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Credit: Far Out \/ Dina Regine<\/p>\n
Sun 9 August 2026 10:00, UK <\/p>\n
As any longtime Led Zeppelin<\/a> fan will know, a fascination with the esoteric has always hovered over their hard rock oeuvre.<\/p>\n It was all there from Led Zeppelin\u2019s fourth LP artwork alone. Lacking even an official title, dubbed Led Zeppelin IV due to the Roman-numeral-titled predecessors, guitarist and producer Jimmy Page reached back into the arcane depths of 16th-century alchemical grimoire for the record\u2019s distinctive \u2018ZoSo\u2019 sigils that represent each member on the back cover and inner gatefold, as well as deploying the \u2018Hermit\u2019 Tarot archetype on its packaging.<\/p>\n Be it the hidden English folklore that glows on \u2018Stairway to Heaven\u2019, \u2018The Battle of Evermore\u2019s Celtic and Tolkien-esque landscapes, or the Norse hammers that evocatively thunder \u2018Immigrant Song\u2019, Page and frontman Robert Plant\u2019s lyrical pen routinely looked to mythic heritage to shape some of Led Zeppelin\u2019s most loved works.<\/p>\n Yet, it was the latent energy of the occult that cast a mystical hook in Page the deepest. It was while still a schoolboy that the 15-year-old Page first chanced upon the Thelemic theories of Aleister Crowley<\/a>, specifically his Magick in Theory and Practice collection of essays and ideas on \u2018ceremonial magick\u2019, the \u2018k\u2019 added to distinguish such ritual from the day\u2019s stage entertainment. Such worlds would stay with Page for years.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel Aleister Crowley is a misunderstood genius of the 20th century,\u201d Page told Sounds in 1978, \u201cIt is because his whole thing was liberation of the person, of the entity and that restrictions would foul you up, lead to frustration, which leads to violence, crime, mental breakdown, depending on what sort of makeup you have underneath. The further this age we\u2019re in now gets into technology and alienation, a lot of the points he\u2019s made seem to manifest themselves all down the line.\u201d<\/p>\n Once fame and a lot of cash had entered Page\u2019s life in the early 1970s, the Led Zeppelin guitarist decided to set up shop on London\u2019s Holland Street in the Kensington area, opening The Equinox Booksellers and Publishers store in large part due to being \u2018pissed off\u2019 that the city lacked any dedicated occult bookstores<\/a>.<\/p>\n Page went all out with his new venture, adorning the interior with Egyptian motifs reflecting Thelemic connections with the ancient religious theology, plus emblazoning Crowley\u2019s birth chart across the wall.<\/p>\n Further reading: From The Vault<\/strong><\/p>\n The Equinox would last until 1979, having directly published a facsimile of Crowley\u2019s 1904 edition of The Goetia as well as new age spiritualist Isabel Hickey\u2019s Astrology, A Cosmic Science, before allowing the lease to expire, followed by his 1992 sale of Crowley\u2019s old Scottish Boleskine House residence that he\u2019d purchased back in 1970. To this day, Page\u2019s dabbling with the occult has since either died down or been kept largely away from the public spotlight.<\/p>\n His most countercultural remark on the esoteric subterranean of the occult was his feature in fellow Crowley admirer Kenneth Anger\u2019s 1972 short Lucifer Rising, playing the role of \u2018the man holding the stele of revealing\u2019 and even signing up to score its soundtrack before Manson Family murderer Bobby Beausoleil composed the score<\/a> while incarcerated at California\u2019s Tracy Prison.<\/p>\n
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<\/a> The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter<\/p>\n