Webpage Review by William Robert Barden --

https://foolsthatmenadore.wordpress.com/2014/05/17/misogyny-in-crowleys-writings-and-the-occult/
…is a five thousand word article by Cammy [real name deleted at her request] which mainly describes the misogyny of Crowley’s imitators rather than of Aleister Crowley himself.

Reading this essay I was reminded of Susan Brownmiller’s Against Our Will: Men, Women, and Rape (1975 e.v.) which I read after seeing the O.T.O. Reading List in The Equinox V 2: Satan and Christ. Relentlessly page-by-page and chapter-by-chapter, Brownmiller demolished my view of history and convinced me (nearly) that all men oppress all women in every possible way at all times. I hated my own gender for six-months and then read Esthar Vilar’s The Manipulated Man (1967 e.v.) which brought me back into balance somewhat.

Cammy makes several quotes from Crowley and from Liber AL vel Legis which seem to try to suggest that A.C. was a typical Victorian-era misogynist. She goes on to say that many male Thelemites do not respect the starry nature of women, and Woman.

Following this, she gives a brief and partial history of misogyny in history that lines up well with Brownmiller’s comprehensive history of rape. To our shame rape and misogyny still exist, with statistics that are incredible to everybody. But are these men worthy to be called Thelemites? If they do not worship Nuit but contemptuously use her priestesses for unworthy ends instead of “singing the rapturous love-song” unto them, can these be the High Priests and administrators of the Thelemic Eucharist?

I say: emphatically — NO! The unworthy Priest corrupts the entire ceremony, which is one reason why the Ordeals are so, so severe. The history of the Roman Catholic Mass illustrates the necessity for the Priest to be a worthy vessel of the highest. Otherwise the Eucharist is corrupted, and the congregation also.

There are no mysogynistic Thelemites. If you hate women, consciously or otherwise, then you are NOT a Thelemite. This is obvious, if you have closely studied The Commentaries of AL. Or Liber XV: The Gnostic Mass for that matter. If a “man of Earth” cannot behave like a Man of honour, or a Woman of honour, shall I call them a Thelemite? I repeat: emphatically — NO!

Much of the Commentary in Class C by Marcelo Ramos Motta in The Equinox v 1: The Commentaries of AL relates to his evidence that Aleister Crowley had deep respect and love for women, and for humans of all sorts. Crowley lived through the Victorian-era, was born with one foot in the Old Aeon, and yet he proclaimed the equality and complementarity of women and men. Of course, he would never deny “that leetle difference”.

“Every man and every woman is a star!”

Cammy has learned what generations of women before her have found, Sisterhood will never be found in a “frat-house” and female Thelemites must forge their own identities without looking to men for approval.

“Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” is for women and for men and any variant thereof. Anybody who does not realise that “Man” and “Homo” in Liber OZ vel LXXVII refer to the species not the gender is a bloody idiot, and will understand little of what A.C. was on about anyway. As Frater Adjuvo said, “If they don’t *want* the Rights of Man described in Liber OZ then they don’t have to accept them.” Truly Thelemic women and men don’t have time for politically “correct” nit-pickers when we have the Law of Thelema to establish.

If 666 believed that “Woman has no soul” then why did He recommend that they read the writings of Ida Craddock in The BLUE EQUINOX p.280. “Heavenly Bridegrooms” was essentially about the nature of women’s Holy Guardian Angels. Completely misunderstood, Ida Craddock‘s writings were banned and burned  and stolen and she commited suicide in a lunatic asylum. Marcelo Ramos Motta hunted down copies of many of her writings, and published two of her best essays in Sex and Religion, with extensive commentaries.

As time passed Marcelo Motta’s writings and commentaries became increasingly non-gender-biased and he went to enormous pains to ensure that (a) no Class A Publication should be changed “by as much as the style of a letter”, and (b) to distinguish where Crowley is talking about man and woman in their Earthly Nature; when He is referring to the Stars which indwell both women and men; and when He is referring to the duality of the vehicles that are increasingly gynandrous and androgynous as the Aspirant makes progress in the Grades.

An accurate excerpt from The Blue Equinox, i.e. the review of “Heavenly Bridegrooms” signed by BAPHOMET,  can be quickly located at http://www.idacraddock.com/equinox.html.

Cammy writes well. Her essay is long, but it is certainly worth reading and deeply pondering by Thelemites and prospective Thelemites of any gender. As to Cammy, I highly recommend that she read and study the writings of Marcelo Ramos Motta in THE EQUINOX VOLUME FIVE NUMBER FOUR: Sex and Religion. The lengthy Appendix consists of Ida Craddock’s essays “Heavenly Bridegrooms” and “Psychic Wedlock”, with initiated commentaries by Marcelo Ramos Motta. Herein much can be learned from a talented American occultist whose research into and description of her relationship with her Holy Guardian Angel is outstanding for it’s time.

Finally, Crowley often used female and male imagery in the best of his poems, “rapturous love-songs”, and in general in His adorations to PAN. As it is written in Liber 650 — “PAN is Nuit!”

Let there be no difference made among you between any one thing & any other thing; for thereby there cometh hurt.”

HARPOCRATES