Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Ancient Demons: Manananggal, mythical creature of the Philippines. (Public Domain) Krampus, the Christmas Devil. (CC BY SA 2.0 ) Detail of a modern illustration of Yuki-onna. (CC BY SA)  Spring Heeled Jack as depicted by anonymous artist. (Public Domain) Lilith, satanic looking angel. (CC BY-NC 2.0 ) The Jersey Devil. (pyro-helfier/ Deviant Art )

Storytellers have been telling tales of ancient demons wreaking havoc on humanity since the beginning of time. By the Middle Ages people were so fascinated with and afraid of these supernatural entities that whole books were dedicated to listing demonic creatures , the areas of life they influenced, and how to protect yourself from them.

Lilith: Ancient Demon, Dark Deity, or Sex Goddess?

Lilith, satanic looking angel. (CC BY-NC 2.0 )

Lilith is one of the oldest known female spirits of the world. Her roots come from the Epic of Gilgamesh and she was also described in the Bible and the Talmud. Lilith’s name comes from the Sumerian word ''lilitu'', which meant a wind spirit or a female demon.

From the beginning of her textual existence she was related to Sumerian witchcraft . In the Babylonian Talmud, Lilith was described as a dark spirit with an uncontrollable and dangerous sexuality. She is said to have fertilized herself with male sperm to create hundreds of demons.

In Jewish tradition, she is a notorious demon, but in some other sources she appears as the first woman created on Earth. According to a legend, God formed Lilith in the same way as he created Adam except in place of pure dust, he also used filth and residue 

Lilith was known in the culture of the Hittites, Egyptians, Greeks, Israelis, and Romans as well. In later times, she migrated to the north of the Europe. She represented chaos, sexuality, and she has been said to have cast spells on people. Her legend is also related to the first stories about vampires .

A Heart as Cold as Ice? The Beautiful Yet Dangerous Japanese Snow Demon

Detail of a modern illustration of Yuki-onna. (CC BY SA)

Detail of a modern illustration of Yuki-onna. ( CC BY SA)

The legend of Yuki-onna (the snow woman) comes from Japanese legends. She is included among the lengthy list of what are known as ‘ yokai’ - supernatural creatures known as monsters, demons, spirits or other mythical beings.

Yuki-onna is believed to inhabit locations with snowy mountains where she feeds off human life energy and regular food. She preys on lost travelers in heavy snowstorms. She sucks the human life force from her victims’ mouths into hers, freezing them solid.

With ageless white skin and cold as ice itself, Yuki-onna is said to have strikingly deep violet eyes and beautiful long black, or white, hair. Although Yuki-onna can fall in love, marry, and live among humans, she will never age and her identity would eventually be revealed, therefore, most legends say Yuki-onna chooses to stay near mountain roads and prey on travelers.


Spring Heeled Jack, the Uncatchable Demon of Victorian England

Spring Heeled Jack as depicted by anonymous artist. (Public Domain)

Spring Heeled Jack as depicted by anonymous artist. ( Public Domain )

It is not certain if Spring Heeled Jack was a man or beast. Witnesses report him having long, sharp fingernails that looked almost like claws . His eyes had a crazed look about them that some said glowed red as he was about to strike. Whenever townsfolk tried to catch him, he would easily get away, running swiftly down crowded alleys, jumping over fences, and disappearing into the night as though he were a ghost.

Spring Heeled Jack was first reportedly seen in 1837 and continued for decades. In particular, he sought young women but the damage he caused affected all manner of ordinary people. As the tale of this creature of darkness became widespread, his attributes became more demonic. Reports said that he had horns and a pointed goatee, that he could leap over rooftops, and that he could breathe fire.

For all the terror he caused, Jack did little harm, aside from the reports of shredded clothes, fits of hysteria , and heart attacks. By the 1880s, Spring Heeled Jack was eclipsed by a far more lethal villain, Jack the Ripper. The jumping devil’s legacy lives on in the popular imagination to this day, notably in the mischievous little toy known as the Jack-in-the-Box.


Unmasking the True Identity of the Jersey Devil

The Jersey Devil. (pyro-helfier/ Deviant Art )

The Jersey Devil. (pyro-helfier/ Deviant Art )

The Jersey Devil’s history places it at the very top of baffling crypto- zoological mysteries. It has baffled and mesmerized the public for hundreds of years. The creature is often described as a flying bipedal cryptid with hooves, but there are many contrary opinions as to what it actually looked like.

The common description from eyewitnesses is that it kind of looks like a kangaroo-like creature, but with the head of a horse, leathery bat-like wings, and long bird-like legs, claws, hooves, a hideous face, and a forked tail. Several people have even said its body looks like an alligator.

It has been reported to move quickly and has often been described as emitting a "blood-curdling scream.” Eyewitnesses say that it hops like a bird. It has been called a variety of different nicknames such as the flying death, kangaroo horse, flying horse, cowbird, and a prehistoric lizard.

From January 16 to 23, 1909, the State of New Jersey experienced a major paranormal event , it was seen in person by thousands of people, schools were closed, and factories closed down temporarily out of fear. It allegedly inhabited the Pine Barrens of Southern New Jersey and was named the official state demon in 1939 in New Jersey.

Krampus, Son of Hel: Christmas Devil and Child Punisher

Krampus, the Christmas Devil. ( CC BY SA 2.0 )

Krampus, the Christmas Devil. ( CC BY SA 2.0 )

The Krampus tradition is popular in countries such as Germany, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia, and the Czech Republic. The name derives from the German word krampen, meaning claw. He has a “mangled, deranged face with bloodshot eyes atop a furry black body. Giant horns curl up from his head, displaying his half-goat, half-demon lineage.” (Billock, 2015)

According to legend, Krampus is the son of the Norse goddess Hel, ruler of Helheim (the Norse realm of the dead). Krampus is a counterpart to other Christmas Devils such as France’s Hans Trapp and the Netherlands’ Zwarte Piet (Black Peter). Along with other pagan traditions, Krampus became entwined with Christmas as Christianity spread through Eastern Europe.

About 1,500 years ago, Krampus became the counterpart of Saint Nicholas . On the night of December 5/6, Saint Nicholas walks about, leaving little presents in the shoes and boots of children who have been well behaved. Following close behind is Krampus, who leaves a rod in the shoes of the naughty children. Krampus carries a bundle of birch sticks with which he strikes especially bad kids. The worst offenders he stuffs into a bag and drags them off to his lair where they will presumably be eaten.

By the 12th century, the Catholic Church began its work to stamp out this pagan devil. Christians were fairly successfully at banishing the Krampus until he re-emerged in a 19th-century fit of consumerism.

Incubi and Succubi: Crushing Nightmares and Sex-Craving Demons

The Nightmare’ (1781) by Johann Heinrich Füssli. (Public Domain)

The Nightmare’ (1781) by Johann Heinrich Füssli. ( Public Domain)

Known by many names around the world and over time, diverse cultures have spoken of vampire-like demons that feed off of human energy and attack their victims at night. Two of the popular names in English for such entities are Incubus and Succubus (plural Incubi and Succubi) – demons which attack their victims by pressing down on them, often while sexually assaulting them as well.

Incubus is the male form of the demon. The name of this demon comes from late Latin “Incubo” meaning “ nightmare” which has its origins in the Latin word ‘incubare’, to “lie on”. This description is well-suited to what the Incubus does to his victims – he lies upon (or “crushes”) them.

They are supposedly very hard to send away once they have chosen a victim. These demons supposedly can shapeshift, so their appearance differs, although they are often said to look human-like. It has been said the Incubi may be especially physically attractive for their victims.

Succubus (from “spirit bride” or “lie under”) is the female form of an Incubus demon. Accounts of these demons appear in ancient Akkadian, Sumerian, and Greek texts. The princess of the demons is called Nahemah.

Succubi have often been described as exceptionally beautiful women, but sometimes with bat or other flying animal wings on their backs. As with the Incubi, the Succubi attack their victims at night and allegedly prefer religiously-minded victims as well. The Succubi seek out sleeping men and are said to drain them of their blood, breath, life-energy and semen – even until the point that the victim could die.

Baphomet? Was the Diabolical Demon Really Worshipped by Knights Templars

Tarot card depicting Baphomet, detail. (wimage72 / Fotolia)

Tarot card depicting Baphomet, detail. ( wimage72 / Fotolia)

The earliest known reference to Baphomet can be traced back to a letter written by a French crusader in 1098. According to the crusader, the Muslims in the Holy Land called upon a certain ‘Baphometh’ prior to battle. It is commonly accepted today that this name is a corruption of Muhammad, the founder of Islam. European Christians at the time perceived Islam as the worship of Muhammad, which they considered idolatry.

The evolution of Baphomet continued in 1307, when the powerful Knights Templars were being suppressed in France. Some of the Templars admitted to worshipping an idol, it seems that their accounts were inconsistent. For instance, some claimed that the idol was the severed head of St. John the Baptist , whilst others claimed that it was the statue of a cat with three faces.

It was only in 1854 that Baphomet became the goat-headed figure that we are familiar with today. It was Eliphas Levi, a French ceremonial magician, who re-imagined Baphomet as a figure he called the ‘Sabbatic Goat’.

Levi’s Baphomet was adopted by the famed occultist, Aleister Crowley . It was Crowley who connected Baphomet with Satan and linked this icon with the idea of suppressed knowledge and secret worship. Thus, in opposition to traditional Christian thought, Crowley argued that Satan was not the enemy of mankind, but its ally.

Were the Worshipers of the Egyptian God Set Following a God or a Demon?

Seth (Set) Left, and Horus. (Niedlich, S / CC BY SA 2.0)

Seth (Set) Left, and Horus. (Niedlich, S / CC BY SA 2.0 )

Set (Seth) is an ancient Egyptian god depicted with the head of an unknown animal referred to by Egyptologists as a ‘Set animal’. The ancient Egyptians believed that Set was the god of chaos, the desert, storms, and darkness.

He was worshipped primarily in Upper Egypt as early as the Pre-Dynastic period. Originally, he was believed to be a benevolent god who lived in the Underworld and was responsible for helping the dead reach heaven, though he was later regarded as an evil god during the conflict with Horus. The followers of Horus triumphed over those of Set, thus resulting in Set’s demonization.

Another theory suggests Set became associated with the Hyksos invaders who conquered the Nile Delta and therefore, by the time of the Second Intermediate period, Set had become regarded as a malevolent deity. As the god of the desert, Set was also considered to be the antithesis of everything that represented life.

However, he wasn’t all bad, in some myths the gods used Set’s strength and power for good. The best known of these is Set’s role as a defender of Ra’s sun boat. Each night as the sun boat made its journey through the Underworld, Set fought Apep, the chaos serpent. Set is often depicted as standing on the prow of the sun boat, and spearing Apep.

The Shocking Demon that Brings Plague and Devours Babies

Manananggal, mythical creature of the Philippines. (Public Domain)

Manananggal, mythical creature of the Philippines. ( Public Domain )

Rangda embodies power - she is electrifying, dangerous, and otherworldly. She has protruding eyes, pendulous, large breasts and a long, red tongue hanging down her body. Her mouth is full of big teeth and curving fangs; her fingernails are extended to long pointed claws, and her unkempt mop of gray hair hangs down her back.

Legends of Rangda include her fondness for eating children as well as causing disease and pestilence . Although she may have once been an ancient goddess, today Rangda is identified as an evil demon queen. However, Rangda is also considered a protective force in certain parts of Bali.

In the Barong dance, part of the ritual drama which focuses on the ongoing battle between good and evil, Barong represents the good and Rangda represents evil. The Barong protects villages from plague and malicious magic, whereas Rangda is the one inflicting those plagues and difficulties.

Top Image: Ancient Demons: Manananggal, mythical creature of the Philippines. ( Public Domain ) Krampus, the Christmas Devil. ( CC BY SA 2.0 ) Detail of a modern illustration of Yuki-onna. ( CC BY SA)  Spring Heeled Jack as depicted by anonymous artist. ( Public Domain ) Lilith, satanic looking angel. ( CC BY-NC 2.0 ) The Jersey Devil. (pyro-helfier/ Deviant Art )

ALEISTER CROWLEY AND WESTERN ESOTERICISM PDF

(PDF) Aleister Crowley and the western | Marcos Roberto Neves - Academia.edu

 

 DO WHAT THOU WILT

A Life of Aleister Crowley

Lawrence Sutin
St Martin's Press, 2000

Bcourt
Paul A. Green



The Whole of the Law

Aleister "666" Crowley
Charge: Edward Alexander Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) stands accused of the standard crimes - Satanism, murder, reefer madness, hi-jacking the Rituals of the Golden Dawn, riding the Scarlet Women to death, whipping a minor poet with nettles, inspiring Black Metal cultists....



Scene: The High Court of the Supreme Sanctuary of the Gnosis. Shafts of dusty light from high windows slant across the ancient scarred mahogany Bench, inlaid with battered carvings of Graeco-Egyptian godbeasts. A air of stale incense and musk. On the walls, faded bas-reliefs depicting Pan in various tantric couplings with voluptuous Edwardian ladies and/or saturnine youths.

Exhibits before the Bench: vast piles of of yellowing newsprint and torn album covers ; daggers; robes; jewelled rings; a syringe ; an alpenstock; some grubby tweed plus-fours; and the scrawled manuscript of Liber Al Vel Legis Sub Figura CXX which is the Book of the Law.

The Court will rise. Enter the Magister Templi and Scribe of Thoth, Brother Paul, his Ibis-feather headgear a little askew. He is sweating. This is going to be the Trial of Trials, the Trial of the Aeon.

He boots up his iMac to review the Akashic Record.

Magister: Read the charges.

iMac: Edward Alexander Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) stands accused of the standard crimes - Satanism, murder, reefer madness, hi-jacking the Rituals of the Golden Dawn, riding the Scarlet Women to death, whipping a minor poet with nettles, inspiring Black Metal cultists, abandoning his comrades to the snow demons of the Himalayas, failing to settle his bills at the Cafe Royal, and being a British gentlemen who should have known better than to become a bogus magus perpetrating bombast and buggery -

Magister: (wearily) We have heard all this before. Mr. John Symonds and his King of the Shadow Realm, Mr. Colin Wilson and his Nature of the Beast, Mr Alexander Hutchison's The Beast Demystified, and all these ancient scandal sheets and psychedelphic papyri...is there any new evidence?

iMac: Our learned friend Professor Lawrence Sutin, an expert in jurisprudence, has prepared an appeal.

Magister: Very well. I suppose Mr Crowley had better materialise for us...

Magister Templi draws a pentagram on his screen and slowly intones the Cry of the Tenth Aethyr. His garbled syllables of Enochian reverberate down the corridors mingling with the cries of the Court Ushers: "Bring Forth the Beast!" A great wind fills the Court.

Through a vortex of whirling dust and sand Crowley rises from the well of the dock. He is sallow, flabby and priapically naked except for a bedraggled frock-coat and top hat. He coughs and curses as the hat slips off, revealing the familiar phallic dome of his skull.

Sutin: With respect, your honour, I don't think this icon is a wholly accurate representation of my client.

Magister: There are others?

Sutin: Indeed your honour. In the pictorial archives of the OTO -- Order of Oriental Templars -- we may behold the young Swinburnian poet, the smiling Edwardian paterfamilias, the hardy explorer trekking in the Himalayas, the Adept with his consecrated sword, the wispy-haired pipe-smoking guru approaching the transparency of death -

Magister: Yes, yes - we have dealt with the polymorphous nature of the accused in an earlier judgement. I refer to our Document 666. And we acknowledge the traumas of his childhood, the death of his father, the repressive mother. But you cannot deny that he has frequently appeared in Court. He is an inveterate Breaker and Maker of Law -

Crowley: Do What Thou Wilt shall be the Hole of the Whore...

Magister: The Oath of the Magus is the Will to Silence!

But the Court has suddenly filled up. Across the benches and galleries Witnesses for the Prosecution bob up and down in the foggy murk, shouting over each other. Crowley acknowledges each one with a wave or a sardonic grin.

Witnesses: Crowley trespassed in the Vault of Christian Rosenkrantz - Golden Dawn won damages and costs! Crowley blacklisted by the Trades Protection Association for extremely bad debts! 100 Rupees Reward for Information on Mystery Calcutta Shooting! Crowley in 1910 injunction against Rosicrucian rivals! Crowley refused to testify in 1911 Sodomite Libel Case! Sinister Scandals of Aleister Crowley - Varsity Lad's Death! A Cannibal at Large! A Bogus Suicide! An Undischarged Bankrupt! Expelled from Sicily! Deported from France as a Spy! Crowley fined for feloniously receiving stolen letters! Crowley sued Constable & Co in 1934 for libel and lost - notorious summing up -

On the screen a red-nosed and bewigged Mr. Justice Swift purses his lips and shakes his jowls.

Swift: I have been over forty years engaged in the administration of the Law . I thought I knew of every conceivable form of wickedness... wickedness... wicked...

The clip loops into jerks and stutters, then freezes. The Witnesses continue to mouth noiselessly.

Crowley: The blaggard nobbled the jury. But outside the Old Bailey a young woman was so moved she offered to bear me a magickal child. I availed myself of the opportunity immediately and proceeded to -

Magister: Please assume a silent god-form, Mr. Crowley. Mr Sutin, I must ask you to present your brief.

Sutin: Your honour, I wish to establish certain key concepts - that my client is not a crude Satanist but a scientific illuminist, a dedicated explorer of altered consciousness via his re-invention of Western gnostic and qabalistic tradition, via his exploration of Eastern mystical practice in the field, via his pioneering experiments with psychotropic drugs. My client has sought to establish a magickal and libertarian religion, the Law of Thelema, based on a central revelation contained in a holy text, the Book of the Law.

Magister: A curious parallel with his father, a lay preacher of the Plymouth Brethen, who believed in the absolute authority of the Holy Word.

Sutin: Indeed, your honour.

Magister: Are you a Thelemite?

Sutin: No, sir. However, I believe that the accused has been sincere in his conviction that the Law of the Thelema offers the post-millenic world an authentic path of spiritual development. His sexuality has been a sacramental quest. He is not a common con-man or vulgar libertine.

Magister: He has written some very coarse limericks, usually to or about his mistresses.

Up in the mists of the Public Gallery a be-medalled figure in khaki leaps to his feet, brandishing a smoking revolver.

Major-General J.F.C Fuller: Don't be a damned fool, man. He also wrote some of the greatest lyric poetry since Shelley or Baudelaire.

Crowley grins like a naughty schoolboy. General Fuller salutes him and sits down.

Magister: Can't you stop Mr. Crowley evoking all these random phantoms?

Sutin: Such manifestations only demonstrate that my client's energy and flair attracted the comradeship and love of distinguished men and women. He has travelled around the Earth and climbed two of the most difficult peaks in the Himalayas - there never was any truth in the rumour that he murdered his sherpas in the brave but doomed assault on Kanchenjunga in 1905. He is a world-class chess-player, a sportsman whose happiest moments have been in a dug-out canoe drifting down the Irawaddy or marching across the Moroccan desert. He has subjected his body to extreme privations and dangers. He is a man of action who has embraced life, a forceful and incisive prose stylist who does not flinch from the complexity and dark ambiguity of experience.

Magister: No cosy vapid channelings from Uncle Aleister. We will allow you that.

Sutin: He has now become an icon of the counter-culture, an influence on Led Zeppelin, David Bowie, Robert Anton Wilson -

Magister: Graham Bond was so influenced by Crowley that he threw himself under a subway train - or so the legend goes. He wasn't the only one. And you will not deny that "Do What Thou Wilt" can been used as a murder mantra by every psychopath in the City of Chorasin.

Sutin: Too many people forget the antiphon: "Love is the Law. Love under Will." And the aim of the Magus is to find his True Will - his destined orbit...

Magister: So - has your client ever found his True Will?

Crowley stares across the Court. Witness and spectators shimmer into smokey transparency.

Sutin: In his Autohagiography he tries to suggest that the process of self-integration was straighforward, a logical progression from his discovery of magick at Cambridge to assuming the role of Ipsissimus in 1920. But he has often bluffed and bullied himself into god-hood to conceal a profound abyss of self-doubt and self-loathing. I can also show through close examination of his writings and his actions -in particular his relationship with Herbert Pollitt and Victor Neuberg - that he was wary of admitting his bisexuality, especially in a passive role. He has also found it increasingly difficult to reconcile his moments of visionary consciousness, and the exalted status they appear to confer, with all the chaos of his daily life and his apparent inability to deal with mundane details of money or the demands of ordinary relationships. Or control his increasing intake of heroin.

Magister: We find it difficult to reconcile his moments of visionary consciousness with his anality.

Crowley squats defiantly in the Dock and sticks out his flickering tongue like a large toad.

Sutin: Quite so, your honour. Anecdotes about Mr.Crowley defecating on the carpet at literary salons are unfounded. I admit a coprological element in certain of his relationships, notably with Sister Alostrael. Let me cross-examine my client...

Magister: We don't seem to have any choice.

Crowley: ( huskily) It was a frightful ordeal of cruelty and defilement...she stood above me hideous in contempt...

Sutin: Why did you partake in such activities?

Crowley: Magick transcends all material distinctions. There are no differences.

Sutin: Yet you describe these experiences as an ordeal. What did you hope to learn from them?

Crowley: (whispering) That some supreme violation of all the laws of my being would break down my karma or dissolve the spell that seemed to bind me...

Sutin: You see, your honour, even my client's grossest excesses were an attempt to loosen the girders of the soul.

Magister: Well, I suppose they were consensual. Personally I prefer his frolicks with the Ragged Ragtime Girls. Couldn't we invoke one of them? There was that charming violinist, Leila Waddell -

Sutin: This is no time for frivolity, sir. May I remind you that Mr. Crowley faces a more serious charge, which I would like to repudiate.

Magister: Yes, in Magick in Theory and Practice, a lucid and enlightening manual of the occult. But there is this little problem of Chapter 12, the paragraph about sacrificing children. Where he claims to have "made this particular sacrifice about 150 times per year..."

Crowley: (mumbling) It was a joke, you numbskulls...

Sutin: An esoteric joke. It is sexual sacrifice, the sacrifice of oneself spiritually.

Magister: But why court such a dangerous misunderstanding? I suspect that inside the Incarnation of Horus the Crowned and Conquering Child there is still a sadistic British public schoolboy shouting for attention.

Sutin: The defendant is a survivor of the sadistic British public school system. It almost destroyed his Will.

Magister: Granted. It is one of the sad facts of the British psyche. He almost transcended it.

Sutin: I would also like to cite the more human - indeed vulnerable - aspects of the Master Therion: his grief and desperation at the deaths of his own children Nuit Lilith, and Anne Leah.

Crowley: (quietly) I was howling like a mad creature all day. I was more helpless than the veriest quack magician.

Magister: What about his politics? - he has been accused of crypto-fascism. Some of his German followers admired Hitler. Did he instigate the Occult Reich?

Sutin: He made some overtures to his German contacts; but his Order of Oriental Templars was suppressed by the Nazis.

Crowley: Poor Karl Germer was sent to a concentration camp. But I always know England could knock Hitler for six. In 1939 I offered my services to Department B5 in British Military Intelligence. Later Ian Fleming wanted me to interrogate Rudolf Hess.

Sutin: He appears to be telling a kind of truth.

Magister: Fascinating. Finally, Mr Sutin, can you shed any new light on the matter of the Babalon Working and Mr. Crowley's relationship with Jack Parsons?

Sutin: Your honour, we can only speculate. I have nothing more to add.

Magister: Then I will sum up. I have been engaged in the study of Mr. Crowley for over thirty years. I have read many accounts of his life and work - Symonds, Cammell, Regardie, Suster, Wilson, Jean Overton Fuller,D'Arch Smith, the excellent Francis X. King, Booth, Robertson et al. You have explored the paradoxes of his career with great clarity and balance. You have stared deep into the Hole of the Beast, removed the encrustations of myth, and allowed us to form an objective judgement. Mr. Crowley, I sentence you to be an icon of the New Aeon. What have you to say?

Crowley: Perdurabo.

Sutin: I advise you to accept the judgement, Mr. Crowley. This is no time for cryptic mottoes...

Crowley: Perdurabo. "I will endure..."


© Paul Green, 12/2000

Bcourt

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Book Court | copyright 2001 | Lawrence Russell

Lawrence Sutin's Do What Thou Wilt (culturecourt.com)



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 ‘In Search of the Great Beast 666’ 

‘In Search of the Great Beast 666’ evokes the chilling life and journey of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), one of the most controversial and mysterious characters of the 20th Century and known to the press as ‘The Wickedest Man in the World’.

Voiced by acting legend Joss Ackland (Watership Down, Lethal Weapon 2, White Mischief & The Hunt For The Red October), this vivid portrayal unearths the barely believable and shocking facts surrounding this infamous Occultist, Spy, Poet, Dark Magician, Hedonist, Writer and accomplished Mountaineer.  Was he related to US President George Bush? How was he connected to Scientology, NASA, Jack the Ripper, Winston Churchill, and Ian Fleming (creator of James Bond)? How did this man come to know so many remarkable people and why did he become the subject of fascination for generations of world-class musical icons?

Through dramatically reconstructed period scenes, this biographical film explores the boundaries of a man who is not only said to have inspired the free-love movement but, through his literature, is notorious for replacing the Ten Commandments with just one “do what thou will"

SOUNDTRACK BY RICK WAKEMAN 

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