Aleister Crowley, creator of the Thoth Tarot

When he first decided to create his own Tarot, Aleister Crowley intended it to be traditional in design. Although he was an artist, he went on a mission to find an artist, and he found Frieda Harris, almost by accident. Frieda might well be rather naive, but she had her own ideas, and convinced him to go down an more audacious path. The result is a unique collaboration. Frieda Harris' contribution is only now being recognised since it was discovered that the geometrical motifs in the cards are directly inspired by Rudolf Steiner's Projective Synthetic Geometry. In fact, Frieda had lessons on the subject in London before she started painting the cards.

Despite liberal quotations from the Book of the Law, the Thoth Tarot is not as Thelemic as one would think, which is a possible reason why the O.T.O. do not thoroughly endorse it as much as they could. The Thoth Tarot is a veritable compendium of Crowley's vast experience of mathematics, magick, philosophy and spirituality.

Golden Dawn Teachings

Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley worked together to embed the secret teachings of the Golden Dawn, starting with the design of the Fool card, which encompasses the entire deck. The Pole Star is a central concept of the Golden Dawn, and possibly represents the extra-terrestrial origin of the knowledge. Another important aspect of the Golden Dawn is ritual, which is encoded subtly into the designs. Look closely at the Art card, and you will see a spider's web, but it is not mentioned in the commentary.