Uncle Al

Yes, I'm aware that I might have to rename this blog Myth, Magic, and Aleister Crowley in Popular Culture soon, but how could I possibly resist posting this mural from Bergen, Norway?


Uncle Al

The Chemical Wedding

Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden is involved in the production of a movie inspired by Aleister Crowley.

The movie is reportedly about a professor in an English university, whom, after a failed experiment, becomes obsessed with Crowleys soul. Crowley himself was very much into redhaired women, and obviously the professor becomes enchanted by a very beautiful, red-haired student.

Read more at Maiden Norway.

Yes, obviously...


Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley, John Dee, and James Bond

Several news articles have mentioned that Le Chiffre, the villain in the new James Bond movie Casino Royale, might be based on English occultist Aleister Crowley, but none have said anything about John Dee. Dee was a 16th century scholar and magus who may have acted as a spy for Elizabeth I. And how did he sign his letters to the queen? 007.

Source: Richard Kaczynski's excellent Crowley biography Perdurabo.

Aleister Crowley in the movies

Set in a very different London is writer-director Hadi Hajaig's Puritan, a bizarre mixture of film noir and occult horror flick. Nick Moran plays Simon Puritan (the name suggests Simon 'The Saint' Templar), a sad alcoholic student of the paranormal who lives in Whitechapel in an early-18th-century house designed by Nicholas Hawksmoor where Aleister Crowley once raised the spirit of Satan. This sad hero believes in the existence of a fourth dimension and appears to be drifting through time and space as he encounters a femme fatale, a sinister capitalist (David Soul), Crowley and the devil himself. The movie might have been directed by someone called Midnight Charlatan or Goodnight Chameleon, but there are hints of real talent and style behind this addled piece.

Source: The Observer

Sounds promising! I wonder what happened to Revolt of the Magicians, though? The web site is half broken, and hasn't been updated in quite a while. I even tried writing Dominion Entertainment Group to ask what their plans are, but the email was returned because "there's no mailbox by that name". I'm guessing that this movie won't be happening. A shame, really.


Aleister Crowley

Life at Boleskine House

"I arrived a total sceptic, to a degree I still am, but there are things at the house you can't explain. I'm aware that, compared with where I'm from in Surrey, there's more superstition in this part of the world. It all became a bit more real when I came here, but it never put me off.”

The Inverness Courier interviews Malcolm Dent, who lived at Boleskine for twenty years. Apparently, Aleister Crowley's old chair has a Will of its own.

Thelemic torture? Bah.

"But Alden's purpose is not merely sex: he is an adept of Aleister Crowley's early 20th-century occult faith of Thelema; and part of his research for a musical composition with which he hopes to attain enlightenment (and success on Radio 3) is based on recording Joan's physiological responses to sexual torture."

The book is Vocational Girl, the reviewers Kate Holden and Rowan Pelling. Pelling calls it "fearful tosh", which is probably the funniest expression I've heard in a long time. (Yes, I'm easily amused. And no, I don't plan to read it.)


Vocational Girl