Roddie Minor
Roddie Minor, Soror Ahitha, “The Camel”, Roddie Minor Warwick
“Graduate of Columbia University, New York, and a Cosmetic Technician.”—Accomac Eastern Shore News, Jan 25, 1979
America 1884 - 1979
“It is necessary to say here that The Beast appears to be a definite individual; to wit, the man Aleister Crowley. But the Scarlet Woman is an officer replaceable as need arises. Thus to this present date of writing, Anno XVI, Sun in Sagittarius, there have been several holders of the title. … 4. Roddie Minor. Brought me in touch with Amalantrah. Failed from indifference to the Work.”—New Comment, I 15, see also Amalantrah
“Early in October, I broke up the menage and transferred my headquarters to a studio in West 9th Street, which I shared with a friend of the Dog's, hereafter described as the Camel.
Her name was Roddie Minor, a married woman living apart from her husband, a near artist of German extraction. She was physically a magnificent animal, with a man's brain well stocked with general knowledge and a special comprehension of chemistry and pharmacy. She was at this time employed in the pathological laboratory of a famous doctor, but afterwards became managing chemist to a prominent firm of perfumery manufactures.
I have said that she had a man's brain, but despite every effort, there was still one dark corner in which her femininity had taken refuge and defied her to expel it. From time to time the garrison made a desperate sortie. At such moments her womanhood avenged itself savagely on her ambition. She was more frantically feminine than any avowed woman could possibly be. She was ruthlessly irrational. Such attacks were fortunately as short as they were severe, but unfortunately too often did irreparable damage.
In the upshot, this characteristic led to our separation. I treated her as an {781} equal in all respects, and for some months everything went as smoothly as if she had been really a man. But that beleaguered section of her brain sent out spies under cover of night, and whispered to the besiegers sinister suggestions, to shake their confidence in themselves. The idea was born and grew that she was essentially my inferior. She began to feel my personality as an obsession. She began to dread being dominated, though perfectly well aware that I wished nothing less, that her freedom was necessary to my enjoyment of my own. But she failed to rid herself of this hallucination, and when I decided to make a Great Magical Retirement on the Hudson, in a canoe, in the summer of 1918, we agreed to part. There was no quarrel. Our friendship and even our intimacy continued. My last night in New York before leaving for Europe was spent in here arms.”—Chapter 78
“But when I asked him to assign a mystic name to the Camel, he replied “Ahitha” which adds to 555, an obvious correlative with my own number in the Great Order, 666. It defined, so to speak, the function of the Camel in that Order.”—Chapter 85
“The Camel was a doctor of pharmacy, employed in pathological analysis, and later in manufacturing perfumery. She had never had any interest in Magick or any similar study, and I had not attempted to rouse it. One weekend she was lying on a mattress on the floor smoking opium, the apparatus having been lent us by a famous chiropractor who had bought it during a trip to Cuba, out of curiosity. I was sitting at my desk, working. To my surprised annoyance, the Camel suddenly began to have visions. I shut off my hearing in the way I have learnt to do; but after some five minutes babbling she pierced my defences by some remark concerning an egg under a palm tree. This aroused me instantly, for the last instruction given to myself and Soror Virakam was to go to the desert and look for just that thing. I saw then a kind of continuity between those visions and these. It was as if the intelligence communicating were taking up the story at the point at which it had been dropped. Of course, it might have been a mere coincidence. But that point could be easily settled by cross-examination. I began to ask questions. The Camel said that someone, whom she called “the Wizard”, wished to communicate with me. I am not a spiritualist who accepts any message as of divine origin. I insist on knowing with whom I am talking, and on his showing such qualities of mind that the communication will benefit me.”—Chapter 85
“O my Son, hear this Wisdom of Experience, how at thy first Sight, when I put thee into the Arms of Ahitha, thy sweet Stepmother my concubine, such was thy Beauty that she became enamoured of thee, crying aloud; Ay me, an such he the Fruit of thy Magick, o my Master, then let me, me also, even me, give myself utterly to this Holy Art!”—Part 4 - The Book of Wisdom or Folly, Liber Aleph vel CXI
“after that Attainment hath Word come to me only through Women … and Ahitha the Camel that renewed the Work of Virakam”—Part 4 - The Book of Wisdom or Folly, Liber Aleph vel CXI
“Crowley took the name BAPHOMET for his own As Supreme and Holy King of the O.T.O. But its true etymology mystified him Until he consulted the Wizard Amalantrah An entity who spoke to him through The Scarlet Woman Ahitha.”—A Discourse on the Third Article
“Suffragist, Doctor of Pharmacy, and Columbia University alumna, she co-founded and served as Vice-President of the American Women’s Pharmaceutical Association. 1917-18, she was also the lover and magical partner of Aleister Crowley, serving as medium in the Amalantrah Working performed in New York in 1918. Under the magical name of Soror Ahitha, her role in the Amalantrah Working earned her the title of Scarlet Woman.”—Manon Hedenborg White https://www.instagram.com/p/B_CaUocnGIc/
Events
- Died January 17, 1979 at Greenbackville, Accomack Co, VA.
Comments
“Roddie Minor, Soror Achitha Ayin-He-Yod-Taw-Ayin 555, Aleph-Cheth-Yod-Taw-Aleph 420, Soror Ahitha Aleph-He-Yod-Taw-Aleph 417, Soror Ahita Aleph-He-Yod-Teth-Aleph 25 {WEH Note: sic, This spelling gives 26. Drop an Aleph to get 25}“—The Amalantrah Working. Liber XCVII.
Scarlet Woman; worked with Aleister Crowley in 1917; it reveals “it's all in the egg”; Kenneth Grant had Crowley's portrait of LAM, the Spirit contacted, circa 1945;
Connections
Influences
Aleister Crowley; extra-terrestrial entity named LAM as Spirit Guide, 1918
Author
Great working: the Amalantrah Working
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References
External references
- Richard Kaczynski, Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley 1556438990
- Rosemary Ellen Guiley, “Lam” in The Encyclopedia of Magic and Alchemy