Rosaleen Norton
Encyclopedia
Rosaleen "Roie" Norton who used the craft name of Thorn, was an Australian
artist and occultist, in the latter capacity adhering to a form of pantheistic
Neopagan
Witchcraft
or Wicca
which was devoted to the god Pan. She lived much of her later life in the bohemian area of Kings Cross
, Sydney
, leading her to be termed the "Witch of Kings Cross" in some of the tabloids, and from where she led her own coven
of Witches.
Her paintings, which have been compared to those of British occult artist Austin Osman Spare
, often depicted images of supernatural entities such as pagan gods and demons, sometimes involved in sexual acts. These caused particular controversy in Australia during the 1940s and 50s, when the country "was both socially and politically conservative" with Christianity
as the dominant faith and at a time when the government "promoted a harsh stance on censorship." For this reason the authorities dealt with her work harshly, with the police removing some of her work from exhibitions, confiscating books that contained her images, and attempting to prosecute her for public obscenity on a number of occasions.
According to her later biographer, Nevill Drury
, "Norton's esoteric beliefs, cosmology and visionary art are all closely intertwined - and reflect her unique approach to the magical universe." She was inspired by "the 'night' side of magic", emphasising darkness and studying the Qliphoth
, alongside forms of sex magic
which she had learned from the writings of English occultist Aleister Crowley
.
, New Zealand
during a thunderstorm at about 4:30 in the morning, to an English middle class
, Anglican family who had moved to the country a number of years before. She was the third of three sisters and her siblings, Cecily and Phyllis, were each over a decade older than her. In later life, she would claim that she had been born a Witch, with certain biological features to mark her out as such, including pointed ears, blue markings on her left knee and a strand of flesh that hung on her body. When she herself was eight, in June 1925, her family emigrated to Sydney
, Australia
, where they settled in Wolseley Street, Lindfield. As a child, she never liked being conventional, and disliked most other children, as well as authority figures, including her mother Beena, with whom her relationship was very strained. Her father Albert, who was a sailor, was regularly away from home, although provided enough of an income so that the Nortons were able to live comfortably. Nonetheless, she would later describe her life at this time as being "a generally wearisome period of senseless shibboleths, prying adults, detestable or depressing children whom I was supposed to like, and parental reproaches." Due to this, she kept herself to herself, sleeping not in the house, but in a tent which she pitched in the garden for three years, and kept a pet spider at the entrance which she named Horatius, as well as other pets including cats, lizards, tortoises, toads, dogs and a goat.
Norton was enrolled at a Church of England
girls' school, where she was eventually expelled for being disruptive and drawing images of demons, vampires and other such beings which the teachers claimed had a corrupting influence on other pupils. She subsequently began attending East Sydney Technical College, studying art under the sculptor Rayner Hoff
, a man who encouraged her artistic talent and whom she greatly admired.
. To supplement this income, she also took up other forms of work, including as a hospital's kitchen maid, a waitress and a toy designer. Meanwhile, she had taken up a room in the Ship and Mermaid Inn, which overlooked Circular Quay, Sydney, where she began reading various books on the subject of the Western Esoteric Tradition, including those on demonology
, the Qabalah and comparative religion
.
In 1935, Rosaleen met a man named Beresford Conroy and they married on 14 December 1940, before going on a hitch-hiking trip across Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne
, and on through to Brisbane
and Cairns. Returning to Sydney, Conroy enlisted as a commando and went off to serve in New Guinea
during the Second World War, and upon his return, Norton, who had been forced to live in a stable during this period, demanded a divorce
, which was finally settled in 1951. Now single once more, Norton took up residence in a boarding house known as the Merangaroo in the Rocks area, which she enjoyed for its "eccentric, communal living." She began looking for illustration work once more, being employed by a monthly free-thinking magazine known as Pertinent, which had been founded in 1940 and which was edited by the poet Leon Batt. Batt admired Norton's work, which was being increasingly influenced by pagan themes, describing her as "an artist worthy of comparison with some of the best Continental, American and English contemporaries."
(1930–1983). Greenlees had grown up in a middle class family where he had developed an early interest in surrealism
, and had become a relatively successful poet, having his work published in such newspapers as ABC Weekly and Australia Monthly. By mid-1949, the two had become good friends, and hitchhiked together to Melbourne, searching for a venue where Norton could hold an exhibition of her art. They settled on the University of Melbourne
's Rowden White Library, where forty-six of her paintings, including Timeless Worlds, Merlin, Lucifer and The Initiate were put on public exhibition. However, the exhibition did not go well, and only two days after it had opened, police officers had surveyed the gallery and removed four paintings - Witches' Sabbath, Lucifer, Triumph and Individuation - which they deemed to be obscene. Norton was subsequently charged under the Police Offences Act of 1928. At the court case, held in Melbourne's Carlton Court, she was defended by A.L. Abrahams, who argued that the images in the recently published The History of Sexual Magic, a book that the Australian censors permitted, were of a far more obscene nature than Norton's paintings. She won the case, and was awarded £4/4/ in compensation from the police department.
and for housing many of those living bohemian lifestyles, particularly artists, writers and poets. Here Norton associated with many of the locals, including Dulcie Deamer
, the "Queen of Bohemia", whose book of poetry, The Silver Branch, included one of Norton's pictures. Several of the local cafes in the area, such as the Arabian, displayed some of her artworks, and she became a relatively well known figure in Kings Cross.
Increasingly, many curious visitors came to see Norton and Greenlees at their home, which she had decorated with her own occult murals and a placard on the door stating "Welcome to the house of ghosts, goblins, werewolves, vampires, witches, wizards and poltergeists." The couple, widely seen as local eccentrics, even befriended several sympathetic police officers, although nonetheless, many in the police force disapproved of their activities, and searched for criminal charges that could be levelled at them. In September 1951, they arrested Norton and Greenlees, accusing them of vagrancy (an accusation that could be labelled at anyone without a steady job, no matter whether they were actually committing vagrancy or not). However, a publisher known as Walter Glover (1911-) came to their aid, offering them employment as his assistants. After seeing examples of the pair's work, he then decided to publish a book containing a combination of Norton's artwork and Greenlees' poetry.
The result was published as The Art of Rosaleen Norton in 1952, and contained such paintings as Black Magic, Rites of Baron Samedi and an image depicting the horned demon Fohat, with a snake for his phallus, whilst Greenlees' poems featured in the work included The Angel of Twizzari and Esoteric Study. Restricted to a limited edition of 500 copies, The Art of Rosaleen Norton had been produced to a high quality, with each edition being bound in red leather with gold blocking. The book caused a great deal of controversy upon its release, and Glover was charged by police with the production of an obscene publication, with Norton being called into court to explain the nature of her works. The judge ruled that two of the images in the book, The Adversary and Fohat, did qualify as being obscene under Australian law, and that they had to be removed from all existing copies of the book. The authorities in the United States were even stricter, and actively destroyed any copies of the book copies that were imported into their country. The controversy had helped gain publicity for Norton's work, although the whole affair had bankrupted Glover, and the book's binder Alan Cross, realising that he would never get paid, was instead given his pick of Norton's work, for which he chose Fohat.
Black Mass
run by Rosaleen Norton, a claim which was picked up in by the sensationalist tabloids. Norton, who did not consider herself to be a Satanist but a pagan, denied these claims, and indeed Hoffman later admitted that she had made them up. However, by this time, the press had picked up on the idea of Norton as a devil worshipper, and spun stories around the idea, for instance claiming that she committed animal sacrifice
, a practice which in reality Norton abhorred.
With this public outcry against her work, the police once more began to act against her and those who supported her. In 1955, they successfully took the proprietor of a local restaurant, the Kashmir, to court, for displaying some of her works publicly. That same year, the police raided Norton and Greenless' home, and accused them of performing "an unnatural sexual act", evidence for which they had obtained in a photograph displaying Greenless in ritual garb flagellating Norton's buttocks. It was subsequently revealed that the photos had been taken at Norton's birthday party, and stolen by two members of their coven, Francis Honer and Raymond Ager, who planned to sell it to The Sun newspaper for £200.
Meanwhile the successful English classical music composer and conductor Sir Eugene Goossens
(1893–1962), who was then in Australia and who had an interest in the occult, read a copy of The Art of Rosaleen Norton and decided to write to the artist herself. She invited him to meet her, and the two, alongside Gavin Greenless, became friends and lovers. In March 1956, Goossens was arrested attempting to bring 800 erotic photographs, some film and ritual masks into Australia from London, and was charged under Section 233 of the Customs Act. In court, he pleaded guilty to bringing "blasphemous, indecent or obscene works" into the country and was fined £100. He resigned his position at both the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and New South Wales Conservatorium and returned to Britain, his international career ended in disgrace. Norton's relationship with Goossens ended, and soon that she had held with Greenless also collapsed, as he was admitted to Callan Park Hospital with schizophrenia
. She would continue to visit and support him, and in 1964 he was let off on temporary release, but suffered a schizophrenic attack and attempted to kill Norton with a knife before being re-admitted. He would only be discharged permanently in 1983, approximately four years after her death.
. Along with selling her paintings, she was also making charms and casting hexes for people, using witchcraft to supplement her income.
For a short period, Norton moved in to live with her sister Cecily, one of the few family members whom she got on well with, at her flat in Kirribilli, although in 1967 moved back to Kings Cross, taking up residence in a derelict house in the run-down area of Bourke Street. She later moved into a block of flats in Roslyn Gardens, accompanied by her pets where she began to live a more reclusive and private existence, avoiding the media attention of previous decades.
She died in 1979 from colon cancer at the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Hospice for the Dying, in Sydney, still worshiping Pan
; a pagan until her death. Shortly before she died she is reported as saying: "I came into the world bravely; I'll go out bravely." A plaque dedicated to her has since been installed in Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross.
In December 1982, a play opened at the Tom Mann Theatre in Sydney entitled Rosaleen - Wicked Witch of the Cross. It starred Jane Parker as Norton, Peter Laurence as Glover, Christopher Lyons as Greenlees and Alan Archer as Pan, and was attended by both Willy Glover and Gavin Greenlees themselves. However, according to Nevill Drury, who was invited to the show by Glover, "the play itself had most the weaknesses of an amateur production - it was unconvincingly acted and was not acclaimed a critical success."
In 1988, the anthropologist Nevill Drury
, who had published a number of books on the subject of witchcraft
and magic
, released a biography of Norton which was entitled Pan's Daughter: The Strange World of Rosaleen Norton. He later "substantially expanded and reworked" this into a new book titled Homage to Pan: The Life, Art and Sex-Magic of Rosaleen Norton, which was published in 2009. Drury had himself met her only on one occasion, at her apartment in 1977, at a time when she had become somewhat of a recluse.
In 2000, an exhibition of Norton's paintings was held in Kings Cross, Sydney, organised by various enthusiasts including Keith Richmond, and Barry Hale of the Australian Ordo Templi Orientis
. A full-colour catalogue was published to accompany this exhibition. In 2009, Teitan Press published Thorn in the Flesh: A Grim-memoir by Norton, with an introduction by Australian Norton scholar Keith Richmond. Thorn in the Flesh. The volume comprises poetry (often humorous), reminiscences, and various occult jottings by Rosaleen Norton, with reproductions of two stunning photographs of Norton, as well as some half-a-dozen examples of her art (mainly in color).
and Sir Eugene Goossens respectively), Norton was bisexual, and allegedly enjoyed all forms of sexual activity with both men and women, including bondage and sado-masochism
. She was also known to enjoy sexual intercourse with gay men, believing that in such situations she could play the active role. She also actively engaged in sex magic
amongst her coven, having learned much about it from the writings of Aleister Crowley
and from Goossens, who himself had been very much interested in Crowley's work.
was known as "The Goat Fold".
----
Australian people
Australian people, or simply Australians, are the citizens of Australia. Australia is a multi-ethnic nation, and therefore the term "Australian" is not a racial identifier. Aside from the Indigenous Australian population, nearly all Australians or their ancestors immigrated within the past 230 years...
artist and occultist, in the latter capacity adhering to a form of pantheistic
Pantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
Neopagan
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
Witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
or Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
which was devoted to the god Pan. She lived much of her later life in the bohemian area of Kings Cross
Kings Cross, New South Wales
Kings Cross is an inner-city locality of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately 2 kilometres east of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the City of Sydney...
, Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, leading her to be termed the "Witch of Kings Cross" in some of the tabloids, and from where she led her own coven
Coven
A coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches or in some cases vampires. Due to the word's association with witches, a gathering of Wiccans, followers of the witchcraft-based neopagan religion of Wicca, is also described as a coven....
of Witches.
Her paintings, which have been compared to those of British occult artist Austin Osman Spare
Austin Osman Spare
Austin Osman Spare was an English artist who developed idiosyncratic magical techniques including automatic writing, automatic drawing and sigilization based on his theories of the relationship between the conscious and unconscious self...
, often depicted images of supernatural entities such as pagan gods and demons, sometimes involved in sexual acts. These caused particular controversy in Australia during the 1940s and 50s, when the country "was both socially and politically conservative" with Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
as the dominant faith and at a time when the government "promoted a harsh stance on censorship." For this reason the authorities dealt with her work harshly, with the police removing some of her work from exhibitions, confiscating books that contained her images, and attempting to prosecute her for public obscenity on a number of occasions.
According to her later biographer, Nevill Drury
Nevill Drury
Nevill Drury is an editor, publisher, and professional in many aspects of the publishing business, as well as the author of over forty books on subjects ranging from shamanism and western magical traditions to art, music, and anthropology. His books have been published in fifteen languages...
, "Norton's esoteric beliefs, cosmology and visionary art are all closely intertwined - and reflect her unique approach to the magical universe." She was inspired by "the 'night' side of magic", emphasising darkness and studying the Qliphoth
Qliphoth
Qliphoth/Qelippot, alternatively Klippot/Kellipot etc. refers to the representation of evil or impure spiritual forces in Jewish mysticism.In the Kabbalistic spiritual cosmology, the Kelipot are metaphorical "shells" surrounding holiness...
, alongside forms of sex magic
Sex magic
Sex magic is a term for various types of sexual activity used in magical, ritualistic or otherwise religious and spiritual pursuits. One practice of sex magic is using the energy of sexual arousal or orgasm with visualization of a desired result...
which she had learned from the writings of English occultist Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
.
Early life: 1917-1934
Norton had been born in DunedinDunedin
Dunedin is the second-largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the principal city of the Otago Region. It is considered to be one of the four main urban centres of New Zealand for historic, cultural, and geographic reasons. Dunedin was the largest city by territorial land area until...
, New Zealand
New Zealand
New Zealand is an island country in the south-western Pacific Ocean comprising two main landmasses and numerous smaller islands. The country is situated some east of Australia across the Tasman Sea, and roughly south of the Pacific island nations of New Caledonia, Fiji, and Tonga...
during a thunderstorm at about 4:30 in the morning, to an English middle class
Middle class
The middle class is any class of people in the middle of a societal hierarchy. In Weberian socio-economic terms, the middle class is the broad group of people in contemporary society who fall socio-economically between the working class and upper class....
, Anglican family who had moved to the country a number of years before. She was the third of three sisters and her siblings, Cecily and Phyllis, were each over a decade older than her. In later life, she would claim that she had been born a Witch, with certain biological features to mark her out as such, including pointed ears, blue markings on her left knee and a strand of flesh that hung on her body. When she herself was eight, in June 1925, her family emigrated to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
, where they settled in Wolseley Street, Lindfield. As a child, she never liked being conventional, and disliked most other children, as well as authority figures, including her mother Beena, with whom her relationship was very strained. Her father Albert, who was a sailor, was regularly away from home, although provided enough of an income so that the Nortons were able to live comfortably. Nonetheless, she would later describe her life at this time as being "a generally wearisome period of senseless shibboleths, prying adults, detestable or depressing children whom I was supposed to like, and parental reproaches." Due to this, she kept herself to herself, sleeping not in the house, but in a tent which she pitched in the garden for three years, and kept a pet spider at the entrance which she named Horatius, as well as other pets including cats, lizards, tortoises, toads, dogs and a goat.
Norton was enrolled at a Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
girls' school, where she was eventually expelled for being disruptive and drawing images of demons, vampires and other such beings which the teachers claimed had a corrupting influence on other pupils. She subsequently began attending East Sydney Technical College, studying art under the sculptor Rayner Hoff
Rayner Hoff
Rayner Hoff was a sculptor who worked in Australia.Born on the Isle of Man, Hoff was the son of a stone and wood carver of Dutch descent. He began helping his father on architectural commissions at a very young age and briefly attended the Nottingham School of Art where he studied drawing, design,...
, a man who encouraged her artistic talent and whom she greatly admired.
Early career: 1935-1948
Following her art college studies, Norton set herself up to become a professional writer, with the newspaper Smith’s Weekly publishing a number of her horror stories in 1934, when she was sixteen, after which they gave her the job as a cadet journalist and then as an illustrator. However, her graphic illustrations were deemed too controversial, and she lost her job at the paper. Leaving Smith's Weekly, Norton moved out of her family home following the death of her mother, and sought employment as an artists' model, working for such painters as Norman LindsayNorman Lindsay
Norman Alfred William Lindsay was an Australian artist, sculptor, writer, editorial cartoonist, scale modeler, and boxer. He was born in Creswick, Victoria....
. To supplement this income, she also took up other forms of work, including as a hospital's kitchen maid, a waitress and a toy designer. Meanwhile, she had taken up a room in the Ship and Mermaid Inn, which overlooked Circular Quay, Sydney, where she began reading various books on the subject of the Western Esoteric Tradition, including those on demonology
Demonology
Demonology is the systematic study of demons or beliefs about demons. It is the branch of theology relating to superhuman beings who are not gods. It deals both with benevolent beings that have no circle of worshippers or so limited a circle as to be below the rank of gods, and with malevolent...
, the Qabalah and comparative religion
Comparative religion
Comparative religion is a field of religious studies that analyzes the similarities and differences of themes, myths, rituals and concepts among the world's religions...
.
In 1935, Rosaleen met a man named Beresford Conroy and they married on 14 December 1940, before going on a hitch-hiking trip across Australia, from Sydney to Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
, and on through to Brisbane
Brisbane
Brisbane is the capital and most populous city in the Australian state of Queensland and the third most populous city in Australia. Brisbane's metropolitan area has a population of over 2 million, and the South East Queensland urban conurbation, centred around Brisbane, encompasses a population of...
and Cairns. Returning to Sydney, Conroy enlisted as a commando and went off to serve in New Guinea
New Guinea
New Guinea is the world's second largest island, after Greenland, covering a land area of 786,000 km2. Located in the southwest Pacific Ocean, it lies geographically to the east of the Malay Archipelago, with which it is sometimes included as part of a greater Indo-Australian Archipelago...
during the Second World War, and upon his return, Norton, who had been forced to live in a stable during this period, demanded a divorce
Divorce
Divorce is the final termination of a marital union, canceling the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage and dissolving the bonds of matrimony between the parties...
, which was finally settled in 1951. Now single once more, Norton took up residence in a boarding house known as the Merangaroo in the Rocks area, which she enjoyed for its "eccentric, communal living." She began looking for illustration work once more, being employed by a monthly free-thinking magazine known as Pertinent, which had been founded in 1940 and which was edited by the poet Leon Batt. Batt admired Norton's work, which was being increasingly influenced by pagan themes, describing her as "an artist worthy of comparison with some of the best Continental, American and English contemporaries."
Gavin Greenlees and the Melbourne exhibition: 1949-1950
It was at Pertinent that she met a younger man named Gavin GreenleesGavin Greenlees
Gavin Greenlees was an Australian poet. He was born in Melbourne in 1930. As early as 1943 he had poems appear in the periodical Pertinent. He won three successive poetry competitions sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and his poems later were widely published, notably in the...
(1930–1983). Greenlees had grown up in a middle class family where he had developed an early interest in surrealism
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
, and had become a relatively successful poet, having his work published in such newspapers as ABC Weekly and Australia Monthly. By mid-1949, the two had become good friends, and hitchhiked together to Melbourne, searching for a venue where Norton could hold an exhibition of her art. They settled on the University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
's Rowden White Library, where forty-six of her paintings, including Timeless Worlds, Merlin, Lucifer and The Initiate were put on public exhibition. However, the exhibition did not go well, and only two days after it had opened, police officers had surveyed the gallery and removed four paintings - Witches' Sabbath, Lucifer, Triumph and Individuation - which they deemed to be obscene. Norton was subsequently charged under the Police Offences Act of 1928. At the court case, held in Melbourne's Carlton Court, she was defended by A.L. Abrahams, who argued that the images in the recently published The History of Sexual Magic, a book that the Australian censors permitted, were of a far more obscene nature than Norton's paintings. She won the case, and was awarded £4/4/ in compensation from the police department.
Kings Cross and Walter Glover: 1951-1954
With the legal hassle in Melbourne over, Norton and Greenlees (who had become lovers), returned to Sydney, where they moved into the house at 179 Brougham Street. This was in the area known as Kings Cross, which at the time was renowned for being a red light districtRed Light District
Red Light District may refer to:* Red-light district - a neighborhood where prostitution is common* The Red Light District - the title of the 2004 album by rapper Ludacris* Red Light District Video - a pornography studio based in Los Angeles, California...
and for housing many of those living bohemian lifestyles, particularly artists, writers and poets. Here Norton associated with many of the locals, including Dulcie Deamer
Dulcie Deamer
Mary Elizabeth Kathleen Dulcie Deamer was an Australian novelist, poet, journalist and actor. She was a founder and a committee member of the Fellowship of Australian Writers.-Life:...
, the "Queen of Bohemia", whose book of poetry, The Silver Branch, included one of Norton's pictures. Several of the local cafes in the area, such as the Arabian, displayed some of her artworks, and she became a relatively well known figure in Kings Cross.
Increasingly, many curious visitors came to see Norton and Greenlees at their home, which she had decorated with her own occult murals and a placard on the door stating "Welcome to the house of ghosts, goblins, werewolves, vampires, witches, wizards and poltergeists." The couple, widely seen as local eccentrics, even befriended several sympathetic police officers, although nonetheless, many in the police force disapproved of their activities, and searched for criminal charges that could be levelled at them. In September 1951, they arrested Norton and Greenlees, accusing them of vagrancy (an accusation that could be labelled at anyone without a steady job, no matter whether they were actually committing vagrancy or not). However, a publisher known as Walter Glover (1911-) came to their aid, offering them employment as his assistants. After seeing examples of the pair's work, he then decided to publish a book containing a combination of Norton's artwork and Greenlees' poetry.
The result was published as The Art of Rosaleen Norton in 1952, and contained such paintings as Black Magic, Rites of Baron Samedi and an image depicting the horned demon Fohat, with a snake for his phallus, whilst Greenlees' poems featured in the work included The Angel of Twizzari and Esoteric Study. Restricted to a limited edition of 500 copies, The Art of Rosaleen Norton had been produced to a high quality, with each edition being bound in red leather with gold blocking. The book caused a great deal of controversy upon its release, and Glover was charged by police with the production of an obscene publication, with Norton being called into court to explain the nature of her works. The judge ruled that two of the images in the book, The Adversary and Fohat, did qualify as being obscene under Australian law, and that they had to be removed from all existing copies of the book. The authorities in the United States were even stricter, and actively destroyed any copies of the book copies that were imported into their country. The controversy had helped gain publicity for Norton's work, although the whole affair had bankrupted Glover, and the book's binder Alan Cross, realising that he would never get paid, was instead given his pick of Norton's work, for which he chose Fohat.
Tabloid sensationalism and Sir Eugene Goossens: 1955-1959
In 1955, a mentally ill vagrant named Anna Karina Hoffman swore at a police officer, and was subsequently charged, but at her trial claimed that her life had fallen apart after taking part in a SatanicSatanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
Black Mass
Black Mass
A Black Mass is a ceremony supposedly celebrated during the Witches' Sabbath, which was a sacrilegious parody of the Catholic Mass. Its main objective was the profanation of the host, although there is no agreement among authors on how hosts were obtained or profaned; the most common idea is that...
run by Rosaleen Norton, a claim which was picked up in by the sensationalist tabloids. Norton, who did not consider herself to be a Satanist but a pagan, denied these claims, and indeed Hoffman later admitted that she had made them up. However, by this time, the press had picked up on the idea of Norton as a devil worshipper, and spun stories around the idea, for instance claiming that she committed animal sacrifice
Animal sacrifice
Animal sacrifice is the ritual killing of an animal as part of a religion. It is practised by many religions as a means of appeasing a god or gods or changing the course of nature...
, a practice which in reality Norton abhorred.
With this public outcry against her work, the police once more began to act against her and those who supported her. In 1955, they successfully took the proprietor of a local restaurant, the Kashmir, to court, for displaying some of her works publicly. That same year, the police raided Norton and Greenless' home, and accused them of performing "an unnatural sexual act", evidence for which they had obtained in a photograph displaying Greenless in ritual garb flagellating Norton's buttocks. It was subsequently revealed that the photos had been taken at Norton's birthday party, and stolen by two members of their coven, Francis Honer and Raymond Ager, who planned to sell it to The Sun newspaper for £200.
Meanwhile the successful English classical music composer and conductor Sir Eugene Goossens
Eugène Aynsley Goossens
Sir Eugene Aynsley Goossens was an English conductor and composer.-Biography:He was born in Camden Town, London, the son of the Belgian conductor and violinist Eugène Goossens and the grandson of the conductor Eugène Goossens...
(1893–1962), who was then in Australia and who had an interest in the occult, read a copy of The Art of Rosaleen Norton and decided to write to the artist herself. She invited him to meet her, and the two, alongside Gavin Greenless, became friends and lovers. In March 1956, Goossens was arrested attempting to bring 800 erotic photographs, some film and ritual masks into Australia from London, and was charged under Section 233 of the Customs Act. In court, he pleaded guilty to bringing "blasphemous, indecent or obscene works" into the country and was fined £100. He resigned his position at both the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and New South Wales Conservatorium and returned to Britain, his international career ended in disgrace. Norton's relationship with Goossens ended, and soon that she had held with Greenless also collapsed, as he was admitted to Callan Park Hospital with schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
. She would continue to visit and support him, and in 1964 he was let off on temporary release, but suffered a schizophrenic attack and attempted to kill Norton with a knife before being re-admitted. He would only be discharged permanently in 1983, approximately four years after her death.
Later life: 1960-1979
The tabloid attention surrounding Norton had intensified in the late 1950s, leading tourists to actually come into the area in search of her. Despite the fact that at the time witchcraft was still illegal in that state of Australia (the British Witchcraft Act of 1735 had been repealed in England in 1951, but would only be repealed in this state in 1971), Norton openly declared herself to be a Witch. She tried to explain her beliefs to interviewers, emphasising her faith in pantheismPantheism
Pantheism is the view that the Universe and God are identical. Pantheists thus do not believe in a personal, anthropomorphic or creator god. The word derives from the Greek meaning "all" and the Greek meaning "God". As such, Pantheism denotes the idea that "God" is best seen as a process of...
. Along with selling her paintings, she was also making charms and casting hexes for people, using witchcraft to supplement her income.
For a short period, Norton moved in to live with her sister Cecily, one of the few family members whom she got on well with, at her flat in Kirribilli, although in 1967 moved back to Kings Cross, taking up residence in a derelict house in the run-down area of Bourke Street. She later moved into a block of flats in Roslyn Gardens, accompanied by her pets where she began to live a more reclusive and private existence, avoiding the media attention of previous decades.
She died in 1979 from colon cancer at the Roman Catholic Sacred Heart Hospice for the Dying, in Sydney, still worshiping Pan
Pan (mythology)
Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...
; a pagan until her death. Shortly before she died she is reported as saying: "I came into the world bravely; I'll go out bravely." A plaque dedicated to her has since been installed in Darlinghurst Road, Kings Cross.
Legacy
Following her death, Norton’s many paintings, which were owned by Don Deaton, a local printer and pub owner, sold them at auction, all of which went to a single collector, Jack Parker, who purchased the lot for £5000, and displayed them at his Southern Cross Hotel in St Peters, Sydney. Meanwhile, Walter Glover gained the rights to republish The Art of Rosaleen Norton, re-releasing it in a facsimile edition. Following this, in 1984, he published A Supplement to the Art of Rosaleen Norton, which contained colour prints of nineteen of the works which had been featured in her 1949 Melbourne exhibition.In December 1982, a play opened at the Tom Mann Theatre in Sydney entitled Rosaleen - Wicked Witch of the Cross. It starred Jane Parker as Norton, Peter Laurence as Glover, Christopher Lyons as Greenlees and Alan Archer as Pan, and was attended by both Willy Glover and Gavin Greenlees themselves. However, according to Nevill Drury, who was invited to the show by Glover, "the play itself had most the weaknesses of an amateur production - it was unconvincingly acted and was not acclaimed a critical success."
In 1988, the anthropologist Nevill Drury
Nevill Drury
Nevill Drury is an editor, publisher, and professional in many aspects of the publishing business, as well as the author of over forty books on subjects ranging from shamanism and western magical traditions to art, music, and anthropology. His books have been published in fifteen languages...
, who had published a number of books on the subject of witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
and magic
Magic (paranormal)
Magic is the claimed art of manipulating aspects of reality either by supernatural means or through knowledge of occult laws unknown to science. It is in contrast to science, in that science does not accept anything not subject to either direct or indirect observation, and subject to logical...
, released a biography of Norton which was entitled Pan's Daughter: The Strange World of Rosaleen Norton. He later "substantially expanded and reworked" this into a new book titled Homage to Pan: The Life, Art and Sex-Magic of Rosaleen Norton, which was published in 2009. Drury had himself met her only on one occasion, at her apartment in 1977, at a time when she had become somewhat of a recluse.
In 2000, an exhibition of Norton's paintings was held in Kings Cross, Sydney, organised by various enthusiasts including Keith Richmond, and Barry Hale of the Australian Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis
Ordo Templi Orientis is an international fraternal and religious organization founded at the beginning of the 20th century...
. A full-colour catalogue was published to accompany this exhibition. In 2009, Teitan Press published Thorn in the Flesh: A Grim-memoir by Norton, with an introduction by Australian Norton scholar Keith Richmond. Thorn in the Flesh. The volume comprises poetry (often humorous), reminiscences, and various occult jottings by Rosaleen Norton, with reproductions of two stunning photographs of Norton, as well as some half-a-dozen examples of her art (mainly in color).
Personal life
Although her two main sexual relationships in her life were with men (Gavin GreenleesGavin Greenlees
Gavin Greenlees was an Australian poet. He was born in Melbourne in 1930. As early as 1943 he had poems appear in the periodical Pertinent. He won three successive poetry competitions sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and his poems later were widely published, notably in the...
and Sir Eugene Goossens respectively), Norton was bisexual, and allegedly enjoyed all forms of sexual activity with both men and women, including bondage and sado-masochism
BDSM
BDSM is an erotic preference and a form of sexual expression involving the consensual use of restraint, intense sensory stimulation, and fantasy power role-play. The compound acronym BDSM is derived from the terms bondage and discipline , dominance and submission , and sadism and masochism...
. She was also known to enjoy sexual intercourse with gay men, believing that in such situations she could play the active role. She also actively engaged in sex magic
Sex magic
Sex magic is a term for various types of sexual activity used in magical, ritualistic or otherwise religious and spiritual pursuits. One practice of sex magic is using the energy of sexual arousal or orgasm with visualization of a desired result...
amongst her coven, having learned much about it from the writings of Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
and from Goossens, who himself had been very much interested in Crowley's work.
Religious beliefs
Norton devised her own variety of Neopagan Witchcraft, forming a tradition that according to the English Witch Doreen ValienteDoreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
was known as "The Goat Fold".
Further reading
- The Art of Rosaleen Norton with poems by Gavin Greenlees. Walter Glover, Sydney. 1952. 2nd edition: Walter Glover, Bondi Beach. 1982. ISBN 0-9593077-0-2.
- Supplement to: The Art of Rosaleen Norton (1982 Edition) with poems by Gavin Greenlees. Walter Glover, Bondi Beach, N.S.W. 1984. ISBN 0-9593077-1-0.
- Pan's Daughter: The Strange World of Rosaleen Norton. Nevill Drury. Collins Australia. 1988. ISBN 0-7322-0000-8.
- Three Macabre Stories (US: Typographeum Press, 1996; revised edition: US: The Teitan PressThe Teitan PressThe Teitan Press is a small publishing house specialising in books by and relating to Aleister Crowley, and to scholarly works on the occult.-History:...
, 2010). Three rare Lovecraftian stories originally published by Norton in the periodical Smith's WeeklySmith's WeeklySmith's Weekly was an Australian tabloid newspaper published from 1919 to 1950. An independent weekly published in Sydney, but read all over Australia, Smith’s Weekly was one of Australia’s most patriotic newspaper-style magazines....
. (The Teitan PressThe Teitan PressThe Teitan Press is a small publishing house specialising in books by and relating to Aleister Crowley, and to scholarly works on the occult.-History:...
2010 edition includes additional material and reprints three satirical illustrations by Norton originally published in Smith's WeeklySmith's WeeklySmith's Weekly was an Australian tabloid newspaper published from 1919 to 1950. An independent weekly published in Sydney, but read all over Australia, Smith’s Weekly was one of Australia’s most patriotic newspaper-style magazines....
.) - Thorn in the Flesh: A Grim-Memoire (US: The Teitan PressThe Teitan PressThe Teitan Press is a small publishing house specialising in books by and relating to Aleister Crowley, and to scholarly works on the occult.-History:...
, 2009). ISBN 978-0-933429-16-1 - Nevill Stuart Drury, "The Magical Cosmology of Rosaleen Norton", The Pomegranate. The International Journal of Pagan Studies, 12,2 (2010), 208-238.
External links
- http://www.sexmagick.com/aisha/art/rnorton.htm (This link contains some of Roie's occult artworks)
- http://www.takver.com/history/rosaleen.htm
- http://www.physicsroom.org.nz/log/archive/10/norton/
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