Women and Men, Their Roles in Magic Options

Greetings! (PS the title may be too limiting...go nuts!)
This was a bud starting to form in the Abramelin thread.
It was stated that women should be excluded from the Abramelin working.
It was remarked upon about that this was a prevalent attitude in Western esoteric traditions.
I maintain (whether right or wrong) that this practice takes place all around the world and that Magic can be dictated by the sex of the user. Women and Men handle/channel energy differently....
So, what are your thoughts?
Is this merely an attitude foisted off on us by the patriarchal church? Or does it stem from something alittle more basic?
Do tell us your opinions, theories or thoughts about this! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/laugh.gif)

I haven't much other comment because I am not very familiar with Abramelin workings. Perhaps it doesn't work as well with women; I can't say because I don't know what is involved.

Unless the women is a virgin.

The whole “women should be virgins” part of the Abramelin is an odd concept. Maybe because if one wasn’t a virgin then they were probably pregnant (assuming there wasn‘t a form of birth control used back then) and dealing with the “demons” could be dangerous to the baby?

I'm not sure about the concept of sky father and earth mother but I use to instinctively associate the moon with male and the sun with female. But after years in the occult my beliefs were changed and now I sense female energy with the moon and male with the sun. . .

Unless the women is a virgin.

The whole “women should be virgins” part of the Abramelin is an odd concept. Maybe because if one wasn’t a virgin then they were probably pregnant (assuming there wasn‘t a form of birth control used back then) and dealing with the “demons” could be dangerous to the baby? .

Birth control was an unknown concept back in those days. They had a few remedies--the ancient Chinese would drink mercury to abort, for example--but on the whole it was a hit-or-miss affair at best. If you got pregnant, oh well--most women would get married around 16, have a litter of kids, then die by 25 or 30. In Elizabethan times, half of all children died by age five and only one in 10 or so survived to have children of their own. A great many women would also die in childbirth or from post-partum infections as they had ZERO knowledge of sanitation, bacteria, and a lot of other medical facts we moderns take for granted. Life was very hard in the Late Middle Ages/early Renaissance; what food there was was bad, and plagues swept through cities on a fairly regular timetable. Famine and warfare was very common and decimated the population further. So...these things should be kept in mind when reading any medieval grimoire, whether it be Abramelin, the Keys, or anything else.

Your point about demons going after the unborn baby is a valid one. If a pregnant woman meddled about with the spirits, who's to say that the spirit in question wouldn't see the unborn child as a foothold into the physical world? It stands to reason that the undeveloped fetus would also have undeveloped defences, and then the hostile spirit would become the baby's soul/spirit/animating force and then anything could happen. A lot of pre-modern cultures have isolation rituals for newborns and their mothers lest some spirit take the child and use it for its own ends, and the general prohibition against women in the Abramelin book may be a survivor of this.

That's an interesting point. At that time, even if the woman wasn't pregnant at the time, then if she wasn't a virgin it likely meant she was a mother. There may have been a practical implication involved - while a father of the era could do as he pleased and have the time and inclination to complete the abramelin operation, a mother would have been expected to be on full-time mother duty, even if she had the resources to employ a nanny of some kind.

But I still wonder, why does this particular grimoire have such a caveat when not all others do? Are there other grimoires that include a condition of this sort? Of the top of my head I can't recall, but I know the crowley edition of the lesser key doesn't and... I don't see one in the greater key under cursory examination, and don't remember reading one before. Obviously the male pronoun is used in regards to the magician but that doesn't necessarily mean anything. I believe there is a particular formula specifically for women in another grimoire, I want to say in the "Le Dragon Rouge"? Most of these trace back to about the same handful of centuries, just in terms of publication at least, and for the Judaic grimoires in particular one would think there would be a particular caveat of this nature if only because of the status women are ascribed in the hebrew holy texts.

And for that matter, given that the magician performing the operation of Abramelin must procure the oaths of the evil spirits and must therefore be exposed to them again and again over time it does sound like fair reasoning to consider that it might be a matter of that possibility that a woman might be pregnant - but then why use the term virgin specifically? Could there be some danger for the children (ones already born which the mother must be present with as the operation is commencing)? As I understand it the magician undergoes a fair amount of spiritual pressure during this operation up until the HGA experience, and then for some number of days later. It's easy enough for a father of the time to isolate himself in the family's country house, etc.

And that's another thing - this is another grimoire which specifically requires the practitioner to 'have his affairs in order' as it were, correct? I haven't read this book in a long time but seem to remember a discussion about not being a slave to any other man, etc. So we're also talking about a magician, of either gender depending on conditions, who doesn't have to submit to the same conditions as the 'lower class' of the era.

All together I'm inclined to think that this book is written for someone, of either gender, who simply has no other specific obligations which will prevent them from completing the work. Virgin, in this case, might as well mean unmarried since the newly wedded wife would be expected to not only be a virgin at the time of marriage, but also she would be expected to have 'nuptuals' with her husband on their wedding night (gotta make them babies), and thereafter to be beholden to him. Therein could be another intention behind the use of that condition.

Given the state of the family in the modern age, if any of these social conditions necessitated the use of the caveat, then perhaps in a modern sense this is an outdated caveat not because of some ancient chauvanism (not present in all grimoires), but because the role of women is more flexible now - as long as the practioner can remain chaste throughout the work, it doesn't matter if the female magician is not a virgin these days; not being a virgin doesn't necessarily imply being a mother/wife anymore.

peace

This post has been edited by Vagrant Dreamer: Nov 11 2009, 07:32 AM

That's an interesting point. At that time, even if the woman wasn't pregnant at the time, then if she wasn't a virgin it likely meant she was a mother. There may have been a practical implication involved - while a father of the era could do as he pleased and have the time and inclination to complete the abramelin operation, a mother would have been expected to be on full-time mother duty, even if she had the resources to employ a nanny of some kind.

Given the state of the family in the modern age, if any of these social conditions necessitated the use of the caveat, then perhaps in a modern sense this is an outdated caveat not because of some ancient chauvanism (not present in all grimoires), but because the role of women is more flexible now - as long as the practioner can remain chaste throughout the work, it doesn't matter if the female magician is not a virgin these days; not being a virgin doesn't necessarily imply being a mother/wife anymore.

peace

This is exactly the point I was trying to make in my first post in this thread. :/ If someone from Abramelin's time was suddenly transported into our modern world, they would find it totally alien and probably go mad from sensory overload and/or culture shock.

I've found that having one's affairs in order is a general recommendation, if not an active requirement, for studying any kind of ceremonial magic. It's hard to concentrate on the Work at hand when you're having a hard time keeping a roof over your head and feeding yourself because you have to work 60 hrs/week to keep your job as a lot of people do these days. :/

Also, sexual relations with one's wife is perfectly acceptable within the Abramelin system, although the practitioner can't have relations with anyone else during that time. That's chauvinistic from the modern point of view, but then again, consider the role of women at that time. I'd say if women want to try the Abramelin system, they should go for it, but remain chaste during the period required to attain conversation with the HGA. I'm sure that men would find it helpful as well, esp. considering how many grimoires require some form of chastity, fasting, or both (Necronomicon) before attempting any of the procedures therein.

Spirits going after children is perfectly imaginable. If these spirits are as evil and as cagey as the grimoire says, then it stands to reason they'll go after any weak point they find in the magician's psyche. This includes children. It's a dirty way to fight, but also an effective one. There's a reason there's that 'do no harm to me and my family including pets, friends, and interests while carrying out your assigned task' clause so often included in general dealings with spirits.

This post has been edited by Darkmage: Nov 11 2009, 08:37 AM