Who stole the Queen's tarts?

Frieda Harris said:

Morton House
The Mall
Chiswick

Dear Aleister

I have just been reading your Tao Teh King. For goodness sake, do try with those Trumps. There is no-one who thinks in the lucid way you do, my little paltry cards are lost unless you illumine them by your Art & for the sake of those poor little struggling chickens squealing like Alice in the Looking Glass jury at the Grand Trial Scene. For their sakes can you not have the courage to do another masterpiece. But you feel ill. I know how feeble that makes one because one doesn't make a plan. However I'm relentless, I'll go on till you drop because it is worth it. The Poem, the preface are magnificent.

Yours in admiration
Frieda Harris

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Putting to one side the fawning tone characteristic of a bygone age, this letter from Harris to Crowley is very interesting. Harris' allusion to the trial scene at the end of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (Harris got her books mixed up) deserves special attention.

The Knave is on trial, accused of stealing the Queen of Harts tarts. The trial itself is an absolute farce. The evidence is complete nonsense and has nothing to do with the case, and all the court proceedings are aimed at securing a predetermined verdict. Namely the guilt of the Knave.
At one point a strange letter is presented as evidence. It contains a set of bizarre verses that could be interpreted to mean absolutely anything. Alice declares that there's not an "atom of meaning" in the verses. So the King of Hearts takes the letter and attempts to do what we would call today an "intuitive reading". Naturally the King steers his interpretation towards the desired outcome. The cryptic verses are completely devoid of any kind of context, and so he sees what he wants to see in them.

In this respect the strange letter has a lot in common with Tarot. Without any kind of context the cards can mean anything you want them to mean. And if you already have a predetermined outcome in mind, that is what they will show you.

This is the meaning behind Harris' allusion to Alice, and the reason why she urged Crowley to provide context by writing the Book of Thoth. Efforts to ditch Crowley under the dishonest pretext of liberating "Frieda's cards" are basically a slap in Harris' face.

The King of Hearts said:

`If there's no meaning in it,' said the King, `that saves a world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any.

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I enjoy reading those letters, though I don't think I've read them all. I would love to know more about Lady Frieda Harris. I haven't found a lot of information about her on the web. Is it true she was a mystic before she met Crowley?
I see she read Steiner and there are some references to Madame Blavatsky. I am wondering if she was a member of the Theosophical Society.
I couldn't find a decent timeline.

Any good links? Books?

AW

Aeon418 said:

Putting to one side the fawning tone characteristic of a bygone age...

Efforts to ditch Crowley under the dishonest pretext of liberating "Frieda's cards" are basically a slap in Harris' face.

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This is really fascinating, Aeon418. Thanks for posting it.

It reminds me of other places where Carroll's Alice was up against people whose use of words was quite their own; who conceived of language as a reflection of egocentric desire rather than a tool for connection and communication. Thus their insanity: pretending to communicate while having no intention of doing so.

Meanwhile Alice figures out what she needs to know in other ways.

"Putting aside the fawning tone characteristic of a bygone age" is problematic. People from that period and social millieu were quite capable of clever encouragement minus the obsequiousness displayed in this example.

It makes me wonder if the flirtatious tone reflects Harris's relationship with Crowley in a larger sense. Do we have examples of her asking or encouraging other people to do what she hoped for? That would be interesting to compare. Crowley's disdain for her--at least in the context of his argument that she had little to do with the paintings she painted--suggests that they had a quirky dynamic (to put it politely).

If this quote does reflect her heartfelt and enduring view that her own card paintings require written explanations from Crowley, it does not entail that she is correct.

In other words, taking a different view than Harris's is not a slap in her face. She is dead, and might have been wrong.


eta: I wonder if your argument, Aeon, is based on the argument made on the tarotica website whose (in my view) noxious author presents a (in my view) tedious and sexist diatribe against an approach to tarot reading that is quite common and respected by many here at AT including me. I found this by googling, of course

I think we've had this discussion recently already, so lets move on to something more productive