Ida Craddock (1857–1902)

I am glad that I read one of Ida's biographies before reading these works, because otherwise I would have not appreciated how radical they were for her time. Ida Craddock was a martyr for sexual education and sacred sex, ultimately preferring to take her own life at the age of 44 rather than disavow her teachings or endure a long sentence in a work house as a result of being hounded by Anthony Comstock and convicted by a judge who refused to let the jury rule on her case. Her insistence that sex can and should be treated as pure, that women as well as men should receive both biological and spiritual education about sex before marriage, that women's desire and pleasure should guide the relationship, that mutual oral sex was to be practiced as a healthy alternative to intercourse when children were not sought, and that care should be taken to not have children unless the family had the health, financial security, and emotional security to properly care for them, were explosive in her time -- and, unfortunately, would continue to be considered so in many places today.

What would continue to be controversial today is her belief that at the highest level of physical union, including the Divine in the emotional and energetic encounter, is possible, beneficiary and to be sought. Although a devout Christian herself, she thought it was possible for someone of any faith, or even an atheist, to achieve this level, so long as they held in their mind the idea of whatever deity, force, or principle was highest to them. Also controversial -- then and now - is her testimony that she learned these techniques from a heavenly spouse, although she remained unmarried and untouched by a mortal man.

I'm not sure how many people will find her instructions on how to elevate their sexual life helpful, founded as they are on the belief that intercourse with ejaculation should never occur unless a married, heterosexual couple wanted to become pregnant. What is more of interest (to me, at least) is the way she uses religious texts, the psychic and occult reasearch of her day, and science to build her case, and her passionate insistence on the importance of education, mutual pleasure, and dedication to the highest of ideals.

Ida Craddock deserves to be better known in our age, especially to champions of sex education, women's rights, planned pregnancies, and sacred sexuality. Some aspects of her specific teachings may not have stood the test of time, but her courage, her intelligence, and her commitment to these causes deserves to be remembered and celebrated.… (meer)

Lunar and Sex Worship is an initial, long-posthumous publication of two chapters of a projected larger work on comparative religion by the American sex-reformer and mystic Ida Craddock. As it is, these two chapters make a hefty book. Barely 50% of the verbiage is Craddock's own, since she quotes at length from her preferred sources, who include Thomas Inman, J.G.R. Forlong, and most prominently Gerald Massey (who is probably the least credible of the lot, alas). For those familiar with the earlier works on which Craddock depends, there may not be much new here, other than her particular feminist perspective on the material. The book does stand as a pretty accurate and accessible digest of 19th-century solar-phallic theory of religion, however.

Surprisingly, Craddock has interesting contributions to make on the topic of "aeonics," or the historical succession of global magical formulae. She uses a novel strategy in an attempt to pinpoint what Thelemites will understand as the transition between the Aeons of Isis and Osiris (19-21). She also discusses the messianic moment corresponding to the advent of the Aeon of Horus (264).

Editor Vere Chappell has been a relentless 21st-century researcher and champion of Craddock, and his introduction contextualizes Lunar and Sex Worship well enough for contemporary readers. I am grateful that he also furnished the book with an index: considering the wide range of topics that it covers, with no subheadings within its two enormously long chapters, the index is a crucial feature--even if it fails to have an entry for "ass" (Craddock's passage on lunar onolatry may be found on 94-95)!

The best part of the book is the closing pages, where she decries the sexual repression of modern Christianity, and calls for a return of phallic religious sensibility. She holds out hope that the "storehouse of symbolism" in Catholic Christianity may yet contribute to a restored worship of the generative power, enhanced by scientific knowledge and an ethic of universal brotherhood (252).… (meer)