{"id":11724,"date":"2020-08-19T16:58:55","date_gmt":"2020-08-19T22:58:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11724"},"modified":"2020-08-19T17:01:01","modified_gmt":"2020-08-19T23:01:01","slug":"rosaleen-norton-documentary-film-about-to-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11724","title":{"rendered":"Rosaleen Norton Documentary Film about to Release"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11731 alignright\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/rosaleen-norton-pie.jpg?resize=191%2C264&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"191\" height=\"264\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/rosaleen-norton-pie.jpg?w=191&amp;ssl=1 191w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/rosaleen-norton-pie.jpg?resize=109%2C150&amp;ssl=1 109w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 191px) 100vw, 191px\" \/>The Witch of Kings Cross<\/em>, a documentary on the life of Australian artist and witch Rosaleen Norton (1917\u20131979), directed by Sonia Bible, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.etrangefestival.com\/\/2020\/fr\/film\/the_witch_of_kings_cross\">is being premiered in Paris as part of L&#8217;Estrange Festival<\/a>. Often described as Australia&#8217;s &#8220;most persecuted artist,&#8221; Norton blended art and magic in a way often called &#8220;demonic,&#8221; at least in the 1950s and 1960s.<\/p>\n<p>You can follow the film&#8217;s progress<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RosaleenNorton\/\"> at its Facebook page<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This was an earlier trailer for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.indiegogo.com\/projects\/the-witch-of-kings-cross#\/\">film&#8217;s crowdfunding campaign<\/a>, and you can see the Australian occult writer Nevil Drury talkiing about about her:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/TIoA_MWmavY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In 2010, <em>The Pomegranate <\/em>published an article by Drury titled &#8220;The Magical Cosmology of Rosaleen Norton.&#8221; This one is not free,<a href=\"https:\/\/journals.equinoxpub.com\/POM\/article\/view\/10451\"> but you can read the abstract here<\/a>, and if you know a librarian or two, maybe they can get it for you.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Influenced by a range of visionary traditions, including Kundalini Yoga, Kabbalah, medieval Goetia and the Thelemic magick of Aleister Crowley, Norton embraced a magical perspective that would today be associated with the so-called \u2018Left-Hand Path\u2019, although this term was not one she used to describe her work or philosophy. Norton\u2019s artistic career began in the 1940s, with publication of some of her earliest occult drawings, and reached a significant milestone in 1952 when the controversial volume The Art of Rosaleen Norton \u2013 co-authored with her lover, the poet Gavin Greenlees \u2013 was released in Sydney, immediately attracting a charge of obscenity. Norton rapidly acquired a media-led reputation as the wicked \u2018Witch of Kings Cross\u2019, was vilified by journalists during the 1950s and 1960s, and was branded by many as demonic. But Norton\u2019s magical approach was not entirely \u2018dark\u2019. Her perception that the Great God Pan provided a source of universal vitality led her to revere Nature as innately sacred, and in many ways she can be regarded as a significant forerunner of those Wiccans and Goddess worshippers from a later generation who would similarly embrace the concept of sacred ecology and seek to \u2018re-sacralize\u2019 the Earth.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can follow the film&#8217;s progress<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/RosaleenNorton\/\"> at its Facebook page<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>&#8220;Where life comes out of an espresso machine.&#8221; <\/em><\/strong>Rosaleen Norton pops up in this short film about her neighborhood in Sydney, done in that classic mid-century style with a narrator who sounds like he stepped over from a cop show.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_3EbZFy4XJM\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Witch of Kings Cross, a documentary on the life of Australian artist and witch Rosaleen Norton (1917\u20131979), directed by Sonia Bible, is being premiered in Paris as part of L&#8217;Estrange Festival. Often described as Australia&#8217;s &#8220;most persecuted artist,&#8221; Norton blended art and magic in a way often called &#8220;demonic,&#8221; at least in the 1950s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[45,19,36,39,29],"class_list":["post-11724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-art","tag-australia","tag-movies","tag-occultism","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-336","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4555,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4555","url_meta":{"origin":11724,"position":0},"title":"The Bushranger and the Witches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 28, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A quirky story has been filtering out of Australia in bits and pieces. First came the discovery of the headless skeleton of Ned Kelly (1854\u20131880), the country's most infamous bushranger (outlaw) of the 19th century, which involved DNA matching and other modern techniques. Then his descendents appealed for whoever had\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":928,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=928","url_meta":{"origin":11724,"position":1},"title":"The Occult Experience","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 7, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"In my office with the fast Ethernet connection, I downloaded the 1987 documentary The Occult Experience. It is available on various bittorent servers, such as here. (There was tie-in with Nevil Drury's 1987 book of the same name, I believe.)Lots of the film is actually older. Some footage goes back\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":240,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=240","url_meta":{"origin":11724,"position":2},"title":"The Rehabilitation of Rosaleen Norton","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 3, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Back in the 1950s, the artist and occultist Rosaleen Norton was the witchcraft scene in Australia, at least according to some of the older books I have read. Her relationship with Sir Eugene Goosens, conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, was a scandal, as were her paintings, some of which\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4038,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4038","url_meta":{"origin":11724,"position":3},"title":"&#8220;The Occult Experience&#8221; of 1985","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 8, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"A friend pointed me to the Vimeo page where you can see The Occult Experience (95 min.), an Australian television documentary from 1985, researched and co-produced by Nevill Drury, on witchcraftandprimitivepeopleandsatanismandexorcismandallkindsofspookystuff. Watching it was hard, because I kept turning away after encountering such portentous statements as \"The search for supernatural\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6017,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6017","url_meta":{"origin":11724,"position":4},"title":"Nevil Drury 1947\u20132013","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Nevil Drury, well-known Australian writer and teacher on magical and esoteric topics, died yesterday at home of cancer and liver failure. I had the experience of working with not long ago when he did an article for The Pomegranate: the International Journal of Pagan Studies on \"The Magical Cosmology of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"drury","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/10\/drury.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2741,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2741","url_meta":{"origin":11724,"position":5},"title":"Ronald Hutton Responds to His Critics","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 6, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Even before his interview with Australian scholar\/blogger Caroline Tully, Ronald Hutton had written a lengthy article for The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies titled \"Writing the History of Witchcraft: A Personal View.\" It is now available as a free download from Equinox Publishing. In it, Professor Hutton discusses\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"books\"","block_context":{"text":"books","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=books"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11724"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11732,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11724\/revisions\/11732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}