Rosaleen Norton was Australia's first prominent witch,

and in the 1950s she was known across the country as

'the Witch of Kings Cross'. She was a colourful,
bohemian figure whose art was as controversial as her
magical vocation. Rosaleen was a renegade from
mainstream society, criticised for her bizarre sexual
practices and in later life engulfed in the scandal
surrounding musical conductor Sir Eugene Goossens.
From today's perspective she stands as an
independent and creative thinker, and also an
important forerunner of the contemporary Witchcraft
movement.
This biography is the only detailed account of her life
and magical beliefs, and also provides an evaluation of
her artistic and magical practices.
First published in 1988 as Pan's Daughter, this revised
edition contains a substantial amount of previously
unpublished material.
Written by Nevill Drury. 144 pages, black & white. A4
format. $24.95 plus $5 postage (includes GST).
ISBN 0-908272-71-5

Rosaleen Norton, dubbed 'The Witch of Kings Cross' was an artist, writer, philosopher and
practitioner of esoteric arts from the 1930s until her death in 1979. Her treatment by the
Australian media was nothing short of outrageous as they sought to chronicle her life via distortion
and sensationalism, revealing either deliberate misunderstanding or blatant ignorance. The media
coverage of Rosaleen Norton is examined to unearth the prejudices inherent in Australia during
her lifetime, the manipulation of the female as the witch and the deviant as opposed to the artist
and intellectual, and the role Rosaleen herself played in these (essentially) tabloid dramas.

Norton, Rosaleen (a.k.a. Norton, Rosaleen Miriam ) (7 works by )

Born: 2 Oct 1917 Dunedin, New Zealand

Died: 5 Dec 1979 Darlinghurst, New South Wales
Gender: Female

Arrived in Australia: Jun 1925

Archives: Search for literary archives for Norton, Rosaleen

Biography: Full biographical information is only available to AustLit Subscribers. A
truncated and unformatted biographical extract follows:

Rosaleen Norton was the third daughter of Albert Thomas Norton, a master mariner
from London, and his New Zealand-born wife Beena Salek, née Aschman. Norton
was expelled from the Church of England Girls' School, Chatswood, at the age of 14
for producing 'depraved' drawings of vampires, ghouls and werewolves thought likely
to corrupt the other girls. She later studied for two years at East Sydney Technical
College under Rayner Hoff who encouraged her 'pagan' creativity. ]

In our city's history, only one place has provided shelter to such an assortment of misfits.
Geraldine O'Brien on the artists, activists, witches, strippers and addicts who have created
the legend of Kings Cross.

Conductor and the witch tale

casts another
legal spell
By Sharon Verghis Print this article
October 28, 2003 Email to a friend

A play about the infamous "witch of

Kings Cross", Rosaleen Norton, and
her relationship with the disgraced
Sydney Symphony Orchestra
conductor Sir Eugene Goossens, has
been threatened with legal action by
the English owner of Goossens'
private letters.
Playwright Louis Nowra's latest play
The Devil is a Woman is facing an Sex magic . . . Eugene Goossens
injunction from the London-based
woman, who is accusing him of breaching the
copyright she holds over Goossens' letters and literary
works.
Nowra's work, which was making its debut in a one-off
production at the Kings Cross Arts Festival this
Saturday, could be in breach, said the Sydney law firm
acting on the woman's behalf, because it featured
material drawn from the late conductor's letters to
Norton before his arrest in 1956.
The conductor and composer fell from grace
spectacularly after he was fined for bringing in 1166
items of pornographic material into the country from
London. The incident also revealed his link to Norton.
She had initiated the conductor into her circle which
practised ritual acts of "sex magic". Although Goossens
was fined only £100, the scandal destroyed him.
Nowra was contacted by lawyers for the woman early
last week. Despite explaining that the work quoted
only from one letter - used in the original police
evidence against Goossens and therefore in the public
domain - he received a letter on Friday warning of
legal action and demanding he send the client a script
for vetting.
The client was "deeply and legitimately concerned the
production is likely to contain literary works written by
Sir Eugene". The letter warned of copyright
infringements on stage and through "unauthorised
adaption and dramatisation".
An injunction could be anticipated if the script was not
handed over. Nowra rejected the request. Late
yesterday, festival management was still waiting to
hear about the fate of the work.
The situation has caused Renee Goossens, one of the
conductor's daughters, to break a long-time policy of
"dignified silence" about the scandal. Yesterday Ms
Goossens, who says she is "saddened" and
disappointed that the affair continues to overshadow
her father's achievements, told the Herald she
suspected that her father's carer, Pamela Main, was
the source of the action.
Ms Main, a former pianist from Adelaide now based in
London, was the beneficiary of a will Goossens wrote
11 days before he died, leaving "the whole residue of
my assets, copyright and royalties to my faithful
companion and assistant, Miss Pamela Main".
Nowra said while he was aware of the embarrassment
factor surrounding the story - "here's a poverty-
stricken witch from Kings Cross and an upper class,
stiff upper lip Pom writing about the sex they would
have while worshipping Pan" - demands to vet his
script were a breach of his creative rights.
The lawyer acting for the client, Deborah Tobias, from
Surry Hills-based Riley Lawyers, could not be reached
for comment. The company could not confirm or deny
if she was acting for Ms Main.

http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/10/27/1067233102548.html?from=storyrhs

Sir Eugene Goossens: sex, magic and the

maestro
PRESENTED BY MICHELLE ARROW
PRODUCER: DAVID SALTER
RESEARCHER: LESLEY HOLDEN
BROADCAST 5 SEPTEMBER 2004
RECOMMEND TO A FRIEND
'Rewind' uncovers the story of the scandal which enveloped Goossens and drove him from
the country.

In late '50s, British composer and conductor, Sir Eugene Goossens, was the dominant figure
in the Australian cultural landscape. His abrupt fall from grace was spectacular and tragic.

Behind the conductor’s downfall was his relationship with the notorious Rosaleen Norton, the
'witch of Kings Cross', who mixed sex and magic in a potent brew. It all came apart when he
was caught with pornographic material at Mascot airport.

Fearing a court case, the conductor fled the country soon after, never to return.

'Rewind' reveals some new aspects of this story, including an exclusive interview with Pamela
Main, one of the other women in Goossens’ life.

MICHAEL CATHCART: Now let's rewind to 9 March 1956. On that day, a world-famous conductor
stepped from a plane on the tarmac at Sydney's Mascot airport and into the waiting arms of scandal. His
name was Sir Eugene Goossens, a real cultural colossus in Australia. The full story of his humiliation
has never been revealed before, so here's Michelle Arrow with a piece of personal history that tells us
much about what our society would and would not tolerate half a century ago.

SIDONIE GOOSENS: It was too terrible. It's a thing I can't...bear to think about. The reaction was just
heartbreaking.

MICHELLE ARROW: It can't be easy being the sister of a man who's famous for being infamous.
Sidonie Goossens has lived with that for almost half a century. Once England's finest orchestral harpist,
she remembers Eugene as a childhood maestro.

SIDONIE GOOSENS: Yes, we all had our instruments. He was happier with the baton in his hands,
really. That's all he wanted to do, was to conduct.

MICHELLE ARROW: By the 1950s, Eugene Goossens was at the height of his career. He was both
Chief Conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Director of the NSW State Conservatorium.
He earned more than the Prime Minister and used his celebrity to dominate Australia's cultural
landscape. Goossens played the media game well and he made classical music incredibly popular in
Sydney. Here at Cooper Park, crowds of 20,000 attended his outdoor concerts, an incredible number for
a cultural event. But indoors, the conductor had a secret life, one that would soon be exposed, and in
the anti-intellectual Australia of the 1950s, when a tall poppy fell, they fell an awfully long way. These are
the images that triggered the conductor's disgrace. In 1952, he bought a copy of the art of Rosaleen
Norton. The book combined her grotesque erotic art with the poetry of a young lover, Gavin Greenlees.
Goossens himself had a lifelong secret interest in pantheism and the occult. Norton's art spoke in a
language he understood. He
wrote to her and was invited to tea at Norton's seedy flat in Sydney's notorious Kings Cross. These are
police photographs taken inside Rosaleen Norton's flat in 1955. They've not been shown in public until
now. Third-hand furniture, cheap drapes, a makeshift altar. It was here that Goossens took part in occult
rituals and conducted an affair of some intensity with Norton. The contrast with the conductor's elegant
home on Sydney's North Shore could not have been greater.

RENEE GOOSEENS: In Wahroonga, we had the first house that my family ever owned because prior to
that we'd always rented and we'd moved around like gypsies, as musicians did. My father was a man
whose life was centred on music - composition and conducting - and looking after musicians. He
needed something with which to recharge his battery. He did need a woman to love and understand him
and be there. My stepmother wasn't able to do that. She was away for several months of every year,
touring, and Daddy was therefore very lonely. So his need for companionship and something more
exciting in his life was quite palpable.

MICHELLE ARROW: For more than two years, Goossens enjoyed the sexual excitements offered in
Kings Cross by Rosaleen Norton. Companionship he found elsewhere. On a visit to Adelaide, he'd met
Pamela Main, a promising young pianist. After more than 40 years, she now speaks of her relationship
with Goossens for the first time.

PAMELA MAIN: We got on...along very well. I found him very pleasant to talk to. He didn't talk down to
me as if I was an 18-year-old. I enjoyed being with him even then. But it took us a long time to get
together on any other sort of basis - in fact, not until 1955. But, um... I was a small-town girl, let's face it.
I never thought a man like him would look at me.

MICHELLE ARROW: Even in the 1950s, a conductor's discreet affair with a young admirer was hardly
the stuff of great scandal. But within a few months, a sequence of unrelated events unfolded at Norton's
flat that would soon envelope Goossens.

BERT TREVENAR, NSW VICE SQUAD DETECTIVE: Well, two young fellows were hawking some
photographs around amongst the newspapers, trying to get the papers to buy them. And eventually, they
went to the 'Sun' and the fellow from the 'Sun' got in touch with the chief of the Vice Squad of the day
and he detailed me to go down and collect the photographs and then continue on with the inquiry. And I
found out that they were photographs of Rosaleen Norton and Gavin Greenlees and that they had come
from their witches' coven at the Cross.

(BLACK-AND-WHITE PHOTOS OF ROSALEEN NORTON, NAKED, IN VARIOUS BONDAGE

SCENARIOS WITH GAVIN GREENLEES, DRESSED IN CEREMONIAL ROBES)

MICHELLE ARROW: Detective Trevenar kept copies of these pictures until his death last year. They're
decidedly unpleasant but no more than comical by today's standards of pornography.

Far more interesting for the Vice Squad was the fact that they already held evidence connecting
Goossens with Rosaleen Norton. I had recovered some letters, uh, in his handwriting, written by him to
Norton. He'd signed them.

SIR EUGENE GOOSSENS IN LETTER: "Roiewitch, You came to me early this morning, about 1:45. I
realised, by a delicious orificial tingling that you were about to make your presence felt."

MICHELLE ARROW: These extraordinary letters were patiently transcribed at the Vice Squad office in
Balmain. They confirm that Goossens had an active sexual relationship with Norton.

SIR EUGENE GOOSSENS IN LETTER: "We have many rituals and indulgences to undertake. Even
now, my bat-wings envelop and lift you."

MICHELLE ARROW: And there are frequent appeals to Norton's discretion. SIR

EUGENE GOOSSENS IN LETTER: "Anonymity is still best. Destroy all this."

MICHELLE ARROW: But she didn't. Norton kept a bundle of Goossens's letters stuffed behind her sofa
in Brougham Street. Joe Morris, a crime reporter for the 'Sun', had infiltrated the coven, stolen the letters
and then handed them over to police. Goossens himself was now their target.

BERT TREVENAR: I gathered more evidence, but unfortunately, before I was able to effect an arrest on
that occasion, he'd left the country and gone on a concert tour to Britain and the Continent.

MICHELLE ARROW: The highlight of that trip was a visit to Buckingham Palace. But a knighthood
wasn't the only thing Goossens picked up in London. The 'Sun' newspaper had Sir Eugene followed
during his stay. They learned he'd been making some discreet purchases from sex shops in Soho.

BERT TREVENAR: Joe rang me - I think he rang me at home, from memory - and said, "That friend of
ours that's overseas is coming back on the Qantas flight so-and-so from London." Then he said he was
carrying a briefcase and his information was that that briefcase probably had indecent photographs in
that he had, in fact, bought.

MICHELLE ARROW: Sir Eugene's Qantas Constellation approached Sydney in light rain early on the
morning of March 9, 1956. It was the day that would change his life. Waiting for Goossens was quite a
posse - Detective Trevenar, Ron Walton, head of the Vice Squad, the Chief of Customs in Sydney, Nat
Craig, and a photographer from the 'Sun'.

BERT TREVENAR: I was standing out on the tarmac waiting for him to come in to keep him under
observation, so that he couldn't get rid of anything he might have had. And then Nat effected the
Customs search, questioned him, and asked him if he had anything else to declare apart from what was
on the declaration. And to that he said, "No. No, nothing." And Nat said, "What's in that?" Indicated the
briefcase. And he said, "Oh, that's only my musical scores." Nat said, "Well, let's have a look at it."

MICHELLE ARROW: Bag by bag, the Customs officers opened and searched the conductor's luggage.
They found a large amount of what was considered pornographic material - photographs, prints, books,
a spool of film, plus some rubber masks and sticks of incense. There was more than enough evidence
to support a charge of prohibited imports under the Customs Act.

BERT TREVENAR: Nat Craig took possession of all of the indecent literature and stuff, of course. And,
uh, we just went into the CIB. He was quite happy.

MICHELLE ARROW: Sir Eugene now became a victim of his own naivety. Agreeing to come to police
headquarters in the city was a terrible mistake. He could easily have refused. He wasn't arrested. He
hadn't been charged. Yet Goossens came here and didn't even ask for his lawyer. Perhaps he thought
the interview with detectives would be to clear up that Customs unpleasantness at the airport. But the
gentlemen of the Vice Squad had something quite different, and much more serious, on their minds.

BERT TREVENAR: Well, I took...took him upstairs into a room adjacent to the Detective Inspector's
room. I told Walton that I was there, that we were going to question his nibs about his association with
Norton and Greenlees. Yes, I showed him the photographs and, uh...and the letters. All of the
information I had, I showed them all to him.

MICHELLE ARROW: Not quite knowing how the case would be resolved, Detective Trevenar carefully
kept his transcript of that interview. Even by current standards, it was a remarkably frank exchange.

BERT TREVENAR: (Reads) I said, "Do you know a woman named Rosaleen Norton?" He said, "Yes.
I've known her and Gavin for some time." I said, "There was repeated mention of 'S.M.' rites between
you and Norton and Greenlees made in your letters. What is that?" He said, "That is sex magic. It is a
symbolic ceremony involving sex stimulation." I said, "How is that rite conducted?" He said, "We
undressed and sat on the floor in a circle. Miss Norton conducted the verbal part of the rite and I then
performed the sexual stimulation on her." I said, "How did you do that?" He said, "I placed my tongue in
her sexual organ and kept moving it until I stimulated it."

CHESTER PORTER QC: Well, the obvious thing was that he was going to be charged with scandalous
conduct because, um, that was the appropriate offence for that sort of thing. Now, if people do things in
private that outrage public decency, regardless of the fact that they occurred in private, then the charge
can be brought. Scandalous conduct is a nasty offence. He could have been looking at a jail sentence of
some years if convicted.

MICHELLE ARROW: The fall was swift. Goossens stood down from his positions with both the Sydney
Symphony and the Conservatorium. The next day, police arrived at the conductor's home to serve him
with a summons on the Customs charge.

PAMELA MAIN, COMPANION OF SIR EUGENE: When I heard what was going on, I waited till the next
morning, then I rang his private phone. He came to the phone and said, "I'm in trouble." I said, "I know."
And he said, "Does this mean nothing's changed between us?" I said, "Why should it?" And that was
that.

RENEE GOOSSENS, DAUGHTER OF SIR EUGENE: I was in a French convent. And Stepmother came
to visit me, which was a weird thing anyway. I hadn't seen her for two years. I was being a bit...wanting
for myself. I wanted to get back, hug him and say, "You poor darling. It doesn't matter. Let's face this
together."

MICHELLE ARROW: In the end, Goossens was largely left to face his Australian disgrace alone. When
the court assembled in Sydney, Sir Eugene was too ill to appear. But his admissions at Mascot allowed
no other plea than guilty.

Goossens was fined £100, the maximum for a breach of the Customs Act. There was now nothing else
to do but resign both his positions, sell up and return to England.

The collapse of Goossens's Australian career was a personal tragedy. Yet it was triggered solely by the
material seized from his luggage at Sydney Airport. Nothing of his involvement in the hanky-panky with
Rosaleen Norton here in Kings Cross was ever made public. Meanwhile, the far more serious charge of
scandalous conduct against Goossens was never brought. Why not?

CHESTER PORTER QC: See, there was nothing said in the Customs proceedings about Rosie Norton
or the witches' coven or anything else. But it soon became known through...very quickly became known
that that was the real thrust of the matter.

BERT TREVENAR: I submitted my report with all of the evidence to the Attorney-General, through the
police prosecutors. And while we were waiting to be interviewed, waiting to see the Attorney-General,
we were sitting in the anteroom, and the Commissioner, Mr Delaney, stormed along the passageway.
And after a while, he came back out again and he just flicked his head to us to follow him. And it was
outside there that Mr Delaney told me that I'd been dudded. He said, "They're not going to issue a
warrant," and that they weren't going to proceed.

MICHELLE ARROW: Without a warrant, there could be no arrest, no exposure of Sir Eugene's
relationship with Norton, no sordid display of the evidence, no revelation of other prominent names -
nothing. At a stroke, the NSW Government had closed ranks and brought Goossens's public humiliation
to an end.

CHESTER PORTER QC: I think that there are quite a few occasions in the enforcement of the criminal
law where, if someone is good enough to leave the country, charges aren't proceeded with.

MICHELLE ARROW: On May 26, just 10 weeks after his fateful arrival at the same airport, Sir Eugene
slipped out of Mascot on a flight to London via Rome. He travelled incognito as Mr E. Gray. It was his
63rd birthday. Before leaving, Goossens sent his friends this extraordinary roneoed letter. In it he
claimed he'd been forced to bring the prohibited matter into Australia "as a result of persistent menaces
involving others". But Goossens never provided any evidence to support those allegations.

RENEE GOOSSENS: My father never said why he'd left, except "The people of Sydney didn't want me
anymore. I got the sack, darling, so I just left."

PAMELA MAIN: I came over by ship. And, um, he met me at Victoria Station. He was in the Colonnade
Hotel. And then, uh, his wife went off to America and didn't come back.

RENEE GOOSSENS: He looked like a lost soul in a hotel room. And whereas my father had always
carried himself very well, rather grandly, rather like an actor, he now was slumped and had almost the
equivalent of scoliosis.

SIDONIE GOOSSENS, SISTER OF SIR EUGENE: We're all human...to a certain extent, naturally. But,
uh, that it should become that... Well, it killed him, really. One can say that.

MICHELLE ARROW: Sir Eugene's health continued to decline. He often recuperated in the guestroom
of his sister's farmhouse in Sussex. He died of a ruptured ulcer just six years after leaving Australia.

PAMELA MAIN: If things had gone smoothly, which unfortunately they didn't, I would have married him
in 1960. That was his plan. Things didn't go smoothly. But if he'd lived a few weeks longer, until the
beginning of September, we would have been able to get married and would have done.

(MICHELLE ARROW STANDS ON BENNELONG POINT, OUTSIDE THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE)

MICHELLE ARROW: But Eugene Goossens's true memorial is here. The Sydney Opera House, opened
more than 10 years after his death, was his personal vision. He had long championed the idea of a new
performing arts centre for Sydney and even suggested this site, which used to be adorned by an
outstandingly ugly tram shed. There can be few good ideas that have found such magnificent concrete
form.

(FOOTAGE OF A SCULPTURE OF SIR EUGENE GOOSSENS IN THE SYDNEY OPERA HOUSE

CONCERT HALL FOYER)

MICHELLE ARROW: Sir Eugene's patrician gaze commands the Concert Hall foyer and there's a fine
portrait guarding a corridor in the bowels of the building. By today's standards, his offences, if any, were
trivial. Australia's public morality has undergone tremendous change. How sad, then, that Goossens is
still remembered more for his misadventures than his music.

MICHAEL CATHCART: And Michelle Arrow joins me now. Hi, Michelle.

MICHELLE ARROW: Hi, Michael.

MICHAEL CATHCART: It's all very well to say what a shame he isn't remembered for his music. But
thanks to you, a whole new generation of people will associate the name 'Eugene Goossens' with
sexual shenanigans.

MICHELLE ARROW: Yes, I know. It's an unfortunate byproduct of the story. But historians have a
legitimate interest in scandal - in sexual scandals, any other kinds of scandals - because a scandal is a
great window for a historian into the mores of a period, into the values, into the sorts of culture of the
time that otherwise we mightn't have, and I think from that story it becomes clear that Australia was a
wowserish, six o'clock closing, heavily censored, deeply conservative Australia, and Goossens really
was a victim of that.

MICHAEL CATHCART: Can you still get done for scandalous conduct?

MICHELLE ARROW: It is still on the books, but it hasn't been prosecuted for 25 years. So I think if you
did something exceptionally scandalous - I'm not sure what you'd have to do these days - but it is still
there, so beware.

MICHAEL CATHCART: It'd have to pretty bad, wouldn't it?

MICHELLE ARROW: Extremely bad!

MICHAEL CATHCART: Now, how did you feel about the role of the ABC and the other authorities? Did
they hang Eugene Goossens out to dry, do you think?

MICHELLE ARROW: I think to a certain extent they did. The ABC issued an order saying, "If there is a
farewell for Goossens, we will have no part of it." The authorities are widely perceived to have hung
Goossens out to dry but I think they protected him from the worst of it.

MICHAEL CATHCART: Is there a follow-up to this?

MICHELLE ARROW: There's a lovely little footnote to this story, which is the ABC, months after
Goossens had arrived back in London - his disgrace was complete - they got a bill from Heathrow and it
was for expenses paid at the airport before Goossens returned to Australia with the fateful pornography,
and the bill was for excess baggage. So the ABC actually paid for his excess baggage. (Laughs)

MICHAEL CATHCART: Oh, that's shocking! Thanks, Michelle.

MICHELLE ARROW: Thanks, Michael.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/rewind/txt/s1189084.htm

Norton, Rosaleen Miriam (1917 - 1979)

Birth:
2 October 1917, Dunedin, New Zealand
Death:
5 December 1979, Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cultural Heritage:
 English
 New Zealander

Religious Influence:
 Anglican

Occupation:
 occultist
  painter
 witch

 Life Summary
 Resources
 Abbreviations

NORTON, ROSALEEN MIRIAM (1917-1979), painter and self-styled witch, was born on 2 October
1917 at Dunedin, New Zealand, third daughter of Albert Thomas Norton, a master mariner from
London, and his New Zealand-born wife Beena Salek, née Aschman. Albert was a cousin of the
composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The family arrived in Sydney in June 1925. Rosaleen was
expelled from the Church of England Girls' School, Chatswood, at the age of 14 for producing
'depraved' drawings of vampires, ghouls and werewolves thought likely to corrupt the other girls.
She later studied for two years at East Sydney Technical College under Rayner Hoff who
encouraged her 'pagan' creativity.

Norton dabbled as a pavement artist near the General Post Office and worked variously as a
kitchen-maid, nightclub waitress, postal messenger, and cadet journalist on Smith's Weekly. At the
registrar general's office, Sydney, on 24 December 1940 she married Beresford Lionel Conroy, a
Duco sprayer; they were to be divorced in 1951. Her first published illustrations—two fantasy
works and a pencil study, 'The Borgias'—appeared in the magazine, Pertinent (October-November
1941). By 1949 she had met her lover, the poet Gavin Greenlees (b.1930). Norton first attracted
controversy when she exhibited a series of pagan, sexually explicit drawings at the Rowden White
Library, University of Melbourne, in August 1949. Police raided the exhibition, which included such
works as 'Lucifer', 'Witches' Sabbath' and 'Individuation', and Norton was charged with obscenity.
The charges were dismissed after she provided the court with detailed explanations of her occult
symbolism.

Her work was influenced by British vorticism and has been linked stylistically to that of Norman
Lindsay, for whom she occasionally modelled. Norton derived much of her imagery from a type of
psychic exploration based on self-hypnosis and from what in occult circles has been described as
'wanderings on the astral planes'. Many of her paintings were based on trance-encounters with
archetypal beings whom Norton believed had their own independent existence. She began to
compile a series of these mystical drawings which, with poems by Greenlees, appeared in The Art
of Rosaleen Norton (1952), under the sponsorship of the publisher Walter Glover. This book was
even more controversial than her Melbourne exhibition. Glover was charged with producing an
obscene publication. The book could only be distributed in Australia with some of the more
sexually explicit images blacked out. In the United States of America copies were burned by
customs officials. Greenlees and Norton, who had been financially assisted by Glover, were forced
to scrounge a living by other means when he was declared bankrupt.

'Roie', to her friends, was small, wiry and vital, with black hair, arched eyebrows and a face sullen
in repose. An occult artist and a Bohemian in the 1950s and early 1960s, she sold her sketches
and paintings to anyone who expressed an interest. Known as 'The Witch of Kings Cross', she
openly proclaimed her dedication to occult beliefs and the 'Great God Pan', but was falsely
accused by the tabloid press of holding Black Masses. On the basis of a series of confiscated
photographs of simulated ceremonial rituals, she was charged in 1956 with 'engaging in unnatural
sexual acts', and she unwittingly played a part in the downfall of Sir Eugene Goossens, the
conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, who was a member (from 1952) of her occult
group.

Norton continued to produce macabre paintings of the supernatural, though they were increasingly
lurid and repetitive. She died of cancer on 5 December 1979 in the Sacred Heart Hospice,
Darlinghurst. After he emerged from bankruptcy, Glover reissued The Art of Rosaleen Norton
(1982) and published the Supplement to The Art of Rosaleen Norton (1984).
Select Bibliography
N. Drury, Pan's Daughter (Syd, 1988) and for bibliography; People (Sydney), 29 Mar 1950, p 26.
More on the resources

Author: Nevill Drury

Print Publication Details: Nevill Drury, 'Norton, Rosaleen Miriam (1917 - 1979)', Australian
Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, Melbourne University Press, 2000, pp 497-498.

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A150577b.htm

Looking for Eugene

By Louise Maral

27 February 2004

Will the show be axed? was the gist of the media hype
leading up to the Sydney Festival premiere of act one of
Music Department PhD candidate Drew Crawford's opera
Eugene & Roie, about musical tall poppy Sir Eugene
Goossens' relationship with visual artist Rosaleen Norton,
so-called 'Witch of Kings Cross'.

Titled Disgrace, the act recounts the devastating court case and
scandal that erupted in conservative, post-war Sydney when, in
1956, the esteemed and newly knighted Sydney Symphony
Orchestra conductor and Conservatorium director was arrested at
Sydney airport after the vice squad seized over 1000 pornographic
photographs from his luggage, along with rubber masks and books
on 'sex magic'.

The event wreaked havoc on Goossens' health and career and he

died in self-imposed exile in his home country, England, six years
later.

Legal action had been threatened against Crawford by the

beneficiary of Sir Goossens' will who claimed Crawford was
unlawfully using copyrighted love letters, despite his protestations
to the contrary and his offer that she preview the libretto. The offer
wasn't taken up, no more was heard and the show went on,
attracting strong applause from the full house at the Riverside
Theatres, Parramatta.
 Drew Crawford
"Looking into Eugene as a real person with all his flaws and his
achievements, he's much more interesting than someone you want
to put on a pedestal," said Crawford whose storyline is based on
extensive collaborative research with librettist/director Anatoly
Frusin, historian Tom Sear and designer Dorotka Sapinska.

"His family want to remember him as a great man, and we may

eventually be able to do that, but we can't while we're not allowed
to talk about the other stuff."

The "other stuff", Goossens' relationship with Norton and the occult,
Crawford sees as having meant a great deal to the composer and
revolutionary conductor who transformed the SSO and drew
audiences like a pop star.

"The real tragedy is the fact that he could never reconcile that part
of his life with the things that gave him status and position, his life
as a conductor. That was his undoing."

By contrast, mystic Norton - who took trance-inducing drugs to

inform her artworks and initiated Goossens into ritual acts of 'sex
magic' in her coven - never pretended to be anything other than
what she was, he said. Nor did pop star Little Richard who swung
from post-concert orgies to preaching the Christian gospels and, as
well as heralding the advent of rock 'n' roll, is on several levels a
significant symbolic character in this opera concerned with creative,
spiritual and sexual journeys of discovery.

But Crawford by no means underplays the role of the institutions

and public in the destruction of Goossens' career. In fact it was "the
idea that Australia could turn on its own" that first drew him to the
story four years ago - and the Australian public is a significant
character-like presence in the work.

Unusually large-scale in these times of slim funding, demanding a

huge cast of singers and musicians, with challenging sets and stage
directions, the three-hour, three-act opera is being premiered in
concert form, one act at a time, produced by Music Theatre and
conducted by Roland Peelman of Song Company fame.

"Audiences want to see lots of people on stage doing really amazing

things, and one of our roles is to take people on an amazing journey
to places they have never been before. That's what the theatre
should be," Crawford said.

An amazing journey it is, and will be even more so in full

production. The synopsis reads at times like that of a farce, rich
with bizarre characters, images, events and juxtapositions: the
young Christian trombonist on a bicycle, Picasso arriving at the trial
in a fishing boat, Stravinsky floating by in a half-submerged car, a
'bakery engineer' planting a bomb for a murder-suicide as he sings
a shoo-wop song, Eugene crooning Perfect Thing when cornered by
the press . . .

Despite the surrealistic flavour, all has a basis in reality and a good
reason for being there, Crawford said. Picasso, for instance, was an
old fishing buddy and Goossens premiered Stravinsky's Rite of
Spring in Britain. The appearance of the two great artists in the
troubled Goossens' dream serves as a lesson to him in artistic
integrity, Crawford said, as they "set out an artistic creed he's been
unable to hear".

"Eugene depended on his status, believed his own myth, and I think
that was the death of him as an artist," Crawford said.
The story is revealed in layers and shifting timeframes, mirroring
the way one might have learnt about this complex individual.
In parallel with the storyline, Crawford's innovative musical score,
done proud by Peelman and a cast of excellent singers and
musicians, is richly textured with an eclectic mix of musics.
Buddhist and voodoo drumming, doo-wop and lounge music,
polyphonic choral music, chanting and black gospel singing all jostle
for space against a controlled system of musical patterning, and all
for good reason.

Some instruments symbolise certain characters - violin for Eugene

and harp for daughter Sidonie. And Crawford employs no less than
seven trombones to represent the seven trumpets of the
apocalypse, a many referenced theme which sees its denouement in
act two, crowned by Goossens' conducting of his masterwork, The
Apocalypse.

It's no surprise that one of Crawford's biggest musical heroes and

influences is 'the great innovator', Stravinsky. He feels an affinity
too with the harmonic ideas of his PhD supervisor, renowned
Australian composer Ross Edwards whose fourth symphony, Star
Chant, was also performed as part of this year's Sydney Festival.

"Ross writes music that he wants to hear, and thank goodness

many people over the world want to hear it too," Crawford said.
"His biggest value to me is telling me to write what I want to write."

Acts two and three are well under way, he said, with productions
being planned with Music Theatre Sydney.

"Drew has a very lively, enquiring mind that roams freely and
brings back ideas and integrates them," said Ross Edwards, who
has seen the opera grow from its inception and was much
impressed with how the first act came together.

"He's one of those people one should watch to see what happens."

Wall Cases
Rosaleen Norton
Without doubt the most famous Australian occultist was Rosaleen Norton, the New Zealand-
born artist whose occult interests and bohemian lifestyle earned her the title the 'Witch of
Kings Cross,' and made her the regular subject of popular press attention throughout the
nineteen forties to sixties.

Born in Dunedin, on October 2, l9l7, Norton moved with her family to Sydney in 1924, where
they established themselves in the solidly middle-class suburb of Lindfield. Norton did well at
school and went on to study at the art school of East Sydney Technical College. Even in her
youth she took a strong interest in the macabre (though not necessarily the occult) which was
reflected both in her artwork and literary endeavours. In December 1933, whilst still at East
Sydney 'Tech,' she submitted the first of three short stories to Smith's Weekly. These
Lovecraftian tales drew the admiring attention of the editor, Frank Marien, who marvelled at
the author's 'vivid imagination' that was 'quite beyond the ordinary.'

Marien published the stories in Smith's in 1934 (they have since been republished as Three
Macabre Stories), and offered Norton a cadetship. Already experiencing difficulties at the
'Tech' as a consequence both of her bizarre themes and refusal to comply with the curriculum,
Norton cheerfully accepted Marien's offer, although Marien soon dismissed her for reasons
almost identical to those that had caused her troubles at the 'Tech.'

For the next few years Norton was happy to drift, hitch-hiking around Australia with her
boyfriend (and later husband) Beresford Conroy, and supporting herself with a variety of jobs
from pavement artist to waitress. Returning to Sydney she stayed for a while in the
picturesquely named 'Buggery Barn,' an artist's enclave near The Rocks, before moving to
Kings Cross where she based herself for most of the rest of her life. There she devoted
herself to her own art, taking casual work as an artist's model to cover the bills; and attending
many artists' balls and parties.

Despite some retrospective posturing (including claims to have been a practising occultist
since childhood) it was not until the early nineteen forties that Norton began to actively involve
herself with the occult. Her early influences were mainly Eastern and Theosophical, although
above all she valued the writings of Carl Jung, and for some time regarded herself as more of
a Jungian than a mystic or occultist. Slowly, however, she became increasingly interested in
the Western esoteric tradition, studying and practising the Qabalah and Ritual Magic, and
making use of a wide variety of texts: particularly those by Aleister Crowley, 'Papus,' Eliphas
Levi, and Dion Fortune. She became an active proponent of 'sex-magic,' and also made
regular use of a variety of drugs (chiefly 'speed') in her ceremonies. These ritual practices
were allied to a cosmology that was distinctly her own, but which drew much from ancient
mythology as outlined in Fraser's The Golden Bough (which was a favourite book),
Theosophy and the Qabalah.

Whilst prepared to acknowledge her work as a model, the art world in Australia was generally
far from responsive to Norton's art, and she found it all but impossible to have work accepted
by any serious galleries. Indeed throughout the 1930s - and much of the rest of her life - the
only places where she was able to display her pictures were the walls of the bohemian clubs
and cafés that then dotted the Kings Cross area.

The advent of a small, unpretentious literary journal, Pertinent, which reproduced a number
of her pictures in various issues, at least brought some attention to her art and probably
helped secure her one 'real' show of the war years, that held at Pakie's Club, in June 1943.
The exhibition was considered quite newsworthy, although virtually all reports were
sensational, focussing on the occult and erotic elements which pervaded her works rather
than their actual artistry. The experience of the exhibition made a lasting impression on
Norton, and was probably a crucial step towards the development of the 'witch' persona that
became her trademark in later years, for she learned that by playing up to the press, and
hinting at the mysterious occult practices, she could generate the attention usually denied her.
Aside from the odd appearance in journal articles, little of Norton's work was published in the
1940s, although she did provide the frontis piece for Dulcie Deamer's The Silver Branch,
and cover art for a small publication called Kings Cross Calling.

Late in 1945 Norton took part in the 'Ten Sydney Artists' Exhibition,' in Adelaide, but it was not
until 1949 that she was to get a major show of her own. In the interim she had separated from
her husband and taken up with a young poet named Gavin Greenlees. The show, in the
gallery of Melbourne University's Rowden-White library, opened on August l, l949, and
received considerable press coverage, most of which again dwelt on the extraordinary subject
matter of Norton's works, her bohemian lifestyle and occult interests.

It also attracted the attention of the Vice Squad, who seized four pictures: 'Witches' Sabbat,'
'Lucifer,' 'Triumph,' and 'Individuation' and charged Norton with having exhibited obscene
articles, the first prosecution of its kind in Victoria undertaken against a woman. Although
Norton eventually won the case, with the magistrate taking the unusual step of awarding
punitive costs against the police, the resultant publicity was disastrous for the show, which
closed quietly with no chance of extension and few paintings sold. Although initially Norton
had done everything to encourage the press to take an interest in her, she now became
increasingly exasperated with their attentions, and in particular with their ceaseless
fascination with her occult interests. She tried hard to debunk the growing number of rumours
that she was some sort of 'witch,' but only succeeded in fuelling speculation. Tired,
disgruntled, with few paintings sold and no chance of extending the exhibition, she and
Greenlees returned to a life of poverty in Sydney.

Two years later, Norton and Greenlees were picked up in a police crackdown on
undesirables, arrested and charged with vagrancy. Their arrest rated a small column in the
Sydney Morning Herald where it was read by Walter Glover, an ex-army man making a
living as a freelance publisher. Glover felt it outrageous that two 'youngsters' should face the
threat of prison simply for being unemployed, and at the same time sensed a business
opportunity. He approached the pair to see if they would be interested in working for him, and
from this unlikely genesis evolved the book The Art of Rosaleen Norton, which Glover
published in September of 1952.

The Art of Rosaleen Norton, was essentially a selection of black and white reproductions of
Norton's works, accompanied by the poems of Gavin Greenlees. All involved were aware that
the occult symbolism, religious satire and bizarre nudes which filled Norton's work were likely
to attract adverse attention, and Glover was probably hoping for a little controversy to
stimulate sales. None, however, anticipated the strength and vehemence of the reaction. The
day after the distribution of the first copies, the Sunday Sun published a large article with the
dramatic headline, 'Witches, demons on rampage in weird Sydney sex book,' and the calls for
the book to be banned commenced.

Firstly Glover received notification from the Post-Master General that his department had
judged the book obscene and he was therefore prohibited from sending copies of it through
the post. Then State police issued summonses charging Glover with publishing and selling an
obscene book, and the printers, Tonecraft Pty. Ltd, for having printed it.

Glover pleaded 'not guilty' to both charges, and a long series of court hearings began. On
February 5, 1953, Mr. Solling, S.M., ruled that two of Rosaleen Norton's drawings -'The
Adversary' and 'Fohat' - were 'obscene and an offence to chastity and delicacy' and Glover
was fined five pounds plus costs for having sold the book. The other charge - of publishing
the book - was later withdrawn. Tonecraft, who had pleaded guilty to having printed the book,
were fined the token sum of one pound. Although Glover announced his intention to lodge an
appeal, he was thwarted by lack of funds.

A Customs ban on the book followed, giving The Art of Rosaleen Norton the doubtful honour
of being the only Australian art book ever to suffer such a prohibition (an attempt to outlaw the
Norman Lindsay number of Art in Australia in 1930 having failed).
The mechanics of the local prosecution were such that Glover was not prohibited altogether
from selling the book; legal advice suggested that all he had to do was black out the offending
pictures. He subsequently emasculated some of the copies by running a roller dipped in
printers' ink over the two offending plates, completely obliterating them and thereby fulfilling
the legal requirements, whilst none-too-subtly drawing attention to the fruits of censorship.
Glover's efforts were ultimately unsuccessful though as he was still barred from distributing
the volume through the post and no-one was particularly keen to buy mutilated copies of a
book tarred with the brush of 'obscenity.'

Glover's attempts to sell overseas rights to the book met with a similar lack of success, and it
was rejected by a series of European and British publishers on grounds of its alleged
indecency.

The publication of The Art of Rosaleen Norton proved disastrous for all concerned, with the
stress proving too much for Greenlees, who suffered a series of nervous breakdowns. Unable
to sell the books in which he had invested so much time and money, the affair brought
financial ruin to Walter Glover, who drifted into bankruptcy. Ironically, among his assets taken
over by the government receiver were the rights to the supposedly obscene book.

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s press revelations about Norton's 'black magic' activities and
decadence continued to excite and titillate the public. In 1955 they made the front pages of
Sydney dailies, when police claimed that a New Zealand girl they had arrested had told them
that she had suffered all sorts of degradation and misery at the hands of Norton and her
'coven.' The allegations, which the girl subsequently denied ever having made, convinced
many worthy Australians that Norton was truly a depraved and evil individual.

Shortly thereafter a pair of petty criminals sought to capitalise on this by stealing and
attempting to sell a number of photographs, which apparently showed Norton and Greenlees
engaged in a variety of occult and sexual activities. On the strength of these the couple were
arrested by the Vice Squad, and charged with having 'assisted in the making an indecent
photograph' and committing an 'unnatural offence.' Virtually simultaneously other police
raided the Kashmir Café - then exhibiting some of Norton's paintings - and charged the owner
under the Obscene Publications Act with exhibiting 'lewd, lustful and erotic works.'

More charges, and a series of highly publicised court cases followed, during which Greenlees
experienced further mental collapse, eventually being confined to an institution. Friends
suffered too, and it is now known that the conductor Sir Eugene Goossens' association with
Norton was one of the key factors which led to his persecution, prosecution and downfall. For
her part Norton was firmly typecast as an eccentric curiosity, the 'Kings Cross Witch' who
dabbled in weird and smutty artworks. It was to prove a pervasive image, one which
destroyed forever any slender chance she may once have had of gaining recognition as a
serious artist.

Unable to reach a wider audience and forced to find some sort of income, Norton had to rely
on selling her paintings to friends, acquaintances and the occasional interested outsider.
Finding it impossible to rid herself of the image of 'Witch' she accepted the inevitable, and
played on it, posing for photographs in caricature 'witches garb,' and selling interviews spiced
with unlikely and often tongue-in-cheek claims to a breathless press. She died on December
5, 1979, at the age of sixty-two, having spent the last few years of her life as a semi-recluse.

54. Deamer, Dulcie, The Silver Branch, (Edwards & Shaw, Sydney, 1948).

A book of poetry by Rosaleen Norton's friend, the Sydney writer Dulcie Deamer. Published in
a limited edition of 250 signed and numbered copies, the book featured a dustwrapper design
by Norman Lindsay and frontispiece by Rosaleen Norton.
55. Pertinent, Vol.1, No. 3, October-November, 1941, Vol. 1, No. 4, November 1941, Vol.
1, No. 5, December 1941.
(On loan from The Basilisk Bookshop)

56. Brewster, H.C. & Luther, V.,

Kings Cross Calling, 1st Edition, (Sydney, N.D. [Circa 1945])

57. Brewster, H.C. & Luther, V., Kings Cross Calling, 2nd Edition,
(Sydney, N.D. [Circa 1950]).

With cover design by and text references to Rosaleen Norton. The cover design of the (larger
format) first edition of Kings Cross Calling aroused so much public curiosity, that when the
second edition was published the authors had Norton add a small note explaining its
symbolism.

58. Norton, Rosaleen, & Greenlees, Gavin, The Art of Rosaleen Norton. (Walter Glover,
Sydney, 1952).

The first edition of The Art of Rosaleen Norton was banned in N.S.W. on the grounds of
obscenity in 1953. Despite the stated limitation of 1000 copies, the publisher claimed that only
100 copies were distributed, some of which had two of the plates ('The Adversary' and
'Fohat') blacked out to meet with censorship requirements. This copy has not been thus
censored and includes a page of the original typescript, with manuscript alterations by
Rosaleen Norton, which shows a number of differences from the published text.

59. Zohar, Attila [Holledge, James], Kings Cross Black Magic. (Horwitz, Sydney, 1965).

'Behind the glittering panorama of strip joints and all male shows the Cross has another
facade .... mysterious sinister, that ensnares the unwary into Satanic seances and the
depraved orgies of black magic. Frenzied sex rites take place which stun and horrify.' A mass-
market and generally breathless account of alleged 'Black Magic' practices in 'the Cross,'
which included a surprisingly well-researched and balanced chapter on Rosaleen Norton.

60. Norton, Rosaleen, & Greenlees, Gavin, The Art of Rosaleen Norton.
(Second expanded ed. Walter Glover, Sydney, 1982.)

This second edition reproduces the material in the original 1952 printing, along with new
introductions and a colour insert.

61. Norton, Rosaleen.

Supplement to The Art of Rosaleen Norton. Preface by Walter Glover. (Walter Glover,
Bondi, 1984)

A spiral bound booklet with tipped-in colour photographs of many hitherto unpublished works
by Norton. It also includes the first publication of 'A Vision,' a prose composition originally
written by Norton in the 1940's. Although it had a stated limitation of 50 copies, 70 were
actually produced.

62. Drury, Nevill. Pan's Daughter: The Strange World of Rosaleen Norton. (Collins,
Sydney, 1988).

A biography with particular emphasis on Norton's occult activities.

63. Moir, Richard, Kings Cross Witch, (The Author, Melbourne, 1994).

A memoir by a friend of Norton's in the sixties. Limited to 250 signed and numbered
copies.
 64. Norton, Rosaleen. Three Macabre Stories.
Introduction by Keith Richmond. (Typographeum Press, Francestown, 1996).

Three stories by Norton at the age of sixteen and originally published in Smith's Weekly in
1934. The style owes something to that of H. P. Lovecraft. Hand printed and bound in an
edition of 150 copies, with a frontispiece portrait of a previously unpublished photograph of
Norton.

65. Baranay, Inez. Pagan. (A&R, Sydney, 1990).

A novel based loosely on the scandal which arose from the association between Eugene
Goossens and Rosaleen Norton.

66. "Here's Rosaleen: guess who's with her.

Who the devil...?" in Australasian Post, 19 Feb., 1953, p. 22.

67. "A warning to Australia. Devil Worship Here!" in Australasian Post, 6 Oct., 1955, p.
3-5.

As the witch of Kings Cross, Rosaleen Norton was always good copy for such
publications as Australasian Post and Truth.

68. Rosaleen Norton, Pastel, N.D. [circa 1950] 'Behemoth.' (Private Collection).

69. Rosaleen Norton, Pastel, N.D. [circa 1950] 'SS Township of Swanhallowstone' (On
loan from The Basilisk Bookshop).

70. Rosaleen Norton, Drawing, N.D. [circa 1943] 'Woman with Spider.' (Private
Collection).

71. Rosaleen Norton, Pastel, N.D. [circa 1950] 'Demon.' (On loan from The Basilisk
Bookshop)

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~octopus/rosaleen.htm

Welcome to my Rosaleen Norton Gallery. These are just a

few pictures to provide you with an introduction to one of
the most important pagan artists of the twentieth century.

Rosaleen Norton was born in Dunedin on 2 October 1917 but her

Biogra orthodox Protestant family moved to Sydney's North Shore when she
 was 7. Rosaleen (or Roie as she was known to her family and friends)
phy said that she experienced various forms of psychic apparitions
throughout her life and considered them part of the natural order. She
started drawing at aged 3, but was expelled from Chatswood Girls
Grammar School after disrupting her classmates by drawing bizarre
pictures of supernatural phenomena. She studied art at East Sydney
Technical College, where her vivid imagination was incouraged, and
she started exploring ritual and the occult.

Rosaleen was also a talented writer, and her gothic short stories were
published in Smith's Weekly, then one of Australia's most popular
newspapers. She started a career at Smith's as an illustrator and
cadet journalist, but her illustrations were considered a little too
warped for mainstream readership, so she lost her job after only eight
months.

Aged 18, she then decided it was time to leave home, so she took the
train to Kings Cross, working as an artists' model to support herself,
and started reading esoteric literature.She married a man called
Beresford, and they hitchhiked and trainjumped their way around the
East Coast of Australia for a while before moving back to The Rocks
area of Sydney. Rosaleen divorced her husband when he returned
from the war, and started contributing illustrations to a monthly
journal, Pertinent - it was through this magazine that she met her
magical and artistic partner and soulmate, the poet Gavin Greenlees.
It was also during this time that she started experimenting with
hypnotic trance states.

In 1949 she and Gavin moved to Melbourne and she had her first
exhibition at the University of Melbourne. Unfortunately it was raided
by the police two days after it opened, and Rosaleen was charged
under obscenity laws, but charges were dismissed in court and she
was awarded costs. But the scandal didn't sell a lot of her paintings, or
lead to further shows, so she and Gavin moved back to Kings Cross,
where Rosaleen became a prominent bohemian character, attracting
many visitors. After their dilapidated flat was raided by the Vice
Squad, Rosaleen and Gavin were arrested on a vagrancy charge, and
were approached by a publisher named Wally Glover, who offered
work to them as his assistants. But after seeing their work, he decided
to publish a limited edition book called "The Art Of Rosaleen Norton
(with poems by Gavin Greenlees)", which was released in 1952. It was
heralded as indecent by the newspapers of the day, and Wally Glover
was charged with producing an obscene publication. Two of the works
in the book were ruled as obscene and Wally Glover was fined. The
publicity attracted notoriety and artistic commissions for Rosaleen, but
sent Wally Glover bankrupt.

As time went by, rumours spread about Black Masses and Rosaleen's
devil cult, and she became known as the "Witch of Kings Cross". The
Vice Squad raided yet again in October 1955, after joke photos of
Rosaleen and Gavin dressed in ceremonial garb were stolen and
handed to the police. Consequently a cafe owner who had been
displaying some of Rosaleen's work was arrested and charged under
the Obscene Publications Act, and Rosaleen was linked to an English
conductor who was arrested at Sydney Airport with a cache of
pornographic photographs. Also around this time Gavin Greenlees was
institutionalised for schizophrenia, and he later tried to kill Rosaleen
with a knife during an attack while he was on temporary release.
Rosaleen supported herself by selling paintings and making charms
and hexes for a chosen few, as well as any publicity from her public
image as a Witch. Her celebrity was increased in the mid-70s after an
 Anglican Church report into the occult, but she spent her later years
with her cats, music and books, and died of colon cancer on 5
December 1979.

"The Art Of Rosaleen Norton" was reprinted in 1982, and Rosaleen's

talent and notoriety still live on.

Click the button at the bottom of the page to enter at the beginning...
Galler or alternately on names of works below:

y Individuation
Fohat
Timeless Land
Geburah
Lucifer

All information and pictures are sourced from Nevill Drury's excellent
Impor biography on Rosaleen, "Pan's Daughter: The Strange World Of
Rosaleen Norton". If you are interested in more of Rosaleen's work, I

tant would suggest that you try and find this book - it was published in
1988, but seems to be quite hard to find. Gleebooks in Sydney is a
good starting point.

Note: PLEASE don't steal the images from these pages - Rosaleen Norton is
already underrecognised and overplagiarised.

Back to On to the gallery...

Contents

Monday, October 03, 2005

Rosaleen & Witchcraft
Sydney suburb Kings Cross has

http://bibliodyssey.blogspot.com/2005/10/rosaleen-witchcraft.html

Sydney suburb Kings Cross has long been associated with bohemian and

artistic lifestyles. One eccentric character, Rosaleen Norton (1917-1979),

was known as the Witch of Kings Cross. She lived a controversial and often
public life, in which her attraction to witchcraft and the occult arts became a
source of media frenzy, particularly during the 50s, at the height of her
infamy.
She was artistically talented and she applied herself to depicting visions from
her unsavoury interests. Her art and drawings contain black magic elements
suffused with erotic symbolism -- hermaphroditic sexual demonics and
bestiality features -- but always with a hallucinatory edge to them. These are
not sedate depictions but I would not describe them as explicitly pornographic
in the traditional sense. When she took part in an exhibition in the 40s, she
was arrested and charged with obscenity as the pictures could have caused
unhealthy sexual apetites in those who observed them.

A limited edition leather bound work, The Art of Rosaleen

Norton was released in 1952 accompanied by a friend's poems. Another court
case ensued, with the publisher ultimately fined and a judgment order that
they had to remove a few drawings from the remaining unsold copies of the
book.

I don't suggest clicking on any links if depiction of black magic and erotic
drawings might disturb. Also, if anyone is worried about the logging of strange
looking URLs, then discretion is advised.

The full drawing from which the small image above is a cropped detail, is
displayed as part of The Sydney University Library Rare Book Collection's
Witchcraft, Demonology and the Inquisition . They have a strong collection
and sample scans from a wide variety of material issued around the world in
the last few hundred years has been uploaded, alhough sadly without high
resolution pictures available.
 The Amazing Occult Art of Rosaleen Norton (some dead links but most
work)
  Occult Art Gallery paintings - certainly less disturbing (if that's your
reaction) than her drawings
 Excerpt from a book about Rosaleen Norton
 The Witch of Kings Cross: Rosaleen Norton and the Australian media
 University of Glasgow Damned Art Exhibition

POSTED BY PK AT 9:03 PM

Norton, Rosaleen Miriam (1917 - 1979)

Birth:
2 October 1917, Dunedin, New Zealand
Death:
5 December 1979, Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Cultural Heritage:
 English
 New Zealander

Religious Influence:
 Anglican

Occupation:
 occultist
 painter
 witch

 Life Summary
 Resources
 Abbreviations

NORTON, ROSALEEN MIRIAM (1917-1979), painter and self-styled witch, was born on 2 October
1917 at Dunedin, New Zealand, third daughter of Albert Thomas Norton, a master mariner from
London, and his New Zealand-born wife Beena Salek, née Aschman. Albert was a cousin of the
composer Ralph Vaughan Williams. The family arrived in Sydney in June 1925. Rosaleen was
expelled from the Church of England Girls' School, Chatswood, at the age of 14 for producing
'depraved' drawings of vampires, ghouls and werewolves thought likely to corrupt the other girls.
She later studied for two years at East Sydney Technical College under Rayner Hoff who
encouraged her 'pagan' creativity.

Norton dabbled as a pavement artist near the General Post Office and worked variously as a
kitchen-maid, nightclub waitress, postal messenger, and cadet journalist on Smith's Weekly. At the
registrar general's office, Sydney, on 24 December 1940 she married Beresford Lionel Conroy, a
Duco sprayer; they were to be divorced in 1951. Her first published illustrations—two fantasy
works and a pencil study, 'The Borgias'—appeared in the magazine, Pertinent (October-November
1941). By 1949 she had met her lover, the poet Gavin Greenlees (b.1930). Norton first attracted
controversy when she exhibited a series of pagan, sexually explicit drawings at the Rowden White
Library, University of Melbourne, in August 1949. Police raided the exhibition, which included such
works as 'Lucifer', 'Witches' Sabbath' and 'Individuation', and Norton was charged with obscenity.
The charges were dismissed after she provided the court with detailed explanations of her occult
symbolism.
Her work was influenced by British vorticism and has been linked stylistically to that of Norman
Lindsay, for whom she occasionally modelled. Norton derived much of her imagery from a type of
psychic exploration based on self-hypnosis and from what in occult circles has been described as
'wanderings on the astral planes'. Many of her paintings were based on trance-encounters with
archetypal beings whom Norton believed had their own independent existence. She began to
compile a series of these mystical drawings which, with poems by Greenlees, appeared in The Art
of Rosaleen Norton (1952), under the sponsorship of the publisher Walter Glover. This book was
even more controversial than her Melbourne exhibition. Glover was charged with producing an
obscene publication. The book could only be distributed in Australia with some of the more
sexually explicit images blacked out. In the United States of America copies were burned by
customs officials. Greenlees and Norton, who had been financially assisted by Glover, were forced
to scrounge a living by other means when he was declared bankrupt.

'Roie', to her friends, was small, wiry and vital, with black hair, arched eyebrows and a face sullen
in repose. An occult artist and a Bohemian in the 1950s and early 1960s, she sold her sketches
and paintings to anyone who expressed an interest. Known as 'The Witch of Kings Cross', she
openly proclaimed her dedication to occult beliefs and the 'Great God Pan', but was falsely
accused by the tabloid press of holding Black Masses. On the basis of a series of confiscated
photographs of simulated ceremonial rituals, she was charged in 1956 with 'engaging in unnatural
sexual acts', and she unwittingly played a part in the downfall of Sir Eugene Goossens, the
conductor of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, who was a member (from 1952) of her occult
group.

Norton continued to produce macabre paintings of the supernatural, though they were increasingly
lurid and repetitive. She died of cancer on 5 December 1979 in the Sacred Heart Hospice,
Darlinghurst. After he emerged from bankruptcy, Glover reissued The Art of Rosaleen Norton
(1982) and published the Supplement to The Art of Rosaleen Norton (1984).

Select Bibliography
N. Drury, Pan's Daughter (Syd, 1988) and for bibliography; People (Sydney), 29 Mar 1950, p 26.
More on the resources

Author: Nevill Drury

Print Publication Details: Nevill Drury, 'Norton, Rosaleen Miriam (1917 - 1979)', Australian
Dictionary of Biography, Volume 15, Melbourne University Press, 2000, pp 497-498.

http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A150577b.htm
Rosaleen Norton, known to her friends as 'Roie', was born in Dunedin, New Zealand on 2
October 1917. Rosaleen's father was employed in merchant shipping with the New
Zealand Steamship Company. In June 1925, the Nortons emigrated to Australia, settling
in Lindfield on Sydney's North Shore. Rosaleen attended the East Sydney Technical
College and studied Art under the noted sculptor, Raynor Hoff. She also worked as a
model for Norman Lindsay, a close friend, whose early line drawings were both
controversial and notorious. It was at this time that Rosaleen became Australia's first
woman pavement artist.

Although her talents were mainly artistic Rosaleen Norton also had considerable talents
as a writer of macabre and exotic tales. A selection of these was published in a limited
edition by Keith Richmond in 1996. An association with Gavin Greenlees, the poet, and
Wally Glover in the fifties, led to the publication of a book - The Art of Rosaleen Norton
(with poems by Greenlees). This is now a collector's item.

In 1940 Rosaleen Norton had an exhibition at Melbourne University. However, two days
after it opened, police descended on the gallery and seized four of the exhibited pictures.
Charges were laid under the Police Offences Act that these works were decadent and
obscene, and likely to arouse unhealthy sexual appetites in those who saw them. One of
these paintings was the well-known work, Black Magic. This depicted a black panther
copulating with a naked woman. Many of her works were full of erotic symbolism.

Rosaleen Norton's paintings were a strange mix of magic, mythology, fantasy and
Freudian symbols. They were the product of visions seen during self-induced trances and
dreams or while carrying out occult experiments. She used symbols such as the serpent
crown of initiation, the winged Globe, the yoni, angels and demons, rites of the black
mass, sinuous forms, lascivious devils and paintings of Pan in her own image. She
worshipped Pan - life and death, order and chaos, creation and destruction, and
elemental forces. Rosaleen defended her religious practice of Pantheism which she
described as the heathen worship of ancient Greek Gods.

While living in Sydney's Kings Cross in the fifties, Rosaleen Norton achieved notoriety as
a bohemian witch and artist. She was known throughout Australia as "the witch of Kings
Cross'. Her life has all the ingredients of a good film - sex, black magic, high and low
society, drugs and melodrama. She will soon be immortalised by another self-confessed
occultist and experimental film artist Kenneth Anger, author of the top-selling movie-
scandal books Hollywood Babylon I, II and III. During a visit to NZ in 1993 to show some
of his short films he announced his intention to make a feature film about her life. He said
that she inspired the Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil".

When I met Rosaleen in 1955, 'Roie' was already famous - perhaps one should say
notorious - as an eccentric artist and bohemian practitioner of witchcraft. Her paintings
depicting naked hermaphrodites, phallic serpents and passionate embraces were
hanging in the Appolyon and Kashmir coffee bars. She told me that she always knew she
was a witch because when she turned seven, two small blue marks, traditional signs of a
witch, appeared on her left knee. She said that as a child she had a passion for the
grotesque and a crush on Dracula. She was one of the best-known and strangest
personalities around the Cross.

I also yearned to be a witch and made an absolute neophyte of myself hanging around
her basement flat at 179 Brougham Street. I was hoping she would divulge to me her
occult secrets. She was very generous and leant me books from her vast collection of
esoteric literature on the Kabbalah, comparative religion, pre-Christian and primitive
beliefs, Satanism and psychology studies. Other times she acted mysteriously and
wouldn't even let me in the door when I called. I once smelt a secret perfume wafting
from the smoke-filled room behind her. I knew she smoked hashish to open doors to her
subconscious for painting, and to prepare for magical rites while in a self-induced
hypnotic trance.
Her interest in the dark or negative forces, called Qlipha in the Jewish Kabbalah, helped
produce images of Lilith, Queen of air and darkness, a horned devil named Fohat with a
snake for a phallus, and a deity called Eloi, who resembled an ancient Persian monarch.
She was a practitioner of occult and psychic phenomena including automatic writing and
could write Boustrephedon, an old Kabballistic form of writing - using ideograms for
mental or spiritual states as letters of an alphabet.

In 1952 Wally Glover, a publisher, printed and published 500 leather-bound books on
Rosaleen Norton's art. It created an uproar and the book was withdrawn. The Postmaster
General threatened prosecution over what was claimed to be an indecent publication
because certain figures had pubic hair and phallic appendages. This attracted
widespread publicity. Copies of the book were confiscated and burnt by the US customs.
Wally Glover was officially charged with producing an obscene publication. Wally went
bankrupt.

Rosaleen attracted extraordinary coverage in the press and caused a sensation by

appearing at a court-case flamboyantly dressed in a red skirt, black top and leopard-skin
shoes. She confessed to casting spells on her enemies and was once charged with
"committing an unnatural sexual act" with a male friend. The papers were full of
sensational journalistic stories and photographs purporting to show black magic rites,
ceremonial sacrifices and Satanic orgies. Following the publicity and extended court-
hearings, which in every way impinged upon her personal though unorthodox mystical
beliefs, she began to withdraw from the public eye.

When she died in 1979 Rosaleen Norton was a legendary figure, but for the wrong
reasons. Her art, representing supernatural imagery has now become more acceptable
following the revival of interest in fantasy and surrealistic art. But in her own day her
paintings were regarded as bizarre, obscure and pornographic, and she was not
accorded the recognition she deserved. She was certainly one of the most interesting,
intriguing persons I have ever known and that is why I have chosen her character as the
central figure of my novelette, Tales of Anna Hoffmann: part two.

In her day Rosaleen is said to have predicted the outbreak of AIDS, the dismissal of the
Whitlam Government and even the exact time of her own death. Many of her predictions
proved amazingly accurate, astounding students of psychic phenomena. And before she
died on December 5, 1979, she imparted some gloomy prophecies of life in the nineties.
One was a national economic collapse - she said the country would be divided and there
would certainly be civil insurrection by 1992.

Three Macabre Stories by Rosaleen Norton is available from Keith Richmond, The
Basilisk Bookshop, 407 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy, Victoria 3065, Australia.

Tales of Anna Hoffmann: part one and two are published by Bumper Books, PO Box
7356, Wellington South.

***
Anna Hoffman's [Pisces with Leo rising, Tiger] visiting card was respelendent with a
creepy bat and read "artiste, ecrivain, peregrinator, soothsayer, somnambulist, adviser to
Madam Osmosis". As a young New Zealander, violinist, and starry-eyed adventurer, she
ran away with the circus. She now resides in Napier.

http://www.physicsroom.org.nz/log/archive/10/norton/

Rosaleen Norton
Born October 2, 1917 to orthodox Protestant parents in
Denedin New Zealand, Rosaleen Norton was known as Roie to
her family and friend.
She began to have psycho/spiritual experiences at a very young
age, and as a result, she innocently considered these to be a
normal part of the human experience. She began drawing at the
age of 3. The pictures she created had to do with mystical
incidents, and her classmates were rather disturbed by the
images. She was eventually expelled from the Chatswood Girls
Grammar School for her drawings.

Later she studied art at East Sydney Technical College, and this
coincided with her exploration of the occult and religious rites.
Her inventiveness was encouraged in college, and she became a
gifted writer of gothic stories for an Australian newspaper called
Smith's Weekly. She even began to assume the duties of illustrator
and reporter in training, but lost her job there after 8 months
because her drawings were judged rather unconventional for the
majority of the readers.
She left home at 18 and made a modest living posing for artists in
Kings Cross, and began to study occult literature. She was then
married for a short time, spent some time train hoping and hitchhiking around
Australia's East Coast with her husband, but divorced him when he came back from
the war, and began drawing again for a periodical called Pertinent. It was while
working for this publication that she began her experimentation with trance, and met
her magical and artistic equal: a poet named Gavin.
 They relocated to Melbourne in 1949, and she had her first
exhibition, which was raided by the police a couple of days
after opening. She was charged with obscenity, but all charges
were dismissed. Disappointed, she and Gavin relocated back to
Kings Cross where Rosaleen became a well-known Bohemian
living in poverty. It wasn't long until she was charged with
vagrancy.

In 1952, a publisher named Wally Glover signed both Rosaleen

and Gavin and they made a limited numbers if a book called
"The Art Of Rosaleen Norton (with poems by Gavin Greenlees)," but the papers called
it indecent, and Wally Glover was charged for producing the publication, and he was
fined. And perhaps thinking that some advanced minds might understand her work,
she sent copies of this book to some prominent figures of her time: Carl Jung, T.S.
Elliot, Albert Einstein, C.S. Lewis to name but a few.

Then, there was the robbery where pictures of the pair in ceremonial apparel were
taken. Soon, rumors began circulating about supposed satanic rituals, black masses,
and the like. She became known as the "Kings Cross Witch." She was raided again in
late 1955, and a man who displayed her artwork in his restaurant was charged for
obscenity. Gavin was admitted to a psychiatric ward with schizophrenia after he tried
to kill Rosaleen with a kitchen knife.

She didn’t compromise her integrity by turning down offers to

sell out, and even though her paintings were in demand at the
time, she preferred to live in poverty rather than paint anything
other than what she wanted. She was a devotee of Pan, and
during her trials she maintained a sincere truth about her lifestyle,
art and religion, which she was forced to defend at every trial.
She did support herself by selling painting and making magical
trinkets for a select group of friends. She became a celebrity in
the 70's after a fundamentalist report on the occult, but she
became a recluse and shut herself in with her cats, music and
literature. Rosaleen was a brilliant artist, and was a victim of ignorance and the
puritanical prejudices of her times. She died of colon cancer on December 5, 1979.
Her talent has recently been rediscovered, and is finding a wide audience.

http://www.thelemicknights.org/ootmc/rosaleen/rosaleen.html

http://www.abc.net.au/gnt/history/Transcripts/s1086081.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosaleen_Norton

http://www.thinkingseriously.com/gpage12.html

http://www.usyd.edu.au/news/84.html?newsstoryid=169
http://www.lib.monash.edu.au/exhibitions/occult/xocc.html