05 Mar Women Mystics: Ida Craddock
Ida Craddock (1857-1902) was an occult scholar, sex educator, champion of free speech and women’s rights, and an author. She spoke and counseled advocating a sacred view of sex, and wrote extensively about sex magic techniques performed in conjunction with her disembodied spirit husband. Because of her open and frank discussions of sex, and because she advocated sex outside the mainstream view of its function as merely procreative, Craddock was arrested, found guilty, and imprisoned for obscenity. Unfortunately, she committed suicide rather than spend the rest of her life in an asylum.
Craddock was raised as a Quaker. It was recommended that she attend the University of Pennsylvania as their first female student, but her admission was blocked by the board of trustees. She went on to study esoteric and occult studies with the Theosophical Society, and later taught “mystical sexual counseling.” Craddock wrote a number of books and treatises which were out of print until 2010.
She wrote extensively in her book Heavenly Bridegrooms (1918) about ongoing ecstatic sex with her ghost husband who had died when he was 20. Her writings have heavily influenced the O.T.O. and other occult groups, as well as today’s sex magic practitioners. As Aleister Crowley wrote in his review of her work, “This book is of incalculable value to every student of occult matters. No Magick library is complete without it” (Chappelle, p. 247).
References
Auman, C. (2024). Sex with Ghosts: The Deeply Weird World of Spectrophilia. Mindfield Bulletin.
Chappell, V. (2010). Sexual outlaw, erotic mystic: The essential Ida Craddock. Weiser Books.
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