Aleister Crowley’s Tarot Deck & How to Pronounce Thoth
| January 4, 2011 | Filled under Tarot, Audio Recordings, Learning |
- Originally posted on: Mar. 7th, 2008 at 2:13 AM
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Aleister Crowley made a Tarot deck; however, many of us that use that deck are uncomfortable or are unclear as to whether we are pronouncing it correctly.
Have you ever wondered how to pronounce the deck’s name? I have, at great length.
For years I pronounced it: Thawth like Moth but then I got to “thinking” when I was putting together “training” materials for my “tarot” courses that maybe I wasn’t pronouncing it correctly. With an astrological birth chart that includes a load of Virgo energy, I get focused on the smallest of details and want to ensure that I’m passing on accurate information “from the get-go”.
Anyway, I set out to get the correct pronunciation / enunciation and noticed that I wasn’t the only person who had the same “thoughts” about whether I was saying the deck name correctly.
As I continued to research I found many different ways to pronounce it: Thawth, Thoot, Tot, and ThOth and the deck name is spelled T.H.O.T.H.
And as I meditated and drove my partner mad with different pronunciations and discussions on this “all important” one syllable word and read various books on different hermetic subjects for a number of months I had an epiphany….
The Egyptian Moon God of Learning & Wisdom was the inspiration for Aleister’s deck. This God was also the inventor of writing and the Scribe of the Gods (of all knowledge and information). This God was also known as Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes Thrice Great = Egyptian Hermes), with the Greek Hermes being related to the planet Mercury, knowledge and magic. That’s when I saw the deck being representative of and associated with the English word THOUGHT or TAUGHT for the deck has much knowledge to “teach” or “tell” us as was one purpose of the Egyptian Moon God. So as mentioned that’s the reason for why I now pronounce the name of the Crowley deck more closely to these common modern English words.
So when I pronounce the name it sounds a lot like Thought or Taught albeit more exotic sounding, perhaps even with a slight British accent from my ear point such as THOUT OR T’HOUT.
After all of this research I believe the pronunciation of the Moon God is different from how I prefer to pronounce the deck’s name. Pronouncing the Egyptian God’s name is probably more like Tehuti or Tehut.
And in the end while I feel comfortable and finally have clarity with how and why I pronounce the decks name — Thout or T’Hout — I’m still not sure if it’s correct but heck, I can now arm my students with this information and let them decide and you now can too. 🙂
Audio Pronunciations of Thoth
http://www.bartleby.com/…80600.html
http://encarta.msn.com/…1861719857
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Thoth
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php
Image from Wikipedia
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