Reading List
I'm not presenting this reading list as a recommended curriculum, just sharing some books that've helped along the way. Expect the list to grow as I find time to read more. I've provided links to bookshop.org in the spirit of supporting locally-owned, independent bookstores. Purchasing a book through this page will earn me an affiliate credit, which will go toward supporting the site. A few books are freely-available through their author, and I've linked to those versions where applicable.
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The best entry point into the Thoth deck and the most useful single-volume reference I've found. DuQuette writes with warmth and accessibility without sacrificing depth - he covers the Qabalistic correspondences, the visual symbolism card by card, and the historical context of Crowley's work with Lady Frieda Harris. Required reading before everything else on this list, in my opinion.
Bookshop.org -
Crowley's own account of the deck he designed with Harris. Dense, erudite, and occasionally maddening - this is the primary source, and it rewards patience. It assumes familiarity with Qabalah, astrology, and a great deal else. Best read alongside DuQuette rather than alone. Many passages only make sense on a second or third reading, and some I am still working through.
Bookshop.org -
The clearest introduction to the Qabalistic Tree of Life I've found. Fortune writes as someone who has worked the system rather than merely studied it. Her treatment of the ten sephiroth is thorough without being exhaustive. Essential if you want to understand why the Thoth deck is structured the way it is.
Bookshop.org -
A deliberately ridiculous-sounding title concealing a genuinely useful book. DuQuette presents Qabalah through the fictional rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford, using humor to keep the material approachable. It covers the same ground as Fortune's Mystical Qabalah but from a different angle - more playful, more personal, and more willing to say "I don't know" about the parts that remain genuinely mysterious.
Bookshop.org -
A translation of the primary Hermetic texts - the Corpus Hermeticum and the Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius. These are the founding documents of the Western esoteric tradition, written in Greek Egypt sometime in the first few centuries CE. They're short and often cryptic. If you've studied Qabalah or ceremonial magic, you'll recognize where half of it came from.
Bookshop.org -
Bardon's practical manual for the development of magical abilities, organized as a series of graduated exercises in physical, astral, and mental work. Less focused on Qabalah than most other books on this list, but it fills in something they leave out: what the actual practice looks like, day by day. Whether you follow his system or not, his insistence on observable results is rewarding.
Bookshop.org -
A step-by-step commentary on Bardon's Initiation Into Hermetics, written by someone who has worked through the system. Useful for clarifying ambiguities in Bardon's text and for understanding what each exercise is actually for. Available free online.
Free online (abardoncompanion.de) -
The sixteenth-century encyclopaedia of Renaissance magic: a systematic treatment of natural, celestial, and ceremonial magic drawing on Platonic philosophy, Hermeticism, Qabalah, and astrology. Staggering in scope and detail. I haven't read this cover-to-cover. It's a tome. Very useful as a reference, and I do intend to get through it all eventually. The sections on elemental and planetary attributions have been useful for understanding the correspondences behind the Thoth deck.
Bookshop.org -
A scholarly translation of the surviving magical texts from Greco-Roman Egypt, dating mostly from the 2nd century BCE to the 5th century CE. These are actual working documents - spells, rituals, invocations - from the same milieu that produced the Hermetic texts. Reading them places much of ceremonial magic in historical context and complicates the assumption that any of this is timeless or unchanging.
Bookshop.org -
A practical guide to reading the Thoth deck using the Opening of the Key spread, one of the more complex spreads in the Golden Dawn tradition. Hughes-Barlow's method is meticulous and demanding, but it opens up a level of reading that simpler spreads don't reach. Most useful once you have a solid grasp of the individual cards.
Bookshop.org -
A Jungian exploration of the shadow - the parts of ourselves we do not consciously acknowledge. Not directly about Tarot, but the framework is one I find genuinely useful for thinking about what cards like The Devil, The Moon, and The Tower are pointing toward. Readable and practically oriented.
Bookshop.org -
Le Guin's interpretation of the Tao Te Ching. She describes it as more of a rendition than a translation, and I feel like that makes it more useful than most versions. Not esoteric in the Western sense, but the Tao Te Ching speaks directly to some of what the Thoth deck is getting at, particularly around non-action and emptiness. The card I most often reach for when reading this is The Fool.
Bookshop.org -
A hand-drawn comic-format introduction to chaos magic. Irreverent, practical, and well-grounded for something that looks like it was drawn in a notebook. Approaches the subject without the gatekeeping that afflicts much of occult literature. Available free as a PDF - link to the author's page.
Free PDF (bluefluke) -
A comics series that doubles as a working introduction to Hermeticism, Qabalah, and the Western magical tradition. Issues 12 through 20 walk the protagonist through the Tree of Life, as good a visual explanation of the sephiroth as anything I've read. J.H. Williams III's artwork is extraordinary. The whole series is worth reading, even if - especially if - comics are not usually your thing.
Bookshop.org