THE MODERN OCCULTIST INTERVIEW
with Lon Milo DuQuette
Lon Milo DuQuette is a living legend. An author, musician, and one of the world's foremost authorities on Aleister Crowley, Thelema, Kabbalah, and the Western magical tradition, he serves as Deputy Grand Master of Ordo Templi Orientis U.S.A. But he’s also a hell of a guitarist and storyteller, and has a great sense of humor. Modern Occultist was able to catch up with him regarding a few, seemingly, unrelated topics: his Hollywood excursions in the 1960s, Scientology, and his own path towards enlightenment…
M O D E R N O C C U LT I S T We first connected due to my research on Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard— but you shared an amazing Kenneth Anger story with me, and I was hoping you could relay it for our readers?
LON MILO DUQUETTE (Laughs) I took Michael Powell to a screening at the Academy Theater—I just didn't know who he was at the time. He was this distinguished-looking man in a cardigan sweater, and we just called him “Mikey.” At some point during the evening, Mikey gets up to go to the bathroom, and while he's gone, the place is filling up—and I mean filling up with what looked like a cast of characters straight out of Sunset Boulevard. Kenneth Anger was there. And then, one of these really glorious “swans”—you know the type, four-
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hundred years old, still beautiful like Gloria Swanson and magnificent— decides she wants Mikey's seat. So, Kenneth Anger leans over and says, “That seat is taken.” And this woman looks at him and says—and I love this — she says, “Is it taken by anyone?” And Anger says, without missing a beat, “Only the director of The Red Shoes!” And that's when I realized — that's Michael Powell. That's who I'd brought to the thing. He just hadn't made a big d e a l o f w h o h e w a s — a l m o s t n o e g o . Yo u don't hear about that a lot. MO I don’t mind sharing that my new book’s central thesis is Hubbard’s apparent plundering of Aleister Crowley’s legitimate Thelema writings—then watering it down and presenting it in a pseudo-Science Fiction stew, of sorts. Is the Hubbard/Crowley connection genuine, in your view — and how direct was it?
SUMMER SOLSTICE 2026
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