The Women of the Tarot: a comparison of the Smith-Waite Tarot, The Book of Thoth, and Ithell Colquhoun’s Taro as Colour with Deja Whitehouse

The Tarot decks designed by Pamela Colman Smith, Frieda Harris, and Ithell Colquhoun were all based on definitions specified in Samuel MacGregor Mathers’ Book T, part of the secret teachings of the Hermetic of Order of the Golden Dawn.

Pamela Colman Smith was both a professional artist and an initiate in the Golden Dawn, therefore an ideal choice for Arthur Edward Waite to illustrate his Pictorial Key to the Tarot. Similarly, by the time Aleister Crowley was introduced to Frieda Harris, she had received moderate success with her paintings and was seeking a satisfactory spiritual path. In each case, their artwork throughout the design process was guided by their respective magical masters. However, while it could be argued that Waite micromanaged Smith, the partnership between Harris and Crowley was far more collaborative. In comparison, Ithell Colquhoun created a Tarot entirely independently, designing a unique set of abstract images faithfully representing Mathers’ original colour scales.

This talk will explore the backgrounds of these three remarkable women: their education, artistic training and domestic circumstances, and the esoteric path that led them to create three such diverse interpretations of the Golden Dawn’s Book T.

Dr Deja Whitehouse

Deja Whitehouse is an independent scholar, writer and lecturer. She was awarded her PhD in 2020 for her research into the life and works of Frieda, Lady Harris, artist executant of Aleister Crowley’s Book of Thoth.

Deja has published various book chapters and journal articles, and presented her research online and at venues as diverse as the Theosophical Society in Edinburgh; Magickal Women, Trans-States and Glastonbury Occult Conferences, Treadwell’s and Watkins Bookshops, the Warburg Institute, and the International Thelemic Symposium in Oxford. She was also a member of the advisory panel for the Warburg’s Tarot – Origins and Afterlife exhibition.

Her monograph, The Lady and the Beast: the Extraordinary Partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley, was published by Oxford University Press in December 2024. She is a contributor on Carrie Kirkpatrick’s Divine Media documentary World War Witches, and is currently working on a study of Harris and Crowley’s development of The Book of Thoth as an element of the Occult Battle of Britain.

Please join ua! Everyone who purchases a ticket to the event will received a link to watch the replay.