Erik Davis on Aleister Crowley
Aug 13, 2009
Though he died in obscurity in 1947, the renegade magician Aleister Crowley has come to exert an enormous influence on popular and sub-culture alike. Join Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and the 33 1/3 volume on Led Zeppelin IV, for a clip-heavy “performance lecture” on occult film.
Sampling rare footage, experimental shorts and documentary clips, Davis will use cinema to trace the development of postwar magick and Crowley’s apocalyptic religion of Thelema, with special attention given to the work of Kenneth Anger and the rise of magic in the 1960s and 70s. Numerous obscurities will be sampled, including Curtis Harrington's Wormwood Star, Rex Ingram’s The Magician and the Jimmy Page version of Anger's Lucifer Rising. Also included are excerpts from Crowley: The Other Loch Ness Monster, Joe Schimmel's Christian expose Rock 'n' Roll Sorcerers and cut-up wizard Craig Baldwin's recent Mock Up On Mu.
