Lucifer Over Luxor: Archaeology, Egyptology, and Occultism in Kenneth Anger’s Magick Lantern Cycle
Present Pasts April 29, 2016 Ethan Doyle White
Kenneth Anger, a pioneering American experimental filmmaker, infused his work with occult themes drawn from Thelema, the religion founded by Aleister Crowley. His short films and lost works incorporate archaeological and heritage elements such as Aztec sacrifice and Renaissance Satanism, culminating in "Lucifer Rising" (1980), which films Thelemic theology at ancient sites like Avebury, Luxor, and Karnak. This paper examines Anger's use of the past as an "alternative archaeology" rooted in Crowley's Egyptomania, situating it within twentieth-century Western esotericism.