{"id":7181,"date":"2015-05-09T16:45:54","date_gmt":"2015-05-09T22:45:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7181"},"modified":"2015-05-12T10:50:02","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T16:50:02","slug":"an-alfred-kinsey-aleister-crowley-connection","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7181","title":{"rendered":"An  Alfred Kinsey-Aleister Crowley Connection?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ppZwSABxeYE\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Liam Neeson starred in the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0362269\/\"> 2004 movie <\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0362269\/\">Kinsey<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A casual mention of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey&#8217;s interest in the sex magic diaries of Aleister Crowley sent me down an Internet rabbit hole.<\/p>\n<p>Kinsey (1894\u20131956) was studied biology, particularly entomology, but while teaching at Indiana University in the 1930s turned to the study of human sexuality, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alfred_Kinsey#The_Kinsey_Reports\">attacking the &#8220;widespread ignorance of sexual structure and physiology&#8221; he saw around him.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>In writing his monumental works on sexual behavior, Kinsey not only <em>collected<\/em> data with questionnaires, he <em>created<\/em> data (filming his research assistants having sex, for instance) and appropriated other people&#8217;s data, sometimes lying about his sources.<\/p>\n<p>In the most notorious case (I think this was in the movie), he based his narrative on the sexual experiences of children on the precise and detailed records kept by one particular pedophile, which he took at face value. (<a href=\"http:\/\/www.kinseyinstitute.org\/about\/cont-akchild.html\">But was that a scream of pain or an orgasm?<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>A British Channel 4 documentary on this controversial research has never been aired in the United States (What&#8217;s up, PBS?), <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/htAUysRPvNs\">but you can see it on YouTube<\/a>. It&#8217;s very good.<\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/fromthebarrelhouse.files.wordpress.com\/2012\/03\/kinseyandkennethangerattheabbeyofthelema.jpg?w=614&#038;resize=525%2C374\" alt=\"\" width=\"525\" height=\"374\" \/><\/p>\n<p><em>Alfred Kinsey, left, and occultist-filmmaker <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Kenneth_Anger\">Kenneth Anger <\/a>at Crowley&#8217;s former <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Abbey_of_Thelema\">&#8220;abbey&#8221; in Cefalu, Sicily,<\/a> in the early 1950s (<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/fromthebarrelhouse.com\/2012\/04\/05\/satanism-in-hollywood-kenneth-angers-golden-age-of-occult-1969\/\">Satanism in Hollywood <\/a><em>website). Crowley himself died in 1947.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>You can buy p<a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Magical-Record-Beast-666-1914-1920\/dp\/0715606360\/ref=la_B000AQ3JP2_1_56?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1431211195&amp;sr=1-56\">rinted editions <\/a>of some of Crowley&#8217;s magickal notebooks, including sex-magick workings, but they probably were not easily available sixty years ago.<\/p>\n<p>Go much beyond this point, however, and you are wading into deep, dark, conspiratorial waters.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, you can read on the Internet that the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.rockefellerfoundation.org\/\">Rockefeller Foundation<\/a>, which funded much of Kinsey&#8217;s research, was &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/historynewsnetwork.org\/article\/1796\">pro-Nazi<\/a>.&#8221;[1]<\/p>\n<p>At the same time, Kinsey allegedly was part of a Jewish-Masonic-Illuminati conspiracy to<a href=\"https:\/\/fitzinfo.wordpress.com\/2012\/06\/18\/kinsey-the-crypto-psychoanalyst\/\"> undermine the moral fiber <\/a>of America and &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.theforbiddenknowledge.com\/hardtruth\/alfred_kinsey.htm\">subjugate the masses<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Right, a pro-Nazi Jewish conspiracy. It gets better, but you can find your own links.<\/p>\n<p>A less conspiratorial<a href=\"http:\/\/www.whale.to\/b\/reisman3.html\"> anti-Kinsey movement is still alive and kicking.<\/a> The Kinsey Institute is still &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Spin_%28public_relations%29\">spinnin<\/a>g&#8221; and defending itself <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kinseyinstitute.org\/about\/cont-akchild.html\">against allegations of pedophila and underage sexual encounters in Kinsey&#8217;s research.<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>In retrospect Kinsey&#8217;s judgment in not anticipating such misinterpretations, and in placing so much emphasis on this one man&#8217;s evidence, can be questioned.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Note the use of the passive voice, favored by institutional spokesmen who do not really believe in their own message.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t know if Kinsey ever read Crowley&#8217;s notebooks, but the very association is enough for some people to condemn him just for that.<\/p>\n<p>For Kinsey, it was all data. &#8220;Kinsey worshiped data,&#8221;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=ABPWRfvZLZg\"> says one of the people <\/a>in the documentary. Even <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XSG3PkrrpCw\">Nazi pedophiles<\/a>. <del>But I see no evidence that he ever used Crowley&#8217;s sex-magick diaries, despite looking for them<\/del>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>UPDATE:<\/strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Aleister-Crowley-Temptation-Politics-Marco\/dp\/1844656969\/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1431447595&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=Marco+Pasi\">Crowley scholar Marco Pasi<\/a> tells me that Kenneth Anger did share some of Crowley&#8217;s diaries with Kinsey \u2014 but is there evidence that Kinsey used them in his writing?<\/p>\n<h6>1. But then <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Savage-Harvest-Cannibals-Colonialism-Rockefellers\/dp\/0062116150\">Michael Rockefeller <em>was <\/em>eaten by cannibals,<\/a> so what goes around, comes around.<\/h6>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Liam Neeson starred in the 2004 movie Kinsey. A casual mention of sex researcher Alfred Kinsey&#8217;s interest in the sex magic diaries of Aleister Crowley sent me down an Internet rabbit hole. Kinsey (1894\u20131956) was studied biology, particularly entomology, but while teaching at Indiana University in the 1930s turned to the study of human sexuality, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[248,42],"class_list":["post-7181","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-aleister-crowley","tag-sexuality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1RP","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6546,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6546","url_meta":{"origin":7181,"position":0},"title":"Crowleyanity, Viewed with Alarm","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 26, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"If you thought that everything has been said about Aleister Crowley, think again. There is Henrik Bogdan and Martin Starr's new edited collection, Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, which I have to buy. Also on my reading list is Marco Pasi's Aleister Crowley and the Temptation of Politics. Had the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"esotericism\"","block_context":{"text":"esotericism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=esotericism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2921,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2921","url_meta":{"origin":7181,"position":1},"title":"Aleister Crowley&#8217;s &#8220;White Stains&#8221; summarized.","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 24, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A short essay on Aleister Crowley's book of then-pornographic verse, White Stains, with excepts of the poems. Includes Crowley comic written in Dubious Dialect. \"You people know nothing of Crowley,\" writes some angry Thelemite in the comments.","rel":"","context":"In \"magick\"","block_context":{"text":"magick","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=magick"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":349,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=349","url_meta":{"origin":7181,"position":2},"title":"Beat misery through blogging After\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 10, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Beat misery through blogging After a very unsatisfactory day involving the county clerk, an underperforming car dealer employee (no one named \"Candy\" has ever won a Nobel prize), and a Chesapeake Bay retriever, I wish that Mondays came with \"rewind\" buttons. But they don't. So onward--to movies. We ended our\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1570,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1570","url_meta":{"origin":7181,"position":3},"title":"That Wicked Man","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 30, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Via Plutonica, a Life magazine\u00a0 slideshow on Aleister Crowley and his influence on pop culture. I had not known that Sidney Blackmer played his character, Roman Castevet,\u00a0 in the occult thriller Rosemary's Baby, partly on impressions of Crowley. When the movie came out, I was too young to appreciate the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"magick\"","block_context":{"text":"magick","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=magick"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/04\/al_rose.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":7622,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7622","url_meta":{"origin":7181,"position":4},"title":"A Petition to Save Aleister Crowley&#8217;s &#8220;Abbey&#8221;","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 25, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Aleister Crowley's \"abbey\" in Sicily is still there, but the building seriously needs help. This petition is partly designed, I am told, to persuade local authorities that it is worth saving as a historical site \u2014 and presumably as a tourist destination. Aleister Crowley took up his residence at Villa\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"crowley art","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/crowley-art.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":742,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=742","url_meta":{"origin":7181,"position":5},"title":"Aleister Crowley: The other Loch Ness monster","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 19, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"The entertainment side of the BCC goes all spooky about Boleskine House (via YouTube, Part 1 of 4).....the house in which demonic forces remain until this very day . .","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7181"}],"version-history":[{"count":39,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7220,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7181\/revisions\/7220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}