My Lent Book

In an act of absolutely shameless theft from the Christians (because why would a witch feel the need to keep Lent?), every year I take a book for Lent reading and unless I really don't get on with it try to read it all the way through. Probably now that my health has forced me to stay home the practice has less purpose because I now have the time to have a book to chew over on a daily basis.

This year's is Marcus Katz's Secrets of the Thoth Tarot. I actually have the three volumes which you need to go through the whole deck although I doubt I will finish all three in Lent.

It may seem strange to be reading about the Thoth tarot when you can tell from previous posts that I have been immersing myself for several years in the Golden Dawn tradition of tarot, which is sometimes seen as the opposite. It isn't really - Crowley met the tarot when he was a member of the order, much of the hatred for him was driven by him publishing the order's secret teachings, and he is definitely out of the Golden Dawn stable. I think at this stage I should be able to negotiate the changes he made in the deck -fingers crossed.

I'm not actually running out of Golden Dawn materials about the deck but I've reached the point where I'm feeling a bit full of it so it's time to change tack. Katz explains things so well - I also have Lon Milo Duquettes book about the Thoth tarot but I am afraid that while I love Duquette in person I have never got on so well with him on paper.

This is the exact opposite to the experience I had of reading through the blog of a well known writer of Dr Who books and falling head over heels in love with him. Then I saw him speak and didn't fancy him at all - I was in love on paper but not in person!

But I digress. I'm not done with the Golden Dawn tradition of tarot at all, because my studies have made some changes in me but I'm nowhere near proficient. Plus the forthcoming Golden Dawn Tarot from Aeon publishers keeps getting deferred which is annoying.