June Johns - King Of The Witches

Call me old fashioned but the moment I see a group that encourages naked women I take a sympathetic and partisan interest.

I read a lot of Crowley a long time ago. Very interesting bloke, much maligned probably because he was malign in the context of the time. But I was always struck that his practice of yoga, his love of chess and mountaineering and the fact that his essential doctrine 'Do what thou wilt' is often quoted alone instead of with the follow on 'And love with all thy will.' suggests more than simple evil.

i'd go along with that, Craig. What does me in is when his whole 'The Great Beast' schtick is misappropriated by crap bands of the Beatles, Ozzy Osbourne and bloody Toyah persuasion to show how dead into the black arts and "dangerous" they are. Even the otherwise exemplary Rikki & The Last Days Of Earth made this same mistake on their Four Minute Warning album.

Even were i able to make sense of them, the mere thought of reading one of Crowley's magickal tracts leaves me comatose (boning up on his incredible misadventures, be they sensationalised and unreliable - Wheatley - or generally sympathetic - John Symonds, Sandy Robertson, etc - is an entirely different prospect). My interest in the occult has always been superficial - i like the imagery, the gloating, laugh out loud funny News Of The World exposes and the paperbacks, mostly for their covers although sometimes, as is the case with the likes of Black Magic Today and the Peter Haining - A. V. Sellwood collaboration Devil Worship in Britain the written content is great fun too. Throw in the Hammer-propelled second coming of Dennis Wheatley and the cover of the first Sabbaf album and, for these dreadful reasons alone, the sixties & seventies remain the golden age of witchcraft and black magic for me. The only remotely good stuff i can think of since are the Wheatley 'eighties reissues with the young woman in peril from persons in unlikely fancy dress snapshots.

The King Of The Witches cover is one of my least favourites . Saunders being involved, it's doubtless as staged as any of the Wheatley's but the overall impression is of the strangely disturbing naturist film that causes Bernard Breslaw to lose his ice cream down that big-titted bird's top in Carry On Camping.

Gawg. Don't i go on?

^{he used to roll around in his own urine and excrement, in order to piss off his Higher Self
Bushwick}

One reason for taking a merely academic interest in the occult.

There is worse- when he was at the Abbey of Thelema with his consort the Ape of Thoth...no I better not....


^{I like the imagery, the gloating, laugh out loud funny News Of The World exposes and the paperbacks, mostly for their covers
Dem}


Yes that sums it up. It's far better to watch The Devil Rides Out or read 'I was The Queen of Satan'. The element of wacky humour is missing in Crowley. The Carry On team, should have definitely made a Crowley film.

Yes and regarding the misappropriation of cool occult symbols by bands I couldn't agree more. The only exception I would go for is the Stones Sympathy for Devil in the film Circus. True cabaret of the best sort.

Excellent, David! I have to see this again. Simon Callow is hilarious - especially in his George Melly style purple suit and fedora.

i would heartily recommend Chemical Wedding - Simon Callow is wonderful and it's very funny indeed. i tried to read Moonchild once, but god does he go on. so much better to read about than to read. the Symonds biog is excellent, and i would also recommend Sandy Robertson, pausing only to note that another of SR's heores is Kim Fowley. there are some similarities between the two men in their own way, i think...

but a lot of it is tripe and dead boring really, isn't it, this magick lark. fit only for would-be goths who need a personality crutch. anything that works or has a germ of truth in it was long ago squeezed out. Sabbaff nicked it from horror movies and had that about right (but then, unlike the 'yes sharon' ozzy, early Sabs could do little wrong for me).

meanwhile, back in the world of trivia - Rikki and The Last Days of Earth! wah! not as good as Dead Fingers Talk, though... so many of those never-made-it punk bands sound better now than they did then to me, but i'm thinking that's just my age.

meanwhile, back on topic i picked up a nice little crowley volume of some testament of the will (or something) once for a mate i had who was really i to him. it was about forty pages of type, with a facsimilie of the handwritten original facing, and was remniscent more than anything of the Desiderata (sp?). pretty little volume, if a bit shallow. NOT how the beast would have liked it described, i'm sure...

I could spend hours in silent contemplation and still struggle to think of anything better than a sensuous witch