In August 2025 I got an email from Ebay that a sale had been added concerning the Masonic tracing boards of Frieda Harris. Apparently I had been looking for them and created a reminder at Ebay. The description was: “Frieda Harris Masonic Tracing Boards Litho Prints 1976 1st Printing” and the price was fixed.
I quickly looked around the internet to find out if the fixed price was reasonable, but I did not find much. There is one past auction in which I cannot see the price. Taking the gamble, I quickly made the purchase to prevent somebody else being faster than me. Then it was waiting for a couple of weeks for the prints to arrive.
The prints are smooth. Had they been lithographic prints, I would have expected to feel the different layers of ink (colours). Also, there is no indication whatsoever that the prints are ‘originals’. This made me wonder about the history of these boards and their creator.
The information that I find online is annoyingly one-sided. Almost all information about Frieda Harris is about her cooperation with Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) on the (in)famous Thoth Tarot. At some places there are some references to Harris’ membership of co-Masonry, but not the information that I am curious about.
A bit of a biography
I will quickly go over this part as it can be found online on several places.
Marguerite Frieda Bloxam was born in 1877, the second of three children. Her father, John Astley Bloxam, was a no-nonsense, former military surgeon and, according to his grandson Jack Harris, a professed atheist. (1)
After mentioning that: “She married Percy Harris in April 1901. Percy Harris served as a Liberal Party MP 1916–1918 and 1922–1945, and was Chief Whip for his party” (2), most texts then continue with Harris meeting Crowley in 1937 or 1938, but I am more interested in the years before that.
Harris as a Freemason
Deja Whitehouse of the first quote, mentions that Harris’ father was a Freemason under the United Grand Lodge of England and that Frieda herself became a co-Mason, a member of a mixed gender organisation. Unfortunately she has not been able to find out when:
Although it has been assumed that Harris was a Co-Freemason, due to her involvement with Theosophy and women’s suffrage, research at the headquarters of Le Droit Humain has failed to produce any evidence to support this
Harris and Crowley were introduced by their mutual friend Clifford Bax at a dinner at the rac club on 9 June 1937, and by the following February, Harris was already preparing preliminary sketches for The Book of Thoth, and studying Crowley’s magical writings (3)
It appears that Deja Whitehouse is the best informed author writing about Harris. She wrote her dissertation about her (In Search of Frieda Harris, 2020) which she turned into a book later (The Lady and the Beast: The Extraordinary Partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley, 2024). She published in several journals and gave lectures. All this is academic and most either unobtainable or very expensive. It would be interesting to to learn if any new information about Harris’ involvement in Le Droit Humain after 2021.
There are some indirect clues to Harris’ Masonic career. On the website of the American section of the Ordo Templi Orientis you can read:
Harris met Aleister Crowley on June 8, 1937, at the Royal Automobile Club through their mutual friend, writer Clifford Bax (1886–1962). She became a pupil just under a year later, and on May 11, 1938, paid £10.10.0 to affiliate to O.T.O. This indicates that Crowley recognized her Co-Masonic degrees as equivalent to those in O.T.O., and conferred the corresponding O.T.O. degrees upon her without requiring her to take the actual ceremonies. The amount £10.10.0 was the affiliation fee for VII°, which would have made her a Sovereign Grand Inspector General (33°) in Co-Masonry. On this same day, Harris also chose her A∴ A∴ motto, abx [tzaba, “hosts”]. (4)
The author of this texts suggests that by 1937, Harris had reached the 33rd degree. That is not completely impossible, but somewhat improbable. In 1937 Harris was 60 years old, so she could have had plenty of time to work through the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Within Le Droit Humain it is common that the 33rd degree is for people with functions in the grand lodge. In that case I would expect Harris’ name to be better known, especially since she was a fairly well known person in general.
I find it remarkable that even the website of the order of Universal co-Masonry does not mention Harris on their very informative website which includes many biographies. For some reason, Harris’ Masonic career is hardly investigated. As we saw, Deja Whitehouse has tried to find information from the British federation without success. It can only be hoped information will pop up elsewhere.
Non Masonic biography
Let us first have at other elements of Harris’ life. The biography on the OTO website says about her art:
Of Lady Harris’s artwork, her husband wrote, “My wife is an artist and a good one. She takes her art seriously, in fact works at her painting seven days a week and generally twelve hours out of the twenty-four. She has had an immense output of pictures.” (4)
By 1942, her art hung in the Leicester Galleries alongside the likes of Ithell Colquhoun (1906-1988), Henry Moore (1898–1986), Graham Sutherland (1903–1980), and Paul Nash (1889-1946) in the exhibition Imaginative Art since the War. (4)
It appears that Harris started painting young, but it was only later in life that she got recognition.
Harris created much more art than the tracing boards and the Tarot set. Some of it found its way to the internet, like on the website of Joun Coulthart (5).
Interestingly, in 2023 newly found tracing boards ascribed to Harris were made known (6). These are tracing boards of other than the “craft” degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason.
Tarot
We already saw how Crowley and Harris met. Some sources say that Crowley was looking for an artist to work on his ideas to create a Tarot said and that Harris was the third choice. Other sources say that it was Harris who suggested the creation of a Tarot set to Crowley. More consistent is the information that the two had been working on the project for five years, that Harris made different versions of various cards, that the set had an exhibition, but that it was only published as a deck when both had passed away.
Tracing boards
Let us finally have a look at the tracing boards. As we saw, I got a ‘first edition’ from 1976. This is not when the boards were created. Whitehouse has the strange note:
Tracing Boards were created by initiates as they passed through each of the three degrees of Freemasonry (1)
I had never heard that before. If that were the case, lodges would have many tracing boards! It sounds more logical to me that Harris decided to try it herself or alternately, that fellow members knew she was a painter and asked her to create them.
More interesting is the following line in the same note:
When the original paintings were sold in 1976, the catalogue listed them as dated as c. 1945–1950
The most mentioned year for the creation is 1938, or less specifically “late 1930’ies”, in any case, around the same time as when Harris was working on the Tarot set. The later dating is worth mentioning though.
I found a very interesting page on the website of Caduceus Books that appears to answer two questions (7). For starters, the tracing boards are mentioned as being “watercolours on board”, so here we have the actual originals! The set of three framed boards is offered for £ 12.500,-. Is this the 1976 sale that Whitehouse mentions or have the boards changed hands again later? Too bad that Caduceus Book does not mention a year.
At the bottom of the page, there is also mention of reproductions. The originals were “50cm x 35cm in original glazed wooden frames”. At the bottom is mentioned:
Over 40 years ago about 500 high quality offset litho prints made of the original paintings on thick art paper. These are visually striking artefacts of the 1970s occult revival, the standard of reproduction is truly excellent. Being 24 inches x 14 inches, they were the identical size as the original paintings.
“Offset litho”, perhaps my seller was right afterall, even though offset is not quite the same as old fashioned lithography printing. Caduceus Books sold them for £ 75,- or £ 50,- for copies with a little wear. Caduceus Books offered the offset prints on a forum in 2017 (8). There it indeed says: “The set of three prints is available for purchase for a price of 75 British Pounds”. It seems likely that my seller got them from Caduceus Books and indeed now sold them with a profit.
There is something odd on the Caduceus website. They have an occult art gallery, one is of Frieda Harris (9). There you can read:
These posters have their own history. The original paintings were acquired by British Occultists in the 1970’s. Around 1976 a few hundred sets of these posters were printed. This is the only publication of these designs that there has been. Posters survive far less well than books, which are only rarely pinned to walls! Moreover posters are not collected by libraries, and their existence is not recorded in catalogues and bibliographies.
Caduceus actually sold the original paintings, so are they not themselves the “British Occultists” who acquired these originals and who had “a few hundred sets of these posters” printed? Is this gallery perhaps older than the page where the originals were offered for sale and did Caduceus not only obtain the originals, but also the 1976 posters?
Julian Rees has the tracing boards in his book about tracing boards (10). As a member of Le Droit Humain himself, he does not have much information. He does have the photos listed as: “Courtesy Andrew Drylie. Photo: Mark Dennis”.
Drylie was the man Rees “bought the facsimile’s from”. In spite of the odd name, I have not found a ‘sure candidate’ who this Drylie might be. Mark Dennis, was the photographer.
There is a thing I was curious about that is actually answered by Caduceus Books. These paintings can actually have been used as tracing boards! Look at this photo:
In English lodges, the tracing board is not a piece of cloth laying in the middle of the lodge room, but an actual board that stands against a pedestal. They are turned during the opening, which is the reason that there is a handle at the top. The coard was probably attached later to be able to hang the painting on a wall, but this board could certainly have been used in a lodge.
Open questions
It would be nice to find out when Harris was initiated, into what lodge, what her career looked like (did she indeed reach the 33rd degree?). if her boards were indeed actually used and how it came that they ended up on the market.
Be that as it may. By all means, it seems that I indeed bought ‘first print’ lithographs (but offset) of that 1976 edition of about 500 sets.
I have looked at the design and some details of the board. Continue there if you like.
(1) Mercury Is A Very Ape-Like Mood – Frieda Harris’s Perception of Thelema in Aries 21, 2021 by Deja Whitehouse available online (accessed 25/8/2025)
(2) Lady Frieda Harris – Wikipedia (accessed 25/8/2025)
(3) see (1)
(4) https://oto-usa.org/usgl/lion-eagle/frieda-lady-harris/ (accessed 25/8/25)
(5) The art of Frieda Harris, 1877–1962 (accessed 25/8/25)
(6) New Tracing Boards by Lady Frieda Harris Discovered! | Sol Ascendans – The Website of Alex Sumner (accessed 25/8/25)
(7) Lady Frieda Harris, Masonic Tracing Boards (accessed 25/8/25)
(8) https://staffs.proboards.com/thread/7611/masonic-tracing-boards (accessed 25/8/25)
(9) Lady Frieda Harris (accessed 25/8/25)
(10) Tracing Boards of the Three Degrees in Craft Freemasonry Explained Julian Rees, first edition 2015, second edition 2019