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A Feast of Beast
The Emissary of the Beast was in town this week. A strange collection of creepy paintings is doing the tour down under and dreary old Dursleyville is its first port of call. A sure sign that the apocalypse must be close at hand
This serpent read all about it in the local paper from Tuesday 27th November which stated that the show would be opening on Friday 30th. Uncultured creature that is the Izzie, did not realize this meant a proper evening cocktail party with canapes. So turned up at 3pm for a peek only to be told that this was indeed the case. But the nice gallery owner who was busy unpacking bottles and wine glasses let the Izzie have a quick slink to drool over the beastliness.
Duly visited the website as the little flyers announced there would be various lectures and other events over the duration of the exhibition
Delightful events such as the performance of a Gnostic ‘Mass’ courtesy of the local chapter of the OTO and the temptingly titled “Introduction to the Beast” given by a member of the aforementioned Order.
The ‘Black Mass’ still has ‘To be advised’ status for both date and location but this was not the case for ‘The Beast 101’ so signed up for that one. It was on Saturday just gone
Due to the buses becoming ever more unpredictable did not arrive in the general area of the art gallery until 1.20pm leaving only 30 mins rather than the more desirable 60 plus for a fix of the wicked brew. Pity the Izzie has to make do with decaffeinated incarnations these days due to the undesirable side effects
So ten minutes before the start of the talk crossed the street to see a strange huddle of folks all in black many of whom were wearing funny hats. Tattoos and piercings seemed like required accessories too. Vernon Dursley and his ilk most definitely would have not approved
Upstairs there was red and white wine on offer along with a little altar dedicated to the Cheese Gods along with olives and those cute crisp breads that look rather like Catholic Communion wafers and a selection of ‘Holy Scriptures’ with their attendant price tags
Was quite astonished at just how many folks had turned up to this event. It was a full house. Got a seat at the back but there were quite a few left still standing. Must have been a good 60 something folks there ranging in age from late teens to sixty somethings
The curator welcomed the audience and introduced the guest speaker Peter Kingsley who started with what seemed to be a rather clever and beastly version of the usual “Welcome to Country’ ritual. It’s times like these it would be handy to have a real phone and not the old red Nokia dinosaur.
The podium was in the centre of a black circle inscribed with assorted Egyptian and Latin invocations and assorted sigils. The presenter also had a lap top with a ‘Powerpoint’ presentation
He certainly had a sense of humour. He started with some ritual of invocation with calls and responses from the top left corner of about ten folks all dressed in black.
Then he had the first slide with the title “The Great Beast” followed by the motto, mission statement or whatever “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” with THAT picture underneath
The really ugly one with the grumpy frumpy face and that rather evil pissed off expression
He declared that when you call yourself The Great Beast and look like that then you are going to have some serious public relations problems
He then did the spin thing about Led Zeppelin, the Beatles and the whole hippies 60s thing along with The Beast’s status as being regarded as one of 100 most influential Britons ever
Apparently this tour down under of “The Nightmare Paintings” is getting an awful lot of publicity and is generating quite a bit of interest
Even the goblins of the Australian Financial Review have raised an eyebrow or too. Buying the Beast
You know you are the essence of respectable when the Guardian says nice stuff about you. These days poor old Aleister gets good reviews in The West Australian. If he was still alive he would have died of shame
The presenter did a potted biography thing but then got to talking all new age ‘Believe and achieve” sort of stuff
You would swear that Crowley was the most talented writer, poet, artist, guru, actor and mountain climber etc etc in the history of the universe
Then of course was the sting - you too can be successful if you follow the precepts of Thelema as outlined here in this Book of the Law which he held up for everyone to drool over
The spiel was like a cross between “The Secret” and “Dianetics”
And yesss. A certain Ron L Hubbard did get a mention earlier.
He did mention the interesting ideas of Crowley adopting his Beast persona and acting like a God and then being treated as such. A sort of fake it till you make it. What was particularly fascinating was the whole story of the Egyptian visions and stuff and the origin of the Book of Law as being inspiration or dictation from the Muse of a certain 3,000 year old Egyptian mummy
Apparently this event was the catalyst for a ridiculous amount of productivity in many and varied scientific, artistic and religious fields along with the foundation of the Abbey in Sicily which was a sort of free love commune with sex and drugs but no rock and roll because it had not yet been invented
He went into some detail about the business of experimentation with various religions and spiritual beliefs with the eye of the outsider and the philosophy of “The Aim of Religion and the means of Science”
But it was kind of incongruent to see how he had turned this king of iconoclasts into a God to be worshipped and adored
He did have the twinkle in his eye and a wonderful sense of humour but sometimes got seriously gushing about the sheer brilliance of the Beast. If not for the actual legacy of the oodles of interesting stuff left behind, was getting a distinctly Gilderoy Lockhart vibe.
Izzie was sitting there fascinated like some impartial Martian looking around at the room at the audience, especially the dark cluster of groupies in the front left corner. Was also analyzing the content of the presentation from the point of view of how much was an actual history of his hero and how much was about gaining converts for the cause. At that stage was regretting having watched only the very first one of those Coursera ‘Think Again’ videos
He finally got to the bit that the serpent was the most curious about and that was the Tarot cards. He claimed that they were the ‘Gold Standard’ of tarot and the most used deck of all time. (That happens to be the Rider Waite Pamela Smith incarnation but never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Crowley’s does have the best art work though. ) The cards are supposed to contain all the ideas in The Book of the Law so must go dig out that Lon Milo Duquette book again for hints on book hunting
He had managed to get his hands on a printing plate from the last major and had it with him. It was fascinating to see this later after the presentation along with a whole pile of interesting stuff like daggers, orbs and assorted books some of which were first editions
Did not care much for the message that if you follow the teachings of The Great Beast then you too can be famous and successful but did rather like the idea of adapting various personas as a means of trying to find your ‘true self’ and ‘true will’. It is most definitely true that finding your purpose on the spiritual plane can generate enormous amounts of energy and produce all sorts of strange and astonishing results in the material world
The tall man in black with the hat would be the one to go to for those members of the audience interested in joining the OTO, attending a Gnostic Mass or further information
The presentation finished just after 3pm and that was the chance to take a proper peek at the paintings. Some were downright ugly, some boring and others quite interesting and intriguing. Some of them most definitely had a ‘presence’. Especially liked ‘The Moon” and the rooster with the serpent. “The Sun” which was a sort of self portrait was seriously the fugliest and creepiest thing ever. Trust the eternal iconoclast to invert the usual conventions when it concerns the connotations of those two tarot cards
Even the signatures in the corners were designed to offend. It took a second glance at the painting of the Heirophant to notice that pretty peculiar scarlet hat. Poor bugger lost it in the final incarnation of the cards but it did make a guest appearance in the devil card instead.
It was surprising just how many of the paintings had the little red dots on them.
Next week’s talk is about the influence of Paul Gaugin on the artistic work of Aleister Crowley. Not a great fan of this artist. Now if it had been Gaudi, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst or Leonora Carrington who had been any of the artists in question, would have signed up on the spot
But the Feast of Beast had yet more in store. While the assorted Aleister Crowley sacred texts were not on sale, they did have catalogues of the exhibition with detailed history and free copies of “New Dawn” magazine which make The Quibbler look like “Nature” or “National Geographic”
There was also a book called “The Legend of Aleister Crowley” with contributions from himself and basically a sort of biography attempting to revise all that wicked press that had followed him for so long
As one contributor rightly said - to call The Beast the wickedest man in Britain if not the world when he was a contemporary of such paragons of virtue as Stalin and Hitler is really rather ridiculous and demonstrates a seriously strange sense of morality
There was a lot of quotes from The Beast himself. Seemed like he was never happier than when he was taking the piss out of the establishment in all its incarnations. He seemed far more like The Fool or the Court Jester than the Devil Incarnate. And then there’s the snark. There’s so much that you wouldn’t know where to start quoting
The inside cover of this book had a picture of him on a throne dressed in his ceremonial robes looking extremely fat and fugly presiding over some ritual sacrifice of a black cat and the image of a woman who escaped his evil clutches. He had a round moon face and an enormous pudgy nose and piggy eyes and looked exactly like the sort of monster that you would expect to find on the front page of “Der Sturmer”
Izzie was one of the very last people to leave the exhibition and just as we got to the stairs the curator handed over a copy of this blue book of The Legend as ‘a gift’
This was most appreciated indeed as the Izzie had already decided to be a good good serpent and to resist such delicious temptations. Thanks to the old toad, the days of indulging in such luxuries are over and must be resisted especially as nearly all this stuff is available for free online.
It must be an Omen
This serpent read all about it in the local paper from Tuesday 27th November which stated that the show would be opening on Friday 30th. Uncultured creature that is the Izzie, did not realize this meant a proper evening cocktail party with canapes. So turned up at 3pm for a peek only to be told that this was indeed the case. But the nice gallery owner who was busy unpacking bottles and wine glasses let the Izzie have a quick slink to drool over the beastliness.
Duly visited the website as the little flyers announced there would be various lectures and other events over the duration of the exhibition
Delightful events such as the performance of a Gnostic ‘Mass’ courtesy of the local chapter of the OTO and the temptingly titled “Introduction to the Beast” given by a member of the aforementioned Order.
The ‘Black Mass’ still has ‘To be advised’ status for both date and location but this was not the case for ‘The Beast 101’ so signed up for that one. It was on Saturday just gone
Due to the buses becoming ever more unpredictable did not arrive in the general area of the art gallery until 1.20pm leaving only 30 mins rather than the more desirable 60 plus for a fix of the wicked brew. Pity the Izzie has to make do with decaffeinated incarnations these days due to the undesirable side effects
So ten minutes before the start of the talk crossed the street to see a strange huddle of folks all in black many of whom were wearing funny hats. Tattoos and piercings seemed like required accessories too. Vernon Dursley and his ilk most definitely would have not approved
Upstairs there was red and white wine on offer along with a little altar dedicated to the Cheese Gods along with olives and those cute crisp breads that look rather like Catholic Communion wafers and a selection of ‘Holy Scriptures’ with their attendant price tags
Was quite astonished at just how many folks had turned up to this event. It was a full house. Got a seat at the back but there were quite a few left still standing. Must have been a good 60 something folks there ranging in age from late teens to sixty somethings
The curator welcomed the audience and introduced the guest speaker Peter Kingsley who started with what seemed to be a rather clever and beastly version of the usual “Welcome to Country’ ritual. It’s times like these it would be handy to have a real phone and not the old red Nokia dinosaur.
The podium was in the centre of a black circle inscribed with assorted Egyptian and Latin invocations and assorted sigils. The presenter also had a lap top with a ‘Powerpoint’ presentation
He certainly had a sense of humour. He started with some ritual of invocation with calls and responses from the top left corner of about ten folks all dressed in black.
Then he had the first slide with the title “The Great Beast” followed by the motto, mission statement or whatever “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” with THAT picture underneath
The really ugly one with the grumpy frumpy face and that rather evil pissed off expression
He declared that when you call yourself The Great Beast and look like that then you are going to have some serious public relations problems
He then did the spin thing about Led Zeppelin, the Beatles and the whole hippies 60s thing along with The Beast’s status as being regarded as one of 100 most influential Britons ever
Apparently this tour down under of “The Nightmare Paintings” is getting an awful lot of publicity and is generating quite a bit of interest
Even the goblins of the Australian Financial Review have raised an eyebrow or too. Buying the Beast
You know you are the essence of respectable when the Guardian says nice stuff about you. These days poor old Aleister gets good reviews in The West Australian. If he was still alive he would have died of shame
The presenter did a potted biography thing but then got to talking all new age ‘Believe and achieve” sort of stuff
You would swear that Crowley was the most talented writer, poet, artist, guru, actor and mountain climber etc etc in the history of the universe
Then of course was the sting - you too can be successful if you follow the precepts of Thelema as outlined here in this Book of the Law which he held up for everyone to drool over
The spiel was like a cross between “The Secret” and “Dianetics”
And yesss. A certain Ron L Hubbard did get a mention earlier.
He did mention the interesting ideas of Crowley adopting his Beast persona and acting like a God and then being treated as such. A sort of fake it till you make it. What was particularly fascinating was the whole story of the Egyptian visions and stuff and the origin of the Book of Law as being inspiration or dictation from the Muse of a certain 3,000 year old Egyptian mummy
Apparently this event was the catalyst for a ridiculous amount of productivity in many and varied scientific, artistic and religious fields along with the foundation of the Abbey in Sicily which was a sort of free love commune with sex and drugs but no rock and roll because it had not yet been invented
He went into some detail about the business of experimentation with various religions and spiritual beliefs with the eye of the outsider and the philosophy of “The Aim of Religion and the means of Science”
But it was kind of incongruent to see how he had turned this king of iconoclasts into a God to be worshipped and adored
He did have the twinkle in his eye and a wonderful sense of humour but sometimes got seriously gushing about the sheer brilliance of the Beast. If not for the actual legacy of the oodles of interesting stuff left behind, was getting a distinctly Gilderoy Lockhart vibe.
Izzie was sitting there fascinated like some impartial Martian looking around at the room at the audience, especially the dark cluster of groupies in the front left corner. Was also analyzing the content of the presentation from the point of view of how much was an actual history of his hero and how much was about gaining converts for the cause. At that stage was regretting having watched only the very first one of those Coursera ‘Think Again’ videos
He finally got to the bit that the serpent was the most curious about and that was the Tarot cards. He claimed that they were the ‘Gold Standard’ of tarot and the most used deck of all time. (That happens to be the Rider Waite Pamela Smith incarnation but never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Crowley’s does have the best art work though. ) The cards are supposed to contain all the ideas in The Book of the Law so must go dig out that Lon Milo Duquette book again for hints on book hunting
He had managed to get his hands on a printing plate from the last major and had it with him. It was fascinating to see this later after the presentation along with a whole pile of interesting stuff like daggers, orbs and assorted books some of which were first editions
Did not care much for the message that if you follow the teachings of The Great Beast then you too can be famous and successful but did rather like the idea of adapting various personas as a means of trying to find your ‘true self’ and ‘true will’. It is most definitely true that finding your purpose on the spiritual plane can generate enormous amounts of energy and produce all sorts of strange and astonishing results in the material world
The tall man in black with the hat would be the one to go to for those members of the audience interested in joining the OTO, attending a Gnostic Mass or further information
The presentation finished just after 3pm and that was the chance to take a proper peek at the paintings. Some were downright ugly, some boring and others quite interesting and intriguing. Some of them most definitely had a ‘presence’. Especially liked ‘The Moon” and the rooster with the serpent. “The Sun” which was a sort of self portrait was seriously the fugliest and creepiest thing ever. Trust the eternal iconoclast to invert the usual conventions when it concerns the connotations of those two tarot cards
Even the signatures in the corners were designed to offend. It took a second glance at the painting of the Heirophant to notice that pretty peculiar scarlet hat. Poor bugger lost it in the final incarnation of the cards but it did make a guest appearance in the devil card instead.
It was surprising just how many of the paintings had the little red dots on them.
Next week’s talk is about the influence of Paul Gaugin on the artistic work of Aleister Crowley. Not a great fan of this artist. Now if it had been Gaudi, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst or Leonora Carrington who had been any of the artists in question, would have signed up on the spot
But the Feast of Beast had yet more in store. While the assorted Aleister Crowley sacred texts were not on sale, they did have catalogues of the exhibition with detailed history and free copies of “New Dawn” magazine which make The Quibbler look like “Nature” or “National Geographic”
There was also a book called “The Legend of Aleister Crowley” with contributions from himself and basically a sort of biography attempting to revise all that wicked press that had followed him for so long
As one contributor rightly said - to call The Beast the wickedest man in Britain if not the world when he was a contemporary of such paragons of virtue as Stalin and Hitler is really rather ridiculous and demonstrates a seriously strange sense of morality
There was a lot of quotes from The Beast himself. Seemed like he was never happier than when he was taking the piss out of the establishment in all its incarnations. He seemed far more like The Fool or the Court Jester than the Devil Incarnate. And then there’s the snark. There’s so much that you wouldn’t know where to start quoting
The inside cover of this book had a picture of him on a throne dressed in his ceremonial robes looking extremely fat and fugly presiding over some ritual sacrifice of a black cat and the image of a woman who escaped his evil clutches. He had a round moon face and an enormous pudgy nose and piggy eyes and looked exactly like the sort of monster that you would expect to find on the front page of “Der Sturmer”
Izzie was one of the very last people to leave the exhibition and just as we got to the stairs the curator handed over a copy of this blue book of The Legend as ‘a gift’
This was most appreciated indeed as the Izzie had already decided to be a good good serpent and to resist such delicious temptations. Thanks to the old toad, the days of indulging in such luxuries are over and must be resisted especially as nearly all this stuff is available for free online.
It must be an Omen
Another Peek at those pictures
The tall thin spooky Grand Master of the Lodge was there. He will not be impressed when he sees the bits that have been added to his segment. Namely that other deck of cards
And Barry William Hale is a much better artist than he pretends to be. He is the one who looks like the bikie. His black and white demon monsters are especially spectacular and seriously spooky
Seems that so much stuff these days is most easily found on Facebook and Twitter