Re: Iron Maiden & Crowley (wasRe: Heavy Metal Catholic)

Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 08:24:19 +0200
Newsgroups: alt.religion.christian.roman-catholic
Size: 3,955 bytes

Paul Hume wrote:
> Daniel -
>
>
>>>Inverness, Scotland. Crowley died (decades after he had owned
>>>Boleskine) in Hastings, but in a boarding house. He did not own
>>>property in Hastings.
>>
>>Right. Thanks for putting that right, Paul.
>>
>>I've been to Inverness. If I'd known, I would have had a look at it.
>
>
> There was a web page at one time (for the B&B I mean)...seems to have
> gone away, so dunno.
>
>
>>I see. There was also an Italian episode in Crowley's life, wasn't there?
>
>
> Assuredly - a number of years based in Cefalu, Sicily, at the Abbey of
> Thelema. Crowley was ordered out of Italy by Mussolini's government
> and while several other members of the community soldiered on at
> Cefalu for some years, eventually funds and energy ran out. It had
> always been a shoestring operation, financially.
Years ago I read a Crowley biography by a German author, who, IIRC,
was also in the OTO. He wrote that a great deal of what was going on
in Sicily was basically sexual magic. I don't really know much about
Crowley, but he seemed to into that. I prefer magic sex, to be honest
*ggg*
>
>>>Probably, though Moonchild is also a synonym used for the sign of
>>>Cancer (which is ruled by the Moon), when modern astrologers got chary
>>>of using its Latin name, given that the poor crab is now also
>>>associated with the disease as well as the sign.
>>
>>Didn't know that Moonchild can also mean the star sign of Cancer.
>>
>
>
> It's a pretty twee, cutesy New Agey term (g).
You never stop learning....
>>Here are the lyrics of the Iron Maiden song:
>>
>>------- begin quote ------
>>
>>IRON MAIDEN
>>
>>Moonchild
>>
>>Adrian Smith, Bruce Dickinson
>>
>>Seven deadly sins
>>Seven ways to win
>>Seven holy paths to hell
>>And your trip begins
>>
>>Seven downward slopes
>>Seven bloodied hopes
>>Seven are you burning fires,
>>Seven your desires...
>>
>>I am he the bornless one
>>The fallen angel watching you
>>Babylon, the scarlet whore
>>I'll infiltrate your gratitude
>>Don't you dare to save your son
>>Kill him now and save the young ones
>>Be the mother of birth strangled babe
>>Be the devils own, Lucifer's my name
>
>
>
> OK, I think this makes it clear he was in a Crowley vein (g). Much of
> the lyric seems to be stringing together scary terms from Crowley and
> the magical literature in general, plus his own work as a lyricist.
Good to know. And I guess quite a lot is also Bruce Dickinson's own
choice of words.
Would be interesting to know what he and Steve Harris had been reading
when they came up with the Seventh Son album. I once compared their
version of Coleridge's "Rime Of The Ancient Mariner" to the original
lyrical ballad (the second version). It's a great paraphrase and also
includes 4 of the orioginal stanzas. The song is about 13 minutes long
and is on the "Powerslave" album. So when Maiden get down to
literature of whatever kind, they usually do good jobs.
(you can tell, I'm a fan. My first real rock album was "The Number Of
The Beast".)
>>Don't know Crowley's book, but it seems what Dickinson is really
>>getting at Crowley's Moonchild rather than the star sign.
>>
>
>
> Not that much Moonchild as such, except the title is another Crowley
> reference. The novel deals with a magical operation to bring a Lunar
> spirit into incarnation in a human baby (rather than a soul going
> through the cycle of incarnations normally), written as a roman a clef
> with the good guys based on Crowley and his friends (Allen Bennet,
> Leila Waddell, et al) and the bad guys as people he didn't like
> (Mathers, Waite, Yeats et al).
Right, I see. Still Iron Maiden seem to have picked up the idea of
bringing a Lunar spirit into incarnation in a baby, only the baby is
not human but Iron Maiden's Eddie (see the splendid artwork of the
album). It is the seventh son of a seventh son - the so-named album
was of course their seventh studio album.
> Paul
Daniel