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Oxford Studies in Western Esotericism
The Lady and the Beast: The Extraordinary Partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley
Although Lady Harris is acknowledged as the artist of Aleister Crowley's Book of Thoth, to date, most studies have focused predominantly on Harris's role as Crowley's 'artist executant', and almost exclusively from Crowley's perspective. Whitehouse argues that Harris's involvement extended far beyond the artwork itself. The Book of Thoth was a collaboration in which each partner fulfilled a variety of roles; building on Crowley's magical theories and practices, and Harris's artistic skills and social awareness that enabled her to promote and exhibit their work as it evolved.
The Lady and the Beast presents a critical analysis of the life and works of Frieda, Lady Harris (1877–1962), wife of Sir Percy Harris (1876–1952), Liberal MP and party chief whip. Frieda Harris, née Bloxam, fulfilled her parents' expectations of finding a suitable husband, managing the family home and raising a family. She supported her husband's political endeavours, and in return he encouraged her to pursue her own interests, especially her painting. However, research indicates that Harris was already fascinated by mysticism and alternative belief structures prior to her meeting with Crowley in 1937. Her esoteric interests, combined with her demonstrable skills as a painter, made her ideally suited to illustrate Crowley's Thoth Tarot.
In manifesting Crowley's vision of the Occult Tarot, Harris's paintings embody the intersection of art and esotericism. Crowley (1875–1947) believed that the Tarot was fundamental to all magical disciplines and his Book of Thoth would become 'a standard Book of Reference, which will determine the entire course of mystical and magical thought for the next 2000 years.' Without Harris, there would be no Book of Thoth. Whitehouse presents a study of Harris's life and works, seeking to assess her true contribution to Western Esotericism.
The Lady and the Beast presents a critical analysis of the life and works of Frieda, Lady Harris (1877–1962), wife of Sir Percy Harris (1876–1952), Liberal MP and party chief whip. Frieda Harris, née Bloxam, fulfilled her parents' expectations of finding a suitable husband, managing the family home and raising a family. She supported her husband's political endeavours, and in return he encouraged her to pursue her own interests, especially her painting. However, research indicates that Harris was already fascinated by mysticism and alternative belief structures prior to her meeting with Crowley in 1937. Her esoteric interests, combined with her demonstrable skills as a painter, made her ideally suited to illustrate Crowley's Thoth Tarot.
In manifesting Crowley's vision of the Occult Tarot, Harris's paintings embody the intersection of art and esotericism. Crowley (1875–1947) believed that the Tarot was fundamental to all magical disciplines and his Book of Thoth would become 'a standard Book of Reference, which will determine the entire course of mystical and magical thought for the next 2000 years.' Without Harris, there would be no Book of Thoth. Whitehouse presents a study of Harris's life and works, seeking to assess her true contribution to Western Esotericism.
257 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 20, 2024
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About the author
Deja Whitehouse
3 booksDeja Whitehouse, Ph.D. (University of Bristol, 2020) is an independent researcher in the field of Western Esotericism.
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May 26, 2025
When I visited the Tarot exhibit at the Warburg Institute, one of the joys was to see Frieda Harris’ original art for the Thoth deck. Probably second only to the Smith-Waite deck in popularity amongst English decks, the Thoth deck art doesn’t really get much of an outing. There are different reasons given for this–preservation probably the primary one, given the medium of the art–but it robs us of truly extraordinary work. Believe me, my eyes drank deeply of the feast.
So it’s delightful to have this new study out in the world and beginning to gain attention (search YT for some recent interviews with the author). There’s been a lot of writing about Aleister Crowley, of course, which varies from sober and detailed accounts to wildly speculative sensationalism making th most of the so-called ‘Wickedest Man Alive’ in his times. But there’s been next to nothing about his partner in the tarot deck creation, Frieda Harris.
This volume does a lot to remedy that lack. Using correspondence between the two, additional correspondence and notebooks from Harris herself, lots of contemporary reportage, and even an unpublished memoir, A Soufflé for Ganesha, that covered her time in India. For the first time we get a sense of the artist, her milieu, and the collaboration, which was very clearly a momentous undertaking for both occultists.
We also see Harris in the creative communities of her time, including her contemporaries Ithell Colquhoun and Pamela Colman Smith. Harris remained open to the artistic currents surrounding her from the Bloomsbury group to the Surrealists. Probably the most important factor in her creative success was negotiating the demands of the men around her, Crowley of course and her husband Percy, a career politician. Although she disparagingly refers to herself as an ‘obliger’ Harris has the artist’s steel that allows her to bend to demands but always return to her own work.
The relationship with Crowley is vexed at times, unsurprisingly. The two men fight for her attention and she does her best to support them both (literally in Crowley’s case as he was often penurious). He often loses his temper with her humorous nature when it comes to occult studies. He never seemed to understand that it was part of her whole approach. Like her alter ego Jesus Chutney (makes me chuckle every time), she used humour to get past the ingrained expectations and training of her upbringing. She was always insisting on anonymity for the artwork, but after arranging exhibitions of the cards it was impossible not to feel pride in her work, Like the geometric painting that graces the cover of the book and features an enigmatic giraffe arising from a spiralled column that looks rather like Mercury’s caduceus.
Crowley often saw her invocation of humour as insulting to the gods like Mercury, which his why she created several versions of the Magus card which he failed to approve. She channels her frustration through her alter ego, who writes Crowley a poem that begins:
Mercury dances
Flashes Lightening, prances.
Jesus rages & sweats…
Crowley complains of Harris being ‘erratic’ as she attempts to juggle his demands, her art and her family life including her son’s wedding and calls her an ‘egomaniac’ and selfish — as men often do when women fail to center their desires. But clearly the two of them together recognised how singular this deck would be and what an important project they had undertaken. It was inevitable that they would clash repeatedly over the embodiment of the figures given the disparity between their views of the divine. As Harris writes,
My gods have no human forms, only curves, angles & light, movement, colour, sound & when I draw, the moment I fall on one that is familiar to me I bend the knee & shout Holy! Holy! Holy! They have no moral sense, they are neither good nor bad, only inevitable & therefore right in the true sense & I believe they are gods.
A marvelous and fun read for anyone interested in the history of contemporary magic, modern art in Britain, and especially of course in Tarot. Frieda Harris is a delightful subject, passionately attached to her occult studies and widely interested in all the possibilities her time offered as the new modernity. And she’s funny, which you know counts for a lot with me.
So it’s delightful to have this new study out in the world and beginning to gain attention (search YT for some recent interviews with the author). There’s been a lot of writing about Aleister Crowley, of course, which varies from sober and detailed accounts to wildly speculative sensationalism making th most of the so-called ‘Wickedest Man Alive’ in his times. But there’s been next to nothing about his partner in the tarot deck creation, Frieda Harris.
This volume does a lot to remedy that lack. Using correspondence between the two, additional correspondence and notebooks from Harris herself, lots of contemporary reportage, and even an unpublished memoir, A Soufflé for Ganesha, that covered her time in India. For the first time we get a sense of the artist, her milieu, and the collaboration, which was very clearly a momentous undertaking for both occultists.
We also see Harris in the creative communities of her time, including her contemporaries Ithell Colquhoun and Pamela Colman Smith. Harris remained open to the artistic currents surrounding her from the Bloomsbury group to the Surrealists. Probably the most important factor in her creative success was negotiating the demands of the men around her, Crowley of course and her husband Percy, a career politician. Although she disparagingly refers to herself as an ‘obliger’ Harris has the artist’s steel that allows her to bend to demands but always return to her own work.
The relationship with Crowley is vexed at times, unsurprisingly. The two men fight for her attention and she does her best to support them both (literally in Crowley’s case as he was often penurious). He often loses his temper with her humorous nature when it comes to occult studies. He never seemed to understand that it was part of her whole approach. Like her alter ego Jesus Chutney (makes me chuckle every time), she used humour to get past the ingrained expectations and training of her upbringing. She was always insisting on anonymity for the artwork, but after arranging exhibitions of the cards it was impossible not to feel pride in her work, Like the geometric painting that graces the cover of the book and features an enigmatic giraffe arising from a spiralled column that looks rather like Mercury’s caduceus.
Crowley often saw her invocation of humour as insulting to the gods like Mercury, which his why she created several versions of the Magus card which he failed to approve. She channels her frustration through her alter ego, who writes Crowley a poem that begins:
Mercury dances
Flashes Lightening, prances.
Jesus rages & sweats…
Crowley complains of Harris being ‘erratic’ as she attempts to juggle his demands, her art and her family life including her son’s wedding and calls her an ‘egomaniac’ and selfish — as men often do when women fail to center their desires. But clearly the two of them together recognised how singular this deck would be and what an important project they had undertaken. It was inevitable that they would clash repeatedly over the embodiment of the figures given the disparity between their views of the divine. As Harris writes,
My gods have no human forms, only curves, angles & light, movement, colour, sound & when I draw, the moment I fall on one that is familiar to me I bend the knee & shout Holy! Holy! Holy! They have no moral sense, they are neither good nor bad, only inevitable & therefore right in the true sense & I believe they are gods.
A marvelous and fun read for anyone interested in the history of contemporary magic, modern art in Britain, and especially of course in Tarot. Frieda Harris is a delightful subject, passionately attached to her occult studies and widely interested in all the possibilities her time offered as the new modernity. And she’s funny, which you know counts for a lot with me.
Displaying 1 of 1 review