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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
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a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining
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From: cyronwode@aol.com (Cyronwode) Newsgroups: alt.magick.sex, alt.magick.tyagi Subject: Re: pedantic query - Karezza etc Date: 11 Mar 1995 00:38:43 -0800 LeGrand says: > Mary K. Greer says that Thomas Lake Harris invented, > or at least taught, karezza, which as I understand it was taught by > Noyes, and named (as well as promoted) by Stockham. I do not see that > Harris actually is known to have taught or practiced karezza, though > he certainly did have sexual/magical/religious interests. > > Could anyone offer any amplification/correction/clarification here? HARRIS Thomas Lake Harris was the leader of Fountaingrove community near Santa Rosa, California. The group was communal, with Harris as the patriarchal leader, and members raised grapes for wine (a common local agricultral enterprise to this day). The last member of the group -- and he inherited the entire place, in a kind of tontin arrangement -- was a Hawaiian-Japanese "houseboy" whom Harris had adopted while on a tour of the Pacific. The last remaining building, the so-called "round barn" (a dodecagon) was recently refurbished and is now a grossly fancy restaurant operated by the Sheraton Hotel chian. For MUCH more on Harris, read Edward Markham's "California the Wonderful," long out of print, published circa WW I or earlier. Harris had just died and Markham was his literary executor. He wrote a profile biography of Harris and promised a book collection of Harris' religious works, but i do not know if it ever saw print. Okay, enough prolepsis -- Harris did not practice Karezza by that name nor did he practice it in form. He, like many others, followed the lead of Henry Noyes of the Oneida Community and practiced "Male Continence." In this tantra-like sexual system, female orgasms are allowed and encouraged, male orgasms avoided. Fountaingrove became a popular place for single and widowed women to visit while touring California as Harris believed in free love and sexual satisfaction for women. He was apparently very cultured, charismatic, well-read, gentle, spiritual, and loving. He delivered inspirational lectures about the power of love and he did not believe in playing favourites with his affections. He devoted a lot of his poetic efforts to his conception of female goddesshood or queenhood and claimed to be polygamously married to a non-embodied or trans-dimensional woman he called The Lily Queen. Few have spoken ill of him over the years. He lived well but simply and seems not to have stolen his disciples' money or done anything rash. He and the other men at Fountaingrove simply fucked the brains out of any willing woman who chanced to visit the place. NOYES John Humphrey Noyes slightly predated Harris and Stockham and influenced them both through his writing on "Male Continence" or volitional abstention from ejaculation. The Oneida Community in New York, where he lived, was known for its metalwork (Oneida is still a brand name in silverplate, but the company is now under corporate ownership). Visitors were welcome at Oneida and could join in any kind of free-love association with others that was mutually satisfactory. As stated above, female orgasm was encouraged under the tantra-like Male Continence system, which was also touted as a method of birth control. STOCKHAM Alice Bunker Stockham invented, named, and taught Karezza, based in part on Noyes' Male Continence and in part on Hindu tantra yoga, which she had studied in India, but with one difference -- she asked that her female followers also abstain from orgasm. A suffragist and an equalitarian, Stockham felt that both parties should remain equally balanced in terms of energy build-up and release. In her work as a gynecologist, she promoted Karezza as a form of birth control. She advocated the prohibition of alcohol and the rehabilitation of prostitutes, and she lectured on eugenics or "fitness for parenthood." Stockham did not advocate free love, polygamy, or polyamory, as did Noyes and Harris, strongly preferring monogamous marriage, which she believed would retain its spiritual aspects over lengthy periods of time if both parties were continually romantic, poetic, and courtship-minded. I hope this helps distinguish among these three folks. catherine yronwode (i live about 20 miles from Fountaingrove, by the way...)
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