Nevill Drury - Stealing Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Modern Western Magic

This book is an extension of doctoral work undertaken in recent times at the University of Newcastle in Australia, but in a sense has its origins some forty years ago when, as an undergraduate student at the University of Sydney, I first became interested in the Western magical traditions. I was spurred on by reading a controversial, popular book titled The Dawn of Magic (later retitled The Morning of the Magicians) by Louis Pauwels and Jacques Bergier. The book had originally been published in French and at the time of its release in England in 1963 had already sold over a quarter of a million copies in Europe. It was here that I learned for the first time about the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and many key figures in Western esotericism, and the book really stirred my imagination! Around the same time I discovered the artworks of the remarkable British trance artist Austin Osman Spare in a magazine and subsequently researched his magical ideas in the British Museum for my first book, The Search for Abraxasco-authored with a university friend, Stephen Skinner, who had introduced me to the Kabbalah. I could not have known at the time that Austin Spare would eventually emerge as one of the most significant influences on Western magic in the latter part of the twentieth century, although I am hardly surprised in retrospect, given his extraordinary brilliance both as an artist and as an original magical thinker.

This book seeks to provide an overview of the modern magical revivalthat is to say, it focuses specifically on the resurgence of interest in the Western esoteric tradition in the twentieth century. As one would expect, the central themes revolve around the magic of the Golden Dawn, Aleister Crowleys cult of Thelema, the rise of Wicca and Goddess spirituality, and the subsequent emergence of more divergent occult groups like the Temple of Set and the practitioners of Chaos Magick. However I have also intentionally delved into areas of modern magical thought that are less well known, profiling several of contemporary magics most fascinating individualslike the Australian trance artist and witch Rosaleen Norton, Chicago-based Gnostic voodoo magician Michael Bertiaux, Left-Hand Path practitioner Michael Aquino, and Swiss fantasy artist H. R. Giger. These individuals, in their own unique, and sometimes eccentric, ways have also helped shape the modern magical imagination.

I am well aware that in compiling and writing an overview history like Stealing Fire from Heaven I am entering a field that has already been well served by some outstanding research and scholarship. Key titles like Margot Adlers Drawing Down the Moon, Ronald Huttons The Triumph of the Moon, Hugh Urbans Magia Sexualis, and Andrei Znamenskis The Beauty of the Primitive: Shamanism and the Western Imagination come readily to mind. Nevertheless, the Hutton and Adler volumes focus primarily on the rise of twentieth-century pagan witchcraftthe latter dealing exclusively with neopaganism in the United States, and Hugh Urbans Magia Sexualis describes the esoteric groups that have been influenced by Aleister Crowleys controversial approach to sex magick (Crowleys unique spelling). Andrei Znamenskis The Beauty of the Primitive, meanwhile, explores the rise of neoshamanism in the West in all its myriad formsin itself a vast undertaking. Stealing Fire from Heaven will, it is hoped, be seen as complementing these works rather than in any way endeavoring to compete with them. Austin Spare, in particular, has been ignored in most of the major overviews published to date, and I seek to redress that here. Spare is now rightly regarded as one of the most significant figures in the twentieth-century magical revival, alongside MacGregor Mathers, Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, and Gerald Gardner.

Looking back on the lengthy period prior to my doctoral work, I can see in retrospect that certain events have greatly influenced my research interests. Prior to my more recent postgraduate studies I worked for many years in the international book-publishing industry, with occasional involvement in documentary films. I was fortunate in December 1984 to take part in the filming of an award-winning ninety-minute international television documentary, The Occult Experiencescreened originally in Australia, where I live, and later released in the United States on Sony Home Video. My role as the co-producer, researcher, and interviewer for that documentary gave me direct personal access to several key figures in the Wicca and Goddess spirituality movements, and information acquired at that time proved invaluable by way of historical background. The most positive aspect of making this documentaryfrom my own personal perspectivewas my direct contact with such pivotal figures as Michael Harner, Z. Budapest, Starhawk, Alex Sanders, Janet and Stewart Farrar, Michael Bertiaux, and H. R. Gigerall of whom feature in this book.

Finally, on a personal note, I would like to thank a small group of academic researchers at various universities around the world who have encouraged my esoteric research. They include Dr. Marguerite Johnson, from the University of Newcastle; Dr. Lynne Hume, Dr. Helen Farley, and Dr. Philip Almond from the University of Queensland; Dr. Michael Tucker from the University of Brighton in the UK; Dr. J. Gordon Melton and Dr. Lee Irwin in the United States, and new religions specialist Dr. James R. Lewis, who is currently based in Norway. I would also like to thank Cynthia Read, Molly Balikov, Tamzen Benfield, and Margaret Case from Oxford University Press, New York, for their valuable editorial and production assistance in preparing this book for publication.