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Episode 69: Female Occultist pt.2
483 Plays2 years ago
Welcome back Witches! This week we're bringing you a couple of badass female occultist!! So get in losers and let's discuss Moina Mathers and Leila Waddell.
We would be forever thankful if you left our podcast a 5-Star review. If you really loved the show and want more Get in Loser content, check out our Supercast & Buy Me a Coffee links below. You can also find us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram @GetinWitches, on TikTok @weredoingwitchcraft, or email us at weredoingwitchcraft@gmail.com. You can support our show through our links below.
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Music by Karl Casey @ White Bat Audio- The Witch
References
- Herring, Emily. Moina Mathers- High Priestess of the Belle Epoque. (2021). Engelsberg Ideas. https://engelsbergideas.com/portraits/moina-mathers-high-priestess-of-the-belle-epoque/
- Pit, Radiana. Moina Mathers, The High Priestess and Mother of the Golden Dawn. (2018). The Old Craft. https://www.theoldcraft.com/2018/02/27/moina-mathers-high-priestess-mother-golden-dawn/
- The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn’s website. https://hermeticgoldendawn.org/golden-dawn-system/
- Gorman, Alice (2019). Hidden Women of History: Leila Waddell, Australian Violinist, philosopher of magic and fearless rebel. The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/hidden-women-of-history-leila-waddell-australian-violinist-philosopher-of-magic-and-fearless-rebel-122402
- Wikipedia. A:A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A%E2%88%B4A%E2%88%B4
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Introduction
00:00:00
Speaker
Do you feel drawn to learn more about witchcraft and the occult but feel lost on where to start? Then welcome to Get In Loser where you're doing witchcraft, a podcast all about what it means to be a witch and where to get started on your journey. Join us as we navigate through various switching topics and share what we have learned about the craft. So Get In Witches
Focus on Female Occultists: Moina Mathers & Leila Waddell
00:00:17
Speaker
for another female occultist episode covering Moina Mathers and Leila Waddell.
00:00:39
Speaker
Yeah, so to preface the episode, you guys get to deal with us not being able to chalk well. We have scratchy throats, both of us, for different reasons. One
Hosts' Personal Anecdotes
00:00:52
Speaker
for an awesome reason, one for not an awesome reason. Mine because I sang my heart out last night at a Fall Out Boy concert.
00:01:04
Speaker
I wish I was there. Yeah. Mine is because I'm sick. So yes. Also,
Paranormal Experiences Discussion
00:01:16
Speaker
I was going to tell you my stupid ghost keeps waking me up every night. No, that's ridiculous. It's rude. It's like every night between like three and three 30, either Anthony and I like Anthony or I will be woken up.
00:01:34
Speaker
And we're just like, cool. And the other day we were like watching a movie in bed, being lazy like last weekend. And there was just like a knock on the wall. Like just. And we like both looked over and he was like, what the fuck was that? I was like a literal knock on the wall. Did you like, did we hear the same thing? Because it was very obvious what it was. He's like, no, it wasn't.
00:02:00
Speaker
Yes, sir. It was a big boy of me. Yeah. And they're like, they'll hear the same thing. And then they'll be like, no, it wasn't that. And I'm like, yes, it was like, it was. Yeah, we would hear like, what sounded like something dropping on the floor and then like bouncing or like, you know what I mean? Like kind of like a ball, like if you were to drop it and it would kind of like continue to bounce. We used to in our
00:02:29
Speaker
old house in England, our living room was right below Emily's bedroom. And that's where I would always hear like people walking around or like stuff being dropped and stuff. And we would be on the couch, like all the girls are downstairs with us or they wouldn't be home. And we'd hear that. And I'm like, did you hear that? And he's like, it was just the house settling. And I'm like, Oh, he says that all the time. What? Yeah. It makes me so mad. I'm like, the house is old.
00:02:59
Speaker
It's settled. Right. Like what the heck? But also like, I'm pretty sure that's not the sound that a house makes when it is settling. It doesn't sound like a ball is being dropped or people are walking around like, come on. Knocking on the wall. Yeah. It's insane. So dumb. So yeah, it's been real great. We have not been getting uninterrupted sleep for probably like week and a half, two weeks now. Yeah.
00:03:28
Speaker
It seems it's a change. It's like, you know what? There's change happening. I'm gonna be a dick about it. You know what? This bitch said peace out America like 50 times. Clearly she's leaving. I'm gonna fuck with her life. Right. I'm gonna move her stuff around and knock on walls and wake her up every night.
00:03:57
Speaker
That is super rude. The least you could do is help me pack. Would that be too much to ask? Could you sort through my stuff with me? Because I'm real tired of doing this. Yeah. So
Life of Moina Mathers
00:04:14
Speaker
what are we talking about?
00:04:17
Speaker
we have another female occultist episode. These are some of my favorite types of episodes, just learning about badass women in magic. I love it. We're talking about Moyna Mathers, which you're going to cover, and then Leila Waddell, which I'm going to cover. Yes. I'm just going to let you guys know,
00:04:43
Speaker
Fasten your seat belts because we're going to be here a while. Moana lived a life, man. She lived a life. She did a lot of things.
00:04:56
Speaker
Moina Mathers has been described in appearance as having unruly dark brown hair, blue eyes, and a slightly dark skin complexion. She was fluent in French, German, and English, and considered both charming and highly intelligent. She had dreams of becoming a career artist, but instead lived an impoverished life of self-sacrifice, despite the glamour that revolved around the Golden Dawn.
00:05:21
Speaker
Moina was born on February 28, 1865 as Mina Bergson in Geneva, Switzerland, which I understand why she changed her name, but I feel like Mina is a cooler name than Moina. I know. I love Mina so much. I thought Mina was so cute when I was reading about her. I was like, oh, I like that name. And it was like, anyway, she changed her name to Moina. And I was like, rude. Yeah, I like Mina so much better.
00:05:48
Speaker
Yeah, so she was born in Geneva, Switzerland into an Orthodox Jewish family. She was the second daughter and the fourth child, and her brother, Henry Louis Bergson, would go on to become a Nobel Prize-winning philosopher. Ooh, that's cool. Oh, yeah. Like, this dude is so smart, and like, he also has a lot of accolades. Like, everybody involved around Moina, we could do a full episode on each of them. Like, it's crazy the stuff that these people did.
00:06:18
Speaker
So while not much is known about Moina and Henry's relationship, it is known that both were involved in the occult and the paranormal. There didn't seem to be any information on the other two siblings, which I thought was kind of weird. I didn't even really find their names. It was just everything was about Henry and Moina. So maybe because these two were so successful,
00:06:42
Speaker
I don't know. It was kind of weird, but while Moyna would go on to become one of the greatest female occultist of her century, Henry would collect many accomplishments in his lifetime. One of them being that he became the president of the British society
00:06:57
Speaker
for psychical research, and he spent a large portion of his life studying PSI phenomena, which I didn't know what this was, so I had to look it up. And basically, PSI phenomena is an illusion of movement that arises when stationary objects are placed side by side and then illuminated rapidly one after another. So as the lights are going, it's making it look like it's moving. I didn't know that, so just in case no one else did, I looked it up.
00:07:25
Speaker
Moina's mother was Kate Levenson, and she was the daughter of a Yorkshire doctor, and she was described by Henry as being a woman of superior intelligence, a religious soul in the highest sense of the word, whose goodness, devotion, and serenity, one might almost say saintliness, were admired by all who knew her.
00:07:44
Speaker
Wiena's father was a talented composer and musician and his name was Michael Bergson and he studied under Chopin. He taught piano while moving his family around Europe in an attempt to escape the anti-Semitic climate of the times which is really sad and it's like because of this too they also lived a very impoverished life even though they were like
00:08:05
Speaker
Like they were brilliant people. They were so smart, so talented. And then like, because of the times in the climate, they couldn't like really afford to live, which was really sad. Yeah, that's really sad. Yeah. So, and because of that, like the climate, he had a rocky career and what was described as mounting money problems.
00:08:25
Speaker
They were forced to leave Geneva and move to Paris, where Henry ended up staying to study on a scholarship, while the rest of the family moved on to London, England. Henry would go on to become the most influential philosopher of Belle Epoque, as well as a Nobel Prize laureate, which I said earlier. So you get that one twice, guys.
00:08:45
Speaker
So prior to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, Moina lived life by a core belief that she, I guess this is something that she used to say all the time as her core belief. So it's that woman is the magician born of nature by reason of her great natural sensibility. So she would just live her life on this belief. So anything that she would do, people were like, oh, why are you doing that? That was her response.
00:09:11
Speaker
I love that. I kind of want to just write that down and put it so I can see it every day. It gets really beautiful. Yeah. She joined the Slade School of Art at the age of 15. And this particular school was known for empowering women in arts. And they appointed Moina with a scholarship and four merit certificates based on her drawing abilities. It was at the Slade School of Art that Moina met Annie Horniman.
00:09:38
Speaker
So Annie was the daughter of a wealthy Quaker and tea merchant, and she would become like not only Moina's lifelong friend, but the financial sponsor for the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn later. When the two graduated, they made a pact to maintain their independence that they experienced as students, defying what was traditionally expected of women by not marrying, which of course, as anyone that knows anything about Moina, it didn't last long for her.
00:10:07
Speaker
So
Marriage and Move with Samuel Mathers
00:10:08
Speaker
during her school years, Moina also spent a lot of time at the British Museum studying and drawing. And it was here that she met S.L. McGregor Mathers, which is Samuel. He would become her husband and the founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Those that knew Henry also found similarities between Henry and Samuel.
00:10:28
Speaker
but Moina's parents did not approve of her and Samuel's relationship because Samuel was 11 years older than Moina. And so at the time she was like probably 17, I think. And I mean, I guess times were different back then, but she's like 17 and he's 11 years older than her. So that's kind of gross, but also because he didn't have a steady income and Moina and her family coming from an impoverished background already, like,
00:10:58
Speaker
they knew that she would continue to live an impoverished life with Samuel. The two married anyway, as people tend to do when people tell them not to. So they married on June 16th, 1890 in the library of Horniman Museum. And it's at this point that she changed her name from Mina to Moina, along with taking Samuel's last name of Mathers in hopes of emphasizing her mother's Irish ancestry and hiding her Jewish heritage.
00:11:27
Speaker
To keep Samuel from coming between their friendship, Annie offered them lodging on her family's estate in Forest Hill, London, and she used her own vast fortune to keep the two financially afloat.
00:11:39
Speaker
And there's still rumors to this day, which this is kind of funny to me. So there's still rumors that their marriage was celibate and they stem from this misinterpretation of something Moyna wrote in a letter to Annie where she described their marriage as being pure. And so when it got like put out there, people took that as like, like sexless.
00:11:59
Speaker
like here, but not. So now I'm going to go into the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, which I've heard of, and I didn't really know a whole lot about it. So I looked up a little bit just to kind of understand what I was talking about.
Role in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
00:12:22
Speaker
And so just in case some of our listeners don't know, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is described by Wikipedia, which
00:12:29
Speaker
isn't always the greatest source, but I felt like they had the clearest definition of what they did, as being a secret society devoted to the study and practice of occult hermeticism and metaphysics during the late 19th and 20th centuries. Their focuses were in theurgy and spiritual development through the concepts of ritual magic and practices that are at the center of Wicca and Thelema today. It's said to be one of the largest single influences on 20th century Western occultism.
00:12:59
Speaker
In Moina's words, the chief purpose of the order was this study of hidden knowledge. Basically, like if initiates swore themselves to secrecy, they were promised access to theological notions on a much higher plane than the dogmas taught the ordinary worshipper. Much of their studies were spent on ancient symbols and texts.
00:13:21
Speaker
One year after meeting Samuel, the first temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was opened, and Moyna became the first initiate of the temple, taking the Latin motto, vestigia nulla restorsum, which translates to mean, I never retrace my steps. And Moyna would also sometimes go by the name vestigia after choosing the motto for the order.
00:13:44
Speaker
Samuel was the magus, and he was known as the magician who created the rituals, but Moyna was the high priestess, and not only for Samuel, but for the entire order. She was considered the main diviner, seer, and clairvoyant for the order, on top of being the channeler and creator of visionary material for the rituals of evocation of the inner order. It was also through her mediumship that the order was able to gather the information that they did,
00:14:12
Speaker
to create their rituals, practices, and more. Moyna mastered the arts of scrying and astral projection to transport herself to a non-physical plane, and then would report her findings back to Samuel as Magus and the Inner Order. These practices attracted the West End actress Florence Farr,
00:14:32
Speaker
poet William Butler Gates, Irish Republican revolutionary Maude Gonne, and later the well-known occultist Alistair Crowley. Moina also supplied a large amount of information to what was known as the Inner Order by using her mediumship abilities. Using her knowledge of ancient Egyptian symbolism and artistic background, she also designed the Order's ritual chambers and the design regalia and furnishings of the
00:14:59
Speaker
Ahathur Temple in Paris, and the Rosicrucian Order of the Alpha at Omega, as well as the Order's original ritual-grade diagrams and design of the Golden Dontero. In 1891, Samuel was initiated by the, these people are wild, so he gets initiated by like these quote-unquote secret chiefs, like people aren't supposed to know who they are, like this whole thing is like secret society-based, like it's very
00:15:28
Speaker
Like, I don't know if you ever watched the 2000s movie, Skull and Bones. This is everything, like reading this, everything like made me think of it. It was hilarious. I used to love that fucking movie so much. So yes, I love that. I love that movie. So the secret, like the secret chiefs initiate him. And they're like, I guess they're like the secret chiefs of the continental European order of the Hermetic Alchemist.
00:15:58
Speaker
and had the Hermetic and Rosicrucian lineages as well as the, and this is like a quote unquote thing because everywhere that I came across this piece of information in my research had just these lines in quotes. So I don't know if it was like important to note that, but I'm just going to note it just in case. So it's the Esoteric Corpus and Skeletal Initiation Rituals.
00:16:23
Speaker
And so they passed these on to him and then he used them to create the second order. So with the guidance of the secret chiefs, Moyna and Samuel moved to Paris in 1892 and founded the Ahathor temple two years later. The move
Challenges in Paris
00:16:40
Speaker
was actually like extremely hard on them, given that they lacked any financial stability and their living conditions worsened in Paris. Samuel's time in Paris was described as a blur of depressive episodes and alcoholism.
00:16:52
Speaker
though Moina stayed loyal supporting him and touting him as this like mystical genius the entire time when really she was like the one doing everything. So I, Sam, I get it. Like he did stuff too. And he was like this brilliant man of his time, but he took so much credit for the things that she did that it just irritates me. That is irritating.
00:17:17
Speaker
Yeah. Ugh, I hate that. It's like, what a man thing to do. Typical. Typical. Samuel kept receiving guidance from the secret chiefs. That included, again, here's another one that just every time it came up, it was in quotes. So this thing is in quotes. But certain techniques of hermetic inner alchemy and advanced teachings about spiritual sexuality, which were considered part of a secret oral tradition,
00:17:44
Speaker
In 1906, Moyna helped Samuel establish the Rosicrucian Order of Alpha E Omega, which is the third order founded by them. On November 20th, 1918, Samuel died leaving Moyna alone and financially insecure after having been through a couple of years of his depression, a bunch of scandals that he was roped into, his alcoholism, and legal battles with Crowley.
00:18:12
Speaker
over publications of the Golden Dawn Doctrine. Moina blamed his death on the accumulative effects of the secret chief's visits, stating that their presence became unbearable for Samuel's already weakened psyche, and she believed that he was actually under a cult attack the entire last two years of his life, and that's what eventually led to his death.
00:18:37
Speaker
So Moana, like being the boss ass bitch that she was, she just continued their work and she went on to found the AO Lodge despite her fears of also falling under an occult attack. And she feared that it would lead her to Samuel's fate, which was like suffering for a year or more. I think his was like two years.
00:18:58
Speaker
and then dying. So during Moina's rule, I again, this is all like, there's so much like secret around the like hermetic order and what they did. But there was some task that she was trying to like complete. And
Final Years of Moina Mathers
00:19:13
Speaker
so she would test a bunch of initiatives for this task. And many of them failed to upkeep her standards, one of which was Dion fortune. So she fortune
00:19:24
Speaker
stated that Moina caused the death of an AO initiate named Miss Netta Fornario through the use of black magic, though this accusation was often met with sarcasm by like anyone that hurt it, not just Moina. And it's not clear if Moina was actually at fault for the death of this initiate, and this and other accusations
00:19:44
Speaker
forced Moyna to expel Fortune from the Order, though Fortune would tell others that she was expelled for having a quote unquote wrong aura in a smear campaign that she went on to try to darken Moyna's name.
00:19:59
Speaker
Moina returned to London in hopes of a better financial status as an artist while serving as the AO's impuretrix for nine years. But due to her lack of practice, her artistry skills had degenerated and she was never really able to make any money to better her living conditions.
00:20:17
Speaker
In 1927, Moyna's health declined drastically to the point that she was no longer eating. Speculations were that she was influenced by the secret chiefs, as well as that she was just fasting as a way to purify herself. The reality of this whole situation was that she lived such an impoverished life,
00:20:36
Speaker
that it all just kind of took a toll on her to the point of illness. And Buena Mathers died in July 1928 in St. Mary Abbott's Hospital at the age of 63, and her cause of death was self-starvation. She never bore children, as her and Samuel saw the Golden Dawn, the RR, AC, and the AO as their spiritual progenies, and it strongly influenced occultism even today.
00:21:03
Speaker
While Samuel is given a huge credit to like everything, the truth of the matter was that the order wouldn't be what it is without Moina. It was her friendship with Annie that brought financial backing. It was her artistic skills that brought in the visual art, her knowledge that brought much of what the inner order knew and used in their rituals. And it was because of her willingness to allow herself to become a vessel for spirits that they were able to attain the information
00:21:30
Speaker
that would have been unattainable by Samuel in the inner order at the time. Moina devoted her life to her husband as well as the order. And some things that I read, the way people describe her, like you see the words like empowered, strong, celebrated a lot when people talk about Moina. So, Radie on a Pit of the Old Craft wrote, Moina Mathers is often seen as the strong woman behind the great man.
00:21:57
Speaker
which how often do you see that in history? And then Emily Herring of the Ingallsburg ideas wrote in describing Moyna, she described her as an artist and occultist at the turn of the century. Moyna Mather's life is a celebration of female power and radical self-expression. And she also wrote that Moyna Mathers became a pivotal figure in what scholars now call the occult revival of the late 19th century Europe.
00:22:24
Speaker
which I just have. I love that her legacy lives on. Yeah. And everyone that studies her and writes about her, you see this theme in all of the research. She's empowering. She was empowered. She was a strong woman. She was just a fucking boss ass bitch. She had so much
00:22:45
Speaker
Even though she didn't have money, she lived a impoverished life. Even though the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is seen as very lavish and extravagant, that's not the life she lived. She sacrificed so much of her life and put so much of herself into this. And it's still seen as just this amazing thing of this time. It influences so much still today. So it's pretty cool. It is really cool. Yeah. Wow.
00:23:15
Speaker
Moina Mathers. Moina Mathers, or Mina Bergson, was that her? Bergson, yeah. Bergson. And there's a lot more I could have heard, but that was a lot. Yeah. But I feel like that's a really good, concise history about her life. And like I said earlier, too, all of the people in her life were also just well-established and intelligent people.
00:23:44
Speaker
with like that just collected all these accolades or like they had ties to so many different things. Like you could literally do an entire episode on each person that she had ties to because there's so much that they all accomplished. It's crazy. Yeah. That is crazy. I love it. Yeah. Um, and just, you know, that time, that period in time to like, there's just so many like amazing people like that we could, like you were saying, like we could have whole episodes on just like these side characters.
00:24:12
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Little side bust episodes. Yeah.
00:24:19
Speaker
So moving on to the female occultist that I've covered, I covered Lila Waddell.
Introduction to Leila Waddell
00:24:28
Speaker
And what's kind of funny about Lila and Moira is like, there is a little bit of crossover, but only because of Aleister Crowley. And so Lila was born a little bit later than Mina, she, Mina, well, I guess Mina, but Moi, oh my gosh, I couldn't even say her name.
00:24:48
Speaker
Moina, yeah, whichever one. She was born a little bit after Moina. She was born in 1880, and our queen is from Bathurst, New South Wales in Australia. So growing up, she was a very, very accomplished musician, and her instrument of choice was a violin. She used to teach the violin at prestigious schools in Sydney, and she would play at concerts. So she was really amazing at what she did.
00:25:16
Speaker
And so not to interrupt, but like I feel like we see this so much with these like occult, like at least for the ones that we've covered, because we've only ever done like one other episode on female occultists. So we're definitely gonna have to change that. So like well rounded people, they do so
00:25:36
Speaker
things like just Moina like she was fluent in three languages she was an artist she was just really smart and like not only that like her dad studied under Chopin and her brother like won a Nobel Prize like you see this every time we talk about these people it's not just like oh they're just this random person it's they have all of these like athletes it's crazy yeah it is yeah so
00:26:04
Speaker
In 1908, she left Australia as a member of a touring orchestra. And because of that, she ended up in London. And when she was living in London working with the touring orchestra, she met and became friends with a cellist named Catherine Mansfield, who was from New Zealand. And they
Life and Influences in London
00:26:23
Speaker
struck up like a really close friendship. And from there, she was introduced to the Bohemian Society of London.
00:26:29
Speaker
near the Cafe Royale. And for those familiar with London, this is near Piccadilly Circus in Chinatown in London. So it's near this amazing area that's like still amazing today where that's like the theater district and
00:26:45
Speaker
Basically, it's like my favorite part of London. Every time we would go, we would always like congregate into that area. So just as a little side note, because I feel like that area is already like it's super eclectic now too. So like the fact that it was also known then as like the Bohemian district is really cool.
00:27:02
Speaker
So the cafe royale attracted a lot of people from many different walks of life, poets, artists, musicians, but it also attracted people who are tied to magic and the occult. And it was rumored that it was through the cafe royale that Leila first met Alistair Crowley.
00:27:18
Speaker
And soon after they met, they became lovers, of course, as you do. I'm just kidding. And she she began studying magic as part of Aleister Crowley's order known as AA. I've seen
Involvement in Crowley's Order
00:27:32
Speaker
it just known as AA, but also on another website, I've seen it as Astrum Argentum. And so I don't like I'm just going to call it AA, but the same with the different orders. Like they had a full name like the Rosicrucian
00:27:48
Speaker
I can't even remember. It was like Alpha and Omega thing, but they would just call that one like AO. Yeah. Like RR. Okay. All these acronyms, are we in the military right now? I don't know. Honestly. Yeah.
00:28:08
Speaker
The AA was a magical organization dedicated to the advancement of humanity by perfection of the individual on every plane through a graded series of universal initiations. And I pulled that from Wikipedia, which again, like sometimes they have really good definitions for some things. So I am not like knocking on the TV.
00:28:31
Speaker
I feel like sometimes like you'll look some especially when you're talking about these kinds of topics where there's like just they have all these like wild things that they did they'll have like the clearest definition like the one that just makes the most sense without having to need to know all of those things right like we don't have to go like all the way around like a full circle just to get the definition
00:28:53
Speaker
in school it was like oh don't use Wikipedia you can't use that as a source and it's like now I'm gonna use it as a source as an adult because it right there's some good things on there not everything of course but there's some really good things on there so yeah but with these universal initiations and whatnot they would do things like Vedantic yoga ceremonial magic and Theravada Buddhism as like those are just some of the
00:29:21
Speaker
of examples of some of the things that they would incorporate into the AA with trying to advance humanity and everything. Within the AA, she was known as Sister Agatha, which is awful because her name is beautiful. Why? However, to Crowley, she was known as Layla, his Scarlet Woman, and essentially
00:29:46
Speaker
the whole basis behind this the scarlet woman she was seen as an anti-virgin Mary who quote transgressed feminine virtue by wallowing and excess which I love but also like
00:30:00
Speaker
It's just a little bit weird, I guess, how they went about it. I mean, not weird. It's just different. It's different. So Crowley was known. We've talked about this on a previous episode. I can't even remember which episode it was. I know we mentioned something about this, but he experimented a lot with sex in his rituals, and he was really interested in how
00:30:23
Speaker
heightened emotions could be harnessed in magic and like and how they could be used to like summon otherworldly beings or enter into like transcendental states things like that so for those who don't know much about Alistair Crowley and we could do an entire episode probably multiple part episode on this man which we should add that as a
00:30:45
Speaker
podcast topic episode because I feel like it would be really interesting to do a deep dive on him. He was a poet and a playwright and he would use theatrical performances for his rituals and would use his audience as co-practitioners. And Lila, because of her experience as a performer, was super important in these rituals
00:31:06
Speaker
And they would work together to combine music, poetry, and dance. And she would help him to create the rights of Eleusis. And I could be saying that wrong. I wasn't sure exactly how to say it, but I'm just going to go with that. But the rights were composed by Leila.
00:31:22
Speaker
And the purpose was to allow the audience to draw upon spiritual ecstasy. So while no sex magic took place during the rites, there was a lot of sexual imagery present on like just in the theater and wherever they would perform and like a lot of sexual undertones. Leela also helped write for Crowley's publication, The Equinox.
00:31:46
Speaker
and helped to contribute to his book, Magic. And like, there's like, I don't know, like, I don't even know how to say this book, but like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna say it. Like, Magic and then colon, Liber, ABA, book four. So if you are interested, like, if you just search, yeah, just look up, just look up Lila Waddell and like, you know, what did she help write? And it'll come right up, I promise. But, um, you probably found the right thing.
00:32:15
Speaker
We probably found it. Yeah. So she was supposed to like, I found this interesting, especially considering when we're recording this, this is like right around the time of the submersible situation that's all over the news. Yeah.
US Tour and Continued Studies
00:32:31
Speaker
Ocean gate gate. She was actually supposed to be a passenger on the Titanic. Like she had planned to purchase a ticket and like, cause she had like these tours set up in the States and you know, obviously she had to get over there.
00:32:45
Speaker
But so she missed out last minute on buying a ticket, which probably like, I mean, would have saved her life. Cause I know she wouldn't be traveling like first class, but so she ended up after sometime after the Titanic sink, she ended up making her way over to the U S on a ocean liner that did not sink. And she would play in concerts.
00:33:08
Speaker
And she continued like during this time when she was playing in concerts and touring around the United States. She continued to study sex magic and just magic in general in the order of Ordo, Temple, Orientis. And when World War I rolled around, she ended up joining a revolutionary group to help Irish nationals fight for independence. So while everybody in the world was like worried about like what's going on with all these nations.
00:33:35
Speaker
A lot of Irish Revolutionists saw this distraction as a way for them to try and obtain their independence from England and the United Kingdom and whatnot. So her family, I guess they were descended from Irish potato farmers or whatever. So she had a soft spot in her heart for the Irish nationals and so she joined them. And so I thought this was kind of funny
00:34:04
Speaker
herself and Aleister Crowley, along with a bunch of Irish revolutionaries, decided that they were going to sail down Hudson River and basically declare Irish independence in war on England. But the Hudson River in America, like that Hudson River.
00:34:22
Speaker
but like the guards wouldn't let them land so they were just like stuck on this boat like you know trying to start this war I guess but what was so funny about this is like Aleister Crowley I guess gave this like really impassioned speech that he had been practicing but no one could hear him because of like where he was on the boat and then like whenever he was done like he like he had this whole speech plan and then
00:34:46
Speaker
he would like tore up his passport and like threw it in the river as like a, I don't know, like, you know, fuck this shit type thing. But I'm just like, why, why you're going to want that though? Like if you ever want to travel anywhere else, like you're kind of like, okay, let's pick this up and like, like tape it back together.
00:35:06
Speaker
So I know that was really funny but you know interesting that she you know was really sympathetic to that cause but so throughout her time in the US she toured extensively and she toured with the YMCA so they would organize like many concerts at factories they would be like lunchtime concerts so she would go and play her violin and most of the workers at these factories were
00:35:34
Speaker
be migrants. And so the men that were working, they would sing along with her while she was playing the violin and stuff. And they would give her wildflowers as a thank you for coming to their work and playing. And she has been quoted to say how that was the best time of her life. That was the work she enjoyed doing the most because
00:35:58
Speaker
I mean, I just, I would just make my heart feel so full, like going and feeling like you're giving back and just bringing some happiness to these migrant workers who, you know, like during like the late, like 19 teens, early twenties in the 19th century, like, you know, that they weren't like treated very well in those factories. So, but in 1924, she returned to Australia because her father was sick.
Return to Australia
00:36:26
Speaker
And I mean,
00:36:28
Speaker
During this time, she was there to support her family, but she still toured throughout Australia. Whenever she left Australia, she had a really
00:36:39
Speaker
like big following to her name and people loved her and coming back it was kind of like it was like the long lost daughter came back so she had like a lot of fans like and just people loved her so unfortunately though she didn't she I mean I looked this up because I was like oh you know she was pretty young when she died she was 52 I think when she died which is still really young but it wasn't as young as I thought it was but
00:37:03
Speaker
1932 she ended up dying from uterine cancer and I guess like the last like year or two of her life she was very sick which is really sad but she is buried in Sydney next to her parents and that's like her final resting place and everything but yeah like I just I don't know I really liked learning about her but what I will say like during like the time that she was in the US she finally was like oh you know her and Alistair Crowley like they kind of eventually
00:37:31
Speaker
cut ties and he went on his way. She went on her way. He had another Scarlet Woman. Of course he did. I don't know if he's had multiple multiples, if it was just two, but okay, I'm sorry. Leela is the only Scarlet Woman in my life. Thank you. Yeah. Well, and then the episode that you mentioned was episode 43. Oh, okay.
00:37:57
Speaker
And that's when we talked about Crowley and his sex rituals. Yes. His rituals and his art too. I remember we were talking about his art. Yeah, his crazy art. Yeah. So. His sexual rituals. His sexual rituals. Yeah. So that is a little bit about Lila Weddell. There's, I mean, I'm sure that there's more that I could have talked about too with her, but you know, I thought this was a pretty good timeline of events. Yeah. Really interesting. They were a fun couple.
00:38:27
Speaker
to do. Yeah, I really learning about Moina and all of the crazy like, how much of what has been done was not credited to her, you know, initially, like, everybody was like, well, Samuel's the man, he did it. Right. Let's pray Samuel. And it's like, actually, I'm
00:38:46
Speaker
the brains behind this operation thing. Yeah, without that, there was no money to found it. Yeah. Samuel would probably be homeless because it was Annie's like family, the state that they were living in and being financially supported by. Yeah. Her mediumship.
00:39:02
Speaker
and like talking to spirits and scrying and uh actual production that brought in all of the information that they used for the order back then and all of the originals so yeah it's crazy right it reminds me too like whenever we talk about like especially this time period because it seemed like it would have been such an awesome time to experience in europe especially and especially like in london and stuff during this like
00:39:29
Speaker
the turn of the century.
Cultural Acceptance of Occult Practices
00:39:31
Speaker
So I kind of wish that if we were able to go back in time for anything, like to go back there to like see everything in action, see what they were doing and just kind of go to like the cafe Royale and then like casually meet all these like famous occultists and stuff. It's pretty cool. One, it's like, it seems like, like, I feel like we have a lot of, you know, freedom like today where we can just be and research and
00:39:57
Speaker
learn about whatever we want, but you still get like that, I guess stigma towards it. I feel like at this point in time, like not everybody was on board for it, but they were like, it was just like, well, I'm going to study the occult today. And people are like, cool. Yeah, cool. We still love you. Doing it. Yeah. So I love that. So that, that was them. That was them.
00:40:33
Speaker
That's it for this episode of Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft. You can find our source material for this episode linked in the show notes. If you love this episode, we would be forever thankful if you leave us a five-star review on wherever you listen to your podcasts. If you really love the show and want more Get In Loser content, check out our Supercast link provided in the show notes or search the Supercast website for Get In Loser, We're Doing Witchcraft.
00:40:56
Speaker
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