Lucifer Over Luxor: Archaeology, Egyptology, and Occultism in Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle

Ethan Doyle White

doi:10.5334/pp.73

Abstract

One of the great figureheads of American experimental cinema, Kenneth Anger (b.1927), is internationally renowned for his pioneering work, recognisable for its blend of homoerotica, popular and classical music, and dark, symbolist imagery. A follower of Thelema, the religion of infamous British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), Anger’s work is imbued with occult themes and undercurrents rarely comprehensible to the non-initiated viewer. In exploring these esoteric ideas, Anger makes use of archaeology and heritage in his short films Eaux d’Artifice (1953) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954–66), as well as in the lost films The Love That Whirls (1949) and Thelema Abbey (1955), which utilize such disparate elements as Aztec human sacrifice and putative Renaissance Satanism. However, this theme only reaches its apex in Lucifer Rising (1980), an exploration of Thelemic theology filmed at such sites as Avebury, Luxor, and Karnak, which reflects and propagates the Thelemic view of the past—an ‘alternative archaeology’ rooted in Crowley’s own fascination with Egyptomania. This paper seeks to explore Anger’s use of the past and place it in its proper context of twentieth-century Western esotericism.

Highlights

One of the great figureheads of American experimental cinema, Kenneth Anger (b.1927), is internationally renowned for his pioneering work, recognisable for its blend of homoerotica, popular and classical music, and dark, symbolist imagery
Once used as a synonym for ‘esotericism’, the term ‘occultism’ is used to describe those forms of Western esotericism which emerged from the nineteenth century seeking to deal with society’s increasingly disenchanted view of the cosmos (Hanegraaff 2006: 887–888)
Doyle White: Lucifer Over Luxor was founded in 1904 by the infamous English occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), and was based upon the premise that humanity was entering a new Aeon of Horus in which the species would cast off the old ‘slave religions’ and adopt a new moral code, ‘Do What Thou Wilt’, through which each individual would be guided by their own inner ‘True Will’

Summary

Introduction

One of the great figureheads of American experimental cinema, Kenneth Anger (b.1927), is internationally renowned for his pioneering work, recognisable for its blend of homoerotica, popular and classical music, and dark, symbolist imagery. A follower of Thelema, the religion of infamous British occultist Aleister Crowley (1875–1947), Anger’s work is imbued with occult themes and undercurrents rarely comprehensible to the non-initiated viewer In exploring these esoteric ideas, Anger makes use of archaeology and heritage in his short films Eaux d’Artifice (1953) and Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954–66), as well as in the lost films The Love That Whirls (1949) and Thelema Abbey (1955), which utilize such disparate elements as Aztec human sacrifice and putative Renaissance Satanism. This is perhaps not surprising, for his works have been labelled ‘a subversive alternative to mainstream cinema’ (Brottman 2002: 5), namely because they deal largely with two themes that were hardly respectable in conventional twentieth-century American culture: male homoeroticism and the occult Adding to this counter-cultural stance, Anger works solely in short film, with none of his works exceeding half an hour in length or including any dialogue, and instead making heavy use of a pioneering blend of popular culture, classical music, and superimposed montages. Anger’s films have been deeply influenced by this Thelemic philosophy, to the extent that film studies scholar Anna Powell has described them as being both ‘devotional items and potential tools for making new converts’ (2002: 47)

Objectives

Conclusion