Spencer Kansa

Wormwood Star is a biography of Marjorie Cameron, often known as Cameron. The biography follows her life from a small-town girl to Navy WAVE in World War 2, to a devotee of Thelema, and from her perspective an incarnation of the Goddess Babalon. An absolutely fascinating topic about an often overlooked figure in occultism.

Spencer Kansa went out of his way to research many hard to find aspects which included interviews with old friends and visiting the locales that Cameron haunted. There is certainly a great amount of biographical research that went into this book and having read reviews of previous editions I was pleased to see "2020 Revised Edition" printed on the cover.

However a few issues magicians have had with this text do remain, notably some technical mistakes when talking about Thelema. For example, Kansa refers to the 5=6 degree, the mid-point of the A.'. A.'., as the final and ultimate stage. While it is the last stage before letting your HGA take the wheel, there are several stages after in the system. Other small and technical errors regarding Thelema and magick in general do remain. While these errors are of no consequence and this critique pedantic to the average reader, as someone born and raised around magick, I find them personally pertinent having myself struggled for accurate representation in media.

If such topics were a side-note in the biography, this would be even less of an issue. However, Cameron's identity to both herself and those she inspired is intimately entwined with Thelema, Parsons, and by extension Crowley. This being the reason that many pick up the book makes these errors all the more important to address.

Aside from this, Kansa's easy on the eyes writing style made for an enjoyable read overall. I will cut him some slack as from an outsider perspective the central topics of her life are difficult and take some serious study to even begin forming an idea of. Cameron presents many difficulties to the biographer, making accurate presentation all the more important.

NOTE: This review was changed after a conversation with the author. I am also removing my star rating from this review completely and adding this note for transparency.… (altro)