THE ARCANE ARCHIVE
	a cache of usenet and other text files pertaining to occult, mystical, and spiritual subjects.

To: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.magick.order,talk.religion.misc,alt.occult,talk.religion.newage,alt.magick.tantra,alt.magick.sex,alt.religion.sexuality
From: tyagi@houseofkaos.abyss.com (nagasiva)
Subject: Various: GD History -- Sex Magick
Date: 20 Dec 1997 15:39:53 -0800

[technical difficulties enforced delay in reposting

[both from thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org]

Tim Maroney :

>That isn't what I referred to.  That is a (longer and more instructive)
>version of the letter in Howe.  The letter I refer to (which I apologize
>for not posting yet) is on page 352.  JRemember, I said it was to an
>AMerican Temple;  the letter you refer to is to Annie Horniman.

Moina's wording is compatible with the idea that celibacy is the inner 
sexual teaching of her group. "We only give [the Sex question] a rather 
complete explanation in that Grade where the Adept has been proved to be 
so equlibrated and spiritualized that he is complete lord of his 
passional self." This shows that mastery of the passions was a central 
part of Moina's teaching. Paul Foster Case's discussion on the same page 
of Greer says that Moina's teaching was all about "control," again 
compatible with celibacy. This does not show that Moina's teaching is the 
same doctrine as in Fortune's book, nor identify it positively as 
celibacy, HBL, Cromlech Temple, O.T.O., or some elemental variant of 
Thomas Lake Harris for that matter.

Moina then goes on to condemn some "superficial sex teaching", also not 
identified, as being one she had seen "in several Occult Societies 
[without] one happy result." This could be the Thomas Lake Harris sexual 
spiritualism or the HBL material, or Moina might be conflating the two.

She never makes any reference to "sex magic" or "sex ritual", just "Sex 
Theory," "sex matters," "the Sex question," and "sex teaching." There is 
no reason to assume any ritual formula was involved from this letter, and 
no reason to assume that Moina's celibacy as attested by her earlier 
letter was a symbol or other mask for some sort of occult sexuality or 
teaching of sex magic formulae.

Celibacy was also a moral teaching of Theosophy in the same time period 
and it's not difficult to think that it might also have been so in 
Moina's GD splinter; this is not proof, just a statement about the 
plausibility of this model in the culture. However, against this I have 
sometimes thought that Crowley's "magical chastity" does not seem to be 
an original idea and I have wondered if he might have gotten it from the 
Golden Dawn. He was mostly with the Mathers faction; I don't know what 
involvement he had if any with Ayton or associates. I think there is a 
good chance he might have gotten this from O.T.O. instead of GD as I 
really have not been able to turn up any clear confirmation of the idea 
in GD. Crowley's "chastity" was not what most people would associate with 
the term, but I haven't found any evidence to show that the Mathers' 
celibacy was so cleverly interpreted.

The true celibacy model is also compatible with the Fortune testimony, if 
we believe that Moina as effectively a chief of the Order was aware of 
Ayton's HBL involvement and formulae and disapproved of them. The letter 
in Greer indicates that there was a GD sex teaching of which Moina 
disapproved, as quoted above. I don't have any trouble understanding why 
Moina could think that Ayton's HBL teaching was wrong and bound to cause 
trouble but was nonetheless oath-bound Golden Dawn material. Ayton was 
prominent in both Orders and it is pretty rare for active occultists to 
keep a strict wall of separation between their interests. Synthesis is 
usually the rule.

Another assumption here is that Fortune's disputed book represents 
material similar to Ayton's but obtained from separate HBL sources. I 
still haven't had time to check this in detail, but there are some terms 
in common from a cursory survey and my admittedly fuzzy recall of this 
not very interesting book.

I'm sorry that Michael J. Rae has left this discussion as I found his 
contributions on the subject of GD sex magic very interesting and 
thoughtful, even though I disagree with them at a few key points. I 
continue to feel that Greer is an untrustworthy source based on her 
conclusions on this issue. They are easy enough to check with her 
references, and they simply don't show what she says they do. It's as if 
they've been rounded out with psychically discovered history or 
something. On this sex issue she treats the Moina Mathers letter as a 
smoking gun even though it is clearly not. There are some Greer fans that 
I respect, and I invite any of them to check out these two sets of 
references about sex magic from her book, and to tell me they're not 
wrong, and how.

=========================================================

"Michael J. Rae" :

On Sun, 7 Sep 1997, Tim Maroney wrote:
>
> >That isn't what I referred to.  That is a (longer and more instructive)
> >version of the letter in Howe.  The letter I refer to (which I apologize
> >for not posting yet) is on page 352.  JRemember, I said it was to an
> >AMerican Temple;  the letter you refer to is to Annie Horniman.
> 
> Moina's wording is compatible with the idea that celibacy is the inner 
> sexual teaching of her group. "We only give [the Sex question] a rather 
> complete explanation in that Grade where the Adept has been proved to be 
> so equlibrated and spiritualized that he is complete lord of his 
> passional self." This shows that mastery of the passions was a central 
> part of Moina's teaching.

True.  However, although celibacy is not an IMPOSSIBLE reading of the
text, I put it to you that it is an extremely improbable one.  If one is
going to preach celibacy, one hardly needs to wait until one's pupils
are "equilibrated and spiritualized," "lord of [hir] passional self," etc;
indeed, to a fan of celibacy, it is often just these aims that are to be
achieved by a no-sex rule.  As well, one would hardly need a "Sex Theory"
to justify such a discipline, esp. in Victorian days (an the period
shortly thereafter), or to keep it secret from all but the extreme upper
echelon.  Blavatsky was already openly demanding it of anyone who entered
into the TS.

Again, "mastery of the passions" so-called is not said to be PART of the
teachings, but a PREREQUISITE: one must be in control FIRST, and THEN the
"Sex Theory" is given.  I put it to you that it is much more likely that
one is expected to be in "control" in order to master a sexual discipline,
than to be asked to practice celibacy.  And "control," of course, is the
essence of the most challenging parts of conventional Tantric maithuna.

> Paul Foster Case's discussion on the same page 
> of Greer says that Moina's teaching was all about "control," again 
> compatible with celibacy.

See my ramble above on "control."  Compatible in the strict logical sense,
yes, but such a reading seeems the least likely possibility to me.

> This does not show that Moina's teaching is the 
> same doctrine as in Fortune's book,

No, THIS does not, but Moina trying to kick Fortune out for betraying
GD secrets in her book demonstrates just that fact -- by definition.  Now,
how exactly isomorphic the GD teaching was with Fortune's book is pure
speculation, but their close harmony is necessary for the charge of
betrayal.  Compare Reuss and Crowley's dispute over the "accursed chapter"
of the Book of Lies:  if the OTO secret wasn't there, it would be
meaningless to object to its presence.  Right?

> nor identify it positively as 
> celibacy, HBL, Cromlech Temple, O.T.O., or some elemental variant of 
> Thomas Lake Harris for that matter.
 
I never said it would, and I think anyone who says they know exactly what
the Secret was is probably full of it.  But what we DO know, from the
Moina-Horniman correspondence on Greer's p. 161 ff, is thatthe GD had an
"Elemental Theory" which was part of "the teachings of the RC Orrder,"
whose subject was the "connection between a human and elemental" and
specifically a "sexual connection."  You have rightly noted elsewhere that
Greer misreferences such an "elemental marriage," attributing its
reccomendation to Mathers where Wescott is actually involved, but the fact
still tends to further support the GD having this doctrine; and the
doctrine (whatever it was exactly) would stand proved to exist by the
letter on 161ff alone, without the secondary reference.

> Moina then goes on to condemn some "superficial sex teaching", also not 
> identified, as being one she had seen "in several Occult Societies 
> [without] one happy result." This could be the Thomas Lake Harris sexual 
> spiritualism or the HBL material, or Moina might be conflating the two.
 
We may never know.  However, that is a separate issue from what the GD Sex
Theory was.

> She never makes any reference to "sex magic" or "sex ritual", just "Sex 
> Theory," "sex matters," "the Sex question," and "sex teaching." There is 
> no reason to assume any ritual formula was involved from this letter, and 
> no reason to assume that Moina's celibacy as attested by her earlier 
> letter was a symbol or other mask for some sort of occult sexuality or 
> teaching of sex magic formulae.
 
On that letter ALONE, we could not be certain, tho' as I maintained above,
some such ritual formula seems the most likely reading.  But IN
COMBINATION WITH the letter on 161ff, the Fortune testimony, and the
Westcott aside, I don't see what other interpretation is reasonable (not
to say logically necessary).

Also, since the letter contrasts (perhaps that's too strong a word:
certainly "compares"?) the GD Sex Theory with a "superficial sex theory,"
which (I put it to you) is most likely to be understood as Berrige's
contacts of the TL Harris system, it would SEEM that a praxis is implied.
If the OTHER "sex theory" had a sex-mystic dimension, it seems implied
that HERS does, too.

> Celibacy was also a moral teaching of Theosophy in the same time period 
> and it's not difficult to think that it might also have been so in 
> Moina's GD splinter; this is not proof, just a statement about the 
> plausibility of this model in the culture.

But, as I noted above, the TS was quite open about this, not requiring
special self-control to impart it as a special, high-degree secret.

> However, against this I have 
> sometimes thought that Crowley's "magical chastity" does not seem to be 
> an original idea and I have wondered if he might have gotten it from the 
> Golden Dawn. He was mostly with the Mathers faction; I don't know what 
> involvement he had if any with Ayton or associates. I think there is a 
> good chance he might have gotten this from O.T.O. instead of GD as I 
> really have not been able to turn up any clear confirmation of the idea 
> in GD. Crowley's "chastity" was not what most people would associate with 
> the term, but I haven't found any evidence to show that the Mathers' 
> celibacy was so cleverly interpreted.
 
I agree.  But again, whether the Matherses THEMSELVES were celibate, and
whether the Order was in posession of sex-magical secrets, are separate
issues.  A person can have an excellent text on experimental chemistry,
pass the book along to oath-bound initiates, and never picked up a
florence flask in one's life.

> The true celibacy model is also compatible with the Fortune testimony, if 
> we believe that Moina as effectively a chief of the Order was aware of 
> Ayton's HBL involvement and formulae and disapproved of them. The letter 
> in Greer indicates that there was a GD sex teaching of which Moina 
> disapproved, as quoted above. I don't have any trouble understanding why 
> Moina could think that Ayton's HBL teaching was wrong and bound to cause 
> trouble but was nonetheless oath-bound Golden Dawn material. 

If she, as a Chief of the Order, regarded such aa teaching as "oath-bound
[gd] material," then it stands that the GD had a sex-magical teaching, no?
As I have suggested before, whether Moina APPROVED of the teaching is a
separate issue from whether she HAD it, and regarded it (as she clearly
does) as a GD teaching.  Whether it came to the Order via Ayton, Westcott,
Mathers' ever-fertile imagination, or wherever, is a separate issue from
whether it was incorporated into the GD, as the two letters clearly state
that it was.

As a secondary point, the HBL teaching as I understand it was a
combination of a sexmagic system with a sophisticated "soul-mate" type
theory; as this seems to have no relation to a theory (and, methinks,
practice) of sexual relations with Elementals, I doubt that the HBL was
the source of this particular teaching.

> Ayton was 
> prominent in both Orders and it is pretty rare for active occultists to 
> keep a strict wall of separation between their interests. Synthesis is 
> usually the rule.
 
So you're saying that Ayton would have synthesized his GD and HBL
teachings, like most OTO people do at least some AA or GD work.  But what
Moina is saying is that a Sex Theory was part of the GD high-grade
teachings, not JUST that some of its members had such a secret.

> Another assumption here is that Fortune's disputed book represents 
> material similar to Ayton's but obtained from separate HBL sources. I 
> still haven't had time to check this in detail, but there are some terms 
> in common from a cursory survey and my admittedly fuzzy recall of this 
> not very interesting book.
> 
> I'm sorry that Michael J. Rae has left this discussion as I found his 
> contributions on the subject of GD sex magic very interesting and 
> thoughtful, even though I disagree with them at a few key points.

Thank you.  But as long as I keep getting forwards on this puppy, I will
certainly keep up with it!

> I 
> continue to feel that Greer is an untrustworthy source based on her 
> conclusions on this issue. They are easy enough to check with her 
> references, and they simply don't show what she says they do. 

That is true on some points, including her misidentification of Mathers
for Westcott.  But it is not Greer herself who I have used as an
authority, but the letters she publishes in her book, and THOSE clearly
seem to say exactly what she says they do: the GD had a sexmagical system
based on human-elemental sexual relations.

> It's as if 
> they've been rounded out with psychically discovered history or 
> something. 

She is guilty of mixing documentary history with Astrology and other
disciplines in an inappropriate manner, but her documents stand by
themselves.

> On this sex issue she treats the Moina Mathers letter as a 
> smoking gun even though it is clearly not.

I must disagree.  The letters seem to me to be as smoking gun as it gets:
I honestl;y don't see how else they can reasonably be read.

> There are some Greer fans that 
> I respect, and I invite any of them to check out these two sets of 
> references about sex magic from her book, and to tell me they're not 
> wrong, and how.

By "they," do you mean the two letters, or her reference to Howe?  The
latter is erroneous; the former ... well, I guess you know my opinion by
now!

EOF
-- 
(emailed replies may be posted); http://www.hollyfeld.org/~tyagi; 408/2-666-SLUG
  join the esoteric syncretism in alt.magick.tyagi; http://www.abyss.com/tokus