The Ritualization of Drug Use:

Anger uses drugs in a ritualistic manner in three of his films beginning with Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (Eucharist, the Scarlet Woman’s big fat joint, Crowley’s opium pipe, Coleridege’s poem Kubla Khan, narcotic wine and powders), Scorpio Rising (Crystal Meth), Invocation of my Demon Brother (Marijuana). The esoteric, erotically charged, ecstatic foundation on which the above films are built produce an induction to altered states of consciousness. The films are so effective.

The ritualized use of drugs pervaded(s) the lives of traditional cultures. Psychoactive plants held within them deep value, mysteries and meaning for the members of these societies; the ‘witch doctor’ who cures the sick, the shamanic priest who communicates with the spirits beyond, and the drugs use in the initiation of youth in their coming-of-age-rites. Mind altercation is a part of the ethos within these cultures in the same way as Rx drugs have become a socially acceptable aspect of life in Western culture.

It is crucial, yet difficult for the Western mind, to understand that hallucinogenic drugs as used within the context of shamanic principles are never used for recreational purposes. Rather, the drug is always used in the context of ceremony. The ritual begins with the harvesting of the plant, roots or herbs; it continues through the process of preparing the matter for ingestion and continues still through the administration of the finished product. ‘The use of mind altering drugs as religious sacraments was not restricted to a particular time and place but characterized nearly every society on the planet (with the possible exception of certain Eskimo and Polynesian communities)’. (Acid Dreams, page 65 by Martin A. Lee & Bruce Shlain)

For the Aztecs there was peyote and ololiuqui, a small lentil like seed containing lysergic acid; the Aborigines of Australia chewed pituri, a desert shrub; the natives of upper Amazon had yage, the telepathic vine. Certain scholars believe that the fabled Soma of the ancient Vedic religion in Northern India was actually the fly agaric mushroom, and there is strong evidence that ergot, from which LSD is derived, was the mysterious kykeon used for over two thousand years by the ancient Greeks in the annual Eleusinian Mysteries…

For thousands of years the shaman has journeyed ‘Above’ and ‘Below’ in the ecstatic trance; the trance can be induced in several ways some of which include deprivation of food or the senses, rhythmic drumming, and often times by the use of psychoactive drugs. ‘The initiate must visit the underworld where the shaman will undergo dismemberment. The initiate must ‘die’ in everyday reality and enter a special relationship with spirit beings, a process whereby knowledge and teachings about the spirit world are communicated’

The barbaric suppression of European witchcraft by the Holy Inquisition paralleled attempts to eradicate indigenous drug use among the colonized natives of the New World. The Spanish outlawed Peyote and coca leaves in the Americas, and the British later tried to banish kava use in Tahiti. Such proclamations were part of an imperialist effort to impose a new social order that stigmatized the psychedelic experience as a form of madness or possession by evil spirits.

‘It wasn’t until the late 18th century that industrial civilization produced its own “devil’s advocate,” which spoke in a passionate and lyrical voice. The romantic rebellion signified “a return of the repressed” as drugs were embraced by the visionary poets and artists who lived as outcasts in their own society. Laudanum, a tincture of opium, catalyzed the literary talents of Coleridge, Poe, Swinburne, De Quincy, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, while the best known French writers, including Baudelaire, de Nerval, and Victor Hugo, gathered at Le Club des Haschischins, a proto-bohemian enclave in Paris founded by Theophile Gautier in 1844.’ (Acid Dreams)

For the visionary poets modern society was the bummer, and they often viewed the drug experience as a tortured means to a fuller existence, to a life more innately human. It was with the hope of alleviating his own tortured mental condition that Antonin Artaud made an international trek in the 1930s to participate in the peyote ritual of the Tarahumara Indians in the Mexican highlands. Artuad did not take such a risky journey as a tourist or an anthropologist but as someone who wished to be healed, as a spiritual exile seeking to regain “a Truth which the world of Europe is losing.” The desperate Frenchman experienced a monumental bummer-“the cataclysm which was my body…this dislocated assemblage, this piece of damaged geology.” Yet somehow, despite the nightmare visions and the somatic discomfort, he managed to scratch out a perception of the Infinite. “Once one has experienced a visionary state of mind,” Artaud wrote in the Peyote Dance, “one can no longer confuse the lie with truth. One has seen where one comes from and who one is, and no longer doubts what one is. There is no emotion or external influence that can divert one from this reality.”

“…one can no longer confuse the lie with truth.” This is a profound statement; it then comes as no surprise that the authoritative, power-hungry and exceedingly greedy would rather keep the truth thickly veiled behind distraction. Perhaps this is the larger purpose of the so-called ‘War on Drugs’.

And the main stream film industry is all about distraction often times in the form of propaganda…

Kenneth Anger puts it in your face. One can’t help but feel the extraordinary insight and power of the individual’s attempt at something that moves far beyond our culture as it stands in all of its dismal glory. The façade has been cracked and it seems that it may not take more than a slight shove before it comes crashing down.

“Primitive man,” Wrote Huxley in 1931, “explored the pharmacological avenues of escape from the world with astounding thoroughness…to Huxley, the urge for transcendence and visionary experience was nothing less than a biological imperative. “Always and everywhere,” he asserted, “human beings have felt the radical inadequacy of being their insulated selves and not something else, something wider, something in the Wordsworthian phrase, ‘far more deeply interfused.’…I live, yet not I, but wine or opium or peyotyl or hashish liveth in me. To go beyond the insulated self is such a liberation that, even when self transcendence is through nausea into frenzy, through cramps into hallucinations and coma, the drug induced experience has been regarded by primitives and even by the highly civilized as intrinsically divine.” Continue (ACID DREAMS page 67)

Every Man and Woman is a Star:

Kenneth Anger quotes Aleister Crowley in his book Hollywood Babylon, ‘Every man and every woman is a star’ The double entendre as quoted in Anger’s book Hollywood Babylon can be taken as a nod to Hollywood film stars and the fact that most of us walk around feeling like we are at the center of our own quasi-universe (ego) where we write, produce and direct the story that is our life; or the quote can be taken quite literally, ‘Like Pythagoras before him, Paracelsus believed the Quintessence is what the stars are made of and that within every living thing there exists a hidden star that was that thing’s Quintessence. Indeed, one of the symbols for the Quintessence is the star’. (Sorcerer’s Stone, page 55-56 by Dennis William Hauck)

‘…The final step in the Great Work (Alchemy) is to redeem matter itself, to manifest the light of consciousness in a whole new embodiment, what the great Alchemist Paracelsus called the Star (or Astral) Body. The Star Child has been created through the purification and union of the universal forces within us, or as the alchemists would put it, through the “fusion of the planets.”’ (Sorcerer’s Stone: A Beginners Guide to Alchemy, by Dennis William Hauck, page 108)… ‘Alchemists believed that if you could not create this perfected body (Astral Body) during your lifetime, you were destined to be reabsorbed into the cosmos and recycled until you got it right.’ (page 238)

The essence of Thelema is contained within the axiom "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law" and its rejoinder "Love is the law, love under will", and the statement "Every man and every woman is a star". Thus find your true will and do it under the constraints of the law, whose nature is love. Thelema recognizes the divine potential in everyone - we are all stars in the body of Nuit (the Stellar Goddess) containing the divine spark within us. This again is found in the Book of the Law "Every man and every woman is a star".
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:8ScxLMYBrd4J:www.avalonia.co.uk/magick/thelema.htm+every+man+and+every+woman+is+a+star+aleister+crowley&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=9&gl=us

‘Develop the Body of Light until it is just as real to you as your other body, teach it to travel to any desired symbol, and enable it to perform all necessary rites and invocations. In short, educate it…You may also try “Rising on the Planes.” With a little practice, especially if you have a good guru, you ought to be able to slip in and out of your Astral Body as easily as you slip in and out of a dressing gown.’ (Magick Book Four-Liber Aba, Aleister Crowley)

In Alchemy, the Pentagram (star within a circle) is thought to represent the body of humankind.

To better understand the Quintessence it is helpful to take a look at Western Alchemy’s Eastern counterparts, ‘In Chinese Alchemy, the fifth element is Wood, which is a product of the plant kingdom and things that grow. In Taoist Alchemy, the Quintessence is known as Chi, an unseen energy that flows through the body and can be accumulated and directed in moving meditations such as performed in Tai Chi and Chi Kung. In Tantric Alchemy, the quintessence is the kundalini sexual energy coiled like a sleeping serpent at the base of the spine. In Hindu Alchemy, the Quintessence is the spirit of breath known in Sanskrit as prana. In all of these traditions, both East and West, there is only one thing that the Quintessence can be. It is the life force itself.’ (Sorcerer’s Stone, page 56-57 by Dennis William Hauck)

Egyptian astronomical texts and representations mention many gods and goddesses of the night sky-some representing planets as well as astral bodies-which are conveniently called star deities. Most important of these were the “Imperishable Ones” representing the Northern circumpolar stars which were visible each night…These constant stars symbolized the idea of eternal survival for the Egyptians and it seems to have been the goal of early kings to join their numbers in the afterlife…so that the deceased king is said to be the morning star…The brightest object in the night sky after the moon, the planet Venus (the ‘morning star’) was viewed even from early times as an important deity; and from at least the Middle Kingdom the Egyptians recognized five of the planets which they called ‘stars that know no rest’ and which were represented as Gods who sailed across the heavens in their own barques. These were Mercury (Sebegu, perhaps a form of Seth), Venus (‘the one who crosses’ or ‘god of the morning’), Mars (‘Horus of the horizon’ or ‘Horus the red’), Jupiter (‘Horus who limits the two lands’), and Saturn (‘Horus bull of the heavens’).

Crowley’s Nuit (Stellar Goddess) may be seen as the Egyptian Goddess Nut who was primarily perceived as the, ‘personification of the vault of the heavens, though her character included many different aspects within this role…Nut thus fulfilled an important cosmogonic role-she was not only the great sky whose ‘laughter’ was the thunder, and whose tears were the rain, but she was also the ‘mother’ of the heavenly bodies who were believed to enter her mouth and emerge again from her womb each day. The sun was thus said to travel through the body of the Goddess during the night hours and the stars traveled through her during the day…fearing the usurpation of his own position, the sun god placed a curse on the sky Goddess stopping her giving birth on any day of the 360-day year. The God Hermes (Thoth) came to Nut’s aid, however, and won five extra days for the year enabling the Goddess to bear her children…Nut also became inextricably associated with the concept of resurrection in Egyptian funerary beliefs, and the dead were believed to become stars in the body of the Goddess. According to Heliopolitan (Greek) theology Nut united with her brother Geb, the earth god, to produce Osiris and those deities associated with him in the great mythic cycle of resurrection. (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, page 160-161, by Richard H Wilkinson)

The Pentads: ‘Although not a common numerical grouping of deities, pentads are occasionally found in Egyptian mythology. The five ‘epagomenal’ days added at the end of the Egyptian year to raise the total of days from 360…to 365 were assigned as the ‘birthdays’ of the deities Osiris, Isis, Horus, Seth and Nephthys, making a distinct group of these related deities. In the Hermopolitan tradition the title ‘Great of Five’ was also applied to the God Thoth (Hermes)’ (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, page 77 by Richard H. Wilkinson)

Thoth (Hermes) has been mentioned throughout this text; it is important to point out the connection that runs through Alchemy and the above systems. Traditionally, Thoth is considered the first Alchemist; he lived in ancient Egypt when anthropomorphic Gods and Goddesses lived side by side with humankind sharing their knowledge with ancient peoples, ‘Thoth (Tehuti, which is his most ancient name) was part of a “group of nine” who arrived in Egypt with an advanced spiritual technology that enabled them to manipulate matter.

Thoth was an intermediary between the godlike beings and the humans of the time. He was known as a scribe, the inventor of the sacred language of hieroglyphics (literally, “Holy Writing”)…His symbol was a pair of serpents twisted around a central staff (the caduceus). Since snakes represent the life force in most ancient cultures, the caduceus became the symbol of healing and medicine. There is a remarkable similarity between Thoth’s caduceus and the structure of the DNA molecule, the double helix of proteins that is the blue-print of all life. Perhaps this further explains his odd association with baboons. Could Thoth have manipulated the genetic material of baboons or apes to speed up the evolution of mankind? Such an act would certainly be in line with his role as the first Alchemist.’ (Sorcerer’s Stone, page 16-17 by Dennis William Hauck)

Lucifer Rising:

A film that took Anger longer than ten years to complete, Lucifer Rising is my personal favorite out of the Magick Lantern Cycle; and, for reasons I can’t quite comprehend, it is Anger’s least talked about film, ‘Lucifer Rising incorporates a number of scenes in which the iconography of demons is visually transformed by editing which unambiguously associates what we initially take to be ominous images with ceremonial headgear, the forces of nature, and other things that we do not associate with evil. Anger's Lucifer has followers who are pagan conjurers, but they are not Satanists in the malignant sense that name usually confers.’ (Robert Haller, “Kenneth Anger” http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/1162/HCAngerBio_html.html )

...Haller’s elucidation on the subject of Pagan conjurers as not being ‘Satanists in the malignant sense that name usually confers’ deserves a bit more attention; it is crucial to understand that Paganism and Satanism are totally disparate practices. Many Christians would have us throw all non-Christian practices into the same ‘Satan Loving’ category which has had nothing but disastrous effects on our culture’s psyche and the environment. And with the acceptance of Satan (Lucifer) as he is represented by Christian mythology is the automatic acceptance of a Christian God.

‘The film Lucifer Rising is my answer to Scorpio Rising -- which was
a death mirror held up to American Culture. And for my own sake
I had to make an answer to it even though I still see plenty of
thanatic elements at work in America; it's a film about the Love
generation, but seen in depth -- like in the fourth dimension. And I
call it a love vision, and it’s about love --the violence as well as the
tenderness...I began shooting with the spring equinox. I'm type
casting in my film, and one thing I've found is that since my film is
about demons -- but love demons -- I have to work fairly fast
because they tend to come and go...A demon is just a convenient
way of labeling a force..." (Kenneth Anger quoted in Robert Haller’s “Kenneth Anger”) http://www.geocities.com/Hollywood/Lot/1162/HCAngerBio_html.html )

‘“Lucifer,” writes Kenneth Anger, “is the patron saint of the visual arts. Color, form, all these are the work of Lucifer.” It was Anger who first understood that film, properly used and respected, is a spiritual form, a magical ceremony involving the display of trapped light. We often forget that the word “media” is the plural of the word “medium”, the most common word for a channeler of spirits. The filmmaker is an artist working in light, his camera a ceremonial instrument of invocation, the cinematograph his magical sceptre. And the lord of light of course, is Lucifer.” (Moonchild the Films of Kenneth Anger, Introduction: Force and Fire, page 6 by Mikita Brottman)

The following is an article pulled from the internet regarding the Christian’s adoption of Lucifer (light) as Satan (darkness):

The word "Lucifer" in Isaiah 14:12 presents a minor problem to mainstream Christianity; and it becomes a much larger problem to Bible literalists… John J. Robinson in A Pilgrim's Path, pp. 47-48 explains:

"Lucifer makes his appearance in the fourteenth chapter of the Old Testament book of Isaiah, at the twelfth verse, and nowhere else: "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!"

The first problem is that Lucifer is a Latin name. So how did it find its way into a Hebrew manuscript, written before there was a Roman language? To find the answer, I consulted a scholar at the library of the Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati. What Hebrew name, I asked, was Satan given in this chapter of Isaiah, which describes the angel who fell to become the ruler of hell?

The answer was a surprise. In the original Hebrew text, the fourteenth chapter of Isaiah is not about a fallen angel, but about a fallen Babylonian king, who during his lifetime had persecuted the children of Israel. It contains no mention of Satan, either by name or reference. The Hebrew scholar could only speculate that some early Christian scribes, writing in the Latin tongue used by the Church, had decided for themselves that they wanted the story to be about a fallen angel, a creature not even mentioned in the original Hebrew text, and to whom they gave the name "Lucifer."

Why Lucifer? In Roman astronomy, Lucifer was the name given to the morning star (the star we now know by another Roman name, Venus). The morning star appears in the heavens just before dawn, heralding the rising sun. The name derives from the Latin term lucem ferre, bringer, or bearer, of light." In the Hebrew text the expression used to describe the Babylonian king before his death is Helal, son of Shahar, which can best be translated as "Day star, son of the Dawn." The name evokes the golden glitter of a proud king's dress and court (much as his personal splendor earned for King Louis XIV of France the appellation, "The Sun King").

The scholars authorized by ... King James I to translate the Bible into current English did not use the original Hebrew texts, but used versions translated ... largely by St. Jerome in the fourth century. Jerome had mistranslated the Hebraic metaphor, "Day star, son of the Dawn," as "Lucifer," and over the centuries a metamorphosis took place. Lucifer the morning star became a disobedient angel, cast out of heaven to rule eternally in hell. Theologians, writers, and poets interwove the myth with the doctrine of the Fall, and in Christian tradition Lucifer is now the same as Satan, the Devil, and --- ironically --- the Prince of Darkness.

So "Lucifer" is nothing more than an ancient Latin name for the morning star, the bringer of light. That can be confusing for Christians who identify Christ himself as the morning star, a term used as a central theme in many Christian sermons. Jesus refers to himself as the morning star in Revelation 22:16: "I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star."

And so there are those who do not read beyond the King James version of the Bible, who say 'Lucifer is Satan: so says the Word of God'...."

Henry Neufeld (a Christian who comments on Biblical sticky issues) went on to say,
"this passage is often related to Satan, and a similar thought is expressed in Luke 10:18 by Jesus, that was not its first meaning. It's primary meaning is given in Isaiah 14:4 which says that when Israel is restored they will "take up this taunt against the king of Babylon . . ." Verse 12 is a part of this taunt song. This passage refers first to the fall of that earthly king...

How does the confusion in translating this verse arise? The Hebrew of this passage reads: "heleyl, ben shachar" which can be literally translated "shining one, son of dawn." This phrase means, again literally, the planet Venus when it appears as a morning star. In the Septuagint, a 3rd century BC translation of the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, it is translated as "heosphoros" which also means Venus as a morning star.

How did the translation "lucifer" arise? This word comes from Jerome's Latin Vulgate. Was Jerome in error? Not at all. In Latin at the time, "lucifer" actually meant Venus as a morning star. Isaiah is using this metaphor for a bright light, though not the greatest light to illustrate the apparent power of the Babylonian king which then faded."

Therefore, Lucifer wasn't equated with Satan until after Jerome. Jerome wasn't in error. Later Christians were incorrect in equating "Lucifer" with "Satan".

Egyptian Cosmology & Lucifer Rising:

‘Although it maintains a contemporary focus, Lucifer Rising is also a return to ancient mythology. It still uses dynamic clashes, but also features the alchemical “union of irreconcilables”, connecting the elemental binaries of sun and moon, water and fire. Images of nature’s power predominate, along with the ruins of ancient Egypt and visions of its re-animated gods…The film opens with the natural magic of volcanic eruptions and lava flows, manifesting the element of fire. Fire joins with sea, land and sky in an elemental conjunction to prepare for Lucifer’s rise. The rising mud and the hatching egg of the crocodile suggest the Nile’s fertility before Horus is born.’ (The Occult: A Torch For Lucifer, page 92-93 by Anna Powell)

‘The film opens with the natural magic of volcanic eruptions and lava flows, manifesting the element of fire.’ The volcano represents far more than the Fire element. The volcano is the primordial and chaotic beginnings of life through the forces of destruction. It has been posited that the extinction of the dinosaurs was due to volcanic force. Fire is life through destruction.

‘The rising mud…’ Our word ‘Alchemy’ comes from the Arabian phrase “al-khemia,” which literally means “from the black soil of the Nile Delta.” Significantly, Egyptian Alchemists had used the term “khem” to refer to the First Matter or life force, which they believed was carried by the fertile, black dirt in the delta.

‘…the hatching egg of the crocodile suggests the Nile’s fertility before Horus is born.’ The crocodile was one of Egypt’s most dangerous animals and it is not difficult to see why the creature held an impressive degree of religious and mythological status…

‘In the form of Horakhty, Horus may appear as a falcon or even as a falcon-headed crocodile…’ (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, page 202 by Richard H. Wilkinson)

Ammut: The Ammut was a composite mythical creature whose head- and therefore most essential aspect- places her with crocodile deities. Her name meant ‘female devourer’ or more fully, ‘female devourer of the dead’ In this role, as an underworld deity, she was also called ‘great of death’ and ‘eater of hearts’…

Sobek: was venerated from at least the Old Kingdom times, and while the name of the god means simply ‘crocodile’, he was regarded as a powerful deity with several important associations. In the pyramid texts he is said to be the son of Neith and called the ‘raging one’ who ‘takes women from their husbands whenever he wishes according to his desire’ but who also makes green the herbage of the fields and river banks-tying him to both procreative and vegetative fertility. He was, quite naturally a god of water (it was said that the Nile issued from his sweat) and of areas such as marshes and riverbanks…He was linked with the cults of certain other gods, such as Amun, Osiris and especially that of the sun god in the form of Sobek-Re. (The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, page 218-219 by Richard H. Wilkinson)

The crocodile deities represent another example of death and / or destruction and life / fertility; death as forbearance to life, and the intrinsic duality of nature.

‘Visual Rhymes are a key structural element in the overall grand design. Among these we connect the sun in the sky and a volcano on earth; the opening eye of a crocodile and a mud bubble; an ankh carved in stone and the implement in the hand of Isis.’ (The Occult: A Torch For Lucifer, pages93-95 by Anna Powell)

The origin of the glyph for copper and Venus is the symbol for the life force used by the Egyptians. Known as the ankh, it depicts a circle over a cross, denoting the emergence of the solar archetype from the cross of the elements or the triumph of spirit (life force) over matter. Our word “veneration” literally means to “pay homage to Venus.” Venus is the brightest star in the sky and appears as both the ‘evening star’ and the ‘morning star’ Venus is a goddess of both birth and death-the Goddess of Generation involved in the complete cycle of being…The religion of Venus, just as in the Hermetic tradition of Alchemy, promised a sacred marriage (the Conjunction) through which the initiate could escape the cycle of rebirth and be reborn on a whole new level of reality. Death was thus seen as a transformative event and became associated with ecstatic sexual climax. (Sorcerer’s Stone, page 92-93 by Dennis William Hauck)

‘The juxtaposition of paired opposites is a portentous conjunction. Isis is paired with her consort, Osiris, then with her opposite, Lunar Lilith.’ (The Occult: A Torch For Lucifer, page 95 by Anna Powell)

Nut and Geb gave birth to Osiris and to Isis, and their brother Seth and sister Nephthys. Osiris became the first King of Egypt and the creator of civilization, and his sister-wife Isis ruled in his absence. However their brother Seth was jealous and conspired to kill Osiris. He constructed a chest and tricked Osiris into lying inside it, whereupon the lid was nailed shut and it was thrown into the Nile. The chest floated to the coast of Byblos and lodged itself in the branches of a tree, which grew up around it and enclosed it. The tree was so beautiful that the king and queen of Byblos had it made for their palace.

Isis was stricken with grief and started to search for the chest. Disguising her divinity she waited by a well in the city of Byblos. She befriended some of Queen Astarte’s maidens and braided and perfumed their hair. When the maiden returned to the palace the queen sent for the person who had created such a wonderful fragrance, and made her the nurse to her child. Isis gave the child her finger to suck instead of her breast and each night placed him in a fire to remove all his mortality. Meanwhile she transformed herself into a swallow and flew around the pillar. One night Astarte entered the room and was horrified to see her son lying in the fire. At this, Isis revealed her true identity and asked to be given the pillar. The king and queen agreed.

Taking the chest containing the body of Osiris, Isis set out for Egypt. While she was in the boat she took the form of a kite, hovered over her husband and conceived their sun Horus. Then she hid the chest and went to Buto to raise her child. However, Seth discovered the chest one night while he was out hunting; he tore the body into 14 pieces and scattered them around the country. When Isis discovered what Seth had done she searched for the pieces, aided by their sister Nephthys and her son, the jackal headed Anubis. Isis found every part of Osiris’s body except his penis, for which she made a replica. When she fanned the reassembled body with her wings Osiris came to life again, to become the ruler of Eternity judging the souls of the dead.

This myth shows the interconnections between the human world, the realm of the Gods and nature. Osiris dies with the parched land, the withering grain, the waning moon and all that is destructive. He returns to life in the rising waters of the Nile, the growing grain, the waxing moon and the affirmative nature of human beings. Osiris is brought to life by Isis. The creative force of Osiris, as the flooding of the Nile, and Isis, as the earth, is interrupted by the necessary element of death and destruction, represented by Seth: from death comes life, and in life there is death. Both are part of the same cosmic unity. This primal Egyptian myth demonstrates the human connection with both the natural world and the spiritual realm of the gods; all are interlinked in the magical process of life and death.

‘Isis is paired with her consort, Osiris, then with her opposite, Lunar Lilith.’

Lilith (Marianne Faithfull): Many other Goddesses, as well as a Great Mother Goddess, are venerated. Some, such as Lilith, embody the dark and death as well as more obvious life-giving and nurturing qualities. Lilith, a hybrid bird woman, was Adam’s first wife, but she refused to lie beneath him, and, uttering the magical name of God, flew away to the wilderness where she gave birth to demons. God sent three angels to bring her back to Eden, but she refused to return. Lilith is perhaps the source of ideas about strix, striga, or striges, the owl like creatures in classical and European folklore, and later the prototypes of the diabolical witch a stereotype created and fostered by the established Christian Church. She is considered by some to be the original feminist.

The visceral beauty and intensity as seen through the eyes of a visionary can not be underestimated. Anger is not the first or only artist to recognize magical art as catalyst for change, but he is unique in his mastery of his choice of medium. One should also keep in mind that Anger is the ultimate sub- cultural sponge soaking up the ideology, fashions, and music of the youth’s zeitgeist amalgamating his system of beliefs with theirs. During the making of Scorpio Rising he was at least 33 years of age and by the time he began Invocation of My Demon Brother he was around 40 years of age. Anger’s Lucifer in Invocation of My Demon Brother, Bobby Beausoleil, was a mere 21 years old. Bobby was a beautiful, blue eyed misguided baby. Mick Jagger was in his mid-twenties and Marianne Faithfull was in her early twenties.

Kenneth Anger as 'Godfather of Punk Rock':

Anger has been given the lofty title of ‘Godfather of Punk’ (probably because Malcolm Mclaren played one of his favorite films, Scorpio Rising, at the Sex Pistols 1976 show The Screen on the Green) is a bit of an overextension as the origins of punk are well rooted in the New York scene.

The Punk Rock movement didn’t begin with the Sex Pistols or Scorpio Rising’s supposed influence on Vivienne Westwood / Malcolm McLaren’s choice of fashion for their shop Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die (this shop carried biker wear). The shop was Too Fast Too Live in ’73 (three years before the Sex Pistol’s show at Screen on the Green and about two years before the Sex Pistols had been created); it went through its transformation, becoming Sex in ’74. Sex carried Westwood’s iconic bondage regalia, designs she appropriated from fetish mags and bondage catalogues. The Sex Pistols played their first show November 5, 1975. The opening of Sex preceded the birth of the Sex Pistols.

The origins of punk reach back to the Beats (Burroughs has been referred to as the ‘Grandfather of Punk’) and then to the Warholian 60s touching down with Warhol’s Factory and The Velvet Underground. Iggy Pop, The New York Dolls, Patti Smith and many others among the New York scene can be credited with the birth of Punk Rock. Not Malcolm McLaren’s contrivance.

Malcolm McLaren was an infamous culture vulture; he modeled the Pistols after The New York Dolls (in attitude, not style) and he modeled himself and his punk posse after Andy Warhol and his Factory (guess who played the part of Warhol). McLaren scavenged and devoured the New York subculture regurgitating his version of the Warholian Factory which very much included The Velvet Underground and their ‘Fuck You, We Hate Everything’ attitude.

The Factory had already adopted the leather jackets, black t-shirts, jeans, and speed as their uniform of choice. Leather, collars and chains had already been a part of the look among many of the New York pre-punk and punk bands. And Punks have never looked like bikers. Furthermore, a heavy dose of rebellion is the key ingredient to every sub-cultural movement dating back centuries. Giving Anger credit for rebellion is akin to giving God credit for Creation, a perpetuation of myth.

Anger’s book title Hollywood Babylon may have influenced the Misfits song title ‘Hollywood Babylon’, but none of the aforementioned would put Anger in the position of having influenced the movement itself.