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Aleister Crowley: A Legacy of Sexism

Aleister Crowley: A Legacy of Racism and Nationalism

RACISM, GENDER-BIAS,
and Other Forms of BIGOTRY
in the Writings of
ALEISTER CROWLEY

These documents grew out of discussions in Usenet and in the Thelema93-L discussion group. They are archived with permission of the writers.

WAS ALEISTER CROWLEY A SEXIST?


A Compilation of Opinions and Quotes Concerning
Aleister Crowley and His Ideas and Treatment of Women
=============================================================

extracted from Thelema93-L Email List
and edited by nagasiva@luckymojo.com (nigris (333))

=============================================================

From: (nigris (333)) nagasiva@luckymojo.com
Date: 49930518 
	
From Crowley's "The Law is for All":
	
	"Women under Christianity are kept virginal for the market as
	 Strasbourg geese are nailed to boards till their livers putrify.
	 The nature of women has been corrupted, her hope of a soul
	 thwarted, her proper pleasure balked, and her mind poisoned, to
	 titillate the jaded palates of senile bankers and ambassadors.
 	
	"Why do men insist on 'innocence' in women?
	
	"1. To flatter their vanity
	 2. To give themselves the best chance of
	     a) escaping venereal disease,
	     b) propagating their noble selves.
	 3. To maintain power over their slaves by their possession 
	    of knowledge.
	 4. To keep them docile as long as possible by drawing out 
            the debauching of their innocence.  A sexually pleased 
	    woman is the best of willing helpers; one who is 
	    disappointed or disillusioned, a very psychical eczema.
	 5. In primitive communities, to serve as a guard against 
	    surprise and treachery.
	 6. To cover their secret shame in the matter of sex.
	
	"Hence the pretense that a woman is 'pure,' modest, delicate, 
	 aesthetically beautiful and morally exalted, ethereal and 
	 unfleshly, though in fact they may know her to be 
	 nauseatingly bestial both physically and mentally.  The 
	 advertisements of 'dress shields,' perfumes, cosmetics, 
	 anti-sweat preparations, and 'beauty treatments' reveal 
	 woman's nature as seen by the clear eyes of those who 
	 would lose money if they misjudged her; and they are 
	 loathsomely revolting to read.  Her mental and moral 
	 characteristics are those of the parrot and the monkey.  
	 Her physiology and pathology are hideously disgusting, 
	 a sickening slime of uncleanliness.
	
	"Her virgin life is a sick ape's, her sexual life a 
	 drunken sow's, her mother life all bulging filmy eyes 
	 and sagging udders.
	
	"These are the facts about 'innocence'; to this has 
	 man's Christian endeavor dragged her when he should 
	 rather have made her his comrade, frank, trusty, and 
	 gay, the tenderer self of himself, his consubstantial
	 complement even as earth is to the sun.
	
	"We of Thelema say that 'Every man and every woman is 
	 a star.'  We do not fool and flatter women, we do not 
	 despise and abuse them.  To us, a woman is herself, 
	 absolute, original, independent, free, self-justified,
	 exactly as a man is.
	
	"We dare not thwart her going, Goddess she!  We arrogate 
	 no right upon her will; we claim not to deflect her 
	 development, to dispose of her desires, or to determine 
	 her destiny.  She is her own sole arbiter; we ask no 
	 more than to supply our strength to her, whose natural
	 weakness else were prey to the world's pressure.  Nay 
	 more, it were too zealous even to guard her in her 
	 going; for she were best by her own self-reliance to 
	 win her own way forth!
	
	"We do not want her as a slave; we want her free and royal, 
	 whether her love fight death in our arms by night, or her 
	 loyalty ride by day beside us in the charge of the battle 
	 of life.
	
	"'Let the woman be girt with a sword before me'!
	"'In her is all power given.'
	
	"So sayeth this our _Book of the Law_.  We respect woman 
	 in the self of her own nature; we do not arrogate the 
	 right to criticize her. We welcome her as our ally, come 
	 to our camp as her will, free-flashing, sword-swinging, 
	 hath told her.  Welcome, thou woman, we hail thee, star
	 shouting to star!  Welcome to rout and revel!  Welcome 
	 to fray and to feast!  Welcome to vigil and victory!  
	 Welcome to war with its wounds! Welcome to lust and to 
	 laughter!  Welcome to peace with its pageants!  Welcome 
	 to board and to bed!  Welcome to trumpet and triumph; 
	 welcome to dirge and to death!
	
	"It is we of Thelema who truly love and respect woman, 
	 who hold her sinless and shameless even as we are; and 
	 those who say that we despise her are those who shrink 
	 from the flash of our falchion as we strike from her 
	 limbs the foul fetters.
	
	"Do we call woman whore?  Ay, verily and amen, she is 
	 that; the air shudders and burns as we shout it, 
	 exulting and eager.
	
	"O ye!  Was not this your sneer, yor [sic] vile whisper 
	 that scorned her and shamed her?  Was not 'whore' the 
	 truth of her, the title of terror that you gave her in 
	 your fear of her, coward comforting coward with furtive 
	 glance and gesture?
	
	"But we fear her not; we cry whore, as her armies approach 
	 us.  We beat on our shields with our swords.  Earth 
	 echoes the clamor!
	
	"Is there any doubt of the victory?  Your hordes of 
	 cringing slaves, afraid of themselves, afraid of their 
	 own slaves, hostile, despised and distrusted, your only 
	 tacticians the ostrich, the opossum, and the cuttle, 
	 will you not break and flee at our first onset, as with
	 leveled lances of lust we ride at the charge, with our 
	 allies, the whores whom we love and acclaim, free friends 
	 by our sides in the battle of life?
	
	"'The Book of the Law' is the charter of woman; the word 
	 Thelema has opened the lock of her 'girdle of chastity.'  
	 Your Sphinx of stone has come to life; to know, to will, 
	 to dare and to keep silence.
	
	"Yea, I, the Beast, my Scarlet Whore bestriding me, naked 
	 and crowned, drunk on her golden cup of fornication, 
	 boasting herself my bedfellow, have trodden her in the 
	 market place, and roared this word that every woman is 
	 a star.  And with that word is uttered woman's freedom; 
	 the fools and fribbles and flirts have heard my voice.  
	 The fox in woman hath heard the lion in man; fear, 
	 fainting, flabbiness, frivolity, falsehood - these are 
	 no more the mode.
	
	"In vain will the bully and brute and braggart man, priest, 
	 lawyer, or social censor knit his brows to devise him a 
	 new tamer's trick; once and for all the tradition is 
	 broken; vanished the vogue of bowstring, sack, stoning, 
	 nose-slitting, belt-buckling, cart's tail-tragging, 
	 whipping, pillory posting, walling-up, divorce court, 
	 eunuch, harem, mind-crippling, house-imprisoning, 
	 menial-world-wearying, creed-stultifying, social-ostracism 
	 marooning, divine-wrath-scaring, and even the device of 
	 creating and encouraging prostitution to keep one class 
	 of women in the abyss under the heel of the police, and
	 the other on its brink, at the mercy of the husband's boot 
	 at the first sign of insubordination or even failure to please.
	
	"Man's torture-chamber had tools inexhaustibly varied; at 
	 one end murder crude and direct to subtler more callous, 
	 starvation; at the other moral agonies, from tearing her 
	 child from her breast to threatening her with a rival 
	 when her service had blasted her beauty.
	
	"Most masterful man, yet most cunning was not thy supreme 
	 strategem to band the woman's own sisters against her, 
	 to use their knowledge of her psychology and the cruelty 
	 of their jealousies to avenge thee on thy slave as thou 
	 thyself hadst neither wit nor spite to do?
	
	"And woman, weak in body, and starved of mind; woman, morally 
	 fettered by her heroic oath to save the race, no care of 
	 cost, helpless and hard, endured these things, endured from 
	 age to age.  Hers was no loud spectacular sacrifice, no 
	 cross upon a hill-top, with the world agaze, and monstrous 
	 miracles to echo the applause of heaven.  She suffered and 
	 triumphed in most shameful silence; she had no friend, no 
	 follower, none to aid or approve.  For thanks she had but 
	 maudlin flatteries, and knew what cruel-cold scorn the 
	 hearts of men scarce cared to hide.
	
	"She agonized, ridiculous and obscene, gave all her beauty and 
	 strength to maidenhood to suffer sickness, weakness, danger 
	 of death, choosing to live a life of a cow - so that 
	 mankind might sail the sea of time.
	
	"She knew that man wanted nothing of her but service of his 
	 base appetites; in his true manhood-life she had no part 
	 nor lot; and all her wage was his careless contempt.
	
	"She hath been trampled thus through all the ages, and she 
	 hath tamed them thus.  Her silence was the token of her triumph.
	
	"But now the word of me the Beast is this; not only art thou 
	 woman, sworn to purpose not thine own; thou art thyself a 
	 star, and in thyself a purpose to thyself.  Not only mother 
	 of men art thou, or whore to men; serf to their need of 
	 life and love, not sharing in their light and liberty; 
	 nay, thou art mother and whore for thine own pleasure; 
	 the word I say to man I say to thee no less: Do what thou 
	 wilt shall be the whole of the Law!
	
	"Ay, priest, ay, lawyer, ay, censor!  Will ye not gather in 
	 secret once again, if in your hoard of juggler's tricks there 
	 be not one untried, or in your cunning and counsel one device 
	 new-false to save your pirate ship from sinking?
	
	"It has always been so easy up to now!  What is the blasting 
	 magick in that word, first thesis of "The Book of the Law", 
	 that 'every woman is a star.'
	
	"Alas!  It is I the Beast that roared that word so loud, 
	 and wakened beauty.
	
	"Your tricks, your drowsy drugs, your lies, your hypnotic 
	 passes - they will not serve you.  Make up your minds 
	 to be free men, fearless as I, fit mates for women no 
	 less free and fearless!  For I, the Beast, have come; 
	 an end to the evils of old, to the duping and clubbing 
	 of abject and ailing animals, degraded to that shameful 
	 state to serve that shameful pleasure.
	
	"The essence of my word is to declare woman to be herself, of, 
	 to, and for, herself; and I give this one irresistible 
	 weapon, the expression of herself and her will through sex, 
	 to her on precisely the same terms as to man.
	
	"Murder is no longer dreaded; the economic weapon is powerless 
	 since female labor has been found industrially valuable; and 
	 the social weapon is entirely in her own hands.
	
	"The best women have always been sexually free, like the best 
	 men; it is only necessary to remove the penalties for being 
	 found out.  Let Women's labor organizations support any 
	 individual who is economically harried on sexual grounds.  
	 Let social organizations honor in public what their members 
	 practice in private....
	
	"The modern woman is not going to be dupe, slave, and victim 
	 anymore; the woman who gives herself freely to her own 
	 enjoyment, without asking recompense, will earn the respect 
	 of her brothers, and will openly despise her 'chaste' or 
	 venal sisters, as men now despise 'milksops,' 'sissies,'
	 and 'tango lizards.'  Love is to be divorced utterly and 
	 irrevocably from social and financial agreements, especially 
	 marriage.  Love is a sport, an art, a religion, as you 
	 will; ol' clo' emporium.
	
----------------------------------------------------------------------
	_The Law is For All_, by Aleister Crowley, Edited by 
	 Israel Regardie, New Falcon Publications, 1991; pages 305-12.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
	
	"Just as a woman's body is deformed and diseased by the corset
	 demanded by Jagannath fashion, so is her soul by the compression
	 of convention, which is a fashion as fitful, arbitrary, and 
	 senseless as that of the man-milliner, though they call him 
	 God, and his freakish fiat pass for everlasting law.
	
	"The English Bible sanctions the polygamy and concubinage of 
	 Abraham, Solomon and others, the incest of Lot, the 
	 wholesale rape of captured virgins, as well as the 
	 promiscuity of the first Christians, the prostitution of 
	 temple servants, men and women, the relation of Johannes 
	 with his master, and the putting of wandering prophets to 
	 stud, as well as the celibacy of such people as Paul.  
	 Jehovah went so far as to slay Onan because he balked at 
	 fertilizing his brother's widow, condoned adultery, with 
	 murder of the husband, of David, and commanded Hosea to 
	 intrigue with a 'wife of whoredom.' He only drew the moral 
	 line at any self-assertion on the part of women.
	
	"In the past, man has bludgeoned woman into gratifying the lust
	 of her loathed tyrant, and trampled the flower of her own love
	 into the mire; making her rape more beastly by calling her
	 antipathy chastity, and proving her an unclean thing on the
	 evidence of the torn soiled blossom.
	
	"She has had no chance to love unless she first renounced the
	 respect of society, and found a way to drive the world of hunger
	 from her door.
	
	"Her chance has come!  In any abbey of Thelema any woman is 
	 welcome; there she is free to do her will, and held in honor 
	 for the doing. The child of love is a star, even as all are 
	 stars; but such an one we especially cherish; it is a trophy 
	 of battle to be fought and won!"
	
--------------------------
	Ibid, pages 315-6.
--------------------------
	
==========================================================

From: catherine yronwode (cat@luckymojo.com)
Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 14:07:08 -0800

> V. H. wrote:
> > ...when dealing with "women" as a class, AC is sometimes purely
> > negative, and other times weirdly pseudo-feminist. The passage I
> > mentioned in "The Law is for All", for instance, effusively
> > praises women, but what it praises them for is making the
> > enormous sacrifice of "living the life of a cow," accepting
> > incarnation in  the weak, stupid and ugly female gender, purely
> > in order that the  race may go forward. To him the only point of
> > women even existing  is childbirth, and he says so at a number of
> > places. This is not so  much "damning with faint praise" as it is
> > "damning with exuberant praise based on offensive and demeaning
> > stereotypes."

Well said, [V.H.]! The only thing that would have made this 
paragraph more convincing would have been further direct 
quotes from Crowley. Here's one:

     "... morally and mentally, women were for me beneath contempt.
     They had no true moral ideals. They were bound up with their
     necessary preoccupation, with the function of reproduction. Their
     apparent aspirations were camouflage. Intellectually, of course,
     they did not exist. Even the few whose minds were not completely
     blank had them furnished with Wardour Street Chippendale. Their
     attainments were those of the ape and the parrot. These facts did
     not deter me. On the contrary, it was highly convenient that
     one's sexual relations should be with an animal with no
     consciousness beyond sex."
             
     ------------------------------------------------
     "Confessions of Aleister Crowley", pp. 142 - 143
     ------------------------------------------------

> Shedona wrote:
> I wonder if any of that had to do with the era in which he grew up?
> It strikes Me that in the Victorian era, much of what was touted as
> woman-ness and taught to girls to make them "ladies" was geared
> toward fulfillment of those demeaning stereotypes.
>
> [long social and class history analysis snipped.]

The trouble with people who view the "Victorian era" through the lens of
Masterpiece Theatre is that they fail to recognize that during the very
time that Victoria reigned, women were demonstrating for equal civil
rights in both America and Europe. They were GAINING these rights, too!
Here are three examples, specifically taken from the esoteric and occult
communities of the time:

1) In the 1880s, a lodge of Freemasons in France declared that it was
their "human duty" to initiate women as Masons -- and they founded the
first Co-Masonic lodge. They were Victorians, but they were not male
chauvinists. For details on the "Droit Humain" lodge and the subsequent
development of the Co-Masonic movement in the 19th and 20th enturies,
see my web page
  Freemasonry for Women: http://www.luckymojo.com/comasonry.html

2) In the 1880s, Alice Bunker Stockham, the 5th woman to become a doctor
in the U.S., wrote a book on sex-mysticism called "Karezza." As
preparation for this book she travelled to India and studied tantra
yoga, which she then syncretized with her own Quaker faith and her
previous readings of the sex-mystical works of the American Rev. John
Humphrey Noyes. In this and her other books (e.g. those on gynecology
and midwifery), and through her work as an advocate for woman's rights,
dress reform (e.g. an end to the wearing of corsets), family planning,
and craft-education in schools, Stockham exemplified the freedom from
repression and the commitment to social causes AND to occult, esoteric
wisdom that Crowley believed women were incapable of accomplishing.

3) In the early 20th century, Claude Bragdon,a Theosophist and sacred
geometry theorist who was also an architect, wrote a series of books on
metaphysics and esoteric symbolism. This man, a contemporary of Crowley,
was born in the 19th century, yet he dedicated his book "The Beautiful
Necesity," written circa 1915, to "The Delphic Sisterhood" and in it he
proposed the theory that women's rights in the mundane world must be
guaranteed if men and women are to achieve progress in the realm of
spirituality.

The founding of Co-Masonry and the widespread popularity of the
published works of Stockham took place when Crowely and Bragdon were
pre-pubescent! They came of age AFTER these folks had paved the way for
women's equality in esoteric initiation and in sex-mysticism. Crowley
was a contemporary of Bragdon, with whose works he was doubtless
familiar, as they shared mutual acquaintances, yet compared to Bragdon,
Crowley was a political reactionary, and worse, a woman-hater who saw
women as "living the life of a cow."

Don't apologize for Crowley's grotesque gender-bias by calling upon the
myth of "his era" or "his class." The late 19th and early 20th centuries
were times in which women were increasingly seen as necessary partners
for men, in all realms, practical as well as occult.

Crowley was no more representative of the best minds of the late 19th
and early 20th centuries than the three white men who recently dragged a
black man to death behind their truck are representatives of Jasper,
Texas. Jasper has a black mayor. It is not typical of that town to
condone race bias. Likewise, it was not typical of occultists and
spiritual theorists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries to condemn
women to lives of menial child-care, as Crowley did.

Women won the right to vote in the 1920s -- with the help of many good
men, i must add. Yet Crowley lived on, spewing his foul anti-female
venom, for another 25 years! He was a hate-filled being, not a product
of "his era," but rather a living demonstration of his own inadequacy as
a human being. He was a REACTIONARY, a counter-revolutionary in the
struggle for human freedom! Stockham died in the 19th century, an old
woman who had accomplished much good during a long life -- while Crowley
lived on until the 1940s, a ghastly woman-hater to the end!

===================================================================

From: C Baphemetis (content@babalon.com)
Date: Sun, 07 Mar 1999 11:44:11 -0600

>> ...Catherine Yronwode ...posts ...an excellent argument 
>> concerning the "product of his times" excuse for Crowley's 
>> hatred of and contempt for women.

> Hatred and contempt seem to be such strong words....

Go enjoy Confessions, for a start.  I can send you a copy of his
epic poem Motherlove.   Then there's always Liber Aleph.  Perhaps
you would enjoy the introduction to his essay on Nietzche.  And 
then there's his commentary to Liber Legis.  Lalala.

...AC is on record in several places over several decades
as saying that - 1) he loved women 2) women had some basic flaws
as human beings 3) but ya couldn't get along without them SO as long
as you could train 'em to be good helpmeets, they should always have
a place at the table. As long as you were aware of their limitations, you
could deal with 'em.  If this is your idea of feminism, fine.  You and I
can agree to disagree.

As opposed to throwing quotes back and forth, take a couple of 
months and go read the primary sources in their entirety so that 
the context remains.   AC believed that biology was destiny for 
women, and he did not believe that their political enfranchisment
was desirable or necessary.   AC was anti-suffrage and anti-abortion, 
and he wasn't a big fan of birth control either.  And it's not 
like there wasn't plenty of info/action on these two subjects 
(female political enfranchisement and reproductive choices) during 
his lifetime.  There was a 100 year history of strong feminist 
dialectic already extant by the time he hit his Saturn return 
(more, actually, but I've got the references from 1800 on sitting 
right here in primary form).

...contempt covers it pretty well.  And yeah, you can have 
contempt for things you love.  Affects the self esteem though.
And AC would have been the first to tell you he was a slave to 
it and that is one of life's biggest mysteries.  Where does he 
say that?  Go read The Rite of Sol.  In fact, do a 
deconstruction of the gender roles in the Rites.
There's some meat on dem bones.

> ...if Crowley was so horrible hateful towards women and his
> system is so oppressive and demenaing to us why there are 
> so many women in the Thelemic Order of which I am an 
> initiate member?  Not only that, but so very many powerful 
> and feminist women.

Speaking only for myself, I can say that it has a lot to do with
transcending Crowley as a cult figure.   He left good magical 
instruction, a bunch of poetry ranging from the sublime to the 
ridiculous, some very bad plays, and reams of social commentary, 
most of which I find historically interesting and absolutely 
inapplicable. Crowley is dead, long live Thelema.

The fact that he was an androcentric, died-in-the-wool sexist, 
had nothing to do with his enjoyment of women *as he perceived 
them*.  And it has very little to do with why most people join 
the O.T.O. in my considered opinion.   If the O.T.O. was about 
Crowleyanity, I can assure you that I (and most of my crewe) 
would be out the door.    I believe the O.T.O. is a good house, 
but it's got a shaky corner on the foundation, and that
corner has to do with AC's lifetime views that a woman's ability to do
real work on a par with the real work men do was limited because of
her regretable biological functions.

>>> Crowley was a political reactionary, and worse, a woman-hater 
>>> who saw women as "living the life of a cow."

> I hardly see how pointing out how horribly it must have sucked 
> to be an intelligent woman in those times and how much women 
> had to struggle if they didn't want to live that "life of a 
> cow" indicates hatred.

That's not what AC has said, however.   And as far as I can tell,
the turn of the last century was an incredible time to be an intelligent
woman.  The right to reproductive freedom and political enfranchisement
was imminent.

=======================================================================

From: TomWorrel@aol.com
Date: Mon, 8 Mar 1999 12:38:22 EST
   
vh@maroney.org:
> Crowley's idea of suffragism is to say that although 
> women are weak, stupid, ugly cows who exist only to
> carry on the race by bearing children, we should 
> commend them for their heroic sacrifice in choosing 
> to incarnate under such conditions. (Both editions 
> of "The Law is for All" are full of these statements 
> and having given chapter line and verse on numerous 
> previous occasions I don't feel the need to do so now.) 

Regarding the above quote it seems to me that some 
things were taken out of context.

Crowley uses this ugly view of women in his discussion of 
how women fair under Christianity. See the new version of 
"The Law is for All" pp. 172-173.

And I am curious as to why all references to his positive 
view of women are ignored. Such as: 

	We dare not thwart Her Going, Goddess she! 
	We arrogate no right upon Her will; we claim 
	not to deflect Her development, to dispose of
	Her desires, or to determine Her destiny 

and so on. (Law is for All: p.173)

I would also suggest a reading of the entire commentary on 
III: 55 but especially a close reading of the last three 
paragraphs you can find on P. 178: 

	I see thee, Woman, thou standest alone, High 
	Priestess art thou unto Love at the Altar of 
	Life. And Man is the Victim therein.

And so on. I think it is obvious that Mr. Crowley is not 
speaking in a literal or superficial sense in these 
comments.

And I would suggest that there may be another "sense" in 
which to interpret the examples from Liber Aleph 
considering the circumstances around its writing
and the content. I really don't think he is using it as a 
platform to insult half of the human race.

Some other possible avenues of looking at this may be 
found in various places in the Thelemic corpus:

	The Brothers of the A.'.A.'. are Women: 
	the Aspirants to A.'.A.'. are Men.

The Book of Lies: Chapter 3: The Oyster.

Equinox X, Temple of Solomon the King  p. 120

The Path of Zain:  Key VI The Lovers (or; The Brothers)

On verse Liber 65:ch IV:v31
	Nature and perfection are Isis and Nephthys, 
	who prepare Osiris for Initiation. The 
	Candidate is here represented as their 
	brother but decked out as a bride (for he 
	is symbolically feminine towards his Holy 
	Guardian Angel, the Heart about to meet the 
	embrace of the Serpent.

(Commentaries on the Holy Books, p. 149)

A footnote to the above quoting his diary says: 

	Indeed, this work of A.'. A.'. requires 
	the Adept to assume the woman's part:

Besides, let us not forget the insults he hurls at the 
typical male and common humanity as a whole. A frisky 
fellow he. But if we are Aspirants to the Great Work, 
we basically stand against, or at least contrary to, 
the bulk of humanity. There is a herd consciousness 
inherent in humanity. Forging that link with the HGA 
lifts us out of that "unconscious" life.

What I have said is not to be interpreted as a blanket 
case that AC was using in all cases analogy and metaphor 
in these statements. But 

	(a) some definitely are, 
	(b) he didn't leave the male out of his trigger hairs, 
    and (c) some of the female insults used as examples are 
	    lifted out of context where he was referring to 
	    the Judeo-Christian view of the female role.

==================================================

From: C Baphemetis (content@babalon.com)
Date: Mon, 08 Mar 1999 18:08:29 -0600
   
...[Crowley] worked with
a great many women magically -- generally they scryed or received
through trance and he interviewed the entities evoked and took
notes. Once they finally convinced him that they weren't fucking
around, which generally took a while, during which time he accused
them of hysteria, being annoying, blathering, etc etc etc.

	It is indeed easy for a woman to obtain the 
	experiences of magick, in a certain sort, as 
	visions, trances, and the like......" 

	---------------------------------------------
	(this was quoted in its entirety here within 
	the last few days.  It's the chapter of Liber
	Aleph called "On the Proper Path for Women.")
	---------------------------------------------

However, this does not bespeak the fact that he thought that women
were primarily suited to bearing and raising children.  Perhaps this
quote will illustrate:

	There is yet a further point. My marriage taught 
	me many lessons, and this not the least: when 
	women are not devoted to children -- a few rare
	individuals are suited to other interests - they 
	take a morbid pleasure in conspiring against a 
	husband, especially if he be a father.

He believed that women in general had a very specifc role in 
relation to their men, that of 

	his consubstantial complement even as the earth is
	to the sun.  

That in relation to the man 

	all women are subordinate to his true will.  

	[Magic Without Tears, page 254] 

That 
	the limit of her aspiration in magick (is) to 
	abide joyous and obedient beneath the man that 
	her instinct shall divine, so that, becoming 
	by habit a temple well ordered, comely, and 
	consecrated, she may in her next Incarnation 
	attract by her fitness a mansoul.

Of course he *was* willing to work with women, under 
certain conditions, but heck, let me let him speak 
for himself:

        Again and again I have had the most promising 
	pupils give up the great work of their lives 
	for the sake of some wretched woman who could 
	have been duplicated in a Ten Cent Store. It 
	doesn't matter what the work is; if it is 
	worth while doing, it demands one's whole 
	attention, and a woman is only tolerable in 
	ones life is she is trained to help the man 
	in his work without the slightest reference 
	to any other interests soever.  The necessary
	self-abnegation and concentration on his part 
	must be matched by similar qualities on hers.  
	I say matched -- I might say better, surpassed 
	-- for such devotion must be blind. A man can 
	become his work, so that he satisfies himself 
	by satisfying it; but a woman is fundamentally 
	incapable of understanding the nature of work 
	in itself. She must consent to cooperate with 
	him in the dark. Her self-surrender is, 
	therefore, really self-surrender, whereas with 
	him it is self realization. It is true that if 
	a woman persists long enough in the habit, she 
	will ultimately find herself therein.  For 
	woman is a creature of habit, that is, of 
	solidified impulses.  She has no individuality.
	Attached to a strong man who is no longer 
	himself but his work, she may become a more or 
	less reliable mood. Otherwise her moods change 
	with her phantasms. But the most dominant mood 
	of womanhood will always be motherhood. Nature 
	itself, therefore, insures that a man who 
	relies on a woman to help him is bucking the 
	tiger. At any moment, without warning, her 
	interest in him may be swept off its feet and 
	become secondary.  Worse - she will expect her 
	man to abondon the whole interest of his life 
	in order to look after her new toy. A bitch 
	does not lose all her interest in her master 
	just because she has new puppies.  
	---------------------------------------------
	Confessions, pp 96, 97

No one is claiming that AC didn't work with women or that he was
unwilling to admit them to his magical Orders or into his personal
life.  What we are discussing is his attitude about women as a class,
which we know about because he wrote bloody volumes concerning
same.  It's not very favorable.

[He was] a man who believed he was in the vanguard of modern 
philosophical thinking.  All around him, smart men and women 
were fighting for reproductive freedom, and political 
enfranchisement for women.  The turn of the last century was 
an incredible time, much like this one.

If you start doing the research and diving into the specifics, you'll
find this is true.   Many examples have been given in this thread,
as a matter of fact.  If AC was an uneducated untravelled man who
lived in the boondocks and bought in to the dominant paradigm, you
might have an arguable point.  But instead, he prided himself on
being a foreward thinker, a free man, a man who could establish
and live by his own Law.  He doesn't get a pass for androcentrism
or the occasional incidence of outright bold faced misogyny.

=============================================================

From: C Baphemetis (content@babalon.com) [http://www.babalon.com/wow/]
Date: Tue, 09 Mar 1999 10:49:03 -0600

...Rose Kelly became an alchoholic,
but this appears to have happened concurrently with the
advent of her married life [to Crowley].   Furthermore, she 
lived a reasonably long life after her divorce and 
subsequent hospitalization for her dipsomania.

What I have found so far indicates that she was a vibrant, well 
travelled, educated, and quite willful woman who had a romance 
with AC after their marriage began which slowly deteriorated.
Evidence suggests that they did not meet each other's
expectations.    By the time the second child was
born, and before the first child died, the relationship had
changed significantly, and not in the best of ways.
AC left Rose in India to pick up
the luggage while she was 5 months pregnant and with
a toddler in hand whilst he went to the US by way of
visitng Elaine Simpson.  During her solo return to the
US, the toddler died - for which AC blamed her totally.
After that, it was pretty much downhill for Rose, until
her divorce and hospitalization was passed.

This is of course just a little bit of the story; but back
to you:  please produce evidence written by anyone other
than Crowley about Rose's great "problems."

=============================================================

From: "V.H." [name withheld by request]
Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 08:12:32 -0000

> Here is the stuff from Liber Aleph which sheds a little more
> light on Papa Crowley Pantocrator's views on women.  There 
> are a few misprints.  It is cut from the Hermetic.com site.

Good collection. Here are a few more, continuing to emphasize 
Crowley's belief that women have no creative power in 
themselves and that all creative power rests in the male, as well 
as other anti-female viewpoints. (I have not corrected some of 
the typographical errors in these online versions.)

DE FORMULA LUNAE.

Thus then concerning Operations of the Tao with the Yang and 
the Yin is there enough; for thine own Art of Beauty shall divine 
for thee, and devise new Heavens. But in all these is the 
Formula of the Serpent with the Head of the Lion, and all his 
Magick is wrought by the Radiance and Creative Force thereof. 
And this Force leapeth continually from Plane to Plane, and 
breaketh forth from his Bonds, so that Constraint is Labour. Now 
then learn that the Yin hath also a Formula of Force. And the 
Nature of the Yin is to be still, and to encircle of limit, and it is as 
a Mirror, reflecting diverse Images without Change in its own 
Kind. So then it seeketh never to overlap the Barriers of its Plane; 
for this Reason it is well to use it in Operations of a very definite 
and restricted Type. But although it be inert, yet is it most subject 
to Change; for its Number is four Score and one, which is the 
Moon; and these are ALIM, the Gods elemental before H 
descending in their midst made them Creative. So then thou 
mayst use constantly this Formula to rearrange Things in their 
own Planes; and this is a most pragmatic Consideration.

DE AQUILAE SUMKNDA.

Take in this Work the Eagle all undefiled and virginal for hy 
Sacrament. And thy Technick is the Magick of Water, so that thine 
Act is of Nourishment, and not of Generation. Therefore the 
Prime Use of this Art is to build up thine own Nature. But if thou 
hast Skill to control the Mood of the Eagle, then mayst thou work 
many an admirable Effect upon hine Environment. Thou knowest 
how great is the Fame of Witch-Women (old and without Man) to 
cause Events, although they create nothing. It is this Straitness 
of the Channel which giveth Force to the Stream. Beware, o my 
Son, lest thou cling overmuch to this Mode of Magick; for it is 
lesser than that Other, and if thou neglect That Other, then is thy 
Danger fearful and imminent, for it is the Edge of the Abyss of 
Choronzon, where are the lonely Towers of the Black Brothers. 
Also the Formulation of the Object in the Eagle is by a Species of 
Intoxication, so that His Nature is of Dream or Delirium, and thus 
there may be Illusion. For this Cause I deem it not wholly unwise 
if thou use this Way of Magick chiefly as a Cordial; that is for the 
Fortifying of thine own Nature.

DE SIRENIS.

Concerning the Love of women, o my Son, it is written in "The 
Book of the Law" that all is Freedom, if it be done unto our Lady 
Nuit. Yet also there is this Consideration,that for every Parsifal 
there is a Kundry. Thou mayst eat a thousand Fruits of the 
Garden; but there is one Tree whose name for thee is Poison. In 
every great Initiation is an Ordeal, wherein appeareth a Siren or 
Vampire appointed to destroy the Candidate. I have myself 
witnessed the Blasting of not less than ten of my own Flowers, 
that I tended when I was Nemo, and that although I saw the 
Cankerworm, and knew it, and gave urgent Warning. How then 
consider deeply in thyself if I were rightly governed in this Action, 
according to the Tao. For we that are Magicians work without 
Fear or Haste, being omnipotent in Eternity, and each Star must 
go his Way; and who am I that should save this People? "Wilt 
thou smite me as thou smotest the Egyptian yesterday?" Yes, 
although mine were he Might to save these Ten, I reached not 
forth mine Arm against Iniquity, I spake and I was silent; and that 
which was appointed came to pass. As it is written, the Pregnant 
Goddess hath let down Her Burden upon the Earth.

DE VERITATE QUEM FEMINAE NON DICERE LICET.

My Son, I charge thee, however thou beest provoked hereunto, 
tell not the Truth to any woman. For this is that which is written, 
Cast not thy pearls before swine, lest they turn again and rend 
thee. Behold, in the nature of woman is no truth, nor 
apprehension of truth, nor possibility of truth, only, if thou entrust 
this jewel unto them, they forthwith use it to thy loss and 
destruction. But they are ware of thine own love of truth, and thy 
respect thereunto, so therefore they tempt thee, flattering with 
their lips, that thou betray thyself to them. And they feign falsely, 
with every wile, and cast about for thy soul, until either in love or 
in wrath or in some other folly thereof, thou speak truth, profaning 
thy sanctuary. So was it ever, and herein I call to my witness 
Samson of Timmath, that was lost by this error. Now for any 
woman, any lie sufficeth; and think not in thine extremity that truth 
is mighty, and shall prevail, as it does with any man, for with a 
woman her whole craft and device is to persuade thee of this, so 
that thou utter the secret of thy soul, and become her prey. But so 
long as thou feed her with her own food of falsity, thou art secure.

DE NATURA FEMINAE.

The nature of woman, o my Son, is as thou hast learned in our 
most Holy Qabalah; and she is the clothing in sex of man, he 
magical image of his will to love. Therefore was it said by thine 
uncle Wolfgang von Goethe: Das Ewigweibliche zieht uns hinan. 
But therefore also hath she no nature of truth, because she is 
but the Eidolon of an excitement and a going of thy star, and 
appertaineth not unto its essence and stability. So then to thee 
she is but matter and to her thou art but energy, and neither is 
competent to the formula of the other. Therefore also thy will is 
itself imperfection, as I have shewed thee aforetime, thou art not 
in the way of love except thou be dressed in that robe of thine 
which thou callest woman. And thou canst not lure her to this 
action proper to her by thy truth; but thou shalt, as our grammar 
sayeth, assume the mask of the spirit, that thou mayst evoke it by 
sympathy. But thou shalt appear in thy glory only when she is in 
thy power, and bewildered utterly by ecstasy. This is a mystery, o 
my Son, and of old times it was declared in the fable of Scylla 
and Charybdis, which are the formula of the rock and the 
whirlpool. Now then meditate thou strictly upon his most worthy 
and adorable arcanum, to thy profit and enlightenment.

======================================================================
EOF
======================================================================

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