Category: Library

Austin Osman Spare – occultist, avant-gardist and ‘Britain’s first pop artist’ – Financial Times

Collectors of the work of early 20th-century English artist and occultist Austin Osman Spare have, up until now, been of a type. Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin has a notable number of paintings, as did the late Genesis P-Orridge – founder of industrial sound provocateurs Throbbing Gristle. In his memoir, Orridge describes an acquaintance shaking and shouting: “Those paintings, cover them, they’re alive!” One particular work, The Ides, depicting two aggressive-looking self-portraits of Spare flanked by Romanian prostitutes, was turned to face the wall. Months later, after touring overseas, Orridge returned to discover house-sitters had turned the painting around and vanished, leaving rooms splattered with red paint. Spooked, Orridge sold the painting to Chris Stein of Blondie.

Man from Merseyside who became ‘father of modern witchcraft’ – Liverpool Echo

Believing the coven to be a survival of the pre-Christian witch-cult, [Gerald] Gardner decided to revive the faith, supplementing the coven’s rituals with ideas borrowed from freemasonry, ceremonial magic and… Read more »

The Beast and the Buddha: Aleister Crowley’s 1901 Sojourn in Japan | Medium

In the summer of 1901, the English occultist Aleister Crowley, age 25, stood before the Great Buddha at Kamakura. Having arrived in Yokohama just a few days before, he had crossed the Pacific from San Francisco via Honolulu and was in the midst of wrapping up a shipboard extramarital affair. He was also wrestling with a major life decision: Should he remain and live in Japan, or move on?

Zennor

Cornwall’s best hidden gems and beautiful locations – Cornwall Live

“Aleister Crowley was a noted, sinister and controversial occultist who founded his own religious order and designed a set of tarot cards that are still used today… His links with west Cornwall were revealed and it’s believed the self-styled ‘Great Beast’ summoned up the very Devil himself in Carn Cottage and performed a black mass down the hill in Zennor’s church.”