occultism
Leah Sublime – why the most obscene work in literature sings about a Swiss teacher
Leah Hirsig in front of her portrait as a dead woman.
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A young teacher met occultist Aleister Crowley in 1918. He recognized the woman as the great whore of Babylon, the beloved of the beast 666 from Apocalypse. He dedicated a sex poem to her – with 666 words.
Many poets also wrote an obscene text, even the Olympian Goethe was not above praising an Italian prostitute. Secretly, of course, but these are well-behaved old man fantasies when you put them next to “Leah Sublime”. X-rated and disturbing is the most harmless thing you can say about the work.
In the lyrics, Aleister Crowley sings about his sex with Leah Hirsig. She was born in Switzerland in 1883. After an ugly divorce, her mother emigrated to the United States and enabled her daughters to live freely, each of them concentrating on one art. In 1948, Leah Hirsig was working as an art teacher in the Bronx. She and her older sister Anna were drawn to magic. The two of them visited the then well-known and notorious occultist Crowley in New York. There was a tremendous spark between master and teacher, and the visit ended with Hirsig and Cowley kissing passionately. At the second meeting, Crowley wanted to paint her naked.
passionate sex
“The ‘little sister’ (Leah) reminded me of Solomon’s girlfriend because she had no breasts… She radiated an undefinable sweetness. Without wasting time with words, I started kissing her. It was pure instinct. She shared it, and so did I. We continued, pausing occasionally as courtesy demanded, to reply to her sister on those rare moments when she was out of breath.”
“Leah Sublime” was released in 1920 and begins almost harmlessly.
leah sublime,
Goddess above me!
snake of slime
Alostrael, love me!
Our lord the devil
Enjoy the feast.
Kick your foot
My heart until it hurts!
The text increases rhythmically and rages in slime, faeces and every imaginable crossing of borders. The sex was passionate – Crowley touted Hirsig’s vagina as a “patented vacuum pump”. And sex had an occult meaning with Crowley. He gave Leah the mystical name “Alostrael” – she was one of the “Scarlet Women” of the Master. There were many of them, but Hirsig is the most important. The Scarlet Woman, the Great Mother or Mother of Abominations, is a goddess in the mystical system described by Crowley in his 1904 work The Book of the Law.
The powerful woman of the apocalypse
The scarlet woman represents the female sex drive and the liberated woman. The name alludes to the apocalypse, Alostrael is the lover of the beast who bears the sign 666.
In the book of Revelation chapter 17 it says:
“The angel took me into the desert. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast, covered with blasphemous names and having seven heads and ten horns.
The woman was dressed in purple and scarlet and adorned with gold, precious stones, and pearls. She held in her hand a golden cup filled with the abominable filth of her fornication.
On her forehead was a name, a mysterious name: Babylon the Great, the mother of harlots and all the abominations of the earth.
And I saw that the woman was drunk with the blood of the saints and the blood of the witnesses of Jesus.”
Abbey of Thelema
And young Hirsig wanted to be this whore of the apocalypse. Even the poem “Leah Sublime!” consists of 666 words. In 1921 she wrote: “I dedicate myself entirely to the great work.” She left husband and child in New York to found an occult temple near Palermo, the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalù. In the abbey, the two performed magical rituals. Among other things, Hirsig wanted to have sex with a billy goat, but the ritual failed. Crowley took on the role of the animal, the buck’s throat was cut and blood splattered over Hirsig.
Their sexual relationship cooled, in 1924 Crowley chose the next “Scarlet Woman”. But Hirsig remained true to the “great work” of occultism. Financial and health problems and the hostile attitude of the then new fascist government in Rome led to the abbey being abandoned and the group emigrating to France. Leah Hirsig is still working for Crowley for a while, the financial situation was so tight that she is said to have worked as a prostitute. She wrote: “As a human creature, I would gladly have died in the arms of Beast 666, which, as recorded in my first journal (beginning March 21, 1919), was and is my lover, my companion, my father, my child , and everything else that the woman in the man needs.”
But eventually she returned to the United States. There she remarried, had another baby and started teaching children again – as if nothing had happened. In 1926, one of her shocked sisters wrote a series of articles about her life entitled “My Life in a Love Cult, A Warning to All Young Girls” in the New York Journal.
Leah Hirsig died in Switzerland in 1975. She left her magical diaries to posterity.
Source: Magical Diary of Leah Hirsig