Magician, Poet and Seer, Victor Neuburg was the disciple of Aleister Crowley
and literary godfather of Dylan Thomas.
Really two books in one. Firstly a record of one man's extraordinary journey to magical
enlightenment. Secondly the story of the Aleister Crowley, the magus who summoned
Neuburg to join him in the quest. The book opens with the author's entry into the group
of young poets including Dylan Thomas and Pamela Hansford Johnson.
They gather around Victor Neuburg in 1935 when he is poetry editor of the Sunday Referee.
Gradually the author becomes aware of his strange and sinister past, in which
Neuburg was associated in magic with Aleister Crowley. Neuburg had been
Crowley's partner in magical rituals in the desert and in rites even more dangerous and controversial.
The author sought out the truth behind the rumours and with her intuitive understanding of deeper things presents a sympathetic and compelling biography.
'Vicky encouraged me as no one else has done,' Dylan Thomas declared on hearing
of Neuburg's death. 'He possessed many kinds of genius, and not the least was his genius
for drawing to himself, by his wisdom, graveness, great humour and innocence, a feeling
of trust and love, that won't ever be forgotten.'
' . . . there was a whiff of sulphur abroad, and all of us would have liked to know
the truth of the Aleister Crowley's legends, the truth of the witch-like baroness
called Cremers, the abandonment of Neuburg in the desert.' - Pamela Hansford Johnson
