Francis King - Sexuality, Magic And Perversion

[dem bones]

Francis King - Sexuality, Magic And Perversion (Nel, 1972)

Blurb:

There has always been the tradition of a hidden side to sex, the strange belief that the sexual act may be transformed into a supernatural rite.

Francis King here presents a detailed account of his researches into the relationship between sexuality, perversion and magic - touching on Tantric Rituals of India, the sexual alchemists of China and Aleister Crowley’s “Order of Oriental Templars”.

This remarkable book, the first of its kind, also provides a fascinating look at the role played by magical fantasy in hard-core pornography.

King was called upon as the prosecution's occult expert at an infamous Old Bailey trial in '74 so we would imagine he knows his stuff. Maybe it's because I like my black magic as camp and ridiculous as possible that I have never been able to complete this dry as dust, obsessively annotated study. Serious students of the dark occult probably swear by it for their rituals, but for a shameless sensation-seeker, this is duller than any book whose opening chapter bears the snappy title A Dildo For A Witch has any right to be.

[bushwick]

I love the covers for these. Posed photographs I presume, not stills from movies, but the aesthetic reminds me of the notorious early 70s 'roughie' smut flicks (despite not being in any way explicit). Funny how sleazy something can look, without actually showing much. Was the 70s the sleaziest decade in history?

I've not read one of these, but I do remember trying to plough through Colin Wilson's 'The Occult' during my Throbbing Gristle/PTV/Burroughs phase aged about 15, and getting bored shitless (it is about a million pages long though). Shame this book appears dull, as that cover is pure dirty-mac Times Square grindhouse business...

[dem bones]

Nov 29, 2008 14:00:52 GMT bushwick said:

I love the covers for these.

In that case, just in case you've not seen it, here's Trash Fiction's Magic selection which includes another Francis King Nel and something called Living Witchcraft by Gelie Duncan, perhaps my favourite of these 'Black Magic' covers. Not quite in the same league, but the Marsh/ demonik collaboration The Gregory Pendennis Library Of Black Sorcery collects several BM/ Phwoar! covers. If you feel inclined to take a peek, be sure to read the comments from 'Lily' who doesn't seem best pleased with the enterprise at all.

[dem bones]

Francis King - Ritual Magic In England: 1887 To The Present Day (NEL, Dec. 1972)

Blurb: From medieval times to modern day, the practices of magic and alchemy have been in the hands of some of the greatest occultists of our times.
The secret rites and conflicts have remained the sole knowledge of each cult, never to be seen by the outside world.
Now Francis King relates those secrets and conflicts, including the struggles of Aleister Crowley and W.B. Yeats within the infamous Order of The Golden Dawn; the goat-sacrificing mediums of Keighley, the left-handed Bengali Tantricists and the sexual magic of an American Mulatto.

Picked this up on recent excursion to TYPE with Johnny Mains - more about that too brief but very enjoyable morning later - and, needless to say, the cover tipped the scales. after failing so embarrassingly to make head or tail of Sexuality, Magic And Perversion, i began Ritual Magic with a grim determination to see it through only to give up circa p.3 in favour of a juicer pair of NEL's - 'S. F. Roland's joyous horror-Gothic melodrama The Witch's Mark and Raymond Hawley's It (anti-reviews when i am capable) - before tackling my first ever Lionel Fanthorpe novel, the absolutely barking The Alien Ones! Who needs "the left-handed Bengali Tantricists" when you can have half man, half armour-plated gorilla mutations?

[andydecker]

Apr 29, 2011 9:23:07 GMT dem bones said:

Who needs "the left-handed Bengali Tantricists" when you can have half man, half armour-plated gorilla mutations?

Depends on what they do with their right hand