Author: Jon Sewell

Gender Essentialism and The Rites of Eleusis

As you may have guessed from the title, I am about to encourage ritualists to be bold, experimental, and entirely free from restraint when it comes to gender roles in The Rites of Eleusis. So if you were just wanting my broad opinion on the subject, you can move along, because that is exactly the position I endorse.

If you would like to know my reasons for supporting such a broad attitude, or you want to review my bullet-point in order to engage me in a lively debate, let’s dive in and examine my views.

But before that:
***BIG DISCLAIMER*** This is my blog. These are my opinions. They are based on 18 years of practice, study, success, failure and hard work. These opinions carry the weight of that sweat, determination, and foolhardy optimism as the singular seal of their authority; they are not statements endorsed or supported by any organization, including O.T.O., A.:. A.:., or E.G.C.

Now, to my list of reason why an essentialist adherence to the gender roles in The Rites of Eleusis is unfounded or unnecessary.

1. There is no singular authority that can lay claim to The Rites of Eleusis.

I should clarify that this claim presumes that you have not entered into any agreement with anyone that grants them authority over your public artistic expression. For example, if you are performing The Rites of Eleusis under the auspices of a Chartered O.T.O. body, the Master of that body may have something to say about how you stage the material. But you are not required to do so under any official auspices.

The Rites of Eleusis, themselves, are within the public domain. They may be performed by anyone, anywhere, in whatever manner. Cast members need not be members of O.T.O. or A.:. A.:., although members of those organizations are often involved in staging The Rites. They are rituals that were originally presented to raise awareness for the A.:. A.:. to be certain. But in their original form, they were intended to be public, and while they certainly contain mysteries in my experience, those mysteries are not subject to the oversight of any person or organization. Drive it like you stole it!

2. The rabbit hole of “strict observance” can become a trap.

Artists can choose to place limits upon themselves in order to enhance the creative process, and it is a fantastic way to shape a play or series of plays in order to create an overarching theme, vision, and style. When done thoughtfully, it can create a level of cohesion to a project, and inspire a great deal of creativity. For example, in staging our Rites of Eleusis, we made an effort not to change any of the words. This resulted in a few lines from The Treasure House of Images including some awkward scansion, but the result was true to our original vision and goal, and inspired some really creative music to make it all fit.

That does not necessarily make the performance of our Rites more legitimate, by the way! Because without a singular authority as mentioned in point one, legitimacy becomes a matter of pure speculation.

Now, one could chose to present The Rites of Eleusis with a ‘strict adherence to the original gender role’ policy, but how strict? Should the Crowley roles be performed by a bisexual male, age 35, who has some romantic interest in both the violinist and the principal dancer? Without the aforementioned authority, who can argue that attraction between the actors is more or less important that gender identity? Honestly, the traditions of theater have their roots in the festivals of Dionysus, filled with fabulous actors, gender transgression, and ecstatic liberation! These traits are evident in the lives of actors and performers since time immemorial! Why break with that tradition?

Obviously, this is all open to interpretation, so I would encourage you not to allow yourself to feel stifled unless it is an intentional choice. Otherwise, you can ‘strictly observe’ yourself right out of a cast, and limited your troupe out of an opportunity for exploration. Don’t fall into that trap. Drive it like you stole it!

3. The audience is either going to “get it” or they wont. Gender is not the determining factor.

There is a school of thought that says: “If Venus isn’t played by a woman, and audience will not understand the symbolism!”

That is just non-sense! Do you honestly think that someone could attend a Rite of Venus, and be fully capable of comprehending the levels of meaning in The Rite, and somehow miss out because the performer is male? Or trans? Or Asexual? Or non-binary?

Do you seriously want to argue that your audience is well versed enough to understand the depth and breadth of the this profoundly dense esoteric material, but somehow they can’t understand acting?

Allow me to say, with all the weight of my experience, this is a poor argument. We cast a variety of roles with various genders. No attendee or cast member was ever confused by this. There were about 100 other confusions, but the gender identity of the performers was never a problem. Drive it like you stole it!

4. The Rites of Eleusis are experimental.

I know it may be obvious, but in case you hadn’t noticed, The Rites of Eleusis are a grand experiment. The various talents of a few friends harnessed to attempt to create a state of ecstasy in the audience, and especially in the performers!

Additionally, they are the best vehicle I have ever found for creative experimentation in Thelemic circles. The only rules are self imposed. The only limits are your imagination, and whatever laws of physics you can’t find your way around!

You want to stage an all mime Rite of Mercury? So be it! Drive it like you stole it!

You want to perform a post-apocalyptic Rite of Mars at Burning Man, with a random cast selected from the audience and handed scripts? You go! Drive it like you stole it!

You want to mount a Rite of Venus set in a castle where all the characters are dressed like the cast of The Rocky Horror Picture Show? Oh, my God! Please do that! And invite me!

Don’t Dream It! Be It!

In closing, as has been stated previously, I am in favor of exploration, experimentation, and interpretation. This is entirely consistent with my views on The Rites of Eleusis as a whole, and once again, I encourage ritualists to be bold, experimental and entirely free from all but intentional constraint.

Magickal Textbook Part 2

Following up on our most recent post about the Tree of Life and The Rites of Eleusis, let’s look a little bit closer into how the attributions associated with the paths on the Tree of Life informs not only the narrative, but the poetry of The Rites of Eleusis.

I’ll be citing one example here. I encourage anyone who would like to contribute other examples to post them in the comments.

Here we turn to “777 and Other Qabalistic Writings of Aleister Crowley”

Built around the superstructure of Allan Bennett’s Golden Dawn diaries, 777 is a relatively comprehensive textbook of attributions for the various Paths and Sephiroth of the Tree of Life. I say relatively, as some of the material originally included by Bennett regarding musical tonal attributions was not included in 777, but later reintroduced by Paul Foster Case in his Builders of the Adytum materials, including his book The Tarot: A Key to the Wisdom of the Ages. Additionally, any practicing magician is encouraged to keep a diary of additional attributions they may discover during the course of their own work.

But on to our main point: how the source material in 777 is employed in crafting the poetry of The Rites.

For the most part I am speaking of Crowley’s poetry in The Rites, as the poems of Swinburne, Shelley, and Thomson are less likely to stand up to this type of analysis, although to some extent the writing of J.F.C. Fuller does.

The attributions from 777 corresponding to Venus are listed under both path 7 (for the Sephiroth attributed to Venus) and path 14 (for the path connecting Chokma and Binah, also attributed to Venus).

Among the attributions for path 7 we find: Lynx, Emerald

Among those of path 14 we find: Sparrow, Dove, Myrtle, Rose, Clover, Emerald Green, Sky Blue, early spring green, bright rose

Compare these to the poem “Daughter of Glory”, which appears in The Rite of Venus in 1910, spoken by Libra, and was originally published in 1905 as part of Orphues: A Lyrical Legend, volume 1

Daughter of Glory, child
Of Earth’s Dione mild
By the Father of all, the AEgis-bearing King!
Spouse, daughter, mother of God,
Queen of the blest abode
In Cyprus’ splendour singly glittering.
Sweet sister unto me,
I cry aloud to thee!
I laugh upon thee laughing, O dew caught up from sea!

Drawn by sharp sparrow and dove,
And swan’s wide plumes of love,
And all the swallow’s swifter vehemence,
And, subtler that the Sphinx,
The ineffable lynx
Heralds thy splendour swooning into sense,
When from the bluest bowers
And greenest-hearted hours
Of Heaven thou smil’st toward earth, a miracle of flowers!

Note that while the Swan is attributed to the 1st path, Kether, the primal creative force, many believe that the swan appears in the Tarot card associated with Venus, the Empress (above). In fact, the bird in the lower left corner of the Empress Trump is a pelican, and the attribution of the swan within the poem may be a hint at something else. Additionally, the swallow (described as swift) is associated with the 12th path, attributed to Mercury. The appearance of the symbols associated with the forces that precede the birth of Venus would appear to be intentional, and perhaps invocational in this instance, as the poem describes the creation of the goddess.

Much of this is speculation. And why not? Each inquiry into what the deeper meaning could be provides both insight into the meanings of the narrative, and possible creative interpretations that can be incorporate into staging the material!

Speaking of speculation, as a humorous aside, when I first encountered The Rites of Eleusis as a young man, I was informed that Crowley wrote all of the poetry over the summer of 1910, and this was sited as one of the many proofs of his genius. It was some time before I discovered that Aleister Crowley did not write much of the poetry within The Rites of Eleusis, and that the poetry he did write was often lifted out of his earlier publications. Nevertheless, I walked around believing that he had drafted these seven plays in total over the course of a single summer for over a year.

Please share your thoughts and questions below.

In earlier posts I mentioned that The Rites of Eleusis are particularly useful when employed as a study guide, and today I would like to delve a little deeper into that. As always, I invite your input.

To begin with, The Rites (when performed in the chronological order intended) follow the path of energy down the Qabalistic Tree of Life.

I am aware that the Rites are often presented “out of order” and I see no problem in doing so, provided that there is an awareness of the intended narrative.

The Tree of Life

Rather than try to explain The Tree of Life, I will direct you back to the Thelemapedia article. It is enough to note that the structure of these plays derives much from the study of this particular diagram, and that an understanding of The Tree will illuminate The Rites.

The events expressed in the narrative of The Rites of Eleusis often draw their characteristics from this “road map” of the human psyche. As an example, when Venus exclaims,”It is the ruin of the Temple” in The Rite of Venus, it can be seen as a dramatic enactment to the Path of Peh on The Tree of Life, depicted in the Tarot as The Tower, which forms the bridge from Netzach to Hod, the sphere of Venus to the sphere of Mercury.

Incidentally, I find it convenient to view the spheres or Sephiroth of The Tree of Life as stages (in the theatrical sense) or settings where the actors play out their roles, and the paths as the actions or actors, depending on the context.

For those who have studied or performed in these Rites, what other connections have you seen?

In future posts we will be discussing more about the relationship between astrology and the Tarot and The Rites of Eleusis.