Ida Craddock
Encyclopedia
Ida C. Craddock was a 19th-century American advocate of free speech and women's rights
.
and provided her with an extensive Quaker education.
In her twenties, Craddock was recommended by the faculty for admission into the University of Pennsylvania
as its first female undergraduate student after having passed the required entrance exams. However, her entrance was blocked by the University's Board of Trustees in 1882. She went on to publish a stenography textbook, Primary Phonography, and teach the subject to women at Girard College.
In her thirties, Craddock left her Quaker upbringing behind. She developed an academic interest in the occult
through her association with the Theosophical Society
beginning around 1887. She tried in her writings to synthesize translated mystic literature and traditions from many cultures into a scholarly, distilled whole. As a freethinker
, she was elected Secretary of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Secular Union
in 1889. Although a member of the Unitarian
faith, Craddock became a student of religious eroticism and declared herself a Priestess and Pastor of the Church of Yoga. Never married, Craddock eventually claimed to have a blissful ongoing marital relationship with an angel
named Soph; Craddock even stating that her intercourse with Soph was so noisy as to draw complaints from her neighbors. Her mother responded by threatening to burn Craddock's papers and unsuccessfully tried to have her institutionalized.
Craddock moved to Chicago
and opened a Dearborn Street office offering "mystical" sexual counseling to married couples via both walk-in counseling and mail order. She dedicated herself to “preventing sexual evils and sufferings” by educating adults, achieving national notoriety with her editorials in defense of Little Egypt
. This was a controversial belly dancing act at the World's Columbian Exposition
held in Chicago during 1893.
on human sexuality
and appropriate, respectful sexual relations between married couples. Among her works were Heavenly Bridegrooms, Psychic Wedlock, Spiritual Joys, The Wedding Night and Right Marital Living. Aleister Crowley
reviewed Heavenly Bridegrooms in the pages of his journal The Equinox
, stating that it was:
These sex manual
s were all considered obscene by the standards of her day. Their distribution led to numerous confrontations with various authorities, often initiated by Craddock herself. She was held for up to several months at a time on morality charges in five local jails as well as the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.
indictment
of Craddock. She pled guilty and received a suspended sentence. A subsequent 1902 New York Federal trial
on charges of sending The Wedding Night through the mail during a sting operation
ended with her conviction. She refused to plead insanity as a condition to avoid prison time and was sentenced to three months in prison, much of which she served in Blackwell's Island workhouse. Upon her release, Anthony Comstock
immediately re-arrested her for violations of the federal Comstock law and on October 10 she was tried and convicted; the judge declaring that The Wedding Night, was so “obscene, lewd, lascivious, dirty” that the jury should not be allowed to see it during the trial. At age forty-five, she saw her five year sentence as a life term and so committed suicide
, by slashing her wrists and inhaling natural gas from the oven in her apartment, on October 16, 1902, the day before reporting to Federal prison. She penned a private final letter to her mother as well as a lengthy public suicide note
condemning Comstock, her personal nemesis. Comstock first opposed Craddock almost a decade before over the Little Egypt act and effectively acted as her prosecutor during both Federal legal actions against her. He had sponsored the Comstock Act under which she was repeatedly charged.
, a free-speech lawyer from New York with an amateur interest in psychology became interested in Ida Craddock's case a decade after her death. He began researching her life, and collected a large amount of her letters, diaries, manuscripts, and other printed materials. Although he never met Craddock he speculated that she had taken at least two human lovers, in spite of Craddock herself insisting that she had only ever had intercourse with Soph, her spirit husband.
Sexual techniques from Craddock's Psychic Wedlock were later reproduced in Sex Magick by Louis T. Culling.
Today Ida Craddock's manuscripts and notes are preserved in the Special Collections of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her battle with Anthony Comstock is the subject of the 2006 stage play Smut by Alice Jay and Joseph Adler, which received its world premiere at Miami's GableStage in June 2007.
After a century of her works remaining almost completely out of print, in 2010 The Teitan Press
published Lunar and Sex Worship by Ida Craddock, edited and with an introduction by Vere Chappell. Recently, Leigh Eric Schmidt authored Heaven's Bride (2010), a biography of this figure.
Women's rights
Women's rights are entitlements and freedoms claimed for women and girls of all ages in many societies.In some places these rights are institutionalized or supported by law, local custom, and behaviour, whereas in others they may be ignored or suppressed...
.
Early life
Ida Craddock was born in Philadelphia; her father died when she was two years old. Her mother homeschooled her as an only childOnly child
An only child is a person with no siblings, either biological or adopted. In a family with multiple offspring, first-borns, may be briefly considered only children and have a similar early family environment, but the term only child is generally applied only to those individuals who never have...
and provided her with an extensive Quaker education.
In her twenties, Craddock was recommended by the faculty for admission into the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
as its first female undergraduate student after having passed the required entrance exams. However, her entrance was blocked by the University's Board of Trustees in 1882. She went on to publish a stenography textbook, Primary Phonography, and teach the subject to women at Girard College.
In her thirties, Craddock left her Quaker upbringing behind. She developed an academic interest in the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
through her association with the Theosophical Society
Theosophical Society
The Theosophical Society is an organization formed in 1875 to advance the spiritual principles and search for Truth known as Theosophy. The original organization, after splits and realignments has several successors...
beginning around 1887. She tried in her writings to synthesize translated mystic literature and traditions from many cultures into a scholarly, distilled whole. As a freethinker
Freethought
Freethought is a philosophical viewpoint that holds that opinions should be formed on the basis of science, logic, and reason, and should not be influenced by authority, tradition, or other dogmas...
, she was elected Secretary of the Philadelphia chapter of the American Secular Union
American Secular Union
The American Secular Union was a social movement from the 19th century in the United States.After the implosion of the National Liberal League, the Liberals reorganized as a nonpolitical American Secular Union...
in 1889. Although a member of the Unitarian
Unitarianism
Unitarianism is a Christian theological movement, named for its understanding of God as one person, in direct contrast to Trinitarianism which defines God as three persons coexisting consubstantially as one in being....
faith, Craddock became a student of religious eroticism and declared herself a Priestess and Pastor of the Church of Yoga. Never married, Craddock eventually claimed to have a blissful ongoing marital relationship with an angel
Angel
Angels are mythical beings often depicted as messengers of God in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles along with the Quran. The English word angel is derived from the Greek ἄγγελος, a translation of in the Hebrew Bible ; a similar term, ملائكة , is used in the Qur'an...
named Soph; Craddock even stating that her intercourse with Soph was so noisy as to draw complaints from her neighbors. Her mother responded by threatening to burn Craddock's papers and unsuccessfully tried to have her institutionalized.
Craddock moved to Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
and opened a Dearborn Street office offering "mystical" sexual counseling to married couples via both walk-in counseling and mail order. She dedicated herself to “preventing sexual evils and sufferings” by educating adults, achieving national notoriety with her editorials in defense of Little Egypt
Little Egypt (dancer)
Little Egypt was the stage name for three popular belly dancers. They had so many imitators, the name became synonymous with belly dancers generally.Farida Mazar Spyropoulos, Little Egypt was the stage name for three popular belly dancers. They had so many imitators, the name became synonymous with...
. This was a controversial belly dancing act at the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
held in Chicago during 1893.
Writings
A gifted and compelling writer, Craddock wrote many serious instructional tractsTract (literature)
A tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the 21st century, these meant small pamphlets used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. They are...
on human sexuality
Human sexuality
Human sexuality is the awareness of gender differences, and the capacity to have erotic experiences and responses. Human sexuality can also be described as the way someone is sexually attracted to another person whether it is to opposite sexes , to the same sex , to either sexes , or not being...
and appropriate, respectful sexual relations between married couples. Among her works were Heavenly Bridegrooms, Psychic Wedlock, Spiritual Joys, The Wedding Night and Right Marital Living. Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
reviewed Heavenly Bridegrooms in the pages of his journal The Equinox
The Equinox
The Equinox is a series of publications in book form that serves as the official organ of the A.'.A.'., a magical order founded by Aleister Crowley...
, stating that it was:
...one of the most remarkable human documents ever produced, and it should certainly find a regular publisher in book form. The authoress of the MS. claims that she was the wife of an angel. She expounds at the greatest length the philosophy connected with this thesis. Her learning is enormous.
...This book is of incalculable value to every student of occult matters. No Magick library is complete without it.
These sex manual
Sex manual
Sex manuals are books which explain how to perform sexual intercourse and other sexual practices. They often also feature advice on birth control, and sometimes safe sex, as well as advice on sexual relationships.-Early sex manuals:...
s were all considered obscene by the standards of her day. Their distribution led to numerous confrontations with various authorities, often initiated by Craddock herself. She was held for up to several months at a time on morality charges in five local jails as well as the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane.
Indictments
Mass distribution of Right Marital Living through the U.S. Mail after its publication as a featured article in the medical journal The Chicago Clinic led to an 1899 Chicago FederalFederal government of the United States
The federal government of the United States is the national government of the constitutional republic of fifty states that is the United States of America. The federal government comprises three distinct branches of government: a legislative, an executive and a judiciary. These branches and...
indictment
Indictment
An indictment , in the common-law legal system, is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that maintain the concept of felonies, the serious criminal offence is a felony; jurisdictions that lack the concept of felonies often use that of an indictable offence—an...
of Craddock. She pled guilty and received a suspended sentence. A subsequent 1902 New York Federal trial
Trial
A trial is, in the most general sense, a test, usually a test to see whether something does or does not meet a given standard.It may refer to:*Trial , the presentation of information in a formal setting, usually a court...
on charges of sending The Wedding Night through the mail during a sting operation
Sting operation
In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person committing a crime. A typical sting will have a law-enforcement officer or cooperative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather...
ended with her conviction. She refused to plead insanity as a condition to avoid prison time and was sentenced to three months in prison, much of which she served in Blackwell's Island workhouse. Upon her release, Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock
Anthony Comstock was a United States Postal Inspector and politician dedicated to ideas of Victorian morality.-Biography:...
immediately re-arrested her for violations of the federal Comstock law and on October 10 she was tried and convicted; the judge declaring that The Wedding Night, was so “obscene, lewd, lascivious, dirty” that the jury should not be allowed to see it during the trial. At age forty-five, she saw her five year sentence as a life term and so committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, by slashing her wrists and inhaling natural gas from the oven in her apartment, on October 16, 1902, the day before reporting to Federal prison. She penned a private final letter to her mother as well as a lengthy public suicide note
Suicide note
A suicide note or death note is a message that states the author has died by suicide, and left to be discovered and read in anticipation of suicide....
condemning Comstock, her personal nemesis. Comstock first opposed Craddock almost a decade before over the Little Egypt act and effectively acted as her prosecutor during both Federal legal actions against her. He had sponsored the Comstock Act under which she was repeatedly charged.
After death
Theodore SchroederTheodore Schroeder
Theodore Schroeder was a controversial author who wrote on issues pertaining to freedom of expression. Schroeder was perhaps one of the first authors to challenge the state of freedom of speech in the United States, claiming that the US government may be a tyranny and that the way Americans view...
, a free-speech lawyer from New York with an amateur interest in psychology became interested in Ida Craddock's case a decade after her death. He began researching her life, and collected a large amount of her letters, diaries, manuscripts, and other printed materials. Although he never met Craddock he speculated that she had taken at least two human lovers, in spite of Craddock herself insisting that she had only ever had intercourse with Soph, her spirit husband.
Sexual techniques from Craddock's Psychic Wedlock were later reproduced in Sex Magick by Louis T. Culling.
Today Ida Craddock's manuscripts and notes are preserved in the Special Collections of the Southern Illinois University Carbondale. Her battle with Anthony Comstock is the subject of the 2006 stage play Smut by Alice Jay and Joseph Adler, which received its world premiere at Miami's GableStage in June 2007.
After a century of her works remaining almost completely out of print, in 2010 The Teitan Press
The Teitan Press
The Teitan Press is a small publishing house specialising in books by and relating to Aleister Crowley, and to scholarly works on the occult.-History:...
published Lunar and Sex Worship by Ida Craddock, edited and with an introduction by Vere Chappell. Recently, Leigh Eric Schmidt authored Heaven's Bride (2010), a biography of this figure.
External links
- Reprints of Ida Craddock's tracts and suicide notes
- "The Tale of the Wild Cat: A Child's Game" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. 10, No. 39 (Oct. - Dec., 1897)
- Ida Craddock Papers, 1877-1936 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center