII, the other half of that same reversal. Temperance becomes Art, card XIV. Judgement becomes the Aeon, card XX, a reference to the Aeon of Horus, the new age Crowley believed his Book of the Law had announced. The World becomes the Universe, card XXI. The Empress, the Emperor, the Lovers, the Chariot, the Hermit, the Hanged Man, the Death card, the Devil, the Tower, the Star, the Moon and the Sun keep their familiar names, though their images are very different from the Rider-Waite versions.
The Strength and Justice swap deserves a word of explanation. In the older Marseille order, Justice was VIII and Strength was XI. The Golden Dawn swapped them, putting Strength at VIII with Leo and Justice at XI with Libra, because that order matched the zodiac better. Waite kept the Golden Dawn numbering. Crowley restored the older positions, but with new names: Adjustment at VIII and Lust at XI. The result is that a Thoth reader and a Rider-Waite reader mean different cards when they say "card VIII," and both of them are right within their own deck. The confusion is real, and the fix is simple: always name the card, not only the number.
The Minor Arcana: Titles, Decans and New Court Cards
The Minor Arcana are where the Thoth deck differs most visibly from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Where Waite and Pamela Colman Smith gave every Minor Arcana card a full scenic picture, a scene with people and a story, the Thoth Minor Arcana are abstract. Each card shows a symbolic arrangement of its suit emblems against a dynamic geometric background, and each one carries a brief title that sums up its meaning. The Three of Cups is called Abundance. The Five of Swords is called Defeat. The Nine of Disks, the Thoth name for the suit of Pentacles, is called Gain. The titles are part of the reading, and a Thoth reader learns them alongside the pictures.
Every numbered Minor Arcana card, the cards from Two to Ten in each suit, is also assigned to a ten-degree section of the zodiac called a decan. The Five of Wands, for example, corresponds to Saturn in Leo, the first decan of Leo, which gives it the title Strife and explains the conflicted, effortful energy it carries. The Two of Cups corresponds to Venus in Cancer, the first decan of Cancer. There are 36 decans in the zodiac, ten degrees each, and 36 numbered Minor Arcana cards, so the mapping is exact. This decan system comes from the Golden Dawn's Book T, and it is one of the most practical parts of the Thoth system, because it lets a reader connect a small card to a specific slice of the zodiac and to the planet ruling that slice.
The court cards are also renamed. Instead of Page, Knight, Queen and King, the Thoth deck uses Princess, Prince, Queen and Knight. The Knight in Thoth corresponds roughly to the King in the Rider-Waite-Smith deck, the Prince to the Knight, the Queen stays the Queen, and the Princess takes the place of the Page. Crowley accepted the Golden Dawn's court card changes, which can confuse readers moving between decks, and the fix is the same as with the Majors: learn the Thoth names on their own terms rather than translating them in your head every time.
The suits themselves keep their familiar elements, with one name change: Wands are Fire, Cups are Water, Swords are Air, and Disks, the Thoth name for Pentacles, are Earth.
The Book of Thoth and the System Behind the Cards
The Book of Thoth, published in 1944, is Crowley's own commentary on the deck, and it is a difficult book. It is not a beginner's guide. It is a dense, allusive text that moves between the Qabalah, astrology, alchemy, numerology, and Crowley's Thelemic ideas without pausing to explain itself. Most readers who work with the Thoth deck do not start with it. They start with a modern guide, and the most widely recommended is Lon Milo DuQuette's Understanding Aleister Crowley's Thoth Tarot, first published in 2003, which explains the system card by card in plain language and is the book most Thoth teachers suggest to beginners.
The system behind the deck is worth understanding in outline, even if you never study it in depth. The 22 Major Arcana correspond to the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet and to the 22 paths on the Tree of Life, the central diagram of the Hermetic Qabalah. Each Major Arcana card carries an astrological attribution, a planet, a sign, or an element, following the Golden Dawn system with Crowley's changes. The Minor Arcana carry the decan attributions described above. The result is a deck in which every card has a coordinate: a letter, a path, a sign or planet, and a decan. That density is the deck's reputation and its difficulty. A Rider-Waite-Smith card can be read from its picture alone. A Thoth card rewards a reader who knows its coordinates, and it can feel closed to a reader who does not.
That density is also why the Thoth deck has a particular audience. It appeals to readers who like systems, who enjoy study, and who want a deck that rewards years of learning. It is less often the first deck a beginner is advised to buy, and the reason is practical rather than mystical: the Rider-Waite-Smith deck teaches its meanings through its pictures, while the Thoth deck teaches its meanings through a system that has to be learned separately.
How to Read With the Thoth Deck
If you want to read with the Thoth deck, the practical path is straightforward. First, learn the renamed cards and the new court cards, using the list above, until you can name a card without translating it from the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Second, learn the titles of the numbered Minor Arcana cards, because the titles are the fastest route into their meanings. Third, learn the decan attributions for the cards you use most often, starting with the Five of Wands and the Two of Cups as examples, and build outward from there.
When you read, start small. A one-card daily pull, with a note in a journal about what the card meant by the end of the day, teaches the deck faster than large spreads. The Thoth cards are dense, and a three-card spread can carry more information than a beginner can use. As you grow comfortable, add the decan and the astrological attribution to your notes for each card, and watch how the same card behaves in different questions. Over months, the system stops feeling like a set of rules and starts feeling like a language.
One caution is worth stating plainly. The Thoth deck is sometimes presented as a dark or dangerous deck, and that reputation is undeserved. Crowley himself is a controversial figure, and the deck's imagery is intense, with cards like Lust and the Aeon that can look alarming at first glance. But the deck is a system for reflection, not a source of harm, and readers who approach it with respect and curiosity find it no more frightening than any other deck. The cards describe patterns and possibilities. They do not compel anything, and they do not predict fixed outcomes.
For choosing between decks, the how to choose a tarot deck guide compares the main options, and tarot for beginners covers the card meanings every new reader needs before choosing a deck. The tarot and astrology correspondences page explains the Golden Dawn system the Thoth deck is built on, and how to read tarot for yourself and how to bond with a new tarot deck cover the practical steps once the deck is in your hands.
The Thoth deck rewards patience. Give it a few months of daily pulls, learn its names and its system, and it will start to speak in its own voice, which is unlike any other deck. First 3 minutes FREE — every time, for every reading, with all advisors.
For a simple next step, try a One-Card Tarot reading and reflect on which card in your own deck has been asking for more of your attention lately.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who created the Thoth tarot deck?
It was designed by Aleister Crowley and painted by Lady Frieda Harris. They worked on it together between 1938 and 1943. Crowley wrote the commentary, The Book of Thoth, published in 1944, and Harris painted all 78 cards.
When was the Thoth tarot deck first published?
The deck was first published in 1969, more than two decades after the paintings were finished. Crowley died in 1947 and Harris died in 1962, so neither of them lived to see the deck printed.
How is the Thoth deck different from the Rider-Waite deck?
Several Major Arcana cards are renamed, including Strength as Lust, Justice as Adjustment, Temperance as Art, Judgement as the Aeon, and The World as the Universe. The Minor Arcana are abstract with titles instead of scenes, and the court cards are Knight, Queen, Prince and Princess.
Is the Thoth deck a good first deck for a beginner?
It is usually not the first deck recommended, because its meanings come from a system that has to be learned separately, while the Rider-Waite-Smith deck teaches through its pictures. A beginner who likes study and systems can still start with it, using a modern guide like Lon Milo DuQuette's book from 2003.
What is a decan in the Thoth deck?
A decan is a ten-degree section of the zodiac. The zodiac has 36 decans, and the 36 numbered Minor Arcana cards, Two to Ten in each suit, are each assigned to one decan. The Five of Wands, for example, is Saturn in Leo, which gives it the title Strife.
Last updated: November 11, 2026
