THE SUNDAY TIMES

Perth, Western Australia, Australia

6 February 1955

(page 43)

Black Magic Film Shocks Censor.

From DICK KISCH

LONDON

British film censor Arthur Watkins is yearning to get his hands on Black Magic, a film now being privately shown in London.

Called The Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, it is a colorful Technicolor film of the eccentric religious ecstacies of a group of American "disciples" of the late British eccentric Alister [sic] Crowley.

The film has a certain orgiastic atmosphere which was meant to shock some audiences and which would certainly get it blue-pencilled by the censor.

Twenty-five-year-old producer-director-scripter Kenneth Anger is avoiding the difficulty by limiting the showings to private parties and film clubs.

The Home Office apparently is studying a routine police report on the film from the point of view of public morality, but is unlikely to take any action unless there are deliberate attempts to court publicity.

A Black Mass forming the basis of the film is performed by a wealthy group of artists living in South California who have established a cult modelled on the ideas of Crowley who, in the 1920's, deliberately set out to shock respectable Britain with a series of experiments in what he called Black Mass entertainment.

The chief part in the film is taken by red headed Cameron Parsons, wealthy widow of the brilliant scientist credited with the development of jet aircraft fuel who privately dabbled in alchemy and killed himself two years ago during some magical experiments.

Cameron, who in real life acts the high priestess of the Crowley cult, says her husband was the spiritual godson of Crowley.