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To: thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org
From: yronwode 
Subject: Re: Crowley and Paederasty
Date: Sun, 31 Jan 1999 19:58:58 -0800

> Christeos Pir wrote:
> #  assurances that one is not a thief or a member of NAMBLA,
> 
> (nigris (333) wrote:
> "North American Man Boy Love Association"; i.e. PAEDERASTY.
>
> Christeos Pir wrote:
> # While I certainly oppose preditors I am not sure that
> # ever member of NAMBLA would fall into this categorie.
> 
> # I would also point out that I do not personally know any
> # members of NAMBLA (AFAIK), and was just using this as an example.

One of the very early members or co-founders of NAMBLA was Walter Breen.
The former husband of the science fiction author Marion Zimmer Bradley,
he was also an expert on early American numismatics, and the cause of
the so-called "Breen Boondoggle" which ripped apart Bay Area science
fiction fandom in the mid 1960s when he was caught sexually molesting a
young girl and was barred from the World Science Fiction Convention in
Oakland. 

Around the same time, Breen stole rare first edition copies of
Aleister Crowley books, magazines, and manuscripts from my parents'
antiquarian bookstore in Berkeley, including a first edition of "777" --
and he was subsequently barred from entering most Bay Area rare book
stores because he was a known book thief. (We had gotten the Crowley
material when we purchased in its entirety the library of the deceased
Mistress of the Lotus Lodge of Oakland, California, whose name i have
forgotten, along with her ritual robes and tools, and so forth; she had
been a friend of Crowley's and he had sent her many items gratis,
including a small, colourful catalogue of the 1940s exhibit of Frieda
Harris's original paintings for the Thoth deck at a London art gallery,
which i kept for lo, these 35 years, until i presented it to Frater
Nigris in celebration of our falling in love.) 

Walter Breen was eventually convicted of child sex abuse by testimony 
taken from parents in the local coin collecting community, not in 
fandom or the thelemite community, and he died in prison. Another 
former NAMBLA member and close friend of Breen's was the Bay Area 
science fiction fan and "free love" exponent Jefferson Poland, a.k.a 
Jefferson Fuck Poland, a.k.a. Jefferson Clitlick Poland. He too was 
convicted of child sex abuse and spent time in the slammer. He is now 
a registered sex offender, forbidden from consorting with children. 

No, i cannot personally vouch for the fact that every member of NAMBLA 
is a child sex abuser...but i knew both of those men personally -- and 
they both were. Their cohort Sandy Cutrell -- by which i mean all three 
were good friends -- was also a member of Bay Area science fiction 
fandom in the 1960s. He may not have been a member of NAMBLA, but if not, 
probably only because his interest was the sexual abuse of *girl* 
children. He admitted his entire sorry history to me in the mid-1980s, 
and explained that friends of his had barred him from their house because 
he gave their young daughter comic books as a bribe so that she would sit 
on his face. Needless to say, i did not take this confession lightly and 
i told him he was unwelcome in my house as well. 

My point: here i knew three Bay Area sex abusers in the 1960s, two
convicted and one self-confessed, of whom all three were  members of
science fiction fandom, two were members of NAMBLA, and one was a
self-professed Crowleyite.  Am i going overboard here? Is it a
coincidence that OTO has had problems with NAMBLA members (in the Bay
Area?) per Bill H.? Who knows? 

nigris (333) wrote: 
> the presupposition of the culture which forbids sexuality
> of those of adult maturity with the immature is that it is
> EQUIVALENT to predation on the basis that the immature are
> incapable of rendering informed decisions on matters so
> disorienting and powerful as sexuality. it is obvious that
> NAMBLA disagrees with this premise and therefore is
> composed of predators by the standards of the society in
> which it has been formed.

Speaking as a former victim of child sex abuse, i think that these
safeguards are wise and to flout them in the interest of invidual
liberty is simply to deny to children the right to a safe childhood. 

> I've been editing a text that I think the Crowleyite
> community should consider very carefully [...] it is called
> "Bagh-i-muattar", contains descriptions of obviously
> paederastic (and often physically damaging) anal sex
> performed upon a "youth". [...] does anyone know who 
> this is:
> 
>         HERBERT CHARLES JEROME POLLITT?
> 
> this name is enciphered into the first letters of each
> line in the chapter called 'The Riddle' [...]
> far from being the exotic Arab "youth" whose "podex"
> is the obsession of Crowley's protagonist 'El Qahar',
> 'Pollitt' would seem to have been British. the questions
> remain: who was Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt? what was
> his age relative to Crowley's? and was Crowley truly
> engaged in the sexual abuse of boys?

> Christeos Pir wrote:
> Read Crowley's "Confessions." Pollitt was a college buddy (roommate?),
> slightly older as I recall, who first introduced Crowley to unashamed
> homosexuality.

> Kjetil Fjell  wrote: 
> 
> H.C.J.P. was a transvestite dancer and was much older than Crowley.  He
> was Crowley's homoerotic romance par excellence, and Crowley would 
> many years later use Pollitt in his masturbation fantasies (check The 
> Magical Record of the Beast 666).

Look, folks:  this is contradictory. Was Pollitt a college buddy,
"slightly older" ... or a transvestite dancer "much older" than Crowley? 

Could someone with access to the cited books please provide a plausible
answer? Thanks. 

> Crowley was always the passive paederast and even wrote
> a poem about it in White Stains (The Ballad of Paasive
> Paederasty).

Well, in the Bagh-I-Muattar Crowley wrote about fucking some "youth" up
the ass until the boy bled from his anus. He went on quite at length
about how delightful the blood looked, in fact. 

So are y'all saying that Herbert Pollitt was not the "youth" whom
Crowley was sodomizing until the poor kid bled, but rather that it was
*Crowley* who was the youthful, passive, bloodied victim of the "much
older" Pollitt? 

Please clarify! 

Also, a side note to those on the list who wish me to believe that
"paederasty" meant something different to Crowley than it does today.
Does this mean that pedagogy used to mean the education of men rather
than children and that paediatrics was then the practice of medicine
upon men rather than upon children?  Get real, will ya? 

catherine yronwode

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