Online Reference For Body, Mind & Spirit

Term: Book of Thoth

DEFINITIONs:

1.  A name given to many books supposedly written by the ancient Egyptian deity of writing, Thoth.

2.  An old Egyptian story of a book, written by Thoth, that contains two spells. One allows the reader to understand what animals are saying. The other allows the reader to directly see the gods. The book was stolen by prince Neferkaptah. In punishment, the gods killed his wife and son. Neferkaptah commits suicide and the book is placed in his tomb.

Decades later, the book is stolen from the tomb, and he is convinced by a beautiful woman to kill his children an humiliate himself in front of the Pharaoh. It turns out this was an illusion created by Neferkaptah's ghost, so the thief returns the book, finds the bones of Neferkaptah's wife and son, and buries them all in Nerferkaptah's tomb.

 

3.  A book on the theory, design, and use of the Tarot (that supposedly came from Thoth) written by Aleister Crowley. It explained a deck of cards, known as the Thoth Tarot, designed by Crowley and co-designed and painted by Frieda Harris. The deck was not published until after Crowley's death.