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Tarot: Mirror of the Soul: A Handbook for the Thoth Tarot
An essential companion to one of the most popular and influential tarot decks, the Thoth Tarot, created by Lady Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley, now featuring new high-quality reproductions of the cards.
The seventy-eight cards of the Thoth Tarot were painted by Lady Frieda Harris according to instructions from famed occult scholar Aleister Crowley. The result is a magnificent art deco work rich in Egyptian symbolism, alchemy, and magic, and which contains kabalistic and astrological attributions.
Mirror of the Soul provides an accessible guide to the Crowley/Harris Thoth Tarot. It explores different ways of working with the cards, guiding your inner exploration, sometimes pointing the way when handling daily situations or making difficult decisions. Author Gerd Ziegler has studied and practiced humanistic and spiritual therapy in depth.
First published by Weiser Books in 1988, Mirror of the Soul remains a widely respected classic on the interpretation of the Crowley/Harris Thoth Tarot. This Weiser Classics edition features new high-quality reproductions of the original cards as well as an in-depth appreciation of the deck’s meaning and relevance by Diane Champigny.
The seventy-eight cards of the Thoth Tarot were painted by Lady Frieda Harris according to instructions from famed occult scholar Aleister Crowley. The result is a magnificent art deco work rich in Egyptian symbolism, alchemy, and magic, and which contains kabalistic and astrological attributions.
Mirror of the Soul provides an accessible guide to the Crowley/Harris Thoth Tarot. It explores different ways of working with the cards, guiding your inner exploration, sometimes pointing the way when handling daily situations or making difficult decisions. Author Gerd Ziegler has studied and practiced humanistic and spiritual therapy in depth.
First published by Weiser Books in 1988, Mirror of the Soul remains a widely respected classic on the interpretation of the Crowley/Harris Thoth Tarot. This Weiser Classics edition features new high-quality reproductions of the original cards as well as an in-depth appreciation of the deck’s meaning and relevance by Diane Champigny.
199 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 7, 2023
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17 people want to read
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August 1, 2024
It would be easy to overlook this book because it's very slim (under 200 pages) and the title is similar to that of many undistinguished books on the Tarot; but Gerd Ziegler has written what I consider to be a perfect introduction to the Thoth deck and it's one of my favourites on the topic.
Anyone who becomes interested in the Tarot usually begins with or soon discovers the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Originally printed in December 1909 by Rider & Company, it was the result of a collaboration between Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, who were both members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The images of Pamela Colman Smith are both suggestive and accessible. She was an intuitive visionary with a genius for capturing gesture and mood in a few flowing lines. It's not surprising that her original drawings, which far outshine the prompts given to her by her collaborator, Arthur Waite, have inspired countless imitators. There are also innumerable books describing the images and symbols, helping you to interpret and use the cards, including Waite's own, which is, however, not the best.
The Tarot de Marseille is another commonly used deck. Although there is no definitive edition of it, many authors and publishers have created their own with accompanying guide book and it is therefore very accessible, even if it doesn't have pictures on the minor arcana.
But the Thoth Tarot, conceived by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris, which was painted in the 1940s but not published until 1969, when both its creators were dead, is a very different deck, filled as it is with obscure occult symbols. The intentions behind it are not made any clearer by Crowley's book about it, The Book of Thoth. It begs to be explained.
Even experienced Tarot readers steer clear of it or are intimidated by it. Some books that purport to explain it only make it more complicated or create interference by drawing your attention to references and associations that take you further away from the cards and entangle your imagination in murky concepts that are difficult to understand.
Gerd Ziegler keeps things very simple. As Diane Champigny says in her foreword, "The book is extremely accessible to the beginning student in that it provides keywords for each card; a short, digestible description of the card; and ends with Indications, Questions, a Suggestion, and an Affirmation."
This makes the book very suitable for someone who wants to become familiar with the deck using a daily card pull, a short meditation and a journal entry. But there are other ways of working with the cards. The author introduces a number of them in a section at the back called "Systems For Using The Cards."
His approach is rooted in what he calls the quality of the moment. "The present moment is the energy point binding past and future together." This is not a book for fortune tellers. "The Tarot cards never bind us to certain interpretations; they mirror our reality at a specific moment in time. It is then up to us to decode how honestly and authentically we apply the message of the cards to our personal situation."
He writes very clearly and succinctly, even though he is inviting you to think about quite deep, spiritual aspects of your life. Because of the clarity of his style, it's possible to read this book from cover to cover in a day or two, flipping over each card as he talks about it. But then it's a book you would want to keep on your shelf and return to regularly.
I really like it. It's rare to see a book on the Thoth that has such beautiful simplicity, is practical, can be used every day and makes you feel so relaxed and at peace with yourself.
Anyone who becomes interested in the Tarot usually begins with or soon discovers the Rider-Waite-Smith deck. Originally printed in December 1909 by Rider & Company, it was the result of a collaboration between Arthur Edward Waite and Pamela Colman Smith, who were both members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The images of Pamela Colman Smith are both suggestive and accessible. She was an intuitive visionary with a genius for capturing gesture and mood in a few flowing lines. It's not surprising that her original drawings, which far outshine the prompts given to her by her collaborator, Arthur Waite, have inspired countless imitators. There are also innumerable books describing the images and symbols, helping you to interpret and use the cards, including Waite's own, which is, however, not the best.
The Tarot de Marseille is another commonly used deck. Although there is no definitive edition of it, many authors and publishers have created their own with accompanying guide book and it is therefore very accessible, even if it doesn't have pictures on the minor arcana.
But the Thoth Tarot, conceived by Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris, which was painted in the 1940s but not published until 1969, when both its creators were dead, is a very different deck, filled as it is with obscure occult symbols. The intentions behind it are not made any clearer by Crowley's book about it, The Book of Thoth. It begs to be explained.
Even experienced Tarot readers steer clear of it or are intimidated by it. Some books that purport to explain it only make it more complicated or create interference by drawing your attention to references and associations that take you further away from the cards and entangle your imagination in murky concepts that are difficult to understand.
Gerd Ziegler keeps things very simple. As Diane Champigny says in her foreword, "The book is extremely accessible to the beginning student in that it provides keywords for each card; a short, digestible description of the card; and ends with Indications, Questions, a Suggestion, and an Affirmation."
This makes the book very suitable for someone who wants to become familiar with the deck using a daily card pull, a short meditation and a journal entry. But there are other ways of working with the cards. The author introduces a number of them in a section at the back called "Systems For Using The Cards."
His approach is rooted in what he calls the quality of the moment. "The present moment is the energy point binding past and future together." This is not a book for fortune tellers. "The Tarot cards never bind us to certain interpretations; they mirror our reality at a specific moment in time. It is then up to us to decode how honestly and authentically we apply the message of the cards to our personal situation."
He writes very clearly and succinctly, even though he is inviting you to think about quite deep, spiritual aspects of your life. Because of the clarity of his style, it's possible to read this book from cover to cover in a day or two, flipping over each card as he talks about it. But then it's a book you would want to keep on your shelf and return to regularly.
I really like it. It's rare to see a book on the Thoth that has such beautiful simplicity, is practical, can be used every day and makes you feel so relaxed and at peace with yourself.
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