The Gender Neutral Phallus Of Crowley

The Gender Neutral Phallus Of Crowley Cover Crowley’s phallicism does not exclude women, because “phallus” is a gender-neutral term. We are told that Crowley was using a woman-inclusive meaning of “phallus” derived from psychology. “Crowley read his Freud and Jung very thoroughly. He didn’t use capital P Phallus without assuming that his readers knew what was meant. Unfortunately few today do. He was referring to the psychoanalytic stage of full genital organization, which is the third of a series. The first state is infantile, undifferentiated, and of course generally chaste. The second stage is narcissistic, usually corresponding to adolescence, and masturbatory. In the third, the phallic as they chose to call it, the individual psychology is so organized as to integrate the psyche with the genital Consciousness and its associated instincts, and is then prepared to enter the world, to have intercourse.”

Freud’s psychosexual theory of development differs. The phallic stage in the Freudian model actually is one of the infantile stages, occurs before the age of five (rather than after adolescence), is specifically “phallic” in the sense of the male generative organ (rather than gender-neutral), and occurs years before the final stage of development, which is called “genital” (a gender-neutral term). In Freud’s model, first comes the oral stage, characterized by sucking, biting and swallowing. Second is the anal stage, characterized by toilet training. Third is the phallic stage, about the end of the third or fourth year, characterized by playful self-stimulation, and the formation of the Oedipal complex. During the phallic stage of development comes “penis envy.” In this infamous theory, Freud claimed that the natural course of development is stymied during the phallic stage in girls, and that they blame their mothers for their lack of a phallus. Then the fourth stage, from about five until adolescence, is called the latency period, and finally during adolescence the fifth, “genital” stage sets in, characterized by preparation for marriage.2

It is questionable that Crowley read Freud in depth. His scattered references to Freud touch repeatedly on a few broad themes in no great detail. Crowley refers to the primacy of the sex instinct, to the Oedipus complex, and to the unconscious as a source of dreams and phantasms, and little else.

As for Jung, most of his work was unavailable in English until late in Crowley’s life or after his death. Crowley did read the first English translation of Wandlungen und Symbole der Libido3. This book deals extensively with phallic symbolism and the libido, and Crowley refers to it in his commentaries to The Book of the Law4. Judging by its solar-phallic content, this book may have been a significant influence on Crowley’s thought and his reformation of the O.T.O. However, the book condemns Freud’s theory, and refers to the “phallus” in its traditional male sense. Jung uses the gender-neutral term “libido” to indicate psychic energy5 in both men and women, but “phallus” to refer to the male organ and its symbols. A number of symbols of female genitalia are discussed, but none are called “phallic.”

If Crowley had a gender-neutral Interpretation of “phallus,” he did not get it from Freud, whose use of the word was gender-specific. Nor could this usage derive from Jung, who was no adherent of Freud’s psychosexual theory, and who also used “phallus” in a gender-specific sense. Scholarly English6 and Greek7 dictionaries contain no gender-neutral usage of “phallus” from ancient times to the present. It would be anomalous to ascribe this unique usage to Crowley, who from all indications used the word in its traditional sense. If there is any evidence to establish this peculiar reading, it was not presented in the Address.

An interesting view appears in a book found in the curriculum of Crowley’s occult order A.·.A.·.8, Richard Payne Knight’s A Discourse on the Worship of Priapus 9. Knight applies the now obsolete method of syncretistic comparativism to a variety of phallic and vulvar deities in an attempt to demonstrate that they all express the Neo-Platonic legend of an original hermaphroditic creator God who split into two halves, one male and one female. He alternates in apparent confusion between asserting that the genders of deities are interchangeable since they all symbolize the original creator, and that male deities represent the “active generative power of God” while female deities represent the “passive generative power of earth.” He is more consistent in holding that the differentiated “organs of generation” represent the gender-specific powers. Since he does not use the word “phallus,” Knight could not have been the source of the purported usage in Crowley.

There are, however, elements of Knight’s original hermaphroditism in Crowley, as in Chapter 35 of The Book of Lies, “Venus of Milo,” which after condemning the female body as “ugly” states, “the Lingam and the Yoni are but diverse developments of One Organ”. In the comment to the chapter, though, Crowley is careful to refute any appearance of egalitarianism. Placing the female in a distinctly inferior position, he writes, “the female body becomes beautiful in so far as it approximates to the male. The female is to be regarded as having been separated from the male, in order to reproduce the male in a superior form”. His lukewarm, androcentric redaction of Knight’s original hermaphroditism does not suggest that the word “phallus” had a gender-neutral meaning to Crowley, or that either Crowley or Knight regarded the two sets of genitals as interchangeable or equivalent.

A gender-neutral phallicism is hard to see in Crowley’s work. There is no reference to any woman as in natural possession of a phallus, and he did not believe that women were equal partners with men in sex. In outer writings his explanation of sex magick revolves around the relationship between father and son, and in the human quintessence within the semen.10 Sometimes a mother and daughter are paired with the father and son; often the father and son stand alone; never are the mother and daughter discussed independently. In The Star Sapphire sex magick ritual11, the woman appears only in a bracketed note, and is treated as a tool of the magician, not his partner. The same formula is discernible in the Gnostic Mass, on which more below. In Liber Aleph Crowley writes that pre-eminent in all sex magick “is the Formula of the Serpent with the Head of the Lion,” the semen, “and all this Magick is wrought by the Radiance and Creative Force thereof.”12 To Crowley the magick is in the man. The woman is a necessary, respected and even consecrated tool of this formula but she is not the source of magick. She is only a magick mirror for the manifestation of the God.

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The Empirical Rules Of Magick 04 The Attitude

The Empirical Rules Of Magick 04 The Attitude Cover
Since magick is the science of controlling your Self, the entire key is in attitude. Not only must you take it seriously, but you must also cultivate the right feelings. You must want and expect your goal.

Wanting seems easy, but this is deceptive. That is because the many facets of a personality often want different things. You must unify your desire just as you must unify your will. A person who grew up abused may learn, on some level, to associate this with love. That person's Little Self will seek out abuse as an expression of love. It will want abuse even if the individual does not. Changing the desire of the Little Self to that if the individual is the challenge.

An even bigger challenge is that of expectation. According to the magickal paradigm, you not only get what you want, but you get it in the way that you expect it. Thus, if you do a spell for money and you think "I'll never win the lottery," the money cannot come that way. If the spell is to work, the money must come from another source, such as finding a better job. Too often we rule out all possibility. When you do a spell, you know that has already worked. If you do not know this, it has not worked. This is the ideal. It may well take some time before you work up to this point.

For these reasons it's usually best to start slow. Remember, to be completely successful, you have to want and expect on every level. Begin with a project easier than levitation! Work your way up to something life changing only after you have proven yourself. And don't look for dramatic results. Don't rule them out, of course-- you can win the lottery or even have ET hand you a suitcase of money. But remember, this is dealing in what you believe, and people rarely believe that dramatic things can happen to them.

Look at magick as an extra push-- something to make the random events break your way. In addition to magickal means, strive for your goals on the earthly level. Preliminary results usually tend toward things like improved success in your ordinary pursuits: business picking up, a bonus, getting that job interview. Also, the energy you put into these mundane efforts also supports your magickal work. Even if you concentrate on winning a lottery, you must at least buy a ticket. All your efforts help to build expectation and gives a very strong message to the Little Self.

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Gilles De Rais The Banned Lecture

Gilles De Rais The Banned Lecture Cover

Book: Gilles De Rais The Banned Lecture by Aleister Crowley

GILLES de RAIS to have been delivered before the University Poetry Society by ALEISTER CROWLEY on the evening of Monday, Feb.3rd.1930

Originally this article appeared in The OCCULT DIGEST Vol 2 N3, Chicago, 1972. The banner proclaimed "COLLECTORS EDITION-FIRST PUBLIC
DISTRIBUTION ANYWHERE OF GILLES de RAIS.

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Magick Ritual

Magick Ritual Cover According to Crowley, there is only one ethical purpose for ritual magick: to achieve Union with God through "the uniting of the Microcosm with the Macrocosm." Since this process is so arduous, it is also acceptable to use magick to develop the self (i.e. one's Body of Light) or to create ideal circumstances for the Work (e.g. having access to a place in which to do ritual undisturbed). There are many kinds of magick, but the categories of ritual that are recommended by Crowley include (all quotes are from Book 4):

1. Banishing—the elimination of unwanted forces. "The Magician must therefore take the utmost care in the matter of purification, firstly, of himself, secondly, of his instruments, thirdly, of the place of working."
2. Invocation, where the magician identifies with the Deity invoked. There are three methods:
* Devotion —where "identity with the God is attained by love and by surrender, by giving up or suppressing all irrelevant (and illusionary) parts of yourself." (e.g. Liber Astarte)
* Calling forth—where "identity is attained by paying special attention to the desired part of yourself: positive, as the first method is negative." (e.g. assumption of god-forms)
* Drama—where "identity is attained by sympathy. It is very difficult for the ordinary man to lose himself completely in the subject of a play or of a novel; but for those who can do so, this method is unquestionably the best." (e.g. many initiations and the Gnostic Mass)
3. Evocation—which is bringing a spiritual being before, not into, the magician (e.g. Goetia)
4. Eucharistic ritual—which "consists in taking common things, transmuting them into things divine, and consuming them." (e.g. The Mass of the Phoenix)
5. Consecration—"the active dedication of a thing to a single purpose."
6. Divinations—such as the use of the Tarot or other tools used to gather information.

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The Equinox Vol Iv No I Commentaries On The Holy Books And Other Papers

The Equinox Vol Iv No I Commentaries On The Holy Books And Other Papers Cover

Book: The Equinox Vol Iv No I Commentaries On The Holy Books And Other Papers by Aleister Crowley

This new issue of the Equinox is a companion volume to The Holy Books of Thelema (also published by Samuel Weiser), and a coherent text book in it s own right. It covers the essentials of the A ? A ? system of initiation, from the preliminary stage of Student to the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversion of the Holy Guardian Angel. The centerpiece of the book is the Master Therion's penetrating commentary to the inspired writing THE BOOK OF THE HEART GIRT WITH A SERPENT.

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The Equinox Vol Iv No I Commentaries On The Holy Books And Other Papers

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Great Drug Delusion

Great Drug Delusion Cover

Book: Great Drug Delusion by Aleister Crowley

The Great Drug Delusion by aleister crowley - an essay First published in 1922.

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The Illustrated Beast The Aleister Crowley Scrapbook

The Illustrated Beast The Aleister Crowley Scrapbook Cover

Book: The Illustrated Beast The Aleister Crowley Scrapbook by Sandy Robertson

I Ran across this book while doing a search and just had to buy it as it's been many years since I've read anything by or about Crowley. When it arrived with several other books, I set it aside and promptly forgot about it. While watching Hellraiser II on DVD last week, I noticed that the Beast's picture (in Golden Dawn regalia) kept popping up at the Doctor's house and it reminded me of this book. As soon as I finished my current book, I started in on this one. It was chock full of photos, illustrations, and stories that that I'd never seen before. I enjoyed the reprinting of the rare story Big Game from his World War I era writing. I especially liked the section that showed the different guises (and disguises) of Crowley over the years. When David Bowie was mentioned later as one of the rock stars influenced by the Beast, I wondered how much of his frequent reinventing of himself was Crowley inspired. All in all, a nice reintroduction to the Beast for my collection. My only gripe is that none of the popular photos of Crowley are reproduced here in whole except for their use in commercial endeavors (magazine and album covers) nor is the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album cover. A minor quibble about an excellent book on "The Wickedest Man In The World". 'Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be The Whole Of The Law'.

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