Veiled references to Homosexuality?

[AliceKnewIt]

Jim, you mentioned to me that Crowley veiled his references to sodomy by calling it a sacrifice of babies? Or such? Is this the passage? Are there others?

“For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim. For evocations it would be more convenient to place the blood of the victim in the Triangle — the idea being that the spirit might obtain from the blood this subtle but physical substance which was the quintessence of its life in such a manner as to enable it to take on a visible and tangible shape.”
~ Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice

You explained that if Crowley had written directly of homosexual activity, he would be arrested; but that it was perfectly legal for him to write about human sacrifice.....

Thank you

[Jim Eshelman]

@AliceNui said

"Jim, you mentioned to me that Crowley veiled his references to sodomy by calling it a sacrifice of babies? Or such? Is this the passage? Are there others?"

There are plenty of variants. He was a versatile writer (among other things, ahem).

"“For the highest spiritual working one must accordingly choose that victim which contains the greatest and purest force. A male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence is the most satisfactory and suitable victim. For evocations it would be more convenient to place the blood of the victim in the Triangle — the idea being that the spirit might obtain from the blood this subtle but physical substance which was the quintessence of its life in such a manner as to enable it to take on a visible and tangible shape.”
~ Aleister Crowley, Magick in Theory and Practice"

The "male child of perfect innocence and high intelligence" here is simply the sperm. It's "blood" is semen.

"You explained that if Crowley had written directly of homosexual activity, he would be arrested; but that it was perfectly legal for him to write about human sacrifice....."

Yes. It's my understanding that in England at the time, as with most violent felonies, a conviction of murder (for example) couldn't be made just because someone once wrote that they did it. (Especially a novelist!) There had to be actual evidence. But even writing about sodomy was a felony.