Nice piece on Pascal Beverly Randolph, a pivotal figure in modern ceremonial magick. At the very least he was a pioneer in shifting practice from the passive mediumship of 19th century Spiritism to active conversation and control of disembodied intelligences. He also constructed an elaborate system of sex magick that some would argue made its way to Europe and was among the foundations of O.T.O.’s Mysteries. The article begins:
Erotic magic, Black emancipation, gender fluidity, interplanetary spirit realms — these were but a few of the topics that preoccupied Paschal Beverly Randolph (b. 1825), an occult thinker who believed that his multiracial identity afforded him “peculiar mental power and marvelous versatility”. Lara Langer Cohen considers the neglected politics of Randolph’s esoteric writings alongside the repeated frustration of his activism: how dreams of other worlds, above and below our own, reflect the unfulfilled promises of Emancipation.
https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/the-emancipatory-visions-of-a-sex-magician/
