Paschal Beverly Randolph
From Association of Independent Readers and Rootworkers
| ||||||||||||||
Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825 - 1875), also known as The Rosicrucian, was a celebrated clairvoyant and spirit medium of the 19th century. He was born a free person of colour in the state of New Yorl. His mother, Flora Bevery, was African-American and his father was a member of the wealthy, slave-owning European-American Beverly and Randolph families. Because he was biracial, he was not permitted to enter white society, but he often tried to conceal his African heritage, referring to himself as a "sang-melee" or "mixed blood," and sometimes claiming to be a swarthy Spaniard.
At a young age Randolph went to sea as a cabin boy, and this experience led to his lifelong interest in the religious and spiritual cultures of other lands and became a world-traveller who visited England, France, Turkey, Egypt, and Syria in search of esoteric wisdom. He was married twice, first to an African-American woman, and then to an Irish-American woman. From 1852 until his death he toured as a trance medium, and from 1852 to 1861 he contributed to various Spiritualist periodicals, editing the Boston Leader and the New York Messenger of Light and writing for the Journal of Progress and Spiritual Telegraph. As an orator, he became a spokesperson for the Abolitionist cause before the Civil War. His investigations into Rosicrucianism led him to the then highly controversial field of sex-magic.
After Emancipation Randolph taught basic literacy to former slaves in the Freedmen's Bureau. As a an eclectic medical doctor and occultist, he attempted to transcend the coercive racial stereotyping of 19th century America, but although he took as his motto the word "Try!" and developed a tremendous force of will, he felt continually checked in his ambitions. In 1875 he died by gunshot wound in the street near his home; the official verdict was that he had succumbed to a long-standing case of depression and ended his life by committing suicide in front of a neighbour's house at the relatively young age of 49, leaving behind a wife and infant son -- but it is deemed more likely that he was murdered by a racist in the white area of Toledo, Ohio, where he and his family lived, and the gun was placed near his body as a cover-up.
Randolph is thought by some modern authors to have been the fore-runner who paved the way for the ceremonial sex-magic practiced by members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Tempi Orientis, and related groups. In 1860 he wrote a definitive treatise of the use of hashish as an aid to trance possession) and an equally important book on clairvoyant scrying with crystals and magic mirrors. His best-known book is the 1874 volume "Eulis! The History of Love: Its Wondrous Magic, Chemistry, Rules, Laws, Modes, Moods and Rationale; Being the Third Revelation of Soul and Sex, also, Reply to 'Why Is Man Immortal?' the Solution to the Darwin Problem, an Entirely New Theory." This work, with its mention of Jewish Cabbala, the Hindu Chrishna, Hermes, the celestial Alkahest, and the mystery school of Alexandria, is certainly the product of someone who had studied comparative philosophy and religion. In this book it is also noted that the author is the "Grand Master of the Order," a system of organized spiritual training, and in fact, from 1857 through 1860, Randolph was the head of the Third Temple of the Rosie Cross, which he had founded in San Francisco, California, to carry forth his beliefs. This Rosicrucian group fell into disrepair through the Civil War era, but Randolph reformed it in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1874 as The Brotherhood of Eulis, presumably to work sex-magic. Shortly thereafter, in San Francisco again, the order was once more re-established, thereafter to be known as The Triplicate Order Rosicruciae, Pythianae, and Eulis -- with Randolph the "Supreme Hierarch, Grand Templar, Knight, Prior, and Hierarch of the Triple Order."
Randolph's association with hermetic and Rosicrucian orders is noteworthy in light of the fact that most modern occultists tend to identify African-American practitioners exclusively with hoodoo folk magic and spirit work to discount the contributions that people of colour have made to the development of formal occultism and ceremonial sex-magic. However, as a black rootworker, Randolph also did mention down-home African-American conjure directly, published his own dream book, manufactured and sold magical scrying mirrors, and described how to work with spiritual supplies such as doll babies, "love powders" and the "New Orleans Magnetic Pillow" -- a love-magic charm containing lodestones and magnetic sand -- so it is obvious that he was just as familiar with rootwork as he was with the more rarified aspects of sacred sexuality, sex-mysticism, and sex magic.
The Books of Pschal Beverly Randolph
- "Waa-gu-Mah." 1854.
- "Lara." 1859.
- "Dhoula Bel, or The Magic Globe." 1859-1860 (serialized).
- "The Grand Secret." 1860.
- "The Unveiling." 1860.
- "Dealings with the Dead." 1861.
- "Human Love." 1861.
- "Pre-Adamite Man." 1863.
- "The Wonderful Story of Ravalette." 1863
- "Tom Clark and his Wife: The Rosicrucian's Story." 1863
- "A Sad Case; A Great Wrong!" 1866
- "After Death; or, Disembodied Man." 1867
- "Clairvoyance, How to Produce It: Guide to Clairvoyance."
- "Seership! The Magnetic Mirror." 1870.
- "Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus: his Divine Pymander; Also the Asiatic Mystery, the Smaragdine Table and the Song of Brahm" (editor). 1871.
- "Love and Its Hidden History." 1869.
- "Love and the Master Passion." 1870.
- "The Rosicrucian Dream Book, Containing Solutions of Over Three Thousand Different Dreams." 1871.
- "The Evils of the Tobacco Habit." 1872.
- "The New Mola! The Secret of Mediumship." 1873.
- "Love, Woman, and Marriage." 1874.
- "Eulis!: The History of Love." 1874 .
- "The Book of the Triplicate Orde." 1875.
Credits
This page is brought to you by the AIRR Tech Team:
- Author: cat yronwode
- Contributors:Dr. Jeremy Weiss, Miss Michaele, nagasiva yronwode, Lady Muse, Papa Newt, Lukianos
- Image:Contemporary studio photograph, circa 1870
