Leah Hirsig

Lea (Leah) Hirsig (April 9, 1883 – February 22, 1975) was a Swiss-American notably associated with the occultist Aleister Crowley. She was born into a family of nine siblings in Switzerland. However, they moved to America when she was a child, and she grew up in New York. In 1919, after seeking out Aleister Crowley due to her interest in the occult, she was consecrated as his Scarlet Woman, taking the name Alostrael, “the womb (or grail) of God.”

She helped found the Abbey of Thelema with Crowley in Cefalù, Italy. Of her time there, Frater Hippokleides (2003) writes:

: At the Abbey, Hirsig was instrumental in guiding Crowley, the Prophet of the New Aeon, to a deeper understanding of the Law of Thelema. At a time of despair, Crowley wrote, “What really pulled me from the pit was the courage, wisdom, understanding and divine enlightenment of the Ape herself. Over and over again, she smote into my soul that I must understand the way of the gods… We must not look to the dead past, or gamble with the unformed future; we must live wholly in the present, wholly absorbed in the Great Work, 'unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result'. Only so could will be pure and perfect.” Hirsig's role as Crowley's initiatrix reached a pinnacle in the spring of 1921 when she presided over his attainment of the grade of Ipsissimus, the only witness to the event.

By June 1924, while the Scarlet Woman stayed loyal to Crowley during money troubles and painful surgeries for his asthma symptoms, the two of them found their relationship suffering. She wrote in her diary that his "rasping voice so jarred me that I wanted to scream." After a few months Crowley broke it off, presenting her with a new "Scarlet Woman" by the name of Dorothy Olsen. [Sutin, p318,319] Hirsig spent the winter in Paris. There her financial problems continued, although Crowley biographer Sutin rejects the assertion of earlier writers that she worked as a prostitute. [Sutin p321, 322.] She continued to work for Crowley and the promulgation of Thelema for at least three years.

Hirsig later rejected Crowley's status as a prophet, while still recognizing the Law of Thelema. [Sutin, p330.] Ultimately she returned to her work as a schoolteacher in America. John Symonds, "Crowley's most hostile biographer," [Robert Anton Wilson, compiled remarks from Paul Krassner’s "The Realist", issues 91-B, C, 92-A, B (1971-2)] [similar statement by Justin Scott Van Kleeck, "The Art of the Law", available from http://www.esoteric.msu.edu/VolumeV/ArtofLaw.htm Sept 2, 2008] claimed to find rumors of her converting to Roman Catholicism. [via Sutin, p330.] She died in 1975 in Meiringen, Switzerland.

Notes

References

*Lawrence Sutin, "Do What Thou Wilt: A life of Aleister Crowley". St. Martin's Griffin, New York 2000.
*Thelemapedia. (2004). " [http://www.thelemapedia.org/index.php/Leah_Hirsig Leah Hirsig] ." Retrieved April 28, 2006.
** Frater Hippokleides. (2003). " [http://www.hermetic.com/sabazius/hirsig.htm Leah Hirsig] ".
**http://www.richard-kaczynski.com/errata.htm
**http://pages.sbcglobal.net/jmaxit/hirsig/pafg06.htm#133