Women's experiences in Thelema

[brandywilliams]

In the last week or so a couple of us have posted about dealing with sexism and racism in Crowley's writings. stevensteven made a really good point today - he said, granted that Crowley said racist and sexist things. What is the next point

Comments

[asicath]

The order owns the copyright on this material and we are its sole publishers. I'm curious, which do you think would be preferable:

1. Continue to publish the material as is.
2. Publish the material as is, but add foot notes on certain paragraphs saying this is not the opinion of the order.
3. Remove the offending material without note.
4. Stop publishing any Crowley material that contains offending material.
5. Another option?

[omni_videns]

I prefer options 1 or 2, myself. I find Crowley's racism/sexism as abhorrent as most anyone else, but I think to censor or restrict access to his writings does us no benefit either.

[matertiamat]

Agreed. The need is not to change Crowley or his writings, it's to pay attention to our own attitudes and dialog. After all, we're here, alive and thinking, and have much to contribute. In my opinion it's not so much that Crowley wrote some awful things, it's that modern day Thelema is so hesitant to publicly say those things are horrible, so a person trying to work the system despite the -isms and -phobias has nowhere to turn.

[tzaddi_93]

Exactly. It's the "What sexism? What racism?" that is the core of the problem. And it is a very large problem indeed.

[stevensteven]

One way you could do it is to have classes at your temple and choose one of the Prophet's writings and go through it line by line.

Read the commentary, read other peoples commentary, go around the room and let people share their thoughts.

This way you can try to determine the true meaning and intent as well as show the public what the local members think.

We started early last year doing it once a month and now we do it twice a month. Sometimes there is so much on point discussion that we can only get through one line in a 90 minute class.

Who else is doing this?

[tedgill]

One thing we can do is read someone besides Crowley, like Mary Daly or bell hooks and See how these womens' positions inform our understanding of the Law of Liberty.

[stevensteven]

Mary Daly? Who taught for the Jesuits here locally? She is not only not a thelemite, but she is anti-thelema. Or Bell "I want to kill white Men" Hooks?

Why reach out to bizarre radicals when there is so much to learn from the prophet?

[tzaddi_93]

This attitude--that Thelemites should only learn from Crowley--is part of the problem here. Crowley himself was a bizarre radical in his day, and I believe he would scoff at anyone who accepted his work without question. Crowley was a prophet and a brilliant man, but he was still fallible.

Since when should Thelemites only read works written by other Thelemites? I find Thelemic ideals in many thoughts expressed by those who are not and would never claim to be Thelemites.

[stevensteven]

Who said we should only learn from Crowley? if you read what I write elsewhere in this thread, I said we frequently refer to other writers when trying to understand Crowley.

My question is how is Mary Daly going to inform us about Thelema or Crowley? This is a women who was fired for refusing to teach men in her classes and think transgendered people are Frankensteins.

If there is a connection between that and Thelema share it with us. If not we are here at our local bodies to promote Thelema and not the type of discrimination she promotes.

[tzaddi_93]

I personally have a big problem with Mary Daly's statements about transgendered people. And I don't like how negative she was about men. I have no problem with men. I have a problem with the way society to this day privileges men over women and the men who fiercely defend that privilege

[tedgill]

Such efforts to make the Order more inclusive would seem to fall directly in line with the US Grand Lodge's diversity program.

And I have to agree that I have many big problems with Mary Daly -- her attitudes toward men and transgender issues are at the top of the list. But wowzers did she ever teach me a lot about how more than half of the population is hampered and confounded in their efforts to do their Will by actions and attitudes of others. And how both conscious and unconscious choices that I made perpetuate that tyranny and oppression. And what I could do to be more perceptive about helping women to do their Wills (mostly by shutting up and getting out of the way, and occasionally by supporting them publicly). This a considerable part of how I devote myself to the Establishment and Extension of the Law of Thelema, here in the New Aeon.

[tzaddi_93]

Mary Daly introduced many people to feminism and did a lot of good work. I like to see that acknowledged as long as the deep problems with it are also acknowledged and not swept under the rug.

[tedgill]

Absolutely. I am struck by the symmetry of the problem -- it's the same one we face with Crowley's work, and the comments that it's suggestion drew from Men of Privilege(TM) were astonishingly similar to the very ones which started this discussion, although with a lot more eleventies!111! attached.

[stevensteven]

Ted, I think I may be the only man that commented here about Mary daly, would you be referring to me?

I'd be very interested in knowing specifics of how these issues effect your local body, and what specifically you are doing in the context of your local body to overcome.

We can speak around the issue and in abstracts all over LJ, but we need or at least I need specifics in order to be able to apply any of this.

[asicath]

Yes, in fact I would be referring to you. I observe that your response to Mary Daly exactly parallels the response Brandy is referring to when some women first pick up Crowley -- you discover wrong-headed thoughts that seem to undermine the very premise of her work, and actions, unexplained or un-contextualized, which seems at odds with principles of "fair play". Why would you bother to consider anything this person said as having any worth? Who are these misguided troglodytes that think this bigoted, exclusionist, bizarre, radical nut-job has anything to contribute to the understanding of freedom, liberation, or equality? Such questions are equally applicable to Crowley and Daly; I think the two of them make rather nice bookends, actually