When you sit down with me for a reading you’ll notice that, more often than not, I reach instinctively for the Thoth Tarot rather than the more familiar Rider‑Waite‑Smith (RWS) deck. I’d like to share the reasons, because the cards I choose are part of the service you receive and the insight you take away.
A richer symbolic vocabulary
Painted by Lady Frieda Harris under Aleister Crowley’s direction, every Thoth card is a miniature mandala of colour, geometry and esoteric shorthand. Alchemy, Hermetic Qabalah, astrology and myth are woven into each image, so every spread offers several layers of meaning. That depth lets me tailor the reading to you: if you’re after clear‑cut guidance I can stay with the practical layer, yet if you’re ready to dive deeper we have astrological, elemental and mythic threads to follow.
Colour that speaks to the senses
Crowley insisted that Harris paint the cards according to the Golden Dawn’s precise colour scales. Those blends of vermilion, indigo and emerald aren’t random decoration; they’re energy in pigment form. Over the years I’ve found that Thoth’s palette triggers intuitive “gut hits” far faster than the flat primaries of many modern decks. When you want honest answers quickly, that immediacy matters.
Honesty about the shadows
Life isn’t all sunlight, and neither is the Thoth. Some clients are initially taken aback by titles like Ruin or Defeat, yet those stark names are why I trust the deck. It never sugar‑coats. Instead of euphemising our challenges, the Thoth lays them on the table so we can transmute them. My role as reader—and as a druid trained to work with the cycles of light and dark—is to hold the space safely while we explore what’s surfaced. In practice that means a reading that’s compassionate but never vague.
Fluid rather than frozen images
The RWS minors show a snapshot: five figures quarrelling, or a woman blindfolded among swords. Harris’s paintings feel more like a frame torn from a film reel. Her Ten of Disks spirals; her Ace of Cups erupts like a geyser. Because the images move, they point to the dynamic nature of your situation—where energy is building, where it’s draining, and how to redirect it—rather than labelling you with a fixed state.
Perfectly aligned with my practice
My druid path revolves around working with elemental forces, planetary cycles and the turning of the year. The Thoth deck encodes those same correspondences, so using it is like speaking my mother tongue. That fluency lets me read more confidently and, in turn, deliver clearer coaching for you—whether we’re meeting in person in Killarney or over Zoom from the other side of the world.
A bridge between intuition and analysis
Finally, the Thoth is a deck that rewards study and spontaneity. I can lean on its scholarly backbone when you need dates, timing or practical strategy, yet I can just as readily close my eyes, feel the surge of a colour field, and convey the intuitive whisper that follows. That blend of head and heart is the standard I set for every professional reading, and the Thoth helps me live up to it.
So when you see those jewel‑bright, slightly mysterious cards on the table, know that they’re there because they give us the widest, clearest window into your story—and because, in my hands, they dance and sing.
