Aleister Crowley On Race: An Overview
by Antonio Lau
Aleister Crowley On Race: An Overview
by Antonio Lau
According to Lois G. Gordon, when Nancy Cunard met Aleister Crowley in 1933, her “extensive recollections of their meetings, including their participation at anti-fascist rallies and his consistent ‘anger against the persecution of the Jews and other ghastly events,’ convinced her that he ‘felt deeply about human injustice and public danger.’ ” [from Gordon’s Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist.]
So why do so many people today insist that he was a racist and a white supremacist? Merriam-Webster defines racism as: “a belief that race is the primary determinant of human traits and capacities and that racial differences produce an inherent superiority of a particular race.” So, based on the following literary evidence, we have to ask ourselves: Was Crowley really a “racist”?
At the end of 1905, Crowley and family entered China from Burma by way of Tengyueh. Crowley was advised by George Litton, the British consul of China in Tengyueh, that “One cannot fraternize with the Chinese of the lower classes; one must treat them with absolute contempt and callousness. On the other hand the Chinese gentleman is the noblest and courtliest in the world. His general bearing is that of Athos in The Three Musketeers, at his best. One’s relations with him should be those of absolute mutual respect; and here again, intimacy of any kind is impossible. Each man abides on pinnacles of isolation.”
Some of Crowley’s more recent detractors, who obviously didn’t bother to read that entire chapter of The Confessions of Aleister Crowley, have taken it upon themselves to inform their equally ignorant readers that Crowley himself was here instructing his students to treat “Chinese of the lower classes with absolute contempt and callousness.”...
http://www.arcane-archive.org/faqs/crowleyracistfaq.php
In fact, they seem to have abandoned all logic and somehow turned “Chinese of the lower classes” into all Chinese people throughout the world, and even completely ignored Crowley’s follow up: “On the other hand the Chinese gentleman is the noblest and courtliest in the world,” even though it was literally the very next sentence. Soon after he writes: “We met with a warm welcome at the consulate from Litton’s Chinese wife, an exceedingly beautiful woman with perfect manners. They had five charming children.” And so forth.
Here are a few more things Crowley actually had to say, in his own words, about the Chinese: “I realized instantly their spiritual superiority to the Anglo-Saxon, and my own deep-seated affinity to their point of view.” Later, when he met the Tao Tai of Yunchang, he wrote:
The mandarin was one of the most beautiful men I have ever seen. I use the word beautiful in its strictly aesthetic sense. He was, I judge, between thirty-five and forty years old; his features were astonishingly perfect and their expression full of noble intelligence and lofty benevolence, harmonized by a placidity due to a consciousness of his superiority so unbroken and unquestioned that it had been absorbed into subconsciousness. He was a miracle of art and that art perfectly concealed. His complexion had more than the smoothness of the most exquisite southern European types; yet all this impeccability of excellence was not marred, as is too often the case with Greek sculpture, but lacking that touch of the bizarre which Goethe postulates as essential to supreme beauty. He possessed that peace which I believe is intended to inform images of the Buddha, but which nearly always appears as a mere lack of any positive passion. The mandarin of Yunchang radiated royalty.
In Liber ABA, he states, “Lao Tze is one of our best examples of a man who went away and had a mysterious experience; perhaps the best of all examples, as his system is the best of all systems.” And Lao Tze (Lao-tsu/Laozi) was Chinese. Crowley took pride in his belief that he was the reincarnation of Ko Hsuan (Ge Xuen). Here he speaks of himself in the third person:
There has always been something suggesting the oriental — Chinese or ancient Egyptian — in Alick’s personal appearance. As his mother at school had been called “the little Chinese girl”, so his daughter, Lola Zaza, has the Mongolian physiognomy even more pronounced. His thought follows this indication. He has never been able to sympathize with any European religion or philosophy; and of Jewish or Mohammedan thought he has assimilated only the mysticism of the Cabbalists and the Sufis. Even Hindu psychology, thoroughly as he studied it, never satisfied him wholly. As will be seen, Buddhism itself failed to win his devotion. But he found himself instantly at home with the Yi King and the writings of Lao Tzu. Strangely enough, Egyptian symbolism and magical practice made an equal appeal; incompatible as these two systems appear on the surface, the one being atheistic, anarchistic and quietistic, the other theistic, hierarchical and active. Even at this period the East called to him.
Alick was his childhood nickname, and “at this period” refers to him as an 11 year old boy. However, much of his interests described in this quote were not known to him until over a decade later. And in one last quote regarding the Chinese influence, he writes: “We crossed to Tangiers without delay and I reveled once more and rejoiced to feel myself back among the only people on earth with whom I have ever felt any human affinity. My spiritual self is at home in China, but my heart and my hand are pledged to the Arab.” His adoration of Arabs is so well known that there is no point in quoting all the things he wrote praising them, but these words hardly seem to be the sentiments of a white supremacist.
Regarding Mexicans, Crowley wrote:
I found myself spiritually at home with Mexicans. They despise industry and commerce. Their spirit is brave and buoyant; it had not been poisoned by hypocrisy and the struggle for life.
The maximum of romance and pleasure is to be found in Mexico, even in the quite small provincial towns. It is full of men and women; all seem young and all are charming, spontaneous and ready to make any desired kind of love.
There is no false shame, no contamination by ideas of commerce and material matters in general. There is no humbug about purity, uplift, idealism, or any such nonsense. I cannot hope to express the exquisite pleasure of freedom. One’s spontaneity was not destroyed by anticipations of all sorts of difficulty in finding a friend of any desired type, obstacles in the way of consummating the impulse, and unpleasantness in the aftermath. The problem of sex, which has reduced Anglo-Saxon nations to hysteria and insanity, has been solved in Mexico by the co-operation of climate and cordiality.
Against this we have: “…hashish, which excites certain types of Arab, Indian, Malay or Mexican to indiscriminate murder, whose motive is often religious insanity, has no such effect on quietly disposed, refined and philosophical people, especially if they happen to possess the faculty of self-analysis.” Once again, Crowley detractors conveniently ignore or omit important qualifying phrases such as “certain types” from their thoughts, along with the qualifying mention of religious insanity added to the mix.
But in all fairness, once we get into other races and ethnicities, Crowley’s words do become more damaging to his own reputation, especially to those who are already quick to take offence any chance they can get. For example, let us look at the slur usually reserved for African-Americans these days: the N-bomb.
In 1943, Crowley began a project of sharing letters with Soror Fiat Yod (Anne Macky), in order to eventually produce a book. Magick Without Tears wasn’t published until 1954, and although Karl Germer is credited as the official editor, Phyllis Seckler would later claimed to have done most of the work. I have no idea who actually came up with the titles that had come to be attached to these letters, but the letter that became Chapter 73 is considered the most offensive by far. But here we have another case in which those who have been so outraged by the title obviously didn’t bother to read the letter/chapter. They cry: “He called Blacks and Jews a bunch of monsters!” No, he didn’t. The “monster” was a reference to Joseph Merrick (more famously known as the Elephant Man), who Sir Frederick Treves met in a penny gaff shop on Whitechapel Road. Crowley points out that Merrick “seems to have been a most charming individual” and goes on to state that it is white cowards in the American South who were so terrified of Black people that Lynch Law prevailed, just as the white New Yorker had severe mob-rule phobias against the Irish in politics, the Italians in crime and the Jews in finance. According to Sabazius X°: “In Chapter 73 of Magick Without Tears, we find Crowley himself explaining how racism and classism are both rooted in fear, and how they bring out the worst in people.”
He almost always used the word “Negro” when referring to the African-American, which was the politically correct term at the time. True, he did use it as a slur against a Bengali once: “The doctor was a Bengali named Ram Lal Sircar, a burly n*r of the most loathsome type. I am not fond of Bengalis at the best and he as the worst specimen of his race I have ever seen.” In Diary of a Drug Fiend, Peter Pendragon says, “we always somehow instinctively think of the Italian as a n*r. We don’t call them ‘dagos’ and ‘wops’ as they do in the United States, with the invariable epithet of ‘dirty’; but we have the same feeling.” Peter Pendragon is a fictional character modelled after Cecil Maitland. This is like saying that Quentin Tarantino hates Sicilians and Black people because of something his character says in True Romance. Crowley liked all his neighbours at Cefalu, and seemed to think they felt the same way about him.
Full article here:
Ps. Everyone I know is eagerly awaiting the new book by Tobias Churton
(Publication date: 7th December 2021 e.v.)
Hardcover
A detailed examination of the last 15 years of Crowley’s life
• Reveals Crowley’s sex magick relations in London and his contacts with important figures, including Dion Fortune, Gerald Gardner, Jack Parsons, Dylan Thomas, and black equality activist Nancy Cunard
• Explores Crowley’s nick-of-time escape from the Nazi takeover in Germany and offers extensive confirmation of Crowley’s work for British intelligence
• Examines the development of Crowley’s later publications and his articles in reaction to the Nazi Gestapo actively persecuting his followers in Germany
Drawing on previously unpublished diaries and letters, Tobias Churton provides the first detailed treatment of the final years of Crowley’s life, from 1932 to 1947. He opens with Crowley’s nick-of-time escape from the Nazi takeover in Germany and his return home to England, flat broke. Churton offers extensive confirmation of Crowley’s work as a secret operative for MI5 and explores how Crowley saw World War II as the turning point for the “New Aeon.” He examines Crowley’s notorious 1934 London trial, which resulted in his bankruptcy, and shares inside stories of Crowley’s relations with Californian O.T.O. followers, including rocket-fuel specialist Jack Parsons, and his attempt to take over H. Spencer Lewis’s Rosicrucian Order. The author reveals Crowley’s sex magick relations in London and his contacts with spiritual leaders of the time, including Dion Fortune and Wicca founder Gerald Gardner. He examines Crowley’s dealings with artists such as Dylan Thomas, Alfred Hitchcock, Augustus John, Peter Warlock, and Peter Brooks and dispels the accusations that Crowley was racist, exploring his work with lifelong friend, black equality activist Nancy Cunard.
https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Aleister-Crowley-in-England/Tobias-Churton/9781644112311
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tobias_Churton
Cherry-picking BS. He was a misogynist and a white supremacist in person and a lot of the time in print. In the Holy Books well no of course "he" wasn't because that author was not the negatively conditioned outer-shell Demon Crowley.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
a lot of the time in print.
He PRINTED the "n" word in reference to (at least) one guru in India.
a lot of the time in print.
He PRINTED the "n" word in reference to (at least) one guru in India.
There are many examples.
An axe-grinding ex-member of the OTO has written a detailed essay (with many quotes) on Crowley's racist moments in print here;
ALEISTER CROWLEY : THE RACIST AND NATIONALIST (gdoc.pub)
Here are a couple of examples (in print) of Crowley the anti-racist;
From Chapter 57 of The Confessions
I went on to New York on May 15th and spent a rather hectic ten days sampling the restaurants and theatres.........They would talk of nothing else. Everyone screamed in public and in private about satyrs and angel children, and vampires, and the unwritten law, and men higher up, and stamping out impurity. For the first time in my life I came into contact with mob madness. Modern morality and manners suppress all natural instincts, keep people ignorant of the facts of nature and make them fighting drunk on bogey tales. They consequently seize upon every incident of this kind to let off steam. Knowing nothing and fearing everything, they rant and rave and riot like so many maniacs. The subject does not matter. Any idea which gives them an excuse of getting excited will serve. They look for a victim to chivy, and howl him down, and finally lynch him in a sheer storm of sexual frenzy which they honestly imagine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally avowable emotion. It may be an innocent Negro, a Jew like Leo Frank, a harmless half-witted German; a Christ-like idealist of the type of Debs, an enthusiastic reformer like Emma Goldman or even a doctor whose views displease the Medial Trust
...and from Chapter 80 (on the south and the KKK) ;
In the autumn I accepted an invitation to visit my friends William and Kate Seabrook on their farm in Georgia to which they had retired. .................
I passed a delightful six weeks in the south. Political and social conditions were of great interest. The standardized surface has overspread the south, but it has not completely smothered the old violence of passion and prejudice. The hatred of the Yankee and his fear of the Negro are as great as ever. In the latter case it has increased. The recent revival and the nation-wide spread of the Ku-Klux-Klan is one of the most sinister symptoms of recent years.
In conclusion the Demon Crowley (conditioned Ruach-Nefesh) was a white supremacist but these two quotes here emanate from Crowley's Neshamah, if you like, the real personality.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
Apologies for double post but just to highlight my last point above (on the Cabbalistic parts of the Soul) here it is explained by Crowley in Chapter 54 of The Confessions;
Up to this point, I have been able to interweave the strands of my three lives; the lives of the soul, the mind and the body; or, more accurately, in the language of the Cabbala, the Neschamah, the Ruach and the Nephesch. The Hebrew sages have made an admirably simple, significant and accurate classification.
The Neschamah is that aspiration which in most men is no more than a void and voiceless longing. It become articulate only when it compels the Ruach to interpret it. The Nephesch, or animal soul, is not the body itself; the body is excremental, of the Qliphoth or shells. The Nephesch is that coherent brute which animates it, from the reflexes to the highest forms of conscious activity. These again are only cognizable when they translate themselves to the Ruach.
The Ruach lastly is the machine of the mind converging on a central consciousness, which appears to be the ego. The true ego is, however, above Neschamah, whose occasional messages to the Ruach warn the human ego of the existence of his superior. Such communications maybe welcomed or resented, encouraged or stifled. Initiation consists in identifying the human self with the divine, and the man who does not strain constantly to this end is simply a brute made wretched and ashamed by the fact of selfconsciousness.
https://www.lashtal.com/wiki/Aleister_Crowley_Timeline
which they honestly imagine to be moral indignation, patriotic passion or some equally avowable emotion
If they "honestly believe" in what they are doing, and they succeed, then it's starting to sound like the definition of "Will."
Following up, mentally, not emotionally, on my comment (above), I see endless retorts and reports, even by myself, that lead me to conclude that this racism thing, along with everything else, should probably be a sub-category under "Crowley and his Discrepancies."
In fact, I wonder if there is ANY category or subject that can be evoked wherein AC has not shed some discrepancy. I think the topics of Anti-Christianity and Free Sex All The Time may qualify for non-discrepancy status.
Initiation consists in identifying the human self with the divine, and the man who does not strain constantly to this end is simply a brute ...
This is the "mark" of a (potential) high-level initiate. In his/her life, once a person catches the "first glimpse" of one's so-called "divine" nature, they will constantly work to regain, or permanenticize, that connection.
This is so banal I have decided to write a five hundred page book on Crowley's sex magick and anti-vaccine efforts to bring about a new age of Satan. I will quote third parties who insist on his deep sense of social injustice at children getting the polio vaccine in 1950. The little matter of his death three years earlier shouldn't bother anyone.
In Prophetes Veritas Venit. Quod ambulas cum Thelema et Agape est semper fidelis pietas.
The little matter of his death three years earlier shouldn't bother anyone.
It probably bothered him.
This is so banal I have decided to write a five hundred page book on Crowley's sex magick and anti-vaccine efforts to bring about a new age of Satan.
hehe, your post made me chuckle
I have found that many critiques of Crowley as "racist" actually quote Crowley himself as the proof of said racism, especially his AutoHagiography "Confessions", a concept itself so tongue in cheek how can anyone take this book seriously?
In Crowley's day, the world was indeed racist in practice, to varying degree, obviously–so based on that alone sure Crowley was a racist as anyone else at the time but that makes racism trivial in this regard and does not teach us much about Crowley.
What we call "racism" today was something I think Crowley was likely playing into as "buffoonery" for a chuckle.
A modern example would be say Sarah Silverman, the comedian, playing over the top racists characters in her comedy skits, and then 100 years later people using the comedy skits as evidence she was a racist, clearly missing the context of the theater.
Now, I am not saying Crowley was trying to make fun of "racists" per se, but I do think it is likely he may have been making fun of the British personality type on the world stage at the time that was very obnoxious when it came to race as well as anything "non-British" albeit not as "racist" as Hitler's Germany or as anti-semetic as Stalin.
The same year Crowley received Liber al Vel Legis in 1904 is the same year Britain invaded Tibet, introducing to the Himalayan steppe the concept of the "superior" British as a personality type.
Considering this, what an hysterical "mask" for a "guru" to have, such an over the top character (I cant get Lawrence of Arabia out of my head here "We shall draw the line here...and here!" said with British exasperate insistence)
Crowley, seeking to be or perhaps even poke fun of the concept of a spiritual "World Teacher-Savior" and all would expect from such a messiah, Crowley well over-played his British persona playfully staged, a Pax Brittanica caricature would contain all the elements we would expect to find in Victorian Age England.
"If you have come to help me, then you are wasting your time, but if you are here because your liberation is bound together with mine, then let us work together." Lilla Watson
You say that as if that were a bad thing.Cherry-picking BS. He was a misogynist and a white supremacist in person and a lot of the time in print. In the Holy Books well no of course "he" wasn't because that author was not the negatively conditioned outer-shell Demon Crowley.
Wook at me! Wook at me! I am a bad widdle wacist! Spank me! Spank me!
Infantile, tedious, and double-plus choronzonic.
Another thread headed for Lockdown. At least it's an old necromanticized discussion about racism. Yes, AC wrote things that demoted other races - in print. No further proof is required.
However, how a person, like David Dom, can know what AC's racist views were in person, without having met him in person, is rather vague and not acceptable fas proof.
Wook at me! Wook at me! I am a bad widdle wacist! Spank me! Spank me!
Holy crap that is funny!
We now take a break from the Comedy Hour for a few words from the Original Topic ...
The usual reason given, in regard to AC, is ...
He was a product of his times
... or something like that.
I will both buy and laugh at this petent(ed) clichay.
I have occasionally wondered what his attitude towards people like PB Randolph, Rollo Ahmed or Pamela Coleman Smith was.
The best source for Crowley's attitude towards fellow occultists can be found in the Confessions (Symonds and Grant) search the index, and Magick Without Tears, letters between Crowley and disciples (ed. Karl Germer) in which Crowley very openly discusses his opinions on individual people. iI have occasionally wondered what his attitude towards people like PB Randolph, Rollo Ahmed or Pamela Coleman Smith was.
@toadstoolwe
Yes, indeed. I just don't remember if he mentioned them specifically or even showed awareness of them and those three in particular would be relevant to the topic
@katrice I have been combing the internet to see if Crowley ever knew, or commented on Rollo Ahmed, the closest I came was an article in a website entitled: Celebrating Black Horror History by James Goodridge that mentions that he was friends with Aleister Crowley. Unfortunately, no reference is mentioned, it barely takes up a line of text. (Is it true? I don't know I couldn't find anything else about it.) Pamela C. Smith, (nicknamed Pixie) who was very familiar with A.E. Waite and designed the very famous Waite-Rider- Smith Tarot deck. She was a member of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. She could have rubbed elbows with Crowley, but again no reference to it. P.B. Randolph died in 1875 before Crowley could ever have met him, or even held an opinion about him.
I am aware of these things. I haven't seen any real details on an Ahmed/Crowley connection or on a connection with Smith either.
PBR's writings were in circulation at the time, and known to de Nagowska, Meyrink, Evola, and possibly the pre Crowley OTO, so while they would never have met, his ideas were definitely not unknown at the time.
@katrice Perhaps. Since P.B. Randolph was a proponent of sex magic(K) As were others, so perhaps indirectly. What Crowley thought or wrote about "people of color" might have nothing to do with how he interacted with them personally.
@katrice - I am curious at your lumping together of "PB Randolph, Rollo Ahmed [and] Pamela Coleman Smith", in a discussion of AC's attitudes towards non-white folks.
Randolph and Ahmed were both arguably "black", although in Randolph's case his African ancestry was very limited. But by the "one-drop" rule, he would qualify.
But, while Smith did live for a time in Jamaica, and published some Jamaican folk tales, she was never considered to be anything but an upper-class American white woman by anyone who knew her, and certainly never herself said she had any African or Jamaican ancestry.
I don't think that blackface/minstrel-show performance qualifies a person as "black". You are an unusually well-informed person, so perhaps you know something i don't.
You are an unusually well-informed person, so perhaps you know something i don't.
Thank you.
I've seen multiple articles referring to her at POC, but I am willing to accept that those articles could be wrong. I may be well-informed, but I'm not perfect. To be honest, until your response prompted a search to see what else I could find, I hadn't seen her referred to as purely white before, but now I see there is some disagreement on her racial background.
After doing some googling of my own, i see that the claim that she was half Jamaican is not uncommon.
Some sources say she had a Jamaican father, some say she had a Jamaican mother. But in actuality, both her parents were white Americans of super upper-crust backgrounds, and no one in her family ever set foot in Jamaica before she was 11.
I haven't been able to find any source cited for the claims that she was of African descent, or any purported evidence for this claim. The evidence for her white upper-crust ancestry, on the other hand, is very easy to find.
@tiger Great photo! She may have passed for White, but her features are undeniably Negroid. That was not a big deal in places like France at the turn of the 20th century, but in the U.S. passing for White had its obviously advantages.
She was simply not "Negroid", or "passing". Her parents and grandparents were all white folks. She was from an elite upper-crust Massachusetts family on her mother's side, and an equally elite New York family on her father's side.
Here is a site with photos of her paternal grandfather (mayor of Brooklyn when it was still a separate city), her father, her mother's brother (a famous painter), her mother's sister, and drawings of her maternal grandmother and mother. They are all clearly white folks.
Here is the abstract and footnotes for a recent scholarly book-chapter called "The Myth of Pamela Colman Smith’s Blackness: Ethnic Impersonation in the Modern Esoteric Milieu". Unfortunately as it is recent i can't find the full text on any pirate sites.
Here is a semi-scholarly article making some of the same points, with fairly detailed info as to her family and ancestry.
Of course, it would be fascinating if we were to learn that the designer of the most well-known tarot deck was in fact black and lesbian. Unfortunately, there is not a shred of evidence for the latter, and conclusive evidence against the former. Despite this, these two "facts" are now taken for granted as true by many- classic examples of "too good to check" facts.
@ignant666 If you are interested, here is an address for free E-Book, Pamela Coleman Smith: the untold story. latestdirectedlibrary.blogspt.com/book88.php?... Or just enter the title in your search. I read the SpringerLINK article. Pretty pricey just to download or buy the E-Book.
If you are interested, you can read her publication The Green Sheaf literary magazine, 13 volumes online at Internet Archive. Her illustrations are nice, they have a "woodcut" appearance, like her Tarot design.I am aware of these things. I haven't seen any real details on an Ahmed/Crowley connection or on a connection with Smith either.
PBR's writings were in circulation at the time, and known to de Nagowska, Meyrink, Evola, and possibly the pre Crowley OTO, so while they would never have met, his ideas were definitely not unknown at the time.
Your link doesn't work, and a good thing; links to copyright-infringing material are not allowed. The question of her race is settle to my satisfaction, not that this is a very interesting topic really.
And yet you obviously were interested enough to check it out.Your link doesn't work, and a good thing; links to copyright-infringing material are not allowed. The question of her race is settle to my satisfaction, not that this is a very interesting topic really.
is the abstract and footnotes for a recent scholarly book-chapter called "The Myth of Pamela Colman Smith’s Blackness: Ethnic Impersonation in the Modern Esoteric Milieu". Unfortunately as it is recent i can't find the full text on any pirate sites.
Despite this, these two "facts" are now taken for granted as true by many- classic examples of "too good to check" facts.
I stand corrected. Thank you. I really had not seen anything that contradicted the claims until now.
What i am curious about is: where did the claim that she was black come from?
I never heard it before, but it seems for some reason to have become very commonly accepted in the last 10 years or so. It must be some book or something, but no one who says she was black ever cites any source for this claim, at least among what i have been able to find, so i can't figure out where this claim originates.
It is not a claim that withstands even minimal examination, since her upper-crust family was so well-documented, so it is hard to see how it ever got traction, even in a subculture where folks are eager to believe absurd and obviously false things.
@ignant666 I got it from Katrice. To be honest, I had never heard of her. So at least I learned something new about the. G.'.D.'.
To anyone wondering (like me) how this upper-crust America white woman became part Jamaican, i have what seems like the answer.
I emailed Thea Wirsching, the author of the book chapter "The Myth of Pamela Colman Smith’s Blackness: Ethnic Impersonation in the Modern Esoteric Milieu", and she very kindly sent me a pdf of the chapter. It is good stuff, very well-rehearsed and written, and seems likely to be the last word on this topic.
So, it appears that the culprit here, whether out of wishful thinking and unconscious racism, or a desire to hype sales of his number one seller, is Stuart Kaplan, the head of U.S. Games (the company that claims to have distribution rights over the public-domain Waite-Smith tarot cards). He has written two books about Smith, The Artwork & Times of Pamela Colman Smith Artist of the Rider Waite Deck (2009), and Pamela Colman Smith: The Untold Story (2018), both of which create/perpetrate this racist myth.
It all seems innocent enough to me. It isn't as though she was posing as a Haitian Vodou Mambo. That would have been really impressive and help sell tarot cards and books. "Racist Myth" seems a little conspiratorial.
It isn't as though she was posing as a Haitian Vodou Mambo.
True, she did not pose as Haitian- she posed, and dressed, as a "Jamaican Mammy", and spoke in patois.
She did not apparently ever wear blackface, but was a definite minstrel-show type performer. That is to say, she earned her living doing racist performances for wealthy white audiences, mocking black folks as primitive, stupid, lazy, and inferior to whites.
help sell tarot cards and books
Smith did not consider the tarot deck any kind of big deal; it was pretty obscure until 1971, when US Games began selling it to hippies. Her "Jamaican Mammy" act was in order to sell her several books of "Jamaican folktales", and her services as an entertainer, performing racist caricatures of black women.
"Racist Myth" seems a little conspiratorial.
It is true that Kaplan of US Games may have perpetuated this racist myth out of unconscious/unexamined personal racism, and i acknowledged this in the post you are replying to.
BUT: Given US Games' predatory behavior in the marketplace (they falsely claim to own current copyrights in the Waite/Smith deck, which has been in the public domain worldwide for years, and there is the ongoing "Bleak House" lawsuit with the (c)OTO about the Thoth deck), it is not unreasonable to speculate that Kaplan perhaps deliberately promulgated this myth of Smith as a black woman because it would sell more cards in this "woke" world (is this similar to a wake world, one wonders?).
(is this similar to a wake world, one wonders?)
Similar? Oh, yeah! Both are fantasies. One goes up, while the other spreads out. It is a duplexity, as offered as an excuse in other arenas.
Makes sense to me. Good Show! What is the "Bleak House lawsuit?" Which begs the question, who owns the copyright to Aleister Crowley's published works?
Forgive my "piggy backing" off my last comment. I am sure you very well aware the O.T.O. International Headquarters website. I was looking for info. On the O.T.O. lawsuit against U.S. Games. Their newsletter is a fascinating read.
What is the "Bleak House lawsuit?"
Bleak House is a Dickens novel about an endless lawsuit (that is assigned reading at most law schools), and any very long lawsuit will tend to attract such references.
who owns the copyright to Aleister Crowley's published works?
A complicated question.
The UK and most (all?) Commonwealth nations are "life of the author + 70 years" jurisdictions. So all published Crowley works are in the UK public domain since the end of 2017. Many other countries follow the same rule. Works that were still never published by the end of 1988 remain in UK copyright until the end of 2039.
In the US, the situation is a massive muddle. All copyrights expire at the end of 2042. All unpublished works are in the public domain (but copyright in the UK and many other countries). Everything published in or before 1927 is in the public domain.*
For works first published in the US 1928 through 1963, and most works first published abroad during that period, where copyright was timely renewed by the copyright holder after 28 years (the then-extant term of copyright), the works are copyright for 95 years from publication.
No Crowley copyrights were renewed by the UK bankruptcy authorities ever (they owned the AC copyrights for many years until the (c)OTO bought those rights from them), nor did anyone else purport to renew the copyright in any AC work during the relevant periods.
Thus, everything AC published and all unpublished works are most likely in the public domain in the US and the UK and most of the rest of the world.
Note that i do not practice law, and the above is not legal advice. I urge anyone contemplating US publication of any post-1927 AC work (there are very few, other than the Thoth cards and book) to get good legal advice, and be very very rich, because the (c)OTO will sue you, and will attempt to spend you into the ground to defend their (spurious) claims of copyright.
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* These two facts taken together explain why the long-promised full 6 volume autohagiography will most likely never be published- they ran out the clock on the copyright (published) parts and they went into the public domain, and the unpublished parts were already US public domain. This despite the fact that it was said to be in page proofs more than a decade ago.
who owns the copyright to Aleister Crowley's published works?
There are extensive threads covering this,m all of which are neutralized by the fact that AC's published works are now essentially all in the Public Domain. A few unpublished works are still held in (c) for a few more years.
it (The Spirit of Solitude, by whatever new name) was said to be in page proofs more than a decade ago.
The same is said of other works. Something obviously took place. A paradigm-shift, which involved/involves less (or no) publishing and a withdrawal into segregation from the Publick Mode.
Maybe we can get somebody to do a Tarot reading to find out the occult details?
who owns the copyright to Aleister Crowley's published works?
There are extensive threads covering this,m all of which are neutralized by the fact that AC's published works are now essentially all in the Public Domain. A few unpublished works are still held in (c) for a few more years.
it (The Spirit of Solitude, by whatever new name) was said to be in page proofs more than a decade ago.
The same is said of other works. Something obviously took place. A paradigm-shift, which involved/involves less (or no) publishing and a withdrawal into segregation from the Publick Mode.
Maybe we can get somebody to do a Tarot reading to find out the occult details
I am not sure that a tarot reading would help. You would need a top-notch tarot interpreter. Would you recommend The Book of Thoth, or The Rider-Waite-Smith deck?
AC's published works are now essentially all in the Public Domain.
Except, and this is the big exception, for The Book of Thoth, and more importantly, the Thoth tarot cards. Those were published in the UK in 1944. They are public domain in the UK and Canada, Australia etc, but under US copyright through 2039 (says the (c)OTO).
I think they are in fact in the US public domain, due to failure of the UK Crown bankruptcy authorities (or anyone else) to renew in 1972 (28 years after publication), but you don't see me publishing them.
This is the (c)OTO's cash cow, and the reason they will never stop suing US Games over the US rights, even though Grady sold the "OTO" rights (that he didn't own, but thought he did) to Llewellyn for $250 beer money in 1969.
When the (c)OTO was created in 1978, they began claiming that they owned the rights, and sending lawyer's letters. They later bought the Crowley copyrights, such as they were, from the bankruptcy trustee in 1991.
So, it appears that the culprit here, whether out of wishful thinking and unconscious racism, or a desire to hype sales of his number one seller, is Stuart Kaplan, the head of U.S. Games (the company that claims to have distribution rights over the public-domain Waite-Smith tarot cards).
And who are one of the largest publishers on tarot decks in the world.
Interesting, thank you for sharing that, and thank you for the work you did to find the source!
I'm not sure if hyping the best known tarot deck in the world, which is the basis for a lot of other decks, was needed, but the first two explanations seem plausible.
You would need a top-notch tarot interpreter. Would you recommend The Book of Thoth, or The Rider-Waite-Smith deck?
No problem, there. In the prime of my externalization, I was The Seer of Ensenada, the exploits of that magician being revealed in one of my books ... propably Outside Solar Lodge.
I would not recommend a Tarot deck for this endeavor, unless one wants to take of unbearable karma by anal-eye-zing the sordid details.
After 18 years of the absence of my I Ching, I have ordered another, soon to arrive. I will save the readership and postership from said karma. I will as the I, and I will report the omen.
They are public domain in the UK and Canada, Australia etc, but under US copyright through 2039 (says the (c)OTO).
Thank you for pointing out that exception I will arrange for Lulu, or some other similarity in some United Kingdom country, to comply when I re-publish The Book of Thoth - with all cards in full color.
I will also arrange a business office (probably a box) entity in said country. I have contacts in Japan and Taiwan. I will start there.
... but you don't see me publishing them.
When you get older, you will overcome such immature hesitancies.
But this will only occur when you have absolutely nothing left to lose (including your mind).
I will allow my mind to think twice before I set up shop in the Orient.
Again, I will play the role of resurrectionist. I think this is well-worth re-reading if you have already so, it is a news article from The O.'.T.'.O. '. discussing both the creation and restoration of Lady Harris's beautiful design for the B.O.T. AND an article about perhaps the rarest Crowly book of them all, the gold trimmed, vellum edition of the Book of the Law as pictured in the vary famous portrait of Crowley in his ceremonial hood, wand, panticle, elbows resting on the book while performing the Typhon sign. ( http://oto.org/news0413.html) April 10, 2013
Don't ask me why, but web address is Not Found. I recommend looking up Tarot Forum Thoth Tarot it gives the same address, but you will successfully hit it. I also googled: Who owns the copy right to Thoth tarot.
@toadstoolwe
Thanks for the link....the story of the "Windram collection" is fascinating.
As the topic is Crowley and racism....it is interesting to note that the Caliphate OTO says it
is supporting the Ukraine in his war, and thus are supporting a racist regime that has banned the speaking of Russian, banned the Russian Orthodox Church and opposition political parties, and pushing its population into a suicide meat grinder on the eastern front redux. And in a conflict that was started by the Kiev puppets for the Anglo-Americans and their European vassals, through its civil war against Ukrainians who did not approve of the United States's coup in 2014 accomplished with actual Nazi muscle working in league with various yiddish oligarchs and leading to the murder of the Russian speaking populations in the eastern regions of the country.
And where the present war can not be blamed on Russia, as Russia was pushing peace, the Minsk accords, now demonstrated by revelations of such stooges as Merkl and Macron, to be a bluff to bide time to arm Ukraine for an eventual war against Russia, intended to destroy Russia.
Since there is a branch of the Caliphate OTO in Russia, what does the cOTO in Russia think of such a move by Hyman the Second...unless the cOTO in Russia is just a CIA hangout, and members around the world are not bright enough to recognize that the Order should drop such a partisan position...unless the Caliphate is in some ways blackmailed or otherwise stupid.
Of course a CIA/MI6 and its privatized tentacles, NGO's and the like, have long sought a coup against President Putin, and cults have long been a means of serving such geopolitical strategies for Anglo-Americans who supported violent Islamic militancy of various stripes, Christian fundamentalist and the those with a Massada complex, if not materialism and commercial contract culture of the "Rules Based Order" based upon lying and murder.
Anyways Putin's unlikely ouster, if it were to occur would only facilitate hardliners in Russia who might well ditch Russia's prohibition on a thermonuclear first strike and utilize what military analyst Scott Ritter identifies is a check-mate thermonuclear capability against the bankrupt west and the little fools of a trademarked "kill me" cult....