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"Be Thou Hadit, My Secret Centre": Gender and Egyptosophy in Aleister Crowley's Thelema
Malmö University, Faculty of Education and Society (LS), Department of Society, Culture and Identity (SKI).ORCID iD: 0000-0002-7383-9857
2023 (English)In: International Theosophical History Conference 2023, "The Reception of Egypt and the Ancients in Theosophy and Related Esoteric Currents", Alexandria, Egypten, 13–14 oktober 2023., 2023Conference paper, Oral presentation only (Other academic)
Abstract [en]

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. 

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2023.
Keywords [en]
esotericism; gender; Thelema; Aleister Crowley; Egyptosophy
National Category
History of Religions
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-63211OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mau-63211DiVA, id: diva2:1806481
Conference
International Theosophical History Conference 2023, "The Reception of Egypt and the Ancients in Theosophy and Related Esoteric Currents".
Available from: 2023-10-22 Created: 2023-10-22 Last updated: 2024-08-30Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
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  • apa
  • ieee
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