Wormwood Star: The Magickal Life of Marjorie Cameron

by Spencer Kansa

Alternate cover edition of ISBN 1906958602 / 9781906958602

In the first-ever biography written about her, Wormwood Star traces the extraordinary life of the enigmatic artist Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995), one of the most fascinating figures to emerge from the American underground art world and film scene.

As well as illuminating her early childhood and wartime experiences, the book offers a fresh perspective on the role she played in the infamous Babalon Working magick rituals, which were conducted by her husband, the maverick rocket scientist and Aleister Crowley disciple, Jack Parsons, and the future founder of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard.

Following Parsons' death in 1952 from a chemical explosion, Cameron inherited her husband's magickal mantle and embarked on a lifelong spiritual quest, a journey reflected in the otherworldly images she depicted, many of them drawn from the Elemental Kingdom and astral plane. The biography also takes an in-depth look at Cameron's artistry and film appearances and features reminiscences from the many artists, poets and movie star friends she inspired along the way.

With so much of her life and artistry shrouded in mystery, Wormwood Star sheds new light on this most remarkable artist and elusive occult icon.

Genres: Biography, Occult, Art, Nonfiction, Thelema, Biography Memoir, History

304 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

Spencer has written for a wide variety of publications including Hustler, Mojo, Erotic Review, Vox, Headpress, Hip Hop Connection, Beatdom, Dangerous Minds, and the NME. He is the author of Wormwood Star, a biography of the American artist and occult icon Marjorie Cameron (Mandrake of Oxford). His debut novella, Zoning, is published by Beatdom Books. His interviews with literary legends William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Paul Bowles and Herbert Huncke feature in Joe Ambrose's book Chelsea Hotel Manhattan. His latest work, Out There, is a biography of Burt Shonberg, L.A.'s greatest lost artist/muralist.

Reviews

[Tim Pendry · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a competent biography of a minor but iconic figure in the Californian artistic 'scene' of the post war years.

Margaret Cameron is particularly iconic to anyone who has seen Kenneth Anger's 'Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome' where she plays the Crowleyan 'Scarlet Woman' to great effect.

Her role is not merely theatrical - she was, indeed, the Scarlet Woman in Jack Parsons' 'Babalon Working'of 1946, a magickal ritual with a strong sexual aspect that was undertaken without the approval of Crowley.

Having noted this, she was also an unstable and mostly irresponsible woman who was probably deeply damaged by the sudden death by fire of Parsons. It is intriguing that accidents to others and to artistic materials by fire were a constant minor theme of her life.

She would probably not merit enormous interest in herself, especially as so little of her art work survives (though I consider what does remain to be significant in a certain female and occult context) if she was not at a very interesting place at an interesting time.

Her story starts as the classic tale of the small town misfit who finds her way to California but it also gives us insight into that transitional period when displaced and war-damaged young people were uprooted and then forced to come to terms with civilian life.

Many twenty-first observers tend to see the 1960s as a cultural explosion that had little connection with the disruption caused by the second world war - nothing could be further from the truth.

Very young people twenty years before were either traumatised or came across the traumatised and had experienced a military discipline that they both chafed against and yet were obliged to obey.

For most Americans, it was a case of swallowing their pain and knuckling down to the new job opportunities that were made available thanks to generous training allowances and the expansion of the cold war military-industrial economy.

Unlike the men who came out of the first war, the men (and women like Cameron) who came out of the second could enter into a job and a boom. They did not talk about the violence and easy sex of war time but they could eat well and be sheltered in close communities if they wished.

But the traditional picture of two decades of Eisenhower conformity is not a complete one. Many individuals took their pay-out and sought freedom - and California provided that opportunity.

Cameron met Parsons there. He was very much one of the early creators of military-industrial technology (as a rocket scientist) much as the leading cultural edge today is taken by internet pioneers.

Being a top technologist in a leading edge sector is not at all incompatible with cultural creativity. The traditional arts/sciences split is an unhealthy European historical phenomenon that has still not entirely been over come.

This connection saw her enter a peculiar world of science fiction writers, practising technicians and creative artists that was prepared to explore transgression, sexual and cultural, in total defiance of American norms.

The book is thus full of counter-cultural cameo appearances - not only Anger but Curtis Harrington and Dennis Hopper, not only the Beats but Anais Nin and other sexual and altered state experimenters, many also damaged by war and (in the older cases) pre-war poverty.

War damage is certainly a theme - not just from the second world war but Korea. We will also see Vietnam war damage as infecting the culture of the 1970s just as we are now seeing Afghan and Iraq war damage affecting our current culture.

In some ways and as always, plus ca change - change the forms and the content but the style of the damaged and their transgressional ways tends to repeat itself in both creativity and self-destruction.

The difference is that this generation was not swallowed up in a working city but were part of something like a pioneer culture as the American West was industrialised under huge governmental stimulus.

For this reason, the book is worth reading as an introduction to a world between one great war and one great social upheaval when some exciting but unstable personalities thought unthinkable things and did things that few other cultures would have permitted.

One is left with a problem here. Instinctively non-judgmental, in every chapter I am left with the problem of assessing whether the creativity was worth the pain and the pain the creativity.

These are searching and unsettled people. It is no accident perhaps that Parson's circle spawned three religions all of dubious import but all of some influence.

Parsons was instrumental in constructing a peculiarly American version of Thelema that would almost certainly not have impressed the very English Crowley. Later, radical libertarianism would morph into LaVey's carnival satanism but this cannot be put down to Parsons.

Alongside Thelema is L. Ron Hubbard's half-cynical Church of Scientology which some Governments would like to label as 'criminal' but that is far too simplistic an assessment. Europeans and hacktivists hate it but it is an authentic expression of an anomic culture.

And then there is the less direct and possibly more benign influence of Robert Heinlein on the Church of All Worlds which leads us into the magical world of new age polyamory, neo-paganism and environmentalism.

We might add the various UFO cults who owed their existence to a confluence of science fiction and magical thinking, the spiritualisation of altered states and the somewhat fantastic interpretations of indigenous Indian shamanic practice.

In all these last, Cameron was to dabble as if these pot-pourri of ideas were naturally to be successively linked in a chain of absurdities and ignorances.

From out East also came the beats and the artists. Cameron played a Zelig-type role appearing somewhere in all these stories. This is why her story is interesting - giving flashes of insight into what comes to appear like a total chaotic system.

To observers from outside, all this appears both fascinating and absurd. We Europeans tend to see it for what it is - transgressional transcendentalism'. These people are fully infected with Walt Whitman.

But to complain would be like complaining about Chinese order or European cynicism - a waste of time. This madcap culture drew together the disturbed of a whole continent into one zone and it is natural that they should come to feed off each others' instabilities.

The upside was massive psychological creativity - often nonsense but not always. Parsons' 'Three Essays on Freedom' remain a startling statement of cognitive libertarianism that bears re-reading.

My own view is that, if Parsons had lived, he might well have 'grown out of' his early naivete and given some 'bottom' to the libertarian Californian impulse. The 'Three Essays' are humane, nothing like the violent Conan-like imagery of Crowley, always a Victorian late-imperialist in tone.

There is no sign that Parsons was intrinsically irresponsible and a non-cynical ethical libertarianism might have acted as counterweight to the harder lines of Ayn Rand and Heinlein.

But this was not to be. He died - then great creativity, intrinsic nuttiness, irresponsibility and narcissism all grow by stages in this biography until we reach the 1970s and what is really a form of cultural melt-down.

By this time, intelligent transgression and libertarianism has degenerated into a world of 'shell-shocked beasts' (p.226) who hug trees, believe in nonsense like the 'mother goddess' and can't remember any more why they use drugs.

Spencer Kansa is to be commended for his hard work in not only digging out material related to a woman who seems to have been particularly careless with evidence (no surprise there!) but getting personal testimonies from the now aged participants in the events.

There is an irritating 'nervous tic' where he inserts 'ha ha' for a laugh but this is a small complaint. The book is well written and solid with excellent visual material, although curiously with no pictures of her art which one assumes relates to copyright problems.

As for Margaret Cameron herself, I think she deserves her minor iconic status. I was struck by the range of physical change in her over time (almost as if this was not the same woman) and at certain brief points in history she seems to 'be' the counter culture.

I am not persuaded that she was a particularly nice or intelligent woman but the book was worth writing and publishing and perhaps, one day, an account of this culture might be written by someone who is both fair-minded and will not be enamoured of Whitmanesque musings.

Kansa plays it straight in this by-way of American history and for that we should be grateful.

[Tosh · Rating 5 out of 5]

One and truly wonderful biography on Cameron. The first edition, if memory serves me correctly was kind of messy and clearly a lack of a strong editor. This edition is cleaned up, and the narrative of Cameron flows beautifully. What I like about this book is that Kansa captures the Cameron I knew as a child and young adult. A remarkable woman on many counts and Kansa did an excellent job on research and writing a very strong biography on the essence and interest of Cameron. She was a complex personality, and "Wormwood Star" is a good entranceway to the world of Cameron.

[Abbymerrick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reductive and cliche-ridden to the point of absurdity, the redeeming portions of this book are prolonged interview excerpts with Cameron's friends and associates. Despite the author's asinine, extensive editorializing, semi-objective glimmers of Cameron's actuality occasionally emerge.

Essentially, loved the subject, hated the presentation. Alas this seems to be the only extant biography of a complex and elusive cultural icon. Can someone else please pick up the trail and address Cameron as both a private individual and iconoclast in a nuanced way?????

[Carla Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A biography of Marjorie Cameron, widow of the underground legendary inventor of rocket fuel/Crowley Satanist/buddy of L. Ron etc Jack Parsons. I've read a couple books on Jack so I knew of Marjorie and was thrilled to find this bio, and learn about her fascinating life after Jack blew himself up (was murdered?) in 1952. I knew she legendarily starred in Anger's Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, but didn't know she also appeared in Night Tide, a movie which apparently gave Dennis Hopper his first starring role. Choosing to go by the name Cameron alone, she was known as a witch but also a painter. A very interesting story of an odd, compelling woman, and a look at L.A. in the 50s and early 60s.
This book was well-written and thoroughly researched with high class quotes (Hopper, Dean Stockwell --- hey, it just occurred to me they're both in Blue Velvet).
However, it lacks slightly in professional editing. He says Highland Park is a section of Pasadena, and having lived there myself (for unfortunate years) no, I'm pretty sure it's L.A. Maybe it was different in the 50s but I doubt it. Anyway, one can't expect the writer to know everything, and these locales are right next door to each other, but this is something a good editing would have caught. I only mention this because its just a coincidence that I even know this fact So what of assertions in the book I don't coincidentally know about?
Of course this is a deep underground book: on top of everything else it's about a woman that wasn't famous. Also the art of editing may be shrinking. But aside from my obsessive detail-oriented copy-editing nature, I feel like this book is pretty great and Spencer Kansa deserves better editing but I'll accept it and I'll still give this 5 stars.

[Dian · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a small press book, so it did not have the benefit of lots of editing etc, but what a great read. I was fascinated by Cameron's life and I felt that the author presented it in a very non-judgmental way, allowing the events of Cameron's life to tell the story without a lot of author commentary. It is a shame that none of her artwork was allowed to be shown but the wealth of photos were great. I recommend this highly.

[S Suzanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

fascinating partner to the book I just read about Jack Parsons...
Would love to see a book of her artwork. Marjorie Cameron was a witchy wind pushing towards the beatniks and hippies - a wild precursor like Maya Deren (in her wildness) with whom she crossed paths at parties in CA in the late 40s.

Seems to have been a terrible mother - so anxious to have a starchild - and then wanting to continue "doing what thou wilt".

Fearlessly (and heedlessly) pressing her outre visions on a trepidatious public.

Own this and will be checking back through it - Thanks Remy Norton for telling me to read it!

Recommended for those interested in the Jack Parsons inner circle of occultism, Aleister Crowley, or the Hollywood underground of the 40s - 60s.
Also for those interested in women who follow the inner voice - rebels and witches.

Cameron was willing to live in very poor conditions (for herself and her child) in order to focus on her artwork and avoid the machinery of modern careers.

[Frank Tiernan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just finished the updated edition of 'Wormwood Star', a can't put if down job if ever there was one. Excellently researched and written so that it reads like an exciting novel. One of my all time favorite bios. Way up there with 'American Hipster' by Hilary Holladay, 'Perdurabo' by Dr. Kaczynski and 'Call Me Burroughs' by Barry Miles. Thanks Spencer, for keeping your promise of a revised edition, which made me hold off on rereading the first edition, and for an extremely entertaining read. Don't be surprised if I reread the new edition.

[Meredith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Her life was a perfect example of "Bad choices make good stories". Jack's death dogging her so hard for so many years was terribly sad. But then again, it probably had a lot to do with making her the person she was. And hey, she ended up living next door to Exene Cervenka in what seems to be a perfect example of what someone called the 'convergent evolution of awesome'.

I really wish that the photos would have been of higher quality and there would have been more pictures of her art. All in all a solid biography of an unusual person who knew and influenced a lot of unusual people.

[Alexander Ballantyne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Marjorie Cameron is an interesting character worthy of a biography. Unfortunately this is not a good biography. The main reasons I think it's a shambles are:
a) Spelling mistakes.
b) The way the author constantly describes women is centred around their attractiveness, and comes across as creepy.
c) After the first third, very little attention is paid to Cameron and a lot of word count is devoted to detailing the people around her.

That being said, the author at least makes it clear the amount of other interesting people Cameron met and interacted with.

[Mogg Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

(ps I am the publisher so maybe expect some bias)
Even so - great book and love the new photographs, the new material and the author interview. Ps This time round there is a Kindle edition which is v popular platform

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It fills in a lot of blanks between, "Strange Angel" by George Pendle "In The Center of the Fire" by James Wasserman and "The Unknown God" by Martin P. Starr.

[Otto Hahaa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cameron oli okkultistinen taiteilija, jonka elämä oli aika rankka. Tämä hänen elämäkertansa on melkein hyvä. Selvästikin kirjoittaja on tehnyt paljon työtä etsiessään ihmisiä ja selvittäessään Cameronin elämänvaiheita. Olisi vain toivonut, että mukana olisi ollut myös innostunut kustannustoimittaja. Nyt kirja on vähän halvan tuntuinen ja viimeistelemätön: Fontti on tylsä ja osa kuvista on pikselöitynyt tai muuten vääristynyt. Virheitä ja lapsuksia löytyy, kertovat Amazonin arvioijat.

Cameronin elämä oli monimutkainen ja rikkinäinen, se ainakin tulee selväksi. Maailmassa on muitakin ihan hyviä taiteilijoita, jotka eivät ihan täydellisesti breikanneet elämänsä aikana, ja joita muut taiteilijat muistelevat lämmöllä (”the artists’ artist, i.e., poor”, sanoi eräs toinen eräässä toisessa kirjassa.), mutta Cameron onnistui törmäämään ja vaikuttamaan aika moneen läntisessä Amerikassa vaikuttaneeseen ihmiseen. Tätä olisi voinut kirjassa välillä vähän selventää, keitä kaikki nämä henkilöt oikein olivat? Ketkä pitää etsiä internetistä/wikipediasta, ketkä ovat tärkeitä lähinnä siksi että kirjoittaja haastatteli heitä?

Tarina ei ole hagiografia, vaan Cameronin typerätkin teot käydään läpi (siksikö kirjaan ei saanut laittaa yhtään kuvaa teoksista? joku pahoitti mielensä?). Kirja tuntuu vain välillä kasalta anekdootteja, eikä kokonaisuus hahmotu. No, voi olla, että kokonaisuutta ei ole, ihmisen elämä ei ole selkeä suunniteltu draama. Cameronin elämässä sattui liikaakin melodramaattisia asioita, jotka olisi luovan kirjoittamisen kurssilla suositeltu editoimaan pois.

Mutta monet Cameronin teokset löytyvät kuvahaulla. Ja paljon on joka tapauksessa tuhoutunut, erinäisistä syistä. Cameron itse otti asian tyynesti, koska teoksista on kuulemma kopio astraalitasolla. (Välillä jää epäselväksi, kuinka paljon Cameron puhui sekavia (huumeissa tai mielenterveyden järkkyessä), kuinka paljon oli vakavissaan, ja kuinka paljon vain esitti tehdäkseen vaikutuksen. Tähänkään eí ole varmaan vastausta.)

[Jackie Gomez · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love Cameron. Her work and life are very influential on myself as an artist. I hated reading this poor excuse for a biography. He is merely reprinting the gossip handed to him by unreliable sources, like Kenneth Anger. Read this book and underline every instance of misogynistic language and you’ll find nearly 15% of it highlighted. Skip every instance where he talks more reverently about the men Cameron dated then the subject herself. Don’t even get me started on his backward ideas on bisexuality. Wait for the bio that is actually authorized by The Cameron Parsons Estate, this biographer had no access to her archive or diaries.

[Scott Lewis · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book lacks focus, although that might be because Ms. Cameron seems to just go along with whatever philosophy/theology/cult/etc. comes her way no matter how kooky. The book does touch on the 1950's West Coast wild "characters" like L. Ron Hubbard, Kenneth Anger, etc. The author comes across more of a fanboy than journalist and as a previous reviewer pointed out, keeps pointing out how attractive Marjorie and some of her ilk are. Pretty boring read unless you want to read about astral vendettas between people into Aleister Crowley. I preferred Dr. Strange!

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

A competently written (he could really use a proofreader!) biography of a fascinating woman, one who brings together so many worlds: Anais Nin, Dennis Hopper, L. Ron Hubbard and Bob Hope all pass through the strange occult web Cameron tossed over California in the late-1940s through the Beat 50s and into the hippy 60s. Cameron provides an interesting lens for understanding the underground forces of these decades.

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

While the biographer 's on-the-nose descriptions of the 1950's, 60s, and 70s zeitgeists were annoying and gratuitous, I enjoyed learning about Cameron and her witchy ways. She truly was a vanguard figure and artist. I would love to live my life as if art, spirituality, and sexuality were one...Cameron proved that, while difficult, it is possible.

[John Wenz · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but could have used a more thorough edit. The structure wants to give equal weight to each time in her life, which means some of the more interesting aspects are given the same amount of space as more humdrum ones, which doesn't sound bad per say, but for such a small book, it means Jack Parsons is gone almost as soon as he arrives.

[Michael C Dreimiller · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this looking for a different perspective of her husband Jack Whiteside Parsons. The writing style did nothing for me. It is well researched and lots of interesting people cross paths with her but I had a hard time getting through this book.

[Cassandra Kiely · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. Needs an edit in certain places and the print quality isn’t fab. One of the pictures has a still “loading” computer graphic on it. But overall a really thorough and interesting biography of Marjorie Cameron.

[izzy strazzabosco · Rating 5 out of 5]

im so happy this book exists!

[Tallyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is put together badly and suffers from not being able to include images of the subject’s artwork, but it was so fun to read that I would still recommend it to anyone considering reading it.

[Federica · Rating 1 out of 5]

This could have been a great biography, unfortunately the book is poorly written and edited.

[Kari Lueneberg · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marjorie Cameron led an amazing life on earth and on the astral plane. This was glimpse into the often uncomfortable world of this artist and cultural icon.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't very well written but that wasn't even really the problem. Too little narrative and too much mythologizing by people who knew her. Like it's not that illuminating to read about one acquaintance after the other who found Cameron very witchy. I think maybe a scrapbook of her artwork and some discussion of her magick work would have been a better legacy project? Although I gather she destroyed much of her artwork. It lacked some gravitas somewhere. :/

[C · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was enjoyable and had a lot of factoids I didnt know about Cameron. The early life stuff was new to me as was much of the post Jack Era. However, once it got past the section on inauguration of the pleasure dome it lost some steam for me. A lot of it became all her friends talking about how witchy and strange she was and got a little repetitive.

However I am glad this exists and that more of Cameron's work has become available since the publishing of this

[J. Gonzalez- Blitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

she was a remarkable artist and occultist, glad to read of her life beyond Jack Parsons. In many ways a thinker socially ahead of her time. Though I wonder now more about her daughter and what her life was like.

[Anuradha Vikram · Rating 2 out of 5]

Such an interesting character, such a tedious and salacious book.

[Peter Morris · Rating 4 out of 5]

thelema (#4)