[Kenneth Anger Interview, cont'd] How did you come in touch with Jack Parsons? K.A.: He was working here at the Jet Propulsion Laboratories. He actually invented the fuel that took the Apollo-rocket to the moon. He has a crater on the moon named after him, which is rather thrilling. I'm convinced that he was murdered by Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes wanted him to work for him, and he simply didn't want to. When you work for Howard Hughes, you lose your freedom. In other words, he tells you what to do. He was very much like L. Ron Hubbard. Jack Parsons was kidnapped by Howard Hughes. They followed him in a limousine, and two big, strong bodyguard-types hopped out and physically picked up Jack Parsons and put him in the limo and drove him around. That's physically kidnapping! It's a crime! To physically interfere with someone and to do something with their body is a felony crime, whether you physically harm them or not. In the limo, there was a representative of Mr. Hughes. He said "Mr. Hughes admires your talent, and we're sorry to pick you up like this. We want to forcefully get the message across that Mr. Hughes wants you to quit JPL and work for him."; They had spies out, and knew that he was doing some really interesting scientific work. Jack played it cool, and said "Well, I'll have to think about it. Please let me out by my home in Pasadena..." But they drove him around for about an hour, and it was definitely intimidation. Anyway, he then decided that the time had come for him and Marjorie Cameron to leave for Mexico, because his life was in danger. He was packing up to leave when his house exploded, and he was killed. He knew how to handle explosives and things like that, and also the explosion was so strong that the whole house was destroyed - a big house with two stories! His wife had gone around the corner to do some shopping for a picknick. They were going to drive without stopping from Pasadena to Mexico, and it was like they were escaping from this monster who was Howard Hughes. Instead of that, the house blew up, and she heard the explosion and went back. There was no house! She was like one block away... This was in [1952]. Do you know if Crowley reacted to the incident? Did he get the news? K.A.: Well, he must have got the news. I've never read a letter or anything about his reaction to the news. But he was dying practically, so these were his last months. But he had already quarelled with Jack, because Crowley was great at quarelling with people. About the Moonchild-operation? K.A.: Yeah, and he thought they'd done something stupid. In a way, he was right, but Jack was so talented that it was a pity that they had to have a falling out. It would have been better if he'd said "You're going too slow, you're going too fast, or you've done something wrong..." It's unusual with that kind of talent. It's one man in a million with a true talent for Ritual Magick. Jack had that talent. But there were some technical mistakes in that ceremony, and in some of his rituals. I don't know if he got the wrong numbers or something, or if he paid for this with his life... I don't know. But the fact is that he was jumping the gun. He wanted to become a Magus before he was really qualified. In a sense, he was repeasting what Crowley did with Mathers... And I guess squabblings like that have continued all along... K.A.: Unfortunately. That's why I never wanted to join. I prefer to be detached. So you've always worked by yourself? K.A.: Yeah. I'm a member of the A.'.A.'., but not the O.T.O. Did you become an A.'.A.'. Magus through the performance at the Haight Theatre in 1967? K.A.: Well, that was the public thing. My real rituals are private. It's also a psychic thing. I consider myself on the path, but I've never tried to belong to a group or to have a group around me. It's just my own choice. If you have to choose a Tarot Arcana of what is your thing, I'm a Hermit. What originally made you interested in Thelema? Were you introduced to Parsons, and he told you about the books or--? K.A.: As soon as I heard about it, something clicked and I said "This is mine!" My family is Scottish-Presbyterian from an ethnic background of German and Scottish. I never was attracted to their church. They tried to take me when I was twelve or something, and I told them "No!" I was the first child to do that, and my brother and sister were both very happy to go along in the footsteps. I refused to go to church on Sundays, and I got my allowance cut because I was rebelling in a way that embarrassed them. But then they left me alone. So I had rejected Christianity at an early age, and I never believed in Santa Claus either! (laughs) I find Christianity repellant. I don't like the story, I don't feel I need someone to get nailed to a cross to pay for my sins. It's ugly! I don't know how much longer it'll last... It's collapsing in ways that are pretty obvious, but it may yet take centuries. At the time of its collapse, it creates these monsters like the evangelists. Bigotism and censorship are coming back again. Most members of the human race don't deserve Thelema. I hate to say it, but they're rotten! Whether they're born rotten or they become rotten, they're sheep. They're unawakened. I don't waste energy on hatred, that's foolish. As a Magickian, I conserve my energy. Wherever I live, I try to create a sanctuary for myself. As much as I can, I have the things around me that I love. <snip> I'm strongly opposed to nicotine smoking. It's like a vampire, sucking on the human race. Crowley, of course, was a smoker. He smoked like a volcano! It didn't do him any good, considering the fact that he had asthma and emphyzema. He was very short of breath. I don't like to sound like a puritan about things like that. I like to smoke pot occasionally, because it gives me a high. It does some good. Whereas the lift you get from nicotine is so ephemeral. It's addictive. It's diabolical. It takes away much more than it gives. And then I find it extremely offensive, the way people will smoke at you, or smoke in a restaurant or a public space where there's other people that don't want it! Their smoke is going in your face... And in your lungs! When Crowley lived, the medical science hadn't realized how extremely bad it was, with lungcancer and everything. Crowley might have changed his mind about it, but he believed in trying all the dangerous things, and whether that's the Thelemic way... I think it is, but FOR AN ELITE. The thing that bores me about drugs now, is that they've become so public. You have cocaine being sold in some form on the street corners in the city by little kids. I still like marijuana, and I think it should be made legal. If alcohol is legal, you might as well... It serves the same kind of purpose maybe better than alcohol. It doesn't destroy your liver the way alcohol does. Also, it doesn't dull your mind... K.A.: No, it clarifies it. But apparently, it's not going to happen in this century. Two things that are important to Thelema have become turned into demons by the cultures: Drugs and Sex. It's like "sex and drugs and rock'n'roll"! Because of [AIDS] there's almost a war on sex too. People are afraid of experiments. I hope some solution can be found to these problems before too many more years. It seems out of control right now. There's no medical thing on the horizon, like a vaccine. The only thing would be more restrictions and thereby greater control... K.A.: Yes. And caution, and fidelity. It's not a good time for Don Juan! (laughs) The Fenris Wolf: In what way, would you say, is Cinema a Magickal art? Kenneth Anger: Well, it's an art of vision. It's like a crystal ball, you can create visions. It also allows you to manipulate time and space and transcend realism. Obviously, the camera records what's in front of it, but it can also record the inside of a Magickian's mind. How many strings are pulled behind the scenes, or special effects, or things to make this happen, are the Magickian's secrets. I don't think it's necessarily... Like in Hollywood films, they explain how all the tricks are done. I don't think that's a good idea. When, and how, did you realize what power Cinema can have? K.A.: Seeing certain films when I was young. When I was a very young child, I was taken to the Chinese Theatre here by my Grandmother, to see "Noah's Ark." It has a scene in a Pagan Temple, taking place before the flood, which of course gave the Hollywood set designers and costume designers an excuse to invent a completely imaginary world. Like Atlantis... Wonderful sets and costumes in a very barbaric Pagan style, and I always loved those. It's all washed away by the flood, and I remember being very upset about this. It was such a nice place. "Why do they have to wash it away...?" (laughs) My Grandmother tried to explain "That's because they were wicked," but I said "They looked pretty interesting to me!" Then I was myself in the film "A Midsummer Night's Dream," again through my Grandmother's influence. That was a thrilling thing to be associated with, and then, when I saw that... The scenes of the world of the fairies were so beautifully done in that film. It's never been done better. That's the part of the film that I loved, rather than the intrigue between the lovers and all that. It's that element of fantasy which is suggested in Shakespeare. But in stage productions they can't do it. In film suddenly, it's expanded to this "dance of the spirits of the moonbeam," and things like that. Later, when I went to France and saw the films of Georges Melies, his trickfilms, I realized that you can do wonderful things in film without having tremendous amounts of money. You just need imagination and the kind of deep wonder-vision of a child. Things appearing out of nowhere, and things like that. I've always loved film, but only a few times in my life have I had enough money to do what I wanted to do. Commercial films were never really an option for me, because I felt that to deal in the commercial marketplace... I'm more of a poet than a salesman, so I never tried to become a part of the commercial industry. Were you ever approached by the film industry in the beginning? K.A.: No. I was always in my own little corner as an independent artist. I wasn't the only one. In the silent period you had experimental films, or, as they were called, avant-garde, being made by Man Ray, Leger, Rene Clair. I saw all of those films at an early age, and of course in France later, I saw Jean Cocteau's "The Blood of a Poet," which is one of my favourite films. But I began to make films before I saw it. And then, of course, Bunuel's "L'Age d'Or." So I saw the power of the medium. I've made about nine films which I consider are finished enough to show to the public. I have other films that are unfinished: either they lack a soundtrack, or some scenes are missing, or I prefer not to show them. Some films have been destroyed or lost, which is too bad, but that's one of the things that can happen. I had one film that was censored by Eastman Kodak because it had nudity in it. It was called "The Love that whirls," and it was based on a passage in "The Golden Bough" by Frazer. It's about when they choose someone to play God for a year. The boy is treated as a God, like a King, and then, after the year, he's sacrificed. That's something that occurred in different ancient cultures, including the Aztecs. It goes back in Europe much further. I had some nude figures in that, and this was in the early forties. It wasn't even remotely sexual. They were artistic nudes, but it was a no-no. They confiscated the film and I never got it back. At that time you couldn't get colour film developed except through Eastman Kodak. There weren't any independent labs. So, I've had a battle in the past with censorship... "Scorpio Rising" was first running in California in 1964. It was seized by the police, and now the amount of controversy in the film is so little. The few flashes of nudity are so brief. It's hard to see what all the fuss was about! <snip> The pendulum now seems to be swinging back... Dr. Kinsey was a friend of mine, and he said that "Censorship and permissiveness towards sexuality in the cultures of the world, it goes like a pendulum..." It's also quite symbolical in general, how sexuality is regarded... K.A.: Yes. These are tough times. The worst thing is that there are so many diseases. It does have an effect on the freedom of sexuality. And that is used by the moralists as an excuse to condemn all sexual expressions. Do you agree with the theory that [AIDS] is an imposed disease? K.A.: Well, that sounds too paranoid. Too much like paranoia. I have no proof of that. It would be convenient to think that, but, on the other hand, if it could be ... H.G. Wells wrote a story called "The Island of Dr. Moreau," which is a wonderful story. In it, he predicted that the world would be infected with unknown diseases that would shape the things to come. He invented one, "the wandering sickness," which was like a kind of incurable fever... People would break out in sweats and they would have the desire to sleepwalk and wander. And then they'd have to shoot them. It was convenient for H.G. Wells, because he thought that even in 1935, the world was much too overpopulated. He wanted to cut the population on earth by one third. As an artist, you can invent a plague with a sweep of the pen that will wipe out two thirds just like that... Then, from that, a new elite develops. He calls them the "air men." This is of course a fantasy, but I WISH WE COULD HAVE AN ELITE. But it seems to me in many different ways that progress is an illusion, and that for every advance, there's a step backwards. And we were speaking yesterday of the moral decline and the changes in society... Do you think that the Aeon of Horus will ever be established? K.A.: Well, I believe in it. But we're in the chaos-stage of birth that will be very rough. At least it seems that the nuclear threat between the super-powers is perhaps diminishing. Next year Gorby could be overthrown, and you could have a new reactionary regime in Moscow. It's amazing how he's kept them at bay. He's almost like in a cage of tigers. A wild animal trainer who just with his eyes says "Stay down, stay back!" Anyway, it's fascinating to watch, but on the other hand there's such an element of... I think that the human species has in it the seeds of the Destroyers, whether they're thugs in India or whatever, Kali-worshippers... The terrorists, like the Red Brigade who killed the head banker in Germany, are like in a time warp. What reds are they working for? It's beside the point of history, and history's passed them by. There they are - still blowing up people like the anarchists in 1900, or killing the equivalent of a king. A banker is like the king of Yugoslavia or something, the one that set off World War One. It's possible that terrorism will continue, because there will always be people who have grudges if they get ahold of poison gas or biological weapons, which would be quite easy to manufacture, like viruses. I think harmony is far away. If it ever happens! <snip> I'm personally very pessimistic about the human race, and I think that's something I share with Anton [LaVey]. You have wonderful geniuses, poets, and artists, but yet so many who are destroyers and don't care. The biggest problem is overpopulation. If I had my way, it'd probably be like they have in China or India, where they are only allowed so many children. It isn't working there either, but at least they try and limit it. You're only supposed to have one child, which is like an humiliation to traditional China, because you were supposed to have five or six, and as many sons as possible. The Hispanic people that live in this neighbourhood for instance, they come up from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, all those countries, many illegally, and they bring with them the breeding habits of the third world. The women start having children at 16, and from then on until menopause, they have a baby every nine months! They end up with 15-20 children! Even if some of them are intelligent - which I question! - they'll never have jobs for all of these people, unless they want to pick in the fields or something like that... [Our talks turned to the Prophet of the Aeon, Aleister Crowley, who's been such a great influence in Anger's films. His Magnum Opus, "Lucifer Rising," was influenced by Crowley's poem "Hymn to Lucifer," and he's planned to do a film version of the O.T.O. Gnostic Mass.] K.A.: I had plans and did sketch out a realistical film based on Crowley's living at Cefalu, at the Abbey of Thelema. That's basically why I went there, to do research. I lived in it. But I don't know if it'll ever happen, because I'd have to find serious money... That's always been a great obstacle to me. When I've made films, either a relative has left me some money, like my mother left me some bonds and I cashed them in, or I had some help from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Ford Foundation. But not very much, only modest amounts. Not enough to do these projects. Something like the Gnostic Mass would be like half an hour long. It could be done for a modest amount of money, but I want the setting and the robes and everything to be beautiful. In some cases I might want to use actors instead of members, because they may be more impressive. That's perfectly alright. The thing where the people who belong to the Brotherhood will be helpful is in getting the accuracy of the ritual gestures and all that right. I've seen it done by several groups, including the group in Switzerland, and some did better than others. Some things are open to a bit of interpretation. So, that's something to think about, and I might be able to get some sponsorship for it from one of the art organizations.
