Degenerate Feminists, Episode 1

Marion Zimmer Bradley, Hero of Second Wave Feminism and Occultist Child Abuser

You may have heard of the famous book The Mists of Avalon, by fiction writer and feminist icon Marion Zimmer Bradley. The book was published in 1984 and is still popular to this day. The New York Times calls it “A monumental reimagining of the Arthurian legends...reading it is a deeply moving and at times uncanny experience...an impressive achievement.” The book is the re-telling of the adventures of Camelot’s court through the eyes of the women in the story. As you can imagine, feminists of the time adored the re-telling of the legend of King Arthur by a female author through the eyes of female characters who were not protagonists in any other version of these epic tales. The Mists of Avalon won the 1984 Locus Award for Best Fantasy Novel and is still widely circulated. Marion Zimmer Bradley (we'll refer to her as MZB for the sake of brevity) is still widely critically acclaimed to this day for this and her popular Darkover series, Sword of Aldones, which was a Hugo award nominee as well as her novel The Forbidden Tower. Although MZB died in 1999, she is still considered an icon of feminist pop culture and a trailblazer in fiction writing. So it may surprise you to learn that both her own children accuse her and her husband, notorious pedophile and NAMBLA member Walter H. Breen, of horrific abuses.

MZB's first marriage to Robert Bradley ended after about 15 years in divorce (shocker). Her second marriage to Walter Breen began in 1964. After graduating from college in 1965, she moved to Berkeley, CA with her brother who, along with friend Diana Paxson, co-founded “The Society for Creative Anachronism” with her. In case you’re wondering what on Earth that is, it is a “living history group” which studies and re-creates Medieval European cultures prior to the 17th century, which may explain her choice of subject matter in fantasy writing.  This group basically takes LARPing to a new level, going beyond renaissance fairs and trying to live a re-imagined medieval life “as it ought to have been” according to the group’s description of itself on its website. As if that wasn’t weird enough, she and Walter also founded the Aquarian Order of the Restoration based on the work of occultist Dion Fortune, a contemporary and associate of well-known occultist Aleister Crowley. The more familiar you become with my work, the more you will see that some of the most important feminist figures were deeply embedded in the occult and kept company with some of its most wicked practitioners. MZB and Paxson also started the Darkmoon Circle, a pagan witchcraft group which met in Marion’s garage and continues to meet to this day. Darkmoon Circle is part of the Covenant of the Goddess, an international Wiccan organization. MZB was an avid occult practitioner who took part in witchcraft ceremonies and rituals as part of this group, which is a female-only goddess worship coven. MZB also completed the Rosicrucian correspondence course. Rosicrucianism is yet another western esoteric tradition. Finally, MZB and Paxson co-founded the “Center For Non-Traditional Religion" in California which was later re-named the Spiral Path. For such a famous and influential novelist, very few people are aware of the huge impact she had on pagan and witchcraft revival in the 20th Century.

(Diana Paxson)

In addition to her extensive participation in occult practices, MZB was also part of a lesbian advocacy group called the Daughters of Bilitis since the late 1950’s. It is widely noted that MZB had lesbian tendencies. This was not uncommon for someone so active in radical feminist circles in the 60’s. But as if all of this wasn’t shocking enough, the real shock came in 1989, when Marion’s then estranged second husband Walter Breen was convicted of sexually molesting a 12 year old boy named “Kenny.” The conviction rested in large part on the testimony of Breen & Bradley’s daughter, Moira Greyland. Although MZB and Breen had been separated for 10 years at the time of the conviction, they were still business partners, and Bradley herself gave depositions stating that she knew of Breen’s molestation of young boys, including but not limited to “Kenny,” and that she helped him cover the crimes. In fact, Moira and Mark (the only two children of MZB and Walter Breen) have both come out publicly since Bradley’s death in 1999 with vivid, detailed accounts of horrific abuse at the hands of their mother, beloved feminist icon, Marion Zimmer Bradley. Here is an excerpt from Mark’s account of the abuse:

      “There was always drama and there was always the invisible blade of what would happen if all of this dreadful secret got out. The atmosphere of fear of discovery was simply everywhere and there was no place to hide...”