Today, I am interviewing Dr Manon Hedenborg White, a postdoctoral researcher at Södertörn University in Sweden. Dr Hedenborg White is a specialist in the study of Thelema, the religion founded by famous occultist Aleister Crowley, on the subject of which she has written an important recent monograph, The Eloquent Blood: The Goddess Babalon and the Construction of Femininities in Western Esotericism (Oxford University Press, 2020). She has also co-edited special issues of both The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies and Aries: Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism and contributed chapters to volumes including Magic and Witchery in the Modern West and Controversial New Religions. We discuss her new book, the Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte, and the increasing scholarly attention being paid to gender within esotericism.
[EDW]
Thelema is not a particularly well-known religion, even among scholars of new
religious movements, and Aleister Crowley himself is often misunderstood and
even demonised. For that reason, could you give readers a very basic
introduction to what Thelema is.
[MHW] Thelema
(Greek for “will”) is the religion founded in 1904 by Aleister Crowley. Its
foundational document is The Book of the Law (or Liber AL vel Legis),
a text Crowley held was dictated to him by a discarnate being named Aiwass. The
central maxim of Thelema is “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law”
and the related “Love is the law, love under will”. Rather than an injunction
to follow each impulsive whim or desire, this refers to what Crowley described
as the “true Will” — the unique purpose of each life, which it is incumbent on
each individual to discover and fulfil. The Book of the Law (and
Crowley’s later interpretations thereof) suggests a dialectical ontology,
centring on the generative coupling of the goddess Nuit, representing limitless
space, and her consort Hadit, the infinitely condensed life-force of each
individual. Their ecstatic union generates Ra-Hoor-Khuit, a manifestation of
the Egyptian god Horus. This is important as The Book of the Law also heralds
the advent of a new age in the spiritual evolution of humanity (with Crowley as
its prophet), which Crowley later identified as the Aeon of Horus, and which he
believed would be characterised by radical social transformation, the union of
the spiritual and material, and a focus on individual liberation.
Crowley’s
system of Magick combined ceremonial magic in the style of the Hermetic
Order of the Golden Dawn with yogic techniques he learned while travelling in
India, Ceylon, and Burma. After joining the initiatory fraternity Ordo Templi
Orientis and being made head of its British section in 1912, Crowley also began
experimenting systematically with sexual magic, and came to view sexuality as a
supremely potent magical force. Crowley has frequently been demonised due to
his advocacy of sexual freedom – and not least the fact that he was openly
bisexual – as well as his liberal use of drugs and engagement with various
forms of social and religious transgression. Of course, many of the ideas he
espoused relating to sexual liberalism and individual self-development are much
more mainstream today, so I think it’s fair to say that Crowley was ahead of
his time in many ways.
[EDW]
Where does your interest in occultism come from? Is this something that you’ve
had from childhood/young adulthood or did it develop while you were at
university?
[MHW] I’ve
held this interest since childhood, though it took many years for it to take
form. When I was very young, my grandfather used to read to me from a children’s
book of Greek mythology, which I adored. When playing make-believe with my
friends, I’d adopt the names of Greek goddesses or mythological women like
Ariadne and Atalanta. When I was five or six years old, my father introduced me
to his Thoth Tarot deck (the tarot deck co-created by Crowley and the artist
Frieda Harris), which we used to play around with and draw cards from. Growing
up, I was fascinated by “fringe” religious movements and belief systems, and
was attracted to occultism, but didn’t have a context for it at all — none of
my friends held similar interests, so I mostly explored magical worlds in
fiction and films (though I briefly ran a secret society of my own – the Order
of the Mistletoe – complete with degrees and initiatory pledges, which I
recruited my siblings into). I devoured anything I could find that pertained to
witches, vampires, demons, secret societies, arcane rites, or ancient paganisms,
and wrote short stories and spin-offs to my favourite novels. Donna Tartt’s The
Secret History exerted a huge fascination, as did Marion Z. Bradley’s The
Mists of Avalon, and anything related to ancient Egypt.
I
was also fascinated by stories about pacts with the Devil, watching Polanski’s The
Ninth Gate in my teens. It became (and remains) an instant favourite. Like
many people in my field (or so I’ve heard), I remember thinking that being an
occult “book detective” (like the film’s protagonist, played by Johnny Depp) would
be a dream gig! But it wasn’t until I began attending university that I realised
this was something I could seriously pursue, and which could even turn into a
profession. I studied social anthropology during my first semester, but quickly
moved on to history of religions as this seemed to be the way to go if one
wanted to pursue PhD studies around an esoteric topic (which I decided halfway
into my first semester at university that I wanted to do). Though Lucifer
hasn’t materialised before me on any of my research trips (at least not yet),
my teenage self would have been over the moon to learn that she would get to
sift through arcane manuscripts and study magical rituals for a living.
[EDW]
Related to the previous question, what led you to choose the specific PhD topic
that you pursued? Did the topic shift over the course of your research?
[MHW] From
the outset of my academic studies, I was interested in the nexus of (Western)
esotericism, gender, and sexuality. One of my earliest undergraduate papers
focused on a comparison between the Virgin Mary and the Thelemic goddess
Babalon, who appears in Crowley’s visionary record of 1909 and is
inspired by his favourable re-interpretation of the Whore of Babylon from the
Book of Revelation. This project subsequently turned into my first
independently authored peer-review article (published in Swedish in the journal
Aura in 2011), and – gradually – into a PhD project proposal on the
changing construction of femininities and feminine sexuality in the discourse
around the goddess Babalon from Crowley until today. I was fascinated by the
way in which a biblical antagonist could be reshaped as an emblem of divine
femininity in the early-twentieth century, and – especially – the ways in which
it seemed to challenge pervasive notions of femininity and feminine sexuality in
wider society around that time. In the early twentieth century, even feminists
mostly tended to focus their political efforts in the area of sexuality on
protecting women from sexual harm and damage — and won crucial political
victories in doing so. But there were few who actively and unapologetically
celebrated female sexual desire – and especially outside of a monogamous,
heteronormative context – so it was quite a radical move for Crowley and his
followers at this time to envision the divine feminine in the form of the whore
goddess Babalon, celebrating the free expression of sexuality in all its forms,
for all genders. I wanted to understand what this symbolic reconfiguration
meant for the understanding of femininity and women’s roles, and how it evolved
over the twentieth century and up until today in the interface with feminist
and queer thought (which have impacted the contemporary occult landscape in
many ways). The end result – my dissertation – remained relatively faithful to
the original idea in terms of topic and materials, though my theoretical
framework evolved considerably, and came to incorporate theorisation on
femininities, femme, and sex radical feminist perspectives that I hadn’t
considered to begin with. One of my PhD supervisors, Professor Ulrika Dahl
(Uppsala University), is a trailblazer in the field of critical femininity
studies and was instrumental to bringing these tools to my awareness. The work
of feminist theorists such as Luce Irigaray, Mimi Schippers, Rosi Braidotti,
Ann Cvetkovich, and Ulrika herself has been absolutely indispensable to me in
learning to think about femininities – in the plural – beyond rigid binaries of
essentialism/constructivism, both as symbolic constructs and modes of being
that are not predetermined either by a specific biological morphology nor by
heterosexuality.
[EDW]
As part of your research you’ve placed quite an emphasis on Thelemites other
than Crowley, including those whose most significant work took place after
Crowley’s death (Jack Parsons, Marjorie Cameron, Kenneth Grant etc). Although
there are others who have done this (namely Martin P. Starr and Henrik Bogdan),
academic discussion has primarily focused on Crowley himself rather than on his
followers. Where do you think scholarship stands when it comes to Thelema
beyond Crowley?
[MHW] The
study of (Western) esotericism is still fairly young in an academic context, so
of course there are still a lot of gaps in what has been researched. I mean, we
still lack solid, academic biographies for many of the foundational figures of
modern occultism, not to mention their disciples! Within the last few decades,
there have been major advances in the study of Crowley and Thelema, but of
course there is still work to be done, not least in terms of situating the
ideas of Crowley and the other Thelemites within their historical, cultural,
and social contexts. Crowley is such a colourful character, whose oeuvre and
life story are so rich with possibilities for scholarly exploration that he sometimes
tends to overshadow those around him. But of course, religious or esoteric
movements are rarely the sole creation of a singular individual. I think there
is something to be said for viewing early Thelema not solely as Crowley’s
invention, but as the product of a social milieu wherein others participated
and made meaningful contributions. Martin P. Starr’s The Unknown God:
Wilfred T. Smith and the Thelemites (Teitan Press, 2003) is a great
example of this, as is Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism (eds.
Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr, Oxford University Press, 2012), which also
shows how Crowley’s ideas have been developed in later forms of esotericism. Going
forward, I hope to see more of this, in addition to sociological and
ethnographic scholarship on Thelema (as well as other forms of esotericism) in
a contemporary context, showing how Thelemic practices and beliefs have evolved
over time in the interface with other forms of esotericism as well as social
and political movements.
[EDW]
Your thesis combined historical analysis with ethnographic work among
contemporary Thelemites, especially in the United States; if I understand
correctly, that makes you one of the first scholars to publish research based
on ethnographic work among Thelemites. How were you received among these
Thelemites and subsequently how have Thelemites (and other Crowley-oriented
occultists) responded to the publication of The Eloquent Blood?
[MHW] My
experience doing fieldwork among contemporary Thelemites was overwhelmingly
positive. My interlocutors were a very well-spoken, easy-going crowd, with a great
sense of humour and a genuine interest in academic research on their tradition.
I am tremendously grateful for their time and input, and not least the help I received
in accessing unpublished archival sources, which has been invaluable to me.
Many of those I got to know during my fieldwork remain my good friends. I am also
very happy to say that the general response to my book from the Thelemic
community and beyond has been very positive: many Thelemite readers (as well as
other esoteric practitioners) have reached out to me with positive feedback,
and I frequently receive speaking invitations from various branches of the
Thelemic community.
Of course, there have also been critical comments: for some readers, mere mention of words such as “gender”, “feminism”, or “Judith Butler” seems to provoke indignation. Conversely, I have also been accused of being anti-feminist as I am seen as defending a “stereotypical” or passive femininity. It’s true — things like lipstick, high heels, garters, and sexual availability do figure in many (but of course not all) esotericists’ rituals, artistic renditions, and imaginings of Babalon. I don’t see this as inherently problematic or oppressive to women, and I take seriously the ways in which such aesthetic styles and practices entail both receptivity and agency. Moreover, I don’t view it as my job as a scholar to rate or judge esoteric movements or practitioners according to my own personal standards of empowerment or liberation. To some, this reads as a betrayal of feminist ideals. I think this is telling — as I address in the book, femininity has often been seen as a problem, even within many feminist circles; as an artificial, debilitating mask that women must discard in pursuit of liberation. As a scholar, I find such readings of femininity too simplistic. Firstly, viewing femininity as something exclusively performed for the benefit of the male gaze marginalises queer feminine desire, and secondly, I feel it is important to consider the ways in which all gendered expressions are, to some extent, culturally constructed. Thirdly, vulnerability and restriction (as some conventionally “feminine” aesthetic styles may certainly connote!) do not preclude agency, and I am inspired by femme and sex radical theorists in this regard. I find these reader responses interesting, as they indicate how femininity is still a tender spot, something that incites disdain as well as desire. But most of all, I am happy to see all kinds of responses to the book as it means it is being read — this, to me, is the most gratifying thing of all.
[EDW]
One of the most striking features of The Eloquent Blood is that it draws
from theoretical perspectives rooted in critical theory, feminist philosophy,
and related currents of thought. Although various historical works on
Spiritualism and Theosophy have certainly been informed by women’s studies,
generally speaking these theoretical approaches are not something we see a lot
of in the study of esotericism; do you think that these sorts of approaches are
going to have a much greater impact on the field going forward and what do you
feel they are bringing to the table?
[MHW] It
is difficult for me to answer this question succinctly as I think critical
theory and gender and queer studies have tremendous potential for the study of
esotericism. These paradigms have been essential to my development as a
scholar, and my manner of thinking and asking questions about the topics that I
study is completely informed by a critical approach to established categories
and binaries. Gender and feminist theory allows us to think about very concrete
things like: why were Theosophy and Spiritualism attractive to many first-wave
feminists, while contemporary Satanism has tended to attract a higher number of
men? How and why did early-modern alchemy function as a forum in which women
alchemists were able to construct theories about gender that could challenge
official notions of men’s and women’s social roles? What are the historical
inspirations for the idea of gender as a polarity, as seen in the writings of
late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century writers on sexual magic, and what
were the implications of these ideas? And why are young LGBTQ folks today
turning towards – and creatively reformulating – currents and practices like
astrology, witchcraft, and tarot? These, and countless other examples,
demonstrate how questions of gender are not peripheral to the study of
esotericism, but are central to the ways in which esoteric currents have taken
form and developed over time.
The
academic study of esotericism has often overlooked gender, resulting in
frequent obscuration of the experiences and contributions of women and
gender-nonconforming persons, but also to esoteric masculinities being
under-examined. There has been much excellent research aimed at addressing this
imbalance, especially in recent decades, and there will certainly be more — I
am particularly looking forward to Professor Christine Ferguson (University of
Stirling) and Dr. Tanya Cheadle’s (University of Glasgow) forthcoming special
issue for Correspondences: Journal for the Study of Esotericism on
“Masculinities, Sexualities, and Esotericism”. However, I often find that
gender is still viewed as supplementary or “add-on” knowledge within the study
of esotericism; as something that is primarily of relevance to those who are
particularly interested in women, rather than something with the potential to
challenge the way we think about esoteric currents, groups, and thinkers at a
general and conceptual level. Given the historical marginalisation of women and
femininities from hegemonic institutions of knowledge production and scientific
rationality, the notion of esotericism as “rejected knowledge” (as pioneered by
Wouter J. Hanegraaff) could productively be engaged from perspectives of
gender. Conversely, a gender perspective can also highlight how esoteric
epistemologies, while in some sense rejected from these institutions, have also
reproduced hegemonic logics that have subordinated women, people of colour, and
gender and sexual minorities. It is also interesting to note that historically,
the marginalisation of Platonic worldviews coincident with the advent of Western
modernity also paralleled with a gradual transition from a hierarchical model
of gender to a model of biological, sexual dimorphism and complementarity.
Thus, knowledge of the ways in which esotericism has developed in relation to
the cultural mainstream also helps us understand changing notions of gender.
[EDW]
You’ve just edited a special edition of Aries: Journal for the Study of
Western Esotericism devoted to “Rethinking Aleister Crowley and Thelema.” Could
you tell us a bit more about this?
[MHW] As
noted, Crowley has attracted serious scholarly attention in the last few
decades, but much fertile soil remains for scholarly interventions
contextualising his ideas and those of his followers historically and
culturally. With this special issue, I wanted to bring together a selection of
essays that approach the study of Crowley and/or Thelema in novel ways.
Christian Giudice (independent scholar) explores Crowley’s early poetry,
proposing a re-evaluation of the British occultist as a genuine representative
of British Decadence. Henrik Bogdan (University of Gothenburg) analyses the
concept of God in Crowley’s magical writings, situating the latter within contemporary
tensions of modernity, disenchantment, and disillusionment with organised
religion. Matthew Fletcher (University of Bristol) examines Crowley’s The
Book of Thoth (1944), linking Crowley’s decision to change the names of
several tarot trumps to his wish to rid the tarot of Christian influences in
favour of the tenets of Thelema. Deja Whitehouse (University of Bristol) traces
Frieda, Lady Harris’s relationship with Crowley’s Thelema, thus providing new
context for the collaborative relationship that birthed the Thoth Tarot.
Finally, my own article explores the role of Crowley’s lover and disciple Leah
Hirsig (1883–1975) through a Weberian lens, proposing an addition to Weber’s
tripartite typology of authority in the form of “proximal authority” — authority
ascribed to or enacted by a person based on their real or perceived closeness
to a leader. It is my hope that the publication of this special issue will give
rise to new discussions and approaches, and inspire further revisitation of
familiar topics in novel ways.
[EDW]
With Fredrik Gregorius, you also have an article in the journal Religions,
looking at the uses of the Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte within the Anglo-American
occult milieu. It’s a fascinating topic; how did you come to pursue it?
[MHW]
This
has been a fascination of mine for some time. It started while I was travelling
in the U.S. in 2012. Visiting botánicas (stores selling religious goods,
medicinal herbs, oils, perfumes, incenses, et cetera), especially in California
and Texas, I increasingly came across statues and paraphernalia depicting a
robed, Grim Reaper-esque figure — the Mexican folk saint Santa Muerte
(literally “Saint Death” or “Holy Death”). Looking into the origins of this
figure brought me to read R. Andrew Chesnut’s Devoted to Death: Santa Muerte, the Skeleton Saint (Oxford University Press, 2012), from which
I learned that Santa Muerte is seen as an extremely powerful and
non-judgmental miracle worker. Traditionally something of a patroness for marginalised
or disenfranchised people in Mexico – women, the working classes, LGBTQ people,
and sex workers, as well as for people involved in both sides of the drug war
– she has become increasingly popular on both sides of the Mexico–U.S.
border. Doing fieldwork among occult practitioners in the U.S., I came across
Santa Muerte statues in the homes and ritual spaces of many of my
interlocutors. I’ve also had the opportunity to visit and attend services in
shrines to Santa Muerte in the U.S. and Mexico, including what is likely the
most famous one — the Santa Muerte shrine in Tepito, Mexico City. I find the
cult of Santa Muerte to be a fascinating example of lived religion and the ways
in which it can function as a site of resistance, and it’s something I would
love to research further at some point. Sadly, my current Spanish skills aren’t
sufficient to do fieldwork in Mexico, but maybe someday?
[EDW]
With Professor Christine Ferguson of the University of Stirling you launched
the Esotericism, Gender, and Sexuality Network (ESOGEN) as part of the European
Society for the Study of Western Esotericism (ESSWE) in 2019. Could you tell us
more about the launch of this group and what you see as its role within the
study of esotericism?
[MHW] Affiliated
with the European Society for the Study of Western Esotericism, ESOGEN is a
thematic network that aims to bring together research efforts around the nexus
of esotericism, gender, and sexuality, and organise funding bids, conferences,
and panels around these topics, and promote inter-disciplinary dialogue between
scholars and students. Our inaugural event will be ESOGEN Symposium, an
international one-day Zoom conference organised in collaboration with the
Center for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, taking place on
April 16 this year. This event will feature paper presentations from around 20
MA and PhD students, as well as a keynote lecture by Christine. We will also be
hosting a panel discussion at the next ESSWE conference (taking place in Cork,
and scheduled for 2022) around the topic of Western esotericism, gender, and
the creative arts.
[EDW]
You are presently engaged in a postdoctoral project at Södertörn University on
the subject of “Power through Closeness? Female Authority and Agency in a
Male-Led New Religion” as part of which you were looking at Thelemite women
Leah Hirsig, Jane Wolfe, and Marjorie Cameron. Can you tell us more about this
new project?
[MHW] In
a sense, the purpose of this project has been two-fold. Firstly, it has aimed
to analyse 20th-century Thelema through the perspective of some of the women
who were essential to its development: the Swiss-American music teacher Leah
Hirsig (1883–1975), who was Crowley’s lover and disciple in the early 1920s,
and co-founded his Abbey of Thelema at Cefalù, Sicily; the American silent film
actress Jane Wolfe (1875–1958), who studied under Crowley at Cefalù and was
integral to the establishment of Thelema in the U.S. in the 1930s and 1940s;
and the artist, poet, and avant-garde icon Marjorie Cameron (1922–1995). To
that end, I have been working with archival sources, mostly unpublished:
diaries, letters, ritual descriptions, visionary records, and so on, in order
to understand these women’s lives and esoteric practices at the intersection of
gender, sexuality, and alternative religiosity. Secondly, the project utilises
these women’s roles in Thelema as a starting point for an investigation of
female religious authority. To that end, I’ve been drawing on scholarship on
women in new religious movements more broadly, and have proposed an addition to
Max Weber’s tripartite categorisation of authority: proximal authority, which I
define as authority ascribed to or enacted by a person based on their real or
perceived closeness to a leader. My hypothesis is that the category of proximal
authority is particularly productive for understanding how women (and other
potentially marginalised groups) navigate authority via close relationships,
and in a future project I will be developing this terminology based on a
broader range of case studies.
[EDW]
Are there any new projects of yours in the pipeline that we should keep our
eyes out for?
[MHW] Right
now, I am involved in two book projects, both of which focus on women in 20th-century
Thelema. With Dr. Christian Giudice, I am co-editing a volume entitled Women
of Thelema, to be published by Kamuret Press, comprising a selection of
historical essays on some of the most important women in the Thelemic
tradition. With Professor Henrik Bogdan, I am working on an annotated edition
of the magical diaries of Leah Hirsig, 1923–1925, which has been accepted for
publication by Oxford University Press. This will be the first academic,
annotated, and complete edition of Hirsig’s diaries from a crucial period of
her life and magical career, and will feature a selection of contemporary
letters as well as previously unpublished photographs.
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