Frieda Harris, Aleister Crowley and the Thoth Tarot
The Thoth tarot is one of the most popular decks in the English speaking world today. The brainchild of Aleister Crowley, it was illustrated by the artist Frieda, Lady Harris, during the years of the Second World War. Harris first met Crowley in 1937 and she soon became his magical pupil and firm friend; their collaboration slowly gave birth to the incredible deck.
In this illustrated lecture, Deja Whitehouse relates how they worked together, using evidence from surviving diaries and correspondence.
Dr Deja Whitehouse is a freelance writer and researcher who was recently awarded her PhD from Bristol University. Her research topic, In Search of Frieda Harris, – from a Victorian Childhood to the Swinging Sixties, supervised by Professor Ronald Hutton, explores various aspects of Harris’s life in comparison with some of her female esoteric contemporaries.
During her studies, Deja completed a short-term engagement as a library assistant at the Warburg Institute, cataloguing the Frieda Harris correspondence held in the Yorke Collection, and producing an edited consolidation of the Harris-Crowley correspondence and associated primary source material.