22 sep Lady Frieda Harris

Introduction to Crowley

Aleister Crowley had asked playwright and author Clifford Bax to help him find an artist for a Tarot project. On 9 June 1937 Bax invited Frieda Harris after two artists did not show up for an appointment. She was then aged 60.

As well as reading books by Crowley, Harris’ study of Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy was to be a critical aspect in the creation of the Thoth deck. Crowley’s friend Greta Valentine, a London socialite, also knew Harris. Harris and Crowley did much of their work on the Thoth tarot deck at Valentine’s house in Hyde Park Crescent, London.

In 1937 Harris began taking lessons in projective synthetic geometry, based upon the ideas of Goethe as reflected in the teachings of Steiner, from Olive Whicher and George Adams.

John Symonds writes:

[Crowley] helped her through the portals of the mystical Order of the A∴A∴ (Argenteum Astrum) She took the name of Tzaba “Hosts”, which adds up to 93, the number of the Thelemic current which she was trying to tap.”^[3]

According to Crowley’s unpublished Society of Hidden Masters,^[4] on 11 May 1938, Lady Harris became his “disciple” and also became a member of Ordo Templi Orientis, entering directly to the IV° (Fourth Degree) of that Order due to her previous initiation into Co-Masonry.^[5]

Crowley also began to teach her divination – she had a choice of discipline and opted for the I Ching:

“The Yi was your own choice from several. I approved highly, because it is the key to the kind of painting after which you were groping when I met you.” … “If you are to make a new mark in art, you need a new mind, a mind enlightened from the Supernal Triangle.”^[6]