Paschal Beverly Randolph
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Paschal Beverly Randolph (October 8, 1825 - July 29, 1875) was born according to conflicting sources in New York or Virginia, a free man of mixed-race ancestry.
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Paschal Beverly Randolph
His background led naturally to his being a spokesman for the abolition of slavery, and he trained as a doctor of medicine. However, Randolph was also a spiritualist, and an advocate of the use of hashish to create trances. After initiation by Eliphas Levi, Randolph founded the Fraternitas Rosae Crucis, the oldest Rosicrucian organization in the United States, which today avoids mention of Randolph's assiduous interest in sex-magic.
Famous occultists and practitioners of sex magic Theodor Reuss and Aleister Crowley were heavily influenced by Randolph in both organizing the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) and in their sex magic rituals. However, the major difference between Randolph's sex magic and that of Reuss and Crowley is that Randoplh was working from a standpoint of gender parity and the latter were male-centered exclusively. In practical terms, this means that Randolph sought to produce spiritual and magical effects through prayers or invocations agreed upon prior to the mutual orgasm of both partners ("the nuptive moment"), whereas Reuss and Crowley believed that women were little more than passive vehicles for male spiritual attainment and the male orgasm.
In 1875 Randolph committed suicide at the age of 49 and was succeeded as Supreme Grand Master of the Fraternitas, and in other titles, by his chosen successor Freeman B. Dowd.
In 1996 the biography Paschal Beverly Randolph: A Nineteenth-Century Black American Spiritualist, Rosicrucian, and Sex Magician by John Patrick Devaney and Franklin Rosemont was published (ISBN 0791431207).
External links
- Unofficial Biography (http://www.luckymojo.com/tkpbrandolph.html)
- Official Biography (http://www.soul.org/PB-Randolph.html)pt:Paschal Beverly Randolph