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. 

Mindfulness är den mest utbredda engelska översättningen av begreppet sati, och förstås i dagligt tal – liksom i kliniska och experimentella program – som synonymt med medveten närvaro. Inom de buddhistiska traditioner begreppet härstammar ifrån har sati flera olika betydelser, och hänger samman med buddhistiska idéer om etik, jagets obeständighet, frigörelse från återfödelse och upplysning. Dessa aspekter tonas ner när mindfulness saluförs och utövas på sekulära arenor. I denna text lyfts de idéhistoriska rötterna till samtida mindfulness liksom frågor om vilka som utövar mindfulness idag, och i vilka sammanhang. I texten identifieras även områden för framtida forskning.  

De viktigaste slutsatserna är att

• Utvecklingen av mindfulness i väst är resultatet av kulturella utbyten mellan buddhistiska lärda och västerländska uttolkare av buddhism sedan 1800-talets slut.
• Meditation förstås ofta samtidigt som buddhismens kärna och som något som kan frikopplas från buddhistiska läror, ritualer och traditioner.
• I dagens Asien har förståelsen av mindfulness starkare kopplingar till buddhistiska läror än i väst.
• Samtida förståelser av mindfulness formas av utbyten mellan vetenskapliga och andliga arenor.
• Många västerländska lärare i mindfulness är själva skolade i buddhistisk meditation, men betonar vetenskap och personlig erfarenhet när mindfulness utövas på sekulära arenor.
• Den mesta forskningen om samtida mindfulness fokuserar på lärare eller producenter, medan vi vet mindre om människor som utövar mindfulness i vardagen.
• De flesta som utövar mindfulness i väst idag är kvinnor, trots det finns det endast ett fåtal studier av samtida mindfulness ur ett genusperspektiv.

The study analyses female fandom in Sweden, focusing on female football supporters' self-presentation on social media. We found social media to function as a forum for empowerment, where the female football fans construct and express solidarity between girls and women and challenge hegemonic notions of femininity. Female football supporters are actively involved in formulating and shaping their own agenda and self-presentation and are drawn to the supporter culture for many of the same reasons as their male peers: group community, thrill and excitement, and the love for their team. The contribution of the study is two-fold: it fills a knowledge gap regarding Swedish female fans, while also making a conceptual intervention in the study of female fandoms more broadly, demonstrating the usefulness of critical theorization on femininities and indicating how social media enables female football supporters to 'play' with different conceptions of femininity to create space within the supporter milieu.

In 1920, the Swiss-American music teacher and occultist Leah Hirsig (1883–1975) was appointed ‘Scarlet Woman’ by the British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), founder of the religion Thelema. In this role, Hirsig was Crowley’s right-hand woman during a formative period in the Thelemic movement, but her position shifted when Crowley found a new Scarlet Woman in 1924. Hirsig’s importance in Thelema gradually declined, and she distanced herself from the movement in the late 1920s. The article analyses Hirsig’s changing status in Thelema 1919–1930, proposing the term proximal authorityas an auxiliary category to Max Weber’s tripartite typology. Proximal authority is defined as authority ascribed to or enacted by a person based on their real or perceived relational closeness to a leader. The article briefly draws on two parallel cases so as to demonstrate the broader applicability of the term in highlighting how relational closeness to a leadership figure can entail considerable yet precarious power.

Rocketeer, poet, and polyamorous proto-feminist, Jack Parsons (1914-1952) is one of the earliest and most legendary followers of Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) and his religion Thelema in America. A precocious only child and avid sci-fi reader, Parsons made vital contributions to the American space programme, and was briefly regarded by Crowley as a potential successor. However, Parsons’ romantic side, keen imagination, and tendency to be seduced by literary fiction was a source of friction between the two men. Parsons drew freely on gothic horror as well as pulp and sci-fi literature in articulating his personal magical universe. In 1946, he undertook the ‘Babalon Working’: a series of magical operations aimed at manifesting the goddess Babalon on earth as a sort of Thelemic messiah. This paper will explore the importance of literature for Parsons’ magical worldview and experimentation, focusing on three key works: Crowley’s Moonchild, Jack Williamson’s Darker Than You Think, and M.R. James’ short story »Count Magnus«.

The study analyzes constructions of femininity and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon, a central deity in the British occultist Aleister Crowley’s (1875–1947) religion Thelema. Babalon is based on Crowley’s positive reinterpretation of the biblical Whore of Babylon and symbolizes liberated female sexuality and the spiritual modality of passionate union with existence. Analyzing historical and contemporary written sources, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork in the Anglo-American esoteric milieu, the study traces interpretations of Babalon from the works of Crowley and some of his key disciples—including the rocket scientist John Whiteside “Jack” Parsons and the enigmatic British occultist Kenneth Grant—from the fin-de-siècle to the present. From the 1990s onward, female and LGBTQ esotericists have challenged historical interpretations of Babalon, drawing on feminist and queer thought and conceptualizing femininity in new ways. Femininity has held a problematic position in feminist theory, often being associated with lack, artifice, and restriction. However, the present study—which assumes that femininities are neither exclusively heterosexual nor limited to women—indicates how interpretations of Babalon have both built on and challenged dominant gender logics. As the first academic monograph to analyze Crowley’s and his followers’ ideas from the perspective of gender, this book contributes to the underexplored study of gender in Western esotericism. By analyzing the development of a misogynistic biblical symbol into an image of feminine sexual freedom, the study also sheds light on interactions between Western esotericism and broader cultural and sociopolitical trends.

While Aleister Crowley’s religion of Thelema deals with notions of witchcraft peripherally, in the 1950s Crowley’s disciple John Whiteside Parsons sought to establish a duotheistic witchcraft tradition which focused on the veneration of Lucifer and the Thelemic goddess Babalon. Kenneth Grant, briefly Crowley’s secretary, instead melded Thelema and Tantra with notions of witchcraft in his perennialist concept of a “Typhonian Tradition”. In different ways, Parsons and Grant both link witchcraft to a primordial magical tradition in which women acted as leaders and initiators, and female sexuality was sacralised. This chapter will analyse and compare Parsons’s and Grant’s interpretations of witchcraft, focusing especially on their gendered aspects. I suggest, firstly, that these authors’ engagement with concepts of witchcraft can be read as part of an endeavour to position femininity as central to magic, and, secondly, that the intersection of second-wave feminism and Paganism exerted a stronger influence on Grant’s writings than previously recognised.

This article explores the development and ideology of The Satanic Temple, against the background of current American politics. The Satanic Temple is a recent addition to the Satanic milieu, and is positioned here as a form of "rationalist" Satanism that draws on the figure of Satan as a symbol of rebellion. The discussion follows the emergence of The Satanic Temple and its introduction to the mainstream media around 2012, the influences of esoteric, feminist, and secularist ideas on the group, and its present manifestation as a politically engaged "occulture."

The study analyses the changing construction of femininities and feminine sexuality in interpretations of the goddess Babalon, a central deity in Aleister Crowley’s (1875–1947) esoteric religion Thelema. Femininity has occupied a problematic position in feminist theory, frequently associated with lack, artifice, and restriction. However, this study assumes that femininities are multiple, neither exclusively heterosexual nor limited to women, and can be constructed in ways that challenge the existing gender system. Based on historical and contemporary written sources, qualitative interviews, and ethnographic fieldwork in the Anglo-American esoteric milieu, the study utilises Mimi Schippers’ model of multiple femininities to analyse the Babalon discourse from the fin-de-siècle until today, against the background of shifting perceptions of femininity and feminine sexuality. Inspired by Luce Irigaray’s theorisation of sexual difference, Rosi Braidotti’s concept of feminist figurations, and Catherine Waldby’s notion of erotic destruction, a central question is whether Babalon can function as a figuration enabling new ways of articulating and inhabiting femininities. Reworking the negative feminine stereotype of the femme fatale, Crowley connected Babalon to an initiatory imperative of ego-annihilation, epitomising both feminine, erotic otherness and a feminised receptive modality required of all seekers. Crowley also linked Babalon with liberated female sexuality. Babalon has subsequently been interpreted by other esotericists, including John W. Parsons (1914–1952), who constructed the goddess as a feminist revolutionary; and Kenneth Grant (1924–2011), who equated Babalon with the sex magical priestess and notions of non-dual void preceding manifest creation, linking femininity to the dissolution of stable meaning. Growing awareness of feminism and LGBTQ issues in Anglo-American esotericism from the 1990s on has coincided with the increased visibility of female esotericists as ideology producers within the Babalon discourse. The contemporary Babalon discourse emphasises the feminine, desiring subject as sacred, and connected to the simultaneous threat and promise of the undoing of bounded subjectivity. The study shows how a previously derogatory feminine stereotype is reworked over time in ways that both reproduce and challenge hegemonic notions of femininity, arguing that Babalon functions as a situated and contingent figuration supporting the articulation of alternative ways of doing femininity and feminine sexuality.

Santa Muerte is establishing a presence among practitioners of contemporary occultism in Europe and North America. The occult milieu is highly different from the Mexican cult of Santa Muerte, having a strong heritage of secrecy and tradition as social capital and being mostly middle-class in orientation. Nonetheless, this Catholic folk saint with a mostly pragmatic, popular, and grassroots cult is becoming increasingly popular among occultists. Based on a survey of three recent books on Santa Muerte geared towards an Anglophone, occult audience, it is therefore the aim of this article to understand how and why the Skeleton Saint is attracting adherents in the occult milieu, by analyzing the underlying causes of this growing trend, as well as the conditions shaping it. It is the overall argument of this article that the beginning reception of Santa Muerte in occultism is a result of perceived needs and demands specific to the occult milieu rather than characteristics inherent in the symbol itself, and that an analysis of the ways in which she is spreading outside of her original sociocultural context must be guided by an understanding of the novel one she is integrated in.

Based on fieldwork in the United States, the article analyses the social construction of gender in contemporary OTO. The article addresses an important and often neglected area of study in research on Western esotericism, and discusses how the notion of binary gender is both created and challenged in interactions between OTO members. Thelemic divinity as presented in Liber AL is envisioned as consisting of a divine father, Hadit, mother Nuit, and Ra-Hoor-Khuit, their divine offspring. Despite the gender polarity constructed thus, contemporary OTO members stretch the boundaries of binary gender through a plethora of deities, personal gender performances and acceptance of different sexual orientations and lifestyles. The creativity and innovation of contemporary OTO members' gender constructions demonstrates the necessity of greater methodological diversity in research on Western esotericism, in order to allow an understanding of esoteric traditions as lived religions.