Homage to Pan: The Life, Art and Sex Magick of Rosaleen Norton [Paperback]

Nevill Drury (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 30, 2009

Rosaleen Norton achieved notoriety in 1950s Australia as a controversial pagan worshipper and artist who performed mysterious occult rituals in her secret Kings Cross coven and paid homage to the ancient Greek god, Pan. Norton s provocative visionary artworks soon plunged her into legal controversy, and she was widely criticised in the media for engaging in bizarre sexual practices with her lover, the poet Gavin Greenlees. Norton was also associated with the scandal that eventually engulfed the professional career of renowned musical conductor and composer, Eugene Goossens, who had arrived in Australia in 1947 and became a member of Norton s magical coven six years later. What has been little understood until now is that although Norton dedicated her magical practice to the Great God Pan and to a lesser extent Hecate, Lilith and Lucifer, she had many other occult and metaphysical interests that influenced her cosmology and world-view. Norton was intrigued by the visionary potential of Kundalini yoga and out-of-the-body trance-exploration as well as Aleister Crowley's Thelemic sex magick, and combined all of these elements in her ritual activities. Similarly fascinated by Crowley's approach to sexuality, Goossens proved to be a significant ally, offering to instruct Norton in the Goetia and reinforcing her Thelemic tendencies. HOMAGE TO PAN is an authoritative and fully-illustrated overview of Norton s life and metaphysical beliefs which provides a detailed insight into her pursuit of sex-magic and visionary art, and identifies her as a key practitioner of the Left Hand Path. HOMAGE TO PAN also provides, for the first time, a detailed comparison between Norton s visionary art and that of the acclaimed trance magician, Austin Osman Spare her influential British counterpart. HOMAGE TO PAN is a book on magickal systems in the same vein as PORTABLE DARKNESS. It is also a fascinating biography of a real-life "witch" and proto-feminist, and it is also an illuminating book on esoteric art.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Nevill Drury is well known internationally for his publications on the Western magical tradition, shamanism and visionary art. His books have been released in 24 countries and published in 18 languages. His most recent publications include The Dictionary of Magic; The New Age: the History of a Movement; and Magic and Witchcraft: from Shamanism to the Technopagans.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Creation Oneiros (November 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1902197267
• ISBN-13: 978-1902197265
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 8.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #214,473 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Wonderful Labor Of Love, January 31, 2010

By 

Louis Sherman (New York, NY) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Homage to Pan: The Life, Art and Sex Magick of Rosaleen Norton (Paperback)

There is no question that Rosaleen Norton was a very talented artist in her own right. Her blend of Occult imagery with erotic personal discovery is more accessible than Austin Osman Spare and less abstract than Marjorie Cameron making her a great addition to anyone's interest in Occult Art. Her "Pop" style is a welcome change from the astute seriousness of other artists although never rivaling the intensity of these peers. This has been overshadowed perhaps by her dedication to some of Crowley's most sexual teachings and the subsequent scandals involving her in a very conservative time and country. To some extent this book plays into that as it tends to focus more on that which surrounded her rather than her artwork and some of the meanings that she attached to her art. However almost everything that she has said about her art has been included in the book. Mr. Drury has done a wonderful job on this text. His sympathy to his subject is second to none and it seems as though this has been in the works for almost 20 years. He has left no stone unturned in the process and almost every scrap of data on her from personal interviews, police records and newspaper archives to letters and manuscript notations seems to have been included. It's just that it is so spread out amongst the rumors and tabloid exposes that one is left having to piece her view together for themselves up until the end.

The book only really suffers in two places. There is about 100 pages devoted to Aleister Crowley, Kenneth Grant and Austin Osman Spare (God, if I read another sketchy profile of A.C. I'll explode!) which of course almost anyone that even hears the name of Rosaleen Norton is no doubt already intimately familiar with and for those that aren't they will figure it out on their own elsewhere. This redundant information left me skipping around and feeling like I had moved very far away from the topic at hand. Of course these essays on A.C., Grant and Spare are relevant but seriously this is not a book read in a vacuum as most people should know this stuff. Just as I was beginning to be enthralled with this mysterious (to me) character in Western Occultism I was tossed back to grade school to rehash the basics. Very frustrating. If only this information had been worked into the story of her life rather than having a sizable chunk of the book devoted to it exclusively.

Which leads to the second fault with this book. The text suffers from word editor syndrome to the extreme. Dozens of sentences are repeated verbatim and paragraphs have been shuffled around so much that sometimes I couldn't tell what the hell I was reading and more disastrously where it was all going. On top of that a narrative is absent from so much information that has been compartmentalized into chapters that seem to rub up against each other like complete strangers.

I know that this was not supposed to be an art book but really these reproductions are crappy, only black and white on thin paper that shows through and leave you straining to peer into the paintings to try to see the detail he is speaking of. Most of the painting have been reduced in size as to be almost irrelevant in the discussions that he raises. Creation books are not famous for their attention to image quality or including color images but it really is a big tease.

That all being said this is really a wonderful book about a wonderful artist that I recommend highly as I do with most all of the Creation Books. But it is such a scattered jumble of stuff that it almost can't be read in one go. I pine for the days when authors and biographers would give the reader some credit and take the information and ideas they have gathered and present it in a linear narrative from the beginning to the end and trust us to follow them and understand it all. The book as simulated website is a really nasty turn of events and I only hope that it is just a fad.