The Cameron siblings: Bobbi and Loren

Marjorie (1922-1995)

One cannot mention the trans siblings, Loren and Bobbi, without also mentioning their remarkable aunt, Marjorie Cameron (sometimes just Cameron). She was in the US Navy during WWII as aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Afterwards she joined occult circles in Los Angeles, and became muse and later spouse to Jack Parsons, rocket scientist and thelemite magickian. In 1946 she, Parsons and L Ron Hubbard undertook the “Babalon Working” to create a magical child. They knew several science fiction writers. After Jack’s death in an explosion, she became known as an artist and acted in some films, most notably as the Scarlet Woman in Kenneth Anger’s Inaugeration of the Pleasure Dome (1954).

• Spencer Kansa. Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron. Mandrake, 2014.

• Michael William West. “Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995)” in Sex Magicians: The Lives and Spiritual Practices. Destiny Books, 2021.

• Alice Troughton (dir). “Jack Parsons: The Devil and the Divine” with Josh Bowman as Parsons and Alicia Witt as Cameron. S2.E6 of Lore, US Amazon 40 mins 2018.

IMDB

Bobbi (1953 - )

We have already discussed Marjorie’s niece, Bobbi, who was in the Cockettes and starred in Elevator Girls in Bondage, 1972 and The Holy Mountain, 1973 and Star Trek.

GVWW IMDB

Loren (1959- 2022)

Marjorie’s nephew and Bobbi’s brother, Loren became a photographer and trans activist. He is best known for his book Body Alchemy, 1996, which documents the process of trans male transition, including his own.

While cis photographers such as Christer Strömholm, Andy Warhol, Walter Rutter, Brassaï, Mariette Pathy Allen had been taking pictures of trans persons as far back as the 1930s, Loren was the first trans photographer to be so recognized.

His work was also exhibited in San Francisco, Minneapolis, and Los Angeles.

He died by suicide at age 63 after a period of poor health.

• Body Alchemy: Transsexual Portraits. Cleis Press, 1996.

• Man Tool: The Nuts and Bolts of Female-to-Male Surgery. Zero eBooks, 2001.

• Cuerpos Fotografiados. 2 volumes. Taller Experimental Cuerpos Pintados, 2003.

• “Finding love as a transman”. Advocate, December 18 2006. Online.

• Loren Rex Cameron papers, 1961-2008. Cornell. Online.

Other:

• Dani Hefferman. “Transgender Photographer Loren Cameron Speaks At University Student Event”. GLAAD, September 27, 2012. Online.

• Penelope Green. “Loren Cameron, 63, Dies; His Camera Brought Transgender Men to Light”. New York Times, April 20, 2023. Online.

EN.Wikipedia IMDB

Fulcanelli (?1839 - ?1954) alchemist

Fulcanelli is the name, almost certainly a pseudonym, on two esoteric books, Le Mystère des Cathédrales and Les Demeures Philosophales, both published at the end of the 1920s, which discuss alchemy, architecture, science and languages.

In accordance with the alchemical tradition Fulcanelli obfuscated the details of his life. However he is reputed to have made the philosopher's stone that transmutes metals to gold and imparts longevity and androgyny.

He disappeared after his books were published, except that in 1937 Fulcanelli apparently met Jaques Bergier and Andre Helbronner, French scientists, who were working on nuclear physics, to warn them of its potential (this was five years before the start of the Manhattan Project). Bergier reported him saying:

“… the vital thing is not the transmutation of metals but that of the experimenter himself”. 

Eugene Canseliet, Fulcanelli’s only student, met him for the last time in probably 1954, when Fulcanelli would have been over 110 years old - if he had indeed made the philosopher's stone this would not be surprising. Canseliet went to Seville where he was contacted and taken by a circuitous route to an isolated castle.

Fulcanelli was there looking younger than he had done in the 1920s. In Canseliet's presence, Fulcanelli appeared in female guise, a hypostasis of the Divine Androgyne of alchemy.

• Fulcanelli. Le Mystère des Cathédrales (The Mystery of the Cathedrals). Paris 1926.
• Fulcanelli. Les Demeures Philosophales (Dwellings of the Philosophers). Paris 1929.
• Kenneth Rayner Johnson. The Fulcanelli Phenomenon: the Story of a Twentieth-Century Alchemist in the light of a new examination of the Hermetic Tradition. Neville Spearman. 1980: chp VII.

EN.Wikipedia

Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt (1871 - 1942) female impersonator, art collector.

Jerome Pollitt was a stage female impersonator under the name of Diane De Rougy. He took his femme name from a celebrated courtesan and actress Liane de Pougy.

In 1898, whilst appearing at the Cambridge Footlights club, he met and had an affair with the then unknown Aleister Crowley. Crowley describes his lover:

'Pollitt was rather plain than otherwise. His face was made tragic by the terrible hunger of the eyes and the bitter sadness of the mouth. He possessed one physical beauty - his hair. This was very plentiful and he wore it rather long. It was what is called a shock. But its colour was pale gold, like spring sunshine, and its texture was of the finest gossamer.'

Crowley would later write that 'I lived with Pollitt as his wife for some six months and he made a poet out of me'.

Pollitt was also a friend of Aubrey Beardsley, and was painted by James Whistler. He was an art collector. He was the original of the 'Babe' in E.F. Benson's 'The Babe, B.A.'.

Crowley immortalized Pollitt in The Scented Garden of Abdullah the Satirist - a collection of poems which are a blend of Persian mysticism and the glorification of homosexual love, written in the style of ghazals by an imaginary seventeenth-century poet, Abdullah El Haji, supposedly translated into English by an Anglo-Indian, Major Lutiy, and discussed by an equally imaginary Anglican clergyman. In the closing sections of the book, the name of Herbert Charles Jerome Pollitt is spelled out in the first letter of each line, to be followed (but in reverse order) by that of Aleister Crowley.

Pollitt did not share Crowley's spiritual quest, and Crowley ended the affair shortly after going down from Cambridge in 1898. He later recognized this as an 'imbecile' mistake, and he continued to regret it.

• Aleister Crowley, (ed John Symonds and Kenneth Grant). The Confessions of Aleister Crowley: An Autohagiography. Bantam Books. 1971: 130-2,137-8.
• Susan Roberts. The Magician Of The Golden Dawn: The Story Of Aleister Crowley. Contemporary Books, Inc. 1978: 34-5.
• John Symonds. The Great Beast: the Life and Magick of Aleister Crowley. Mayflower. 1973: 177-8.
• “Pollitt, Herbert Charles Jerome, 1871-1942, collector. Photograph albums: Guide”. Harvard University Library. http://oasis.harvard.edu:10080/oasis/deliver/~hou01559.
• Alex Owen. "Aleister Crowley in the Desert". www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/642011.html.

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Crowley (1875 - 1947) says that Pollitt was ten years older, and this has been repeated in many places, but the age difference was actually only four years.