This paper will trace the development of the Billiken, known as “The God of Things as They Ought to Be”, in early-20th-century North America, analyzing how this figure was visually marketed and consumed in the intersection between mind-cure, initiatory societies, and orientalism. Around 1907–1908, illustrator Florence Pretz created and patented the Billiken inspired by New Thought notions of spiritual solutions to worldly ailments. The Billiken subsequently enjoyed striking popularity as a “mind-cure” icon and charm doll in the 1910s–1920s. It was also adopted in more exclusive settings, such as in the Royal Order of Jesters (founded in 1911), a fraternal order that uses the Billiken as official symbol. The Billiken has visually orientalistic overtones, resembling the “Laughing Buddha” of Chinese Buddhism — linking to contemporary discourses on Asia as the source of esoteric wisdom. In her promotional persona, Pretz stressed an interest in Japan, posed in a kimono, and suggested she had been Japanese in a past life. Drawing primarily on press materials, this paper will argue that the “Billiken craze” exemplifies the visual commodification of esotericism and a spiritualized Asia and challenges distinctions between esotericism and popular magic in the early 20th century.

The article analyses the early development of Aleister Crowley’s (1875–1947) Gnostic Catholic Mass and its c. 1917 German translation by Theodor Reuss (1855–1923), the founder and first international head of the initiatory fraternity Ordo Templi Orientis. Crowley’s Gnostic Mass is an influential and important example of esoteric group ritual still celebrated across the globe today. Reuss’s translated ritual holds historical interest, being the first published version of the ritual (1918) and containing a number of editorial innovations. The article discusses Crowley’s and Reuss’s collaboration and their respective masses in context, suggesting Reuss’s innovations to the Gnostic Mass shed light on his own interests in phallicism and neo-Gnosticism as well as his wish to promote Crowley’s teachings to the continental European esoteric milieu.

The article analyzes four works of poetry and illustration produced by the artist, poet, and occultist Marjorie Cameron (1922–1995) in the 1950s and 1960s. Widow of rocket scientist and occultist John “Jack” Whiteside Parsons (1914–1952), an early follower of Aleister Crowley’s (1875–1947) religion Thelema, Cameron was also a friend and collaborator of Beat artist Wallace Berman (1926–1976) and avant-garde filmmaker Kenneth Anger (1927–2023). In the 1950s and 1960s, Cameron delved deeply into Crowley’s magical writings alongside those of comparative mythologist Joseph Campbell (1904–1987). The article especially highlights how Cameron creatively adapted and re-worked the ideas of both thinkers in her artistic interpretations of her Holy Guardian Angel. A core argument of the article is that art, poetry, and esotericism were intertwined pursuits for Cameron, and that extra-textual sources (e.g., letters and biographical details) contemporary with the analyzed creative works are helpful in untangling their meaning.

This chapter provides a condensed and selective history of notions of gender and sexuality in (Western) esotericism, a complex of genealogically related religious currents originating in late antiquity, which emphasize an intuitive, experiential knowledge ("gnosis") beyond faith and rational enquiry. In the chapter, it is argued that the complex, hierarchical and interlinked cosmologies espoused by esotericists from antiquity until today challenge modern understandings of biological sexual dimorphism. Through the idea of the individual human being as a microcosmic reflection of creation, notions of a dual-gendered Godhead have coincided with ideas of both sacred sexuality and divine androgyny, and esoteric notions of spiritual ascent have often been gendered (whether advancement is viewed in terms of gender balance, transcendence, or in honing masculinity or femininity specifically). However, the symbolic and social levels do not always coincide. Esoteric thinkers who have valorized the divine feminine have not always advocated for egalitarian male-female relationships. Similarly, despite the preponderance of symbolism related to gender transcendence in historical esotericism it is only in the twentieth century that beliefs in sacred androgyny have been articulated as part of a political mobilization for queer, trans, or intersex rights.

This paper analyses the reception of Egyptian antiquity in the central sacred text of the religion Thelema, founded by the British occultist Aleister Crowley. In spring 1904, Crowley was sojourning in Cairo when his wife Rose surprised him by channeling a message from the god Horus. At Crowley’s behest, Rose substantiated her revelation by leading Crowley to an offertory tablet in the Boulaq museum, showing a Theban priest presenting offerings to the god Ra-Horakhty (a melding of Horus and Ra) alongside the goddess Nut and the winged solar disk (Horus Behdety/Horus of Edfu). On April 8–10, Crowley then transcribed a revealed text: The Book of the Law. Proclaiming the advent of a new aeon, which Crowley later called the Aeon of Horus, the text comprises three chapters, ascribed, respectively, to the deities Nuit, Hadit, and Ra-Hoor- Khuit. Contrary to ancient Egyptian cosmologies, The Book of the Law posits an erotic, dialectical ontology whereby the ecstatic union of Nuit (the Thelemic cosmic feminine principle) and Hadit (the masculine principle) gives rise to Ra-Hoor-Khuit, identified with the liberating energies of the new aeon. In this paper, I will highlight the gendered connotations of Egyptological reception in The Book of the Law.