The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians
Crowley, Aleister (The Master Therion). The Book of Thoth: A Short Essay on the Tarot of the Egyptians. Samuel Weiser, 1983 (1st Weiser Paperback, 9th Printing). Softbound. First published in the Equinox in 1944, this later edition of Crowley's explanatory text for the tarot deck he created with Lady Frieda Harris includes full-color plates of selected trumps, monochrome plates of all cards, and an appendix diagramming the deck's kabbalistic correspondences. At the age of 60, Harris began training to illustrate the Book of Thoth, not only reading books by Crowley, but also studying projective synthetic geometry, a concept explored by Goethe and disseminated in the teachings of Rudolf Steiner. 'She devoted her genius to the Work,' Crowley writes of Harris in the book's intro. 'With incredible rapidity she picked up the rhythm, and with inexhaustible patience submitted to the correction of the fanatical slave-driver that she had invoked, often painting the same card as many as eight times until it measured up to his Vanadium Steel yardstick.'
