satan wants me

by Robert Irwin

Dedalus, #14.99

BACK in the 1960s black magic became more than just a box of chocolates and for a while a whiff of anti-establishment chic mingled with the brimstone reek. The Rolling Stones' Goat's Head Soup and Sympathy for the Devil enhanced their bad-boy image and provided an antidote to those put off by the sentiments of flower power. One such hippy seduced by the dark forces is Peter, the hero of Robert Irwin's trip back to psychedelic times. Curiosity and daring lead him to a coven in Swiss Cottage where, under instruction, he begins to write a diary narrating his journey from Probationer for Adepthood on the Occult Path to fully initiated practitioner of the Black Arts.

Once inducted into the coven and brought under their roof, he finds that they have plans for him which are beyond his expectations. Arcane signs and astrological calculations have convinced them that he is the reincarnation of Arch Magi Aleister Crowley. It is ordained that he must take part in a ritual that will bring them power from beyond.

All of this seems like a plot from some antiquated Denis Wheatley potboiler, but Irwin's tongue is firmly in his cheek and drug-fuelled proto-slacker has an amusingly laid-back take on the strange inhabitants of The Black Book Lodge. His fellows are a mixed bag of failed academics, dilettantes, and lascivious lushes, but all are driven by some black, insistent greed. This provides a sinister undercurrent to the comic elements and as the story develops the sulphurous bubbles of their plot engulf Peter in his attempt to escape their clutches. An added twist to the tale comes when his own true motivations are exposed to reveal that his account of events is not all that we have been led to believe.

This mind game by the author puts a clever spin on the tangled web of deceptions and machinations being played out by the characters on each other. The confusion is multiplied by Peter's experimentation with various mind-altering substances, and it is often unclear whether his paranoia is justified or drug-induced.

The final chapter is written some years later and describes the conclusion of that distant summer's events. Once the dust has settled and death dealt with, Peter resigns himself to a destiny which is surprisingly mundane but which also leaves the reader with disturbing suspicions about the nature of those who operate in the higher echelons of the rich and powerful.