LONDON. Occultists and art-lovers have been celebrating today at the discovery of a new set of Masonic Tracing Boards, which are alleged to have been painted by Lady Frieda Harris, better known as the illustrator of the Crowley Thoth Tarot Deck.
Harris was previously known to have created a set of tracing boards circa 1938 for the three degrees of Craft Masonry, which manage to combine Masonic symbolism with the same kind of projective synthetic geometry which she brought to the Great Beast’s tarot ideas. (Lady Frieda was herself a co-Mason). However it now transpires that she also created a further set of four prototype tracing boards, this time illustrating the degree known as “the Holy Royal Arch” (see above illustrations).
The discoverer of the Boards, a Miss Dolly Rapasif, said:
“The Holy Royal Arch of Jerusalem is said to be the completion of the third degree or Master Mason’s degree in Craft Masonry. It’s a colourful tale of how the Lost Word was found in a subterranean chamber below the site of the second Temple in Jerusalem, which is a clear metaphor for searching to find one’s own inner Divinity.
“Assuming that Lady Frieda Harris was raised to the sublime degree of Master Mason, it is highly likely that her attention would soon have been drawn to the Holy Royal Arch as well, and perhaps other additional degrees in Freemasonry, such as those of the Ancient & Accepted Rite.
“However the fact that no-one has ever heard of Frieda creating such tracing boards before means that it was a project which didn’t come to fruition.”
And how did Miss Rapasif actually find these previously unheard of tracing boards?
“Well, here’s the funny thing. We were out for a night out in the Plough in Museum Street, and I got lost trying to find the Ladies’ toilets, and there they were behind some plaster that was crumbling away! I’m surprised they weren’t found sooner, as that place is always full of drunken OTO members causing trouble.”
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