2020 Edition features fascinating new revelations as well as over a dozen rare and new images.
In the first-ever biography written about her, Wormwood Star traces the extraordinary life of the enigmatic artist Marjorie Cameron, one of the most fascinating figures to emerge from the American underground art world and film scene.
Born in Belle Plaine, Iowa, in 1922, Cameron's uniqueness and talent as a natural-born artist were evident to many of those around her early on in life. During World War II, she served in the WAVES (Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service) and worked in Washington, D.C. as an aide to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and at the Naval Research Laboratory. But it was after the war that her life really took off when she met her first husband, Jack Parsons. By day, Parsons was a brilliant rocket scientist; by night, he was Master of the Agape Lodge, a fraternal magickal order whose head was the most famous magus of the 20th century: Aleister Crowley.
Gradually, through the course of their marriage, Parsons initiated Cameron into the occult sciences, and the biography offers a fresh perspective on her role in the infamous Babalon Working Enochian rituals Parsons conducted with the future founder of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard. Following Parsons' death in 1952 from a chemical explosion, Cameron inherited her husband's magickal mantle and embarked on a lifelong spiritual quest, a journey reflected in the otherworldly images she depicted, many drawn from the Elemental Kingdom and astral plane.
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, Cameron became a celebrated personality in California's underground art world and film scene. In 1954, she starred in Kenneth Anger's visual masterwork, Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, stealing the show from her co-star Anais Nin. The filmmaker, Curtis Harrington, was so taken with Cameron he made a film study dedicated to her artwork entitled, The Wormwood Star. He then brought her powerful and mysterious presence to bear on his evocative noir thriller, Night Tide, casting her alongside a young Dennis Hopper.
Cameron was an inspirational figure to the many artists and poets who congregated around Wallace Berman's Semina scene and, in 1957, the authorities shut down a group show held at the Ferus Gallery due to the sexually charged nature of one of her drawings. Undaunted, she continued to carve a unique and brilliant path, although wider recognition only came in the latter part of her life.
A retrospective of Cameron's work, The Pearl of Reprisal, was held at L.A.'s Barnsdall Art Park in 1989, and following her death, some of her most admired pieces were featured in the Reflections of a New Aeon Exhibition at the Eleven Seven Gallery in Long Beach, California. Cameron's famous Peyote Vision line drawing made its way into the Beat Culture and the New America retrospective held at the Whitney Museum in 1995; and in 2006, selections of her work were included in the touring Semina Culture: Wallace Berman & His Circle show. The following year a survey dedicated exclusively to her own work was held at the Nicole Klagsbrun Gallery in New York.
With so much of her life and artistry shrouded in mystery, Wormwood Star sheds new light on this most remarkable artist and elusive occult icon.
The Runes are a pan-European magical language. Its roots lie in the ancient pagan beliefs of our ancestors, who built many thousands of stones circles, long barrows and dolmens throughout ancient Europe. These same symbols and techniques were used by the pagan Celts and Germans. This book is a complete manual of magick based upon arcane symbolism and secret techniques.
'When I went to school, my history teacher told us about the old Germani. In her opinion, the Taunus mountains were populated by a bunch of brawny brawlers who wore horned helmets and small pieces of pelt. They lived in hilltop settlements which were fortified by ringwalls. Barely able to manage agriculture, they had to rely on hunting to fill their stomachs. They lived in shabby huts with mud-plastered walls and when the Romans came, they fought the invaders with crude swords, pointy sticks and by hurling rocks at them...'
'Nowadays, the ringwalls of the Taunus are known as the work of La T ne Celts, who lived on the heights in well organised cities. For this new edition much of the text has been rewritten and updated. A large section on the bronze ages, the Celts, Germani and the later Vikings added. The theme of Wodan and Helja has been elaborated with more detail on pagan Scandinavia.
There are certain aspects of sorcery that I believe are universal and transcend individual paradigms. Thus, some of the concepts in this book are also discussed in Quantum Sorcery and Voidworking, and in the essays on my SpikeVision blog. As with my former works, Phenomenal Sorcery is a blend of magic, science, and pop culture, for such is the nature of my own practice.
This paradigm is a form of sorcery, that is to say Low magic. It is certainly results-based, and thus would also likely be considered Chaos Magic as well. I use what works for me. I continually try new methods, whether of my own design or learned from the work of others. If a technique proves to be useful, then I keep it in my repertoire, otherwise I discard it. This process helps prevent stagnation. I certainly recommend this approach to practicing magic, even with regards to those who read my own work.
Magic is sometimes referred to as an art, even by some called the First Art. I am sympathetic to that point of view, but I consider it to be a discipline that is neither art nor science but may incorporate elements of both. Magic is subjective and mercurial. Anyone can learn its basic principles and begin to practice it, but like a musical instrument, one can spend a lifetime mastering its techniques. At the time of this writing, I've been doing so for 38 years and counting.
Eliphas Levi famously wrote this regarding the necessary skills for mastering the power of magic:
To attain the SANCTUM REGNUM, in other words, the knowledge and power of the Magi, there are four indispensable conditions - an intelligence illuminated by study, an intrepidity which nothing can check, a will which cannot be broken, and a prudence which nothing can corrupt and nothing intoxicate. TO KNOW, TO DARE, TO WILL, TO KEEP SILENCE - such are the four words of the Magus (Levi, 1896).
I'm good on three of these. The fourth, not so much.
This is a non-theistic form of magic. I do not discount the existence of Gods or spirits, and I long practiced forms of magic which call upon them. I have simply found that they are not necessary in the paradigms of that I have found to produce the best results for me. One of the comments that is occasionally made about my work is that I am too mired in a materialist worldview, and that I am somehow against the inherent mysticism and wonder that are a part of practicing magic. I can assert from my point of view that this is not the case. I simply find this wonder in the structure and behavior of the universe itself, and the contemplation of how a conscious mind can interface with it to perform these acts of wonder.
Existence is absurd, but that doesn't mean it can't be appreciated. More importantly, it can be influenced.
If this approach appeals to you, then read on!
During the 1950s and early 1960s the Sydney-based trance-artist and Pan-worshipper, Rosaleen Norton, was well known in Australia as 'the Witch of Kings Cross' and was frequently portrayed in the tabloid press as an evil 'devil-worshipping' figure from the red-light district. Norton attracted attention from both the public at large and also the local police for engaging in bizarre pagan sex-rituals with her lover, the poet Gavin Greenlees. Details of these activities would surface from time to time in the local courts when Norton was defending her metaphysical beliefs and seeking to defuse claims that her magical paintings and drawings were obscene. Norton was also associated with the scandal that eventually engulfed the professional career of renowned musical conductor, Eugene (later, Sir Eugene) Goossens who had arrived in Australia in 1947 and became a member of Norton's magical coven six years later.
Norton dedicated her magical practice to the Great God Pan and to a lesser extent Hecate, Lilith and Lucifer. She was also intrigued by the visionary potential of Kundalini yoga, out-of-the-body trance exploration and Aleister Crowley's Thelemic sex magick and combined all of these elements in her ritual activities.
Pan's Daughter is the only biography of Rosaleen Norton and provides the most detailed and authoritative account of her magical beliefs and practices. First published in Britain by Mandrake in 1993, it is now reissued in a revised and expanded edition.