Abstract

Abstract In 1920, the Swiss-American music teacher and occultist Leah Hirsig (1883–1975) was appointed ‘Scarlet Woman’ by the British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), founder of the religion Thelema. In this role, Hirsig was Crowley’s right-hand woman during a formative period in the Thelemic movement, but her position shifted when Crowley found a new Scarlet Woman in 1924. Hirsig’s importance in Thelema gradually declined, and she distanced herself from the movement in the late 1920s. The article analyses Hirsig’s changing status in Thelema 1919–1930, proposing the term proximal authority as an auxiliary category to Max Weber’s tripartite typology. Proximal authority is defined as authority ascribed to or enacted by a person based on their real or perceived relational closeness to a leader. The article briefly draws on two parallel cases so as to demonstrate the broader applicability of the term in highlighting how relational closeness to a leadership figure can entail considerable yet precarious power.

Highlights

  • During the reign of Queen Anne of Great Britain (1665–1714), Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (1660–1744), was the second most powerful woman in the kingdom

  • Hirsig’s importance in Thelema gradually declined, and she distanced herself from the movement in the late 1920s

  • Proximal authority is defined as authority ascribed to or enacted by a person based on their real or perceived relational closeness to a leader

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Summary

Introduction

During the reign of Queen Anne of Great Britain (1665–1714), Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (1660–1744), was the second most powerful woman in the kingdom. Following the leader’s death or loss of charisma, new religions are faced with the challenge of the ‘routinisation of charisma’, that is, the transmission of authority to new forms of leadership.5 These generally follow what Weber indicates as two other main types of authority: traditional, where the leader is selected via (what is held to be) timehonoured custom; and rational-legal, where power is bureaucratically derived from a specific office.. Hedenborg white by the example of Sarah Churchill in the introduction, proximal authority need not exclusively derive from closeness to charismatic authority; the “primary” leader’s authority may derive from a traditional or rational-legal claim (though a detailed discussion of such examples exceeds the scope of the present article) This being said, the particular importance of affect in the construction of charisma may render proximal authority more likely to arise from closeness to a charismatic leader. Monarchs of Queen Anne’s era arguably inhabited aspects of charismatic as well as traditional authority, and future research (based on a broader range of cases) may determine the likelihood of proximal authority emerging in relation to traditional and rationallegal types of leaders. Rather than a fourth type on par with Weber’s three, I suggest proximal authority may represent an auxiliary category, highlighting how other forms of authority tenuously spill over by virtue of relationality

Background
From Disciple to Apostate
Discussion
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