The Magical Dilemma of Victor Neuburg

Book excerpt: 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