CROWLEY
The man behind this deck has a bad name, to say the least... black magic, sexual rituals, he called himself the beast (his Quaker mother called him that), etc. He was narcistic, boastful and irresponsible. And people who are psychotic and dabble in the occult often refer to him. For many Crowley's name is the synonim of evil. So how could a tarot deck of his be any good?
First of all, would anyone stop admiring Mozart's music because of his profanities in his letters? Schopenhauer might have been a great philosopher, but as a human he was excentric. Nietzsche produced invaluable work, but he was himself the footdoor mat of his mother and later after she died of his elder sister. Pestalozzi was phenomenal regarding how to raise and school children, in theory, but with his own children was not an exemplary father. Etc... So, while Crowley the man was not a character to admire, his tarot as a work stands on its own.
Secondly, it was not just Crowley's deck. The cards themselves were paintings made by his friend Lady Frieda Harris, a woman who was faithful to her knighted husband and was appalled when Crowley flirted with her, but remained his friend nonetheless. And though Crowley got all the honoraries for the deck after pleading with Harris, and the claim by Sorror IW that Harris painted everything under the strict directions from Crowley, the lack of alternative paintings (except for the Magician) disproves this. Harris would have kept the disapproved designs if Crowley had been looking over her shoulder all the time. But such have never been found. Sorror in all likelyhood was a pseudonym for Crowley who in his narcistic ways just wanted to claim the deck as his idea alone. It's more likely that he just sent Harris an itenary of symbols for each card, and that Harris painted her own vision of it, incorporating the symbols Crowley wanted in it. We cannot dismiss the impact of Harris' own visions and ideas on the cards, only because Crowley handed her the mythological ans symbological background. The Crowley Toth Deck, might have been better called the Harris Toth Deck.
THE DECK
So, what did Crowley want to accomplish with the deck? He wanted a rather abstract deck, that is lacking stories and scenes, and instead fill it with symbolism (magical, astrological, kabbala, myths from mediterranean, Celtic cultures and most importantly from Egypt (hence Toth). In a way he wanted to have all of his initiate knowledge of ancient wisdoms incorporated into it, in the language of dreams and myths: symbology. For him, words and scenes belong to just only a time, whereas symbolic imagery are timeless for the unconscious.
Harris was able to capture the strange sensation of the dreamworld, or that of meditation journeys. And the cards are overloaded with symbols. And even if you can't always express in words what the cards mean, somehow you feel and know that something inside of you gets it. When you try to put the card's meaning in words, you easily get the sensation that they don't do the imagery justice. It's like with dreams... literally they make no sense. You try to describe them afterwards, but it's but a pale version of the dream you dreamt. And you tell the dream in the hope that somebody else can help you make sense of it, but when analysed it becomes clear that your unconscious understood the dream's message well enough by the end, even if your waking self is gobsmacked by them.
On the one hand, these cards were not made to understand at first glance, but need to be read like a book, or better yet, like a dream. On the other hand they have an evoking impact that can hardly ever be put in words or consciously explained. They're like music that can make you emotional, with the notes making your inner strings vibrate.
So, these cards are some of the best I know for self-readings and mandalas if you use tarot for self-understanding and self-atuning to your "soul" path.
But it's hard to translate the deck, and Crowley himself did not make it easier. His own book that was supposed to clarify it was full of ritual speak, rhymes and riddles. In all likelihood Crowley thought that would explain them, because he knew what he meant by it, because he had this giant library of symbolical knowledge within him... but he failed miserably in his own attempt to clarify it.
ASTROLOGY
Where Waite used scenery for the pips, Crowley allocated each pip an aspect of astrological signs with the planets.
Though I'm not a follower of astrology for the simple reason that there is no reasonable argument that it works, it has as much value as symbolical system in tarot cards as much as any other symbol.
{I know some would reason the same for Tarot. But then of course I have already explained how Tarot works in a non-magical way (serendipity: coincidences + an ear and mind that connects the non-concrete meanings to their own concrete life situations create workable meaning, insofar it is about the past and the present. And I know of no "Sceptic" who would disagree with me on any of this).}
THE THREE MAGICIANS
Harris painted three magicians for the deck. Crowley officially only agreed to one being used in the deck. All three contain the same symbols, but each picture is very much different from the other. The most profane explanation is that Harris made three versions and Crowley only accepted one.
But there is also an esoterical one. Harald Schulze Theiler made an esoteric theory that there ought to be three fools, one known fool and two hidden ones. Though he speaks of fools, his esoteric theory can be applied on the three magicians of the Toth deck. Theiler argues essentially that our ancient count systems use the number 24 (like 24 hours), but that 10% of it is invisible. An astronomical exact duration of an astrological era (the era of the Aquarius) is 2160 years. 2160 is 90% of 2400 years. For the same reason, the Major Arcana counts 24 cards, but only 22 (rounded) are visible. And it might be a reasonable explanation for the existence AND exposition of 3 magicians.
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