Two decks lie open on the same table. One shows the Fool stepping off a cliff with a rose and a small dog. The other presents a green figure trampling a crocodile while a white circle pulses above. Both call themselves tarot. Both use seventy-eight cards and share a common ancestry in the Marseille tradition. But the Thoth Tarot and the Rider-Waite-Smith (RWS) system represent two fundamentally different approaches to the same art, shaped by their creators’ contrasting philosophies, occult frameworks, and decades of revision.
What Makes Thoth and RWS Different at Their Core?
The Thoth Tarot was designed by Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) and painted by Lady Frieda Harris between 1938 and 1943, though it was not published until 1969. The Rider-Waite-Smith deck was created by Arthur Edward Waite (1857–1942) and illustrated by Pamela Colman Smith in 1909, released in 1910. Both decks emerged from the same esoteric milieu — the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn — but they diverged on nearly every structural and symbolic choice. The RWS deck popularized the fully illustrated minor arcana that we now take for granted. The Thoth deck reorganized the major arcana, reassigned astrological and qabalistic correspondences, and embedded a distinctly Thelemic cosmology. A reader who treats them as interchangeable will misread both.
History and Origins: Two Projects, One Secret Order
Both decks trace their roots to the Golden Dawn, the late-Victorian occult society that systematized Western esotericism. Waite joined the order in 1891 and rose to its inner circles, but he became increasingly critical of the ceremonial magic and sexual symbolism that other members embraced. Crowley entered the order in 1898, clashed with its leaders, and left to forge his own magical system. By the time Waite commissioned Smith to illustrate his deck, the split was irreversible.
Waite’s project was to produce a tarot that a broad spiritual audience could use. He kept the major arcana order from the Marseille tradition but assigned new titles to several cards (Justice became VIII, Strength XI, as did the Marseille, but Waite later wrote that the order was not dogmatic). He instructed Smith to depict the minor arcana with scenes that told a story, making divination accessible without requiring extensive qabalistic knowledge. The deck was published by William Rider & Son in 1910, with Waite’s accompanying book The Pictorial Key to the Tarot.
Crowley’s project was the opposite. He intended the Thoth Tarot as a magical grimoire, a visual cipher for the highest secrets of Thelema. Working with Harris — herself a trained artist and occultist, he revised the tarot from the ground up. The major arcana were reordered to align with Crowley’s qabalistic system: Justice became VIII and Strength XI (reversing Waite’s placement), The Fool was placed at 0 but given a new meaning, and two cards were renamed: The Aeon replaced Judgment, and The Universe replaced The World. Crowley also changed the trumps’ astrological and Hebrew letter attributions, following a system he had developed in his earlier writings. The deck took five years to complete, but neither Crowley nor Harris lived to see it printed. It first appeared in 1969, published by Samuel Weiser.
Symbolism and Meaning: Where the Two Decks Diverge
The differences are not cosmetic. They express opposed understandings of what tarot communicates.
The Magician in RWS stands before a garden, one hand raised to heaven, one pointing to earth, the classic Hermetic axiom “As above, so below.” His table bears the four suits. The Magician in Thoth is a red-skinned figure with a twisted smile, surrounded by serpents, mercury, and a staff entwined with two snakes. Crowley called him “the Serpent of Wisdom.” The card represents creative will, but also cunning and transformation. The RWS Magician suggests controlled channeling. The Thoth Magician suggests a volatile, unpredictable power.
The High Priestess in RWS sits between two pillars, a scroll in her hands, the sea behind her. She is receptive knowledge. The High Priestess in Thoth wears a spiral headdress, holds a bow, and sits with a veil dotted with pomegranates. Her pillar is a single black column with a flaming torch. Crowley placed her under the path of Gimel (camel) and associated her with the Moon. She is not passive. She is the lunar power that bridges the abyss.
The World in RWS shows a female dancer in a laurel wreath, holding two wands, surrounded by the four fixed signs. The Universe in Thoth shows a dancing figure likewise, but the wreath becomes a serpent biting its tail, and the figure holds a cup in one hand and a wand in the other. The card’s astrological attribution shifted from Saturn to the planet Earth itself, reflecting Crowley’s cosmology of the ultimate return to matter rather than transcendence.
The minor arcana also differ in reading strategy. RWS scenes are narrative: the Six of Cups shows two children exchanging flowers in a walled garden, suggesting nostalgia and generosity. The Thoth Six of Cups shows a five-petaled flower with a central hexagram, flanked by cups, heavy with astrological symbols. It reads as pleasure and harmony but requires the reader to know that the card corresponds to the Sun in Scorpio. You cannot “see” the meaning on the card; you must learn the system.
Practices and Traditions: How Each Deck Is Read
The RWS deck was designed for the general public and for diviners who wanted a visual cue for each card. Its minor arcana can be interpreted intuitively from the image alone. The Thoth deck was designed for the ceremonial magician who already understands the qabalistic tree of life, the astrological signs, and the paths that connect the sephiroth.
Reading the RWS typically involves memorizing a set of traditional meanings and then letting the scene modify the interpretation. The cards are often read in spreads like the Celtic Cross. Reversals are common.
Reading the Thoth often follows Crowley’s own framework: the minor arcana are read as astrological decans (the thirty-six ten-day periods of the zodiac), with the pip cards carrying precise planetary and zodiacal influences. The court cards are not just people but elemental forces. The major arcana are read as stages on the path of initiation. Many Thoth readers do not use reversals because the cards already contain light and shadow within their imagery. The deck demands study of Crowley’s The Book of Thoth (1944), where he outlines the meaning of every symbol.
A concrete example: a Thoth reader pulling the Ten of Wands sees the card of Saturn in Sagittarius, meaning oppression through excessive ambition. The RWS Ten of Wands shows a man carrying a bundle of sticks, struggling forward. Both point to burden, but the Thoth reader will check which decan the card falls in, while the RWS reader will look at the man’s posture and path.
Notable Differences and Key Comparisons
| Aspect | RWS | Thoth |
|---|---|---|
| Major arcana titles | The World, Judgment, The Hierophant | The Universe, The Aeon, The Magus |
| Order of Justice and Strength | Justice VIII, Strength XI | Justice VIII, Strength XI (same numbering, but Waite kept Marseille order while Crowley reordered to match qabalistic tree) |
| Hebrew letter attributions | Followed Levi/Marseille (Fool = Aleph, Magician = Beth) | Revised to match Crowley’s own system (Fool = Aleph, Magician = Beth same, but later trumps reassigned) |
| Astrological attributions | Largely from Golden Dawn | Same Golden Dawn base but with key differences (e.g., The Trumpet/Aeon assigned to Fire, not Air) |
| Minor arcana style | Fully illustrated scenes | Abstract, geometric, heavily symbolic |
| Court cards | King, Queen, Knight, Page | Knight, Queen, Prince, Princess |
| Color palette | Earthy tones, muted | Vivid, jewel-like, influenced by Harris’s art deco style |
| Deck size | Standard poker size | Slightly larger, rectangular |
| Accompanying book | The Pictorial Key to the Tarot | The Book of Thoth |
The nearest relative to both is the Marseille Tarot, which predates both by centuries and uses unillustrated pips and a fixed major arcana order. RWS broke from Marseille by adding scenes to the minors. Thoth broke from both by reordering and renaming the majors and embedding a full qabalistic and astrological grid.
Common Misconceptions
“The Thoth deck is Crowley’s personal invention.” In fact, Crowley worked within the Golden Dawn system, which itself drew on the Sepher Yetzirah, Renaissance occultism, and the Masonic tradition. He did not invent the correspondences; he reordered them to suit his own initiatory path.
“The RWS deck is for beginners; Thoth is for advanced readers.” This is a modern prejudice. The RWS deck is not simple. Waite encoded his own Christian-mystical interpretations that are just as complex as Crowley’s, but they are less overtly ritualistic. Beginners can use either deck, but they must learn the system built into each.
“The Thoth deck is ‘darker’ or more evil.” The imagery is confrontational, and Crowley’s reputation precedes him, but the deck’s cosmology is not malevolent. The third card (The Empress) is one of the most tender and life-affirming in any tarot.
“You cannot do the Celtic Cross with Thoth.” You can. The spread structure is independent of the deck. What changes is how you read each position based on the card’s specific attributes.
FAQ
Can I use Thoth meanings with RWS cards? Not reliably. The astrological and qabalistic assignments differ, and the minor arcana symbols do not match. Better to learn each deck’s own system.
Which deck is better for tarot correspondence to astrology? The Thoth deck embeds astrological decans directly in the minor arcana, making it the stronger choice for astrological tarot work.
Why are some card names different? Crowley renamed Judgment to The Aeon to reflect his Thelemic teaching that the age of Osiris (judgment and resurrection) had passed, replaced by the age of Horus (the crowned and conquering child). The World became The Universe for consistency with pluralistic cosmology.
Is the Thoth deck still in print? Yes. Since 1969, it has been published by various houses; the most widely available edition is the US Games Systems version, produced with the Harris estate’s authorization.
Closing
The Thoth and RWS decks are not competitors. They are tools for different kinds of work. The RWS deck gave the Western world a visual language for everyday divination. The Thoth deck gave magicians a symbolic machine for transformative ritual. Understanding both deepens a reader’s grasp of how tarot functions as a system of correspondences and symbols. For a broader view of tarot’s place in the Western esoteric tradition, see our complete guide to tarot. To learn how the decks’ symbols connect to the wider corpus of occult imagery, visit our tarot symbolism glossary. And for a deeper look at the RWS deck’s creation and influence, read our Rider-Waite-Smith tarot guide.