From cat@luckymojo.com Fri Mar 05 21:59:34 1999 Return-Path: Delivered-To: yronwode@prog-relay.sonic.net Received: (qmail 7760 invoked from network); 5 Mar 1999 21:59:34 -0000 Received: from sub.sonic.net (208.201.224.8) by buzz.sonic.net with SMTP; 5 Mar 1999 21:59:34 -0000 Received: from 208.201.230.130 (d90.pm9.sonic.net [208.201.230.90]) by sub.sonic.net (8.8.8/8.8.5) with SMTP id NAA11315; Fri, 5 Mar 1999 13:59:28 -0800 X-envelope-info: Message-ID: <36E0558D.6707@luckymojo.com> Date: Fri, 05 Mar 1999 14:07:08 -0800 From: catherine yronwode Organization: Lucky Mojo Curio Co. X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0Gold (Macintosh; I; 68K) MIME-Version: 1.0 To: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com, thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org Subject: Re: Damned with Faint Praise (fwd) References: <199903051820.KAA25663@bolt.sonic.net> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Status: RO tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com wrote: > > I'm curious what your reaction to this post might be. the bit > about Crowley's chauvinism won't be new, but whether you > agree as regards intelligence as compared to sex I'm curious. > thanks. :* First, chauvinism refers to a Mr. Chauvin who contended that his nation was the best; hence, *male* chauvinism needs a qualifier, always. Second, my brief comments follow, and i shall cc them to the thelema-list. > Tim Maroney 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, Tim! The only thing that would have made this paragrpah more convincing would have been further direct quotes from Croley. > 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 30 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! catherine yronwode Lucky Mojo Curio Co: http://www.luckymojo.com/luckymojocatalogue.html The Lucky W Amulet Archive: http://www.luckymojo.com/luckyw.html Sacred Sex: http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredsex.html The Sacred Landscape: http://www.luckymojo.com/sacredland.html Freemasonry for Women: http://www.luckymojo.com/comasonry.html check out news:alt.lucky.w for discussions on folk magic and luck