Season of the Witch : How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll (9780698143722) (26 page)

For occultists through the ages, Judaism represented the authoritative ancient tradition with enough of its own mystical and legendary magical practice that it offered the perfect complement to an already complex configuration of ideas and practices.

Madonna likely saw her very public interest in an esoteric philosophy as also having artistic potential. The halftime show presents her as a priestess, imbued with divine wisdom, ready and willing to initiate anyone who wishes to enter into her mysteries. Conspiracy theorists had a field day with it. The very next day, the website
The Vigilant Citizen
offered a breakdown of Madonna's show, a paranoid exegesis making note of every element of the performance: Madonna's costume resembles Ishtar, the Sumerian goddess of love, war, and sex; Madonna's throne flanked by sphinxes is a perfect rendition of the chariot in the
tarot deck; the first song, “Vogue,” ends with a winged sun disc illuminating the stage, a symbol one blogger claims is used by all the major secret societies. Most damning of all, however, is at the end of the show when Madonna disappears in a flash of smoke and the words “World Peace” light the stage, “a PR-friendly slogan used by those pushing for a New World Order lead [
sic
] by a one world government,” concluded one blogger.

Given the occult imagination's influence on popular music (and on Madonna herself), it's not a stretch to suggest that Madonna consciously drew from mythology, occultism, and even the symbols of secret societies for her show. On the face of it, it was pure pop spectacle, full of color and drama, signifying Madonna's ego and little more.

This spectacle, whatever its meaning, was only possible because of what came before it. The theater of rock began long ago: in the smoky UFO Club when Arthur Brown wore his flaming helmet, when Hawkwind hypnotized their fans with lights, when Bowie came onstage not as himself but as a crash-landed Ziggy. Madonna's show is simply a later encounter with rock's Dionysian roots, ones that can't be severed. Maybe the conspiracy theorists are right. We are being mesmerized by popular music, and it's an inside job. There is no all-seeing eye in a pyramid scheming with the music industry. It's just who we have always been, a civilization that demands that music shake our spirits.

The first decade of the new millennium proved to be a tumultuous time. The 9/11 attacks, two major wars, economic
instability, and an unpredictable future have people scrambling for meaning and stability. What had once been a line in the sand has become a deep gorge between atheists and believers. But many were looking to strike a balance between literalism and symbolism, and art has always provided a perfect vehicle for this kind of exploration.

On July 11, 2012, at the Palace Theatre in Manchester, England, the pop opera
Dr Dee
opened to critical praise. The opera tells the story of the sixteenth-century astrologer, mathematician, and occultist John Dee, a polymath whom Queen Elizabeth I consulted and who created the Enochian alphabet, the supposed grammar of the angels that is still used by occultists today. Dee was the gentleman magician, a lover of wisdom who believed that science and magic were part of the same rational process. But Dee was also a tragic figure. Dee had spent long hours—without much success—staring into his “shew stone,” a piece of crystal he believed would reveal to him the secrets of angels and the true nature of the universe. In 1582, Dee was introduced to a man named Edward Kelley, who convinced Dee
he
was the key that would unlock the puzzle that had consumed the counselor to Elizabeth. Kelley would appear to go into trances and prolifically dictated the words of the angels. How much Kelley himself believed or if he was merely using Dee is unclear. At one point he was able to convince the prudish Dee that God wanted them to share their wives. Eventually Dee's interest in the supernatural made enemies in the religious hierarchy and support for him and his work began to dry up. Dee died in poverty.

The creation of
Dr Dee
was the result of a collaboration
between the British theater director Rufus Norris and Damon Albarn, known for his two influential bands, Blur and Gorillaz. Albarn had become friendly with the comic book writer Alan Moore, a self-proclaimed magician who says he worships—in somewhat tongue-in-cheek fashion—a Roman snake god. But what Moore is very serious about is his belief that magic and the creative act are inseparable and that each is a way of conjuring fictions and making them very real. Moore and Albarn wanted to work together, and Moore suggested the magical life of Dee. The two agreed to cowrite the opera, but the huge personalities of both Albarn and Moore came to blows when Moore suddenly dropped out of the project, blaming Albarn for not fulfilling a promise to write for Moore's literary magazine,
Dodgem Logic
. Albarn went ahead alone with the writing.

Albarn believed the opera was an opportunity to bring his occult interests out of the closet. He told the
Telegraph
in 2011, “Doing the research has been the most amazing experience. Everything I've read has led to something else—Christianity to Judaism, Paganism to Nordic mythology, astronomy to Hermetic philosophy—and it just seems to go on and on without end.” The opera is an evocative and melancholy narrative of Dr. Dee, with Albarn's vocals skating across music that is part European music, part pop. Other vocalists lend a more classically operatic feel, but the opera is still a rock and roll moment.
Dr Dee
is not rock opera, per se, but it certainly gives a nod to how rock can be used as an operatic form. Albarn's interest in the life of Dr. Dee came at a time when there was what could be called an Occult Revival in rock music and the popular culture. Like the revival of the nineteenth century, this movement is also
dominated by musicians and artists who see the occult as full of phenomena ripe for creative speculation and output.

Within the underground music scene there is a permeable sense of pagan ritual, of a serious intent to make magic out of art. The revival of this commingling of hermetic secrets with art led to the formation of two music events in 2009, the Equinox Festival in England and the Musicka Mystica Maxima Festival in New York City, curated by the Ordo Templi Orientis. Both were gatherings of artists and musicians, many of whom also consider themselves occult practitioners.

For the Equinox Festival, the video and graffiti artist Raymond Salvatore Harmon wanted to see if it was possible to construct a literal conference of artists, authors, and esoteric practitioners and to create a platform for people to come together. “It would also be a starting point for future collaborations and projects,” Harmon says. “It was an attempt to break down the barriers between different esoteric and creative practices and give them a common ground with which they could push into new territories together.” The result was the Equinox Festival, “three days of illumination,” that took place in June of 2009. Harmon curated the event—a series of lectures, ritual performances, films, and live music—with a magical intention in an effort to, as he says, “invoke a particular energy.” The musical lineup was a who's who of experimental artists, including the saxophonist and avant-garde composer John Zorn; the ambient/drone metal band Aethenor; the industrial electronic outfit Burial Hex; the 1970s progressive folk band Comus; and Peter Christopherson of Throbbing Gristle and Coil, performing one of his last shows before his untimely death in 2010.
Gareth Branwyn, writing for the webzine
Boing Boing
, called the event a mixed success, noting that the highlight was the band Comus, who were able to capture the delightful moment in the 1970s when progressive rock and mysticism came together in an alchemical bath to produce a musical approximation of the philosopher's stone, the key to immortality for rock and roll.

—

They had the coffin made to fit Scott Conner's size. In his own work as black-metal musician Malefic, Conner would appear to worship darkness, so being nailed into a coffin shouldn't be much of a problem. Stephen O'Malley was putting together
Black One
, the 2005 album for his duo with Greg Anderson that goes by the name Sunn, rendered always as “Sunn O))).” Sunn O))) became infamous as the slowest and loudest of the doom/drone metal subgenre. Their live shows consist of O'Malley and Anderson dressed in black hooded robes, playing sustained chest-vibrating chords at full volume. They offer nothing specific when asked in interviews about their own beliefs except to say they believe music has the power to be transcendent and induce actual physical and mental changes in the audience.

Their presentation, both in the titles of their mostly instrumental songs—such as “A Shaving of the Horn That Speared You” and “Candlewolf of the Golden Chalice”—and their mysterious stage shows, has invited speculation of all sorts regarding their supposed occult proclivities, and they have even been accused of staging a Black Mass on orders from the Church of Satan. O'Malley admits he both loves and hates this kind of
publicity, but there is a truth to his interest in esoteric lore and legend. So when his friend Scott Conner asked to sing on their record
Black One
, O'Malley thought, “Let's put him to the test.” If in his persona as Malefic he embraces death and isolation, how would he do actually having to sing inside a coffin? The results were better than O'Malley and Anderson could have hoped. Inside the casket Conner felt claustrophobic and anxious, and this came through in the haunted, tortured vocals that the liner notes of the album list as “calls from beyond the grave.”

In the 1990s and early 2000s, down-tuned guitars and Cookie Monster vocals would herald in a new heavy metal culture. Doom and death metal, as they are now known, turned up the volume once again on the satanic imagery. A new generation of fans would hear and embrace the siren call of this sinister metal, one embracing decay and darkness as an essential part of the human condition. Sometimes it all went too far. In Sweden during the mid-1990s death metal fans torched churches. Some musicians were quick to distance themselves, but others would embrace the arsons while they touted their own brand of Satanism calling for violence. By the end of the 1990s, heavy metal, in all its permutations—death, dark, doom, to name a few—had dug a direct route to the underworld. It became the soundtrack to our deepest fears, a symphony of horrors for musicians to explore and cultivate.

Rock's essential rebellious spirit is a spiritual rebellion at its core, and this, like all forms of occult and Gnostic practices, is a threat to the establishment, be it religious, political, or social. Religious hierarchies often used fears of witches and demons to
create hysteria in order to control the populace by offering stability in the face of chaos. In contemporary culture, rock from its beginnings would be demonized. But musicians and fans would respond by turning their pagan horned gods into devils, challenging the status quo in a Luciferian wager of who would ultimately win the souls of youth.

Heavy Metal never let go of its fascination with the devilish aspects of myth and religion, but groups like Sunn O))) saw something rich and deeply spiritual in the shock and bombast of metal's heaviness and bleakness. Drawing from the costumed and goth-infused death metal found in the icy Netherlands, doom metal down-tuned all the guitars, drew inspiration from the drones of Tibetan monks and Hindu ragas, and created a new mythology of metal, one that embraced decay and darkness as an essential part of the human condition. Bands such as Sunn O))), Wolves in the Throne Room, and Liturgy have created a new occult mythology born out of the language of rock. Sleep, the ascended masters of a genre known as “stoner rock,” play a kind of low, slow metal, simmering with a psychedelic vibe perfectly matched for a listener whose brain is cooked on marijuana. (Their masterpiece is the single hour-long song, “Dopesmoker,” a mythical fantasy tale where “Weed-Priests creedsmen chant the rite.”

This kind of knowing and deliberate attempt to instill a sense of mystery and magic in rock characterizes these new occult music pioneers. Maybe it's because audiences became more cynical, or maybe it's because there is very little left that is shocking. In either case, rock musicians have found less reason to put on airs about their own occult interests or to use esoteric
imagery as a marketing tool. What has evolved is a compelling mix of irony and earnestness that can be found in an entire new generation of rock artists and their music. Today's music represents the fullest culmination of how occult saved rock and created an art form open to every possibility of experimentation and spiritual exploration in the music, the fashion, and even the live performances.

Incense smoke wafted over the all-age crowd at the Royale nightclub in Boston as a Gregorian chant filled the room with a deep drone. Three giant faux–stained glass windows formed the backdrop of the stage. The metalheads in the audience were getting antsy, the sonorous voices alerting them that something was beginning. The crowd erupted into shouts and applause when a roadie walked onstage, turned on a small lamp, and adjusted a guitar in its stand. Soon, the lights dimmed lower and the crowd swelled toward the stage, all hands up and throwing horns.

Spotlights cut through the fog that crawled across the stage and five hooded figures walked out, upside-down crosses hung from their necks, faces covered by beaked masks. Their attire was reminiscent of costumes worn by plague doctors during the Middle Ages to protect themselves from contracting the virus. An infectious guitar lick officially announced the proceeding had begun. A tight but fairly poppy heavy metal melody erupted as the audience pushed against the stage. It was then the lead singer emerged, his face painted like Dr. Phibes, his outfit that of a sinister pope, one hand clenched around a staff topped with
an upside-down cross, mockery of the pastoral Papal ferula. Papa Emeritus began to sing as if delivering a sermon, calling out a litany of infernal names: “Belial, Behemoth, Beelzebub, Asmodeus, Satanás, Lucifer.” His voice wavered between sinister growl and melodically emotive.