Continuing the Yeats theme of the previous post, here's the passage I mentioned earlier about Yeats and his attitude towards sex:
W.B. Yeats described the summer of 1897, when he was 32, as "the most miserable time of my life". He went on to say, "I was tortured by sexual desire and disappointed love... When desire became an unendurable torture, I would masturbate, and that, no matter how moderate I was, would make me ill." Now, admittedly he was taking hashish pills at the time, which may or may not have influenced his feelings of illness, but it seems hard to deny that his reaction to masturbation was extreme, although probably not uncommon for the Victorian era. I have to admit that, as a young Irish man myself, I find these kinds of accounts quite surprising, even to one already aware of the Victorian attitude towards sex. I wonder if Yeats' extreme view, and that of Moina described in a previous post, was shared by other Golden Dawn members of the time?
W.B. Yeats described the summer of 1897, when he was 32, as "the most miserable time of my life". He went on to say, "I was tortured by sexual desire and disappointed love... When desire became an unendurable torture, I would masturbate, and that, no matter how moderate I was, would make me ill." Now, admittedly he was taking hashish pills at the time, which may or may not have influenced his feelings of illness, but it seems hard to deny that his reaction to masturbation was extreme, although probably not uncommon for the Victorian era. I have to admit that, as a young Irish man myself, I find these kinds of accounts quite surprising, even to one already aware of the Victorian attitude towards sex. I wonder if Yeats' extreme view, and that of Moina described in a previous post, was shared by other Golden Dawn members of the time?
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2 comments:
Hi Dean,
I think you say it yourself; Yeats' view was not uncommon for the Victorian Western world. I would say, "yes" his view was shared by the majority of the GD members, but they would not have seen it as extreme.
In these days of being to read about how to have better oral sex while waiting at the supermarket, we forget how different the world was back 100 years ago. The word revolution is use accurately in "sexual revolution"; a complete turning about. One moment facing away from a window with bright sunlight, the next turning to face it.
Even those more "liberated" magician's such as Uncle Alick was still working in the same paradigm of sex=bad=dirty. They just embraced the bad and the dirty, for example Crowley's scatophilia. It was only after the 60s that "sacred sexuality", as distinct from "sex magic" was able to really surface, though groups like the FIL had been working it since the 30s. It is yet to be fully embraced by even the sexual Orders such as the Crowleyan OTO.
The western sexual world pre WWII was one of neuroses. I forget the exact statistic but even in the 50s, Kinsey found most males reaching orgasm in coitus within a minute or so. Dion writes a bit about how damaged and perverse (in the psychiatric sense) sexuality was in her day. Her remedy was sacred sexuality, not sex magic, enacted through non physical actions.
Sacred Sexuality, as I have described in my own blog, really depends on a Tipharetic level of consciousness going beyond the physical (Malkuth), instinctual (Yesod), mental (Hod) and emotional (Netzach) connections and needs that most often fuel sexual relations. It is for this reason it is seldom really understood or worked.
thanks for the post;
peregrin :)
I accidentally deleted Tony Fuller's response here, but it was as follows:
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An excellent comment from Peregrin. Indeed I was about to say something very similar but my comment would be redundant.
Such Victorian views were still fairly widespread even in the late fifties and early sixties. To advocate birth control at the turn of the last century was considered immoral by the prevailing mores and indeed Anna Kingsford and other female pioneers were accused of immorality on this point. Within this context Yeats' views were fairly normal.
However, contra one point, one can trace the notion of sacred sexuality back into a considerable body of religious mysticism, including the Kabbalah which contains a great deal of prima facie erotic symbology.
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I'm too tired to respond now, but will do so some time tomorrow.
LVX,
Dean.
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