“The Eyes of Goats and of Women”: Femininity and the Post-Thelemic Witchcraft of Jack Parsons and Kenneth Grant

Hedenborg White, Manon

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-15549-0_9

Manon Hedenborg White⁶

Part of the book series: Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic ((PHSWM))

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Abstract

While Aleister Crowley’s religion of Thelema deals with notions of witchcraft peripherally, in the 1950s Crowley’s disciple John Whiteside Parsons sought to establish a duotheistic witchcraft tradition which focused on the veneration of Lucifer and the Thelemic goddess Babalon. Kenneth Grant, briefly Crowley’s secretary, instead melded Thelema and Tantra with notions of witchcraft in his perennialist concept of a “Typhonian Tradition”. In different ways, Parsons and Grant both link witchcraft to a primordial magical tradition in which women acted as leaders and initiators, and female sexuality was sacralised. This chapter will analyse and compare Parsons’s and Grant’s interpretations of witchcraft, focusing especially on their gendered aspects. I suggest, firstly, that these authors’ engagement with concepts of witchcraft can be read as part of an endeavour to position femininity as central to magic, and, secondly, that the intersection of second-wave feminism and Paganism exerted a stronger influence on Grant’s writings than previously recognised.

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Notes

1.
Ronald Hutton, “Crowley and Wicca,” in Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, ed. Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 285–306.
2.
See, for example, J. L. Bracelin, Gerald Gardner: Witch (Octagon Press, 1960), 174. Cf Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 219.
3.
This idea recurs both in academic literature—see, for example, Hugh B. Urban, Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006), 135; Alex Owen, The Place of Enchantment: British Occultism and the Culture of the Modern (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 216—and esoteric texts—as discussed in detail in Manon Hedenborg White, The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism (forthcoming).
4.
Hedenborg White, The Eloquent Blood.
5.
Crowley’s account of the events leading up to, and including, the reception of Liber AL can be found in Aleister Crowley, The Equinox of the Gods (London: OTO, 1936).
6.
Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law: Liber Al Vel Legis: With a Facsimile of the Manuscript as Received by Aleister and Rose Edith Crowley on April 8, 9, 10, 1904 E.v. Centennial Edition (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2004).
7.
Hutton, Triumph.
8.
Aleister Crowley, Clouds Without Water (Des Plaines, IL: Yogi Publication Society, 1974).
9.
See, for example, Serenity Young, Women Who Fly: Goddesses, Witches, Mystics, and Other Airborne Females (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 158, 167–169.
10.
Aleister Crowley, “The Wizard Way,” The Equinox I, no. 1 (1909), 36–46.
11.
Aleister Crowley, “The Wake World,” in Konx Om Pax: Essays in Light (Des Plaines, IL: Yogi Publication Society, 1974), xiii–24.
12.
Incidentally, Neuburg’s poetry shows similar influences. See, for example, Victor B. Neuburg, The Triumph of Pan (London: Skoob Books, 1989).
13.
Aleister Crowley, The Vision and the Voice: With Commentary and Other Papers: The Equinox, Volume IV Number II (York Beach, ME: Samuel Weiser, 1998). Babalon’s role in Thelema is analysed at length in Hedenborg White, The Eloquent Blood.
14.
Crowley, The Vision and the Voice, 149.
15.
Rev. 17:6 [KJV].
16.
Arthur Machen, The Three Impostors, or The Transmutations (London: John Lane, 1895). However, it is possible that Crowley’s usage of the phrase has dual influences, as the record of the twelfth Aethyr subsequently mentions a “Holy Assembly”; a phrase repeatedly used in the Hebrew Bible to reference the sabbath as well as other Jewish holidays. See, for example, Exo. 12:16; Lev. 23; Num. 28, 29 [KJV].
17.
Crowley, The Vision and the Voice.
18.
Crowley, The Vision and the Voice, 241.
19.
Theodor Reuss, ed., I.N.R.I. Jubilaeums-Ausgabe Der Oriflamme (Berlin and London, 1912).
20.
Aleister Crowley, “De Nuptiis Secretis Deorum Cum Hominibus” (1914), Gerald J. Yorke Collection OS25, Warburg Institute Library.
21.
Henrik Bogdan, “Challenging the Morals of Western Society: The Use of Ritualized Sex in Contemporary Occultism,” The Pomegranate 8, no. 2 (2006): 211–246.
22.
Aleister Crowley, “AGAPE Vel Liber C Vel AZOTH. Sal Philosophorum the Book of the Unveiling of the Sangraal Wherein It Is Spoken of the Wine of the Sabbath of the Adepts” (1914), Gerald J. Yorke Collection OS26, Warburg Institute Library.
23.
For example, Liber AL I:16; Aleister Crowley, Magical and Philosophical Commentaries on the Book of the Law, eds. John Symonds and Kenneth Grant (Montreal: 93 Publishing, 1974), 104.
24.
Aleister Crowley, The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography (London: Arkana, 1989), 147.
25.
A prominent example is Crowley’s identification with the Great Beast 666, and his reinterpretation of the Whore of Babylon as a soteriological goddess. Crowley, Confessions, 44. Cf Hedenborg White, The Eloquent Blood.
26.
George Pendle, Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons, 1st ed. (Orlando: Harcourt, 2005).
27.
Starr notes that the Agape guest registrar, likely erroneously, lists Parsons’s first visit as having occurred in January 1938. Martin P. Starr, The Unknown God: W.T. Smith and the Thelemites, 1st ed. (Bolingbrook, IL: Teitan Press, 2003), 257. See also Pendle, Strange Angel, 134, 172; Starr, The Unknown God, 263.
28.
Parsons appears to have derived the idea of elemental mates from “De Nuptiis”. “De Nuptiis”; John W. Parsons, “Of Familiars” (n.d.), Gerald J. Yorke Collection, Warburg Institute Library. Contradictory indications as to when Parsons began conducting rituals with this objective in mind are given in Karl Germer, Karl Germer: Selected Letters 1928–1962, ed. David Shoemaker, Andrew Ferrell, and Stefan Voss (International College of Thelema, 2016) and John W. Parsons, “The Book of Babalon” (1946), Gerald J. Yorke Collection, Warburg Institute Library.
29.
Starr, The Unknown God, 313; Pendle, Strange Angel, 261–263; Parsons, “Book of Babalon.”
30.
Parsons, “Book of Babalon.” The Babalon Working is discussed in detail in Hedenborg White, The Eloquent Blood; Henrik Bogdan, “The Babalon Working 1946: L. Ron Hubbard, John Whiteside Parsons, and the Practice of Enochian Magic,” Numen: International Review for the History of Religions 63, no. 1 (2016): 12–32.
31.
Parsons, “Book of Babalon.”
32.
Crowley, “The Wizard Way.”
33.
Parsons, “Book of Babalon.”
34.
Parsons, “Book of Babalon.”
35.
John W. Parsons, “Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword,” in Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword and Other Essays, ed. Hymenaeus Beta and Cameron (Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 2001), 9–43.
36.
Parsons, “Freedom,” 41.
37.
Parsons, “Freedom,” 42.
38.
See John W. Parsons, “The Cup, the Sword and the Crux Ansata” and “The Star of Babalon,” both in Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword and Other Essays, ed. Hymenaeus Beta and Cameron (Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 2001).
39.
As discussed in, for example, Hutton, Triumph; Chas S. Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America (Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006).
40.
John W. Parsons and Marjorie Cameron, Songs for the Witch Woman: With Commentaries from William Breeze, George Pendle & Margaret Haines (London: Fulgur Esoterica, 2014).
41.
Parsons and Cameron, Songs, 35.
42.
Parsons and Cameron, Songs, 51.
43.
Parsons and Cameron, Songs, 46.
44.
Parsons and Cameron, Songs, 71.
45.
Parsons and Cameron, Songs, 39.
46.
Marjorie Cameron, “The Black Pilgrimage,” (n.d.), Cameron Parsons Foundation.
47.
Robert W. Chambers, The King in Yellow (F. Tennyson Neely, 1895). Parsons’s poem “Bierce” clearly refers to Ambrose Bierce, author of the short-story “An Inhabitant of Carcosa” in which the name “Carcosa” first appeared. Parsons’s poem “Bierce” references Pancho Villa, whose army the historical Bierce joined, and “Halpin Fraser”, the name of a character in one of Bierce’s stories. Parsons and Cameron, Songs, 65.
48.
Chorazin, located in present-day Israel and now in ruins, is mentioned in the Bible as one of three villages cursed by Jesus; Luke 10:13 [KJV]. Some medieval theologians also believed the Antichrist might come to be born there. This idea influenced Parsons; he calls Chorazin “the city of the Anti-Christ,” and believed that his astral journey there marked his transition into the figure.
49.
John W. Parsons, “The Book of the Antichrist” (n.d., [circa 1948]), Gerald J. Yorke Collection NS110, Warburg Institute Library.
50.
Margaret Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921).
51.
John W. Parsons, “The Black Pilgrimage” (n.d., [circa 1948]), OTO archives.
52.
Parsons to Cameron, January 27, 1950, Gerald J. Yorke Collection, Warburg Institute Library.
53.
John W. Parsons, “Manifesto of the Witchcraft,” in Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword, eds. Hymenaeus Beta and Cameron (Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 2001), 69.
54.
Parsons, “The Cup, the Sword and the Crux Ansata,” 79.
55.
John W. Parsons, “The Witchcraft,” in Freedom Is a Two-Edged Sword and Other Essays, ed. Hymenaeus Beta and Cameron (Tempe, AZ: New Falcon Publications, 2001), 71.
56.
Parsons, “The Witchcraft.”
57.
Parsons, “The Witchcraft.”
58.
Aleister Crowley, “Liber XV: Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae,” Equinox 3, no. 1 (1919): 247–270.
59.
Hutton, Triumph, esp. 138–143.
60.
Jules Michelet, Satanism and Witchcraft: A Study in Medieval Superstition, trans. A. R. Allinson (New York: Citadel Press, 1963).
61.
Cf Hutton, Triumph, esp. 142–150.
62.
Charles Godfrey Leland, Aradia: Or the Gospel of the Witches (London: David Nutt, 1899).
63.
On Leland’s Lucifer, see Fredrik Gregorius, “Luciferian Witchcraft: At the Crossroads Between Paganism and Satanism,” in The Devil’s Party: Satanism in Modernity, ed. Per Faxneld and Jesper Aagaard Petersen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 231–234.
64.
See, for example, Parsons and Cameron, Songs, 59.
65.
As discussed in a previous note, Parsons was certainly familiar with “De Nuptiis”.
66.
A prominent example of Crowley’s engagement with arguably feminist themes can be found in his so-called New Comment to Liber AL, reproduced in Crowley, Magical and Philosophical Comments.
67.
Parsons, “Book of Babalon.”
68.
Jack Williamson, Darker Than You Think (Fantasy Press, 1948). Cf Pendle, Strange Angel.
69.
M. R. James, “Count Magnus,” in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary (Edward Arnold, 1904). Cf Rosemary Pardoe and Jane Nicholls, “The Black Pilgrimage,” Ghosts & Scholars 1998, no. 26 (1998).
70.
Kenneth Grant, Remembering Aleister Crowley (London: Skoob Books Publishing, 1991), v.
71.
Grant, Remembering, 49–50; Henrik Bogdan, “Reception of Occultism in India: The Case of the Holy Order of Krishna,” in Occultism in a Global Perspective, ed. Henrik Bogdan and Gordan Djurdjevic (Durham: Acumen, 2013), 177–201; Henrik Bogdan, “Introduction,” in Brother Curwen, Brother Crowley: A Correspondence, ed. Henrik Bogdan, Aleister Crowley, and David Curwen (York Beach, ME: Teitan Press, 2010), xviii–xlviii.
72.
Grant, Remembering, 49.
73.
Henrik Bogdan, “Kenneth Grant and the Typhonian Tradition,” in The Occult World, ed. Christopher Partridge (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2014), 323–330.
74.
Grant’s interpretation of the Typhonian Tradition is explicated throughout the Typhonian Trilogies, especially the first three works. See also Christian Giudice, “From Central Africa to the Mauve Zone: Gerald Massey’s Influence on Kenneth Grant’s Idea of the Typhonian Tradition,” in Servants of the Star & the Snake: Essays in Honour of Kenneth & Steffi Grant, ed. Henrik Bogdan (London: Starfire, 2018), 63–74.
75.
Crowley, “Agape vel Liber C.” See also Aleister Crowley, “Liber CDXIV: De Arte Magica” (1914), Gerald J. Yorke Collection NS3, Warburg Institute Library; Aleister Crowley, “Energized Enthusiasm,” The Equinox 1, no. 9 (1913): 19–46.
76.
Kenneth Grant, Aleister Crowley & the Hidden God (London: Skoob Books, 1992), 81. See also Kenneth Grant, The Magical Revival (London: Skoob, 1991), 34; Grant, Remembering, 49; Grant, Aleister Crowley. Cf Henrik Bogdan, “Evocation of the Fire Snake: Kenneth Grant and Tantra” in Servants of the Star & the Snake: Essays in Honour of Kenneth & Steffi Grant, ed. Henrik Bogdan (London: Starfire, 2018), 253–268; Gordan Djurdjevic, India and the Occult: The Influence of South Asian Spirituality on Modern Western Occultism (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 107.
77.
See Kenneth Grant, “Vinum Sabbati,” in Hidden Lore: The Carfax Monographs, ed. Kenneth Grant and Steffi Grant (London: Skoob Esoterica, 1996).
78.
Grant and Grant, Hidden Lore.
79.
Grant, Aleister Crowley, 121–122.
80.
Grant, Aleister Crowley, 126.
81.
Kenneth Grant, Cults of the Shadow (London: Skoob, 1994), 146.
82.
Kenneth Grant, Nightside of Eden (London: Muller, 1977), 121.
83.
Grant, Nightside, 230.
84.
Grant, Aleister Crowley, 106–109; Grant, Cults, 12.
85.
Grant, Nightside, 172–173.
86.
Grant, Cults, 68.
87.
Grant, Aleister Crowley, 82.
88.
Grant, Aleister Crowley, 126.
89.
Grant, Cults, 72.
90.
Grant, Nightside, 78.
91.
Grant, Nightside, 78.
92.
Grant, Nightside, 173; see also Kenneth Grant, Outside the Circles of Time (London: Muller, 1980), 174–176.
93.
Grant, Nightside, 122–123.
94.
Grant, Cults, 195.
95.
Grant, Cults, 207.
96.
Grant, Cults, 208.
97.
Grant, Nightside, 127–128.
98.
For example, in Grant and Grant, Hidden Lore; Kenneth Grant and Steffi Grant, Zos Speaks! Encounters with Austin Osman Spare (London: Fulgur, 1998).
99.
Grant and Grant, Zos Speaks!; Phil Baker, Austin Osman Spare: The Occult Life of London’s Legendary Artist (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2014), 245–246.
100.
Grant, Aleister Crowley, esp. 42–43; cf. Hedenborg White, The Eloquent Blood.
101.
See, for example, Grant, Aleister Crowley, 21, 232; Grant, Nightside, 84.
102.
For example, Mary Daly, Gyn/Ecology: The Metaethics of Radical Feminism (London: Women’s Press, 1979); Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess, 20th Anniversary ed. (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1999).
103.
“Redgrove Papers; Letters,” MS171, University of Sheffield Library. The dust jacket for Grant’s Outside the Circles of Time (1980) quotes an endorsement from The Wise Wound, and Redgrove’sThe Black Goddess and the Sixth Sense (1987) is reviewed in a 1989 issue of the journal Starfire, issued by Grant’s “Typhonian” OTO (later the Typhonian Order). Michael Staley, “The Black Goddess and the Sixth Sense, Bloomsbury, 1987,” Starfire 1, no. 3 (1989): 98–99.
104.
Anna Fedele, “Reversing Eve’s Curse: Mary Magdalene, Mother Earth and the Creative Ritualization of Menstruation,” Journal of Ritual Studies 28, no. 2 (2014): 23–35.
105.
See, for example, Egil Asprem, “The Magical Theory of Politics: Meme Magic, the Cult of Kek, and How to Topple an Egregore,” forthcoming.
106.
Cf Hedenborg White, The Eloquent Blood.

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Manon Hedenborg White

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Oranim College of Education, Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel
Shai Feraro
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Ethan Doyle White

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Hedenborg White, M. (2019). “The Eyes of Goats and of Women”: Femininity and the Post-Thelemic Witchcraft of Jack Parsons and Kenneth Grant. In: Feraro, S., Doyle White, E. (eds) Magic and Witchery in the Modern West. Palgrave Historical Studies in Witchcraft and Magic. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-15549-0_9

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