Songs for the Witch Woman

DESCRIPTION

There are few modern love stories as passionate and poignant as the relationship between rocket scientist Jack Parsons and his artist lover, Marjorie Cameron. At once a muse, occult student and primal force of nature – a woman he proclaimed as his ‘elemental’ in a letter to Aleister Crowley – Cameron fascinated, troubled and inspired Parsons. Songs for the Witch Woman is a project born from this turbulent love story. A series of poems written by Parsons reveal his feelings toward his often absent lover. And beside these words are images from the hand of Cameron, illustrating and echoing the intimate themes. After Parsons’ tragic death in June 1952 we find the notebook in which this work was recorded continues, as a bereaved Cameron keeps a diary of her magical working in Lamb Canyon, California. In the dark desert her words become a raw lament as she attempts to gain contact with her Holy Guardian Angel. And throughout the working, the memory of Jack is never far from her mind. Now published more than sixty years after it was written, Songs for the Witch Woman stands as a testament to lasting power of love and loss.

This book represents a creative collaboration between two of the most important names in 20th century occultism. It includes:

• The poems, drawings and diary entries published together for the first time.
• A facsimile of the original 1950s notebook with text by Jack Parsons and illustrations by Marjorie Cameron.
• The texts have also been corrected and typeset alongside a second suite of pen and ink drawings that Marjorie Cameron produced for the work after 1952.
• Contextual commentaries from William Breeze, George Pendle and Margaret Haines.