The Collected Articles of Ida Craddock

by Ida Craddock

Ida C. Craddock (1857 - 1902) was a 19th-century American advocate of free speech and women's rights. She wrote many serious instructional tracts on human sexuality and appropriate, respectful sexual relations between husband and wife. Aleister Crowley reviewed 'Heavenly Bridegrooms' in the pages of his journal The Equinox, stating that it was: ..".one of the most remarkable human documents ever produced, and it should certainly find a regular publisher in book form. ...This book is of incalculable value to every student of occult matters. No Magick library is complete without it." These sex manuals were all considered obscene by the standards of her day and mass distribution of 'Right Marital Living' led to an 1899 Chicago Federal indictment of Craddock. She pleaded guilty and received a suspended sentence. A subsequent 1902 New York Federal trial on charges of sending 'The Wedding Night' through the mail ended with her being sentenced to three months in prison. Upon her release, Anthony Comstock immediately re-arrested her for violations of the federal Comstock law and on October 10 she was tried and convicted. She committed suicide the day before reporting to Federal prison. She penned a private final letter to her mother as well as a lengthy public suicide note condemning Comstock, her personal nemesis (both of which are included here).

234 pages, Kindle Edition

Published January 27, 2023

About the author

Ida C. Craddock was a forceful public exponent of women's rights and sexual freedom whose interest in Theosophy and Spiritualism led her into a profound involvement with the occult. Attacked by conservatives as promoting obscenity and immorality on account of her reforming activities, Craddock became the focus of an organised campaign of persecution. Facing a lengthy prison sentence that she did not expect to survive, she instead took her own life, at age forty-five.

After her death, Craddock's work on sexuality and occultism attracted the interest of a small number of well-known figures, including Aleister Crowley, who wrote that she possessed "...initiated knowledge of extraordinary depth. She seems to have had access to certain most concealed sanctuaries.... She has put down statements in plain English which are positively staggering."