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occult reading of Zep yet attempted. That such a reading is justified should be beyond argument. Plant was immersed in hippie lore, while Jimmy Page stands as rock and roll’s most prominent student of the occult. But did he
practice
? The facts we know, though widely reported, only tantalize: Page is one of the world’s top collectors of Crowleyania, having scarfed up the Beast’s first editions, paintings, Tarot decks, and ritual robes; in 1970, he purchased Boleskine House, an eighteenth century mansion on the southeastern shores of Loch Ness once owned by Crowley. Page worked on a soundtrack for Kenneth Anger’s film
Lucifer Rising,
a ritual invocation on celluloid heavily influenced by Anger’s knowledge and experience of Thelema. In interviews, Page has mentioned attending séances and practicing yoga. Going out on a limb, one might argue that Page also fits a certain sort of occult profile: an only child born under Saturn, imaginative and isolationist, obsessed with control. But Page has always held his Thoth cards close to his chest. We have no idea how he may have passed from theory to practice, though I suspect he didn’t buy Boleskine for the views.
    What Page’s occultism has to do with Led Zeppelin’s music or Robert Plant’s lyrics is another question, of course. Friend believes it explains everything, and that’s because the guys in Led Zeppelin are, as he felicitously puts it, “four of the most dangerous Devil worshipers to ever walk the earth.” Friend, you see, is a born-again Christian. But he was a hardcore Zephead in 1977, when he saw his favorite band at Madison Square Garden during their triumphant return to touring after two years of personal strife. During “No Quarter,” Jimmy Page broke out a peculiar electronic instrument called the theremin, whose uncanny soundscapes he had been exploring since the psychedelic falderal in the middle of “Whole Lotta Love.” When Page began to wave his hands around the instrument’s two antennae, Friend, who was both dizzy and stoned, felt a “quick narcotic rush” as the space around him filled with demons. He was overwhelmed with the temptation to give his will over to Satan. He resisted, and thirty years later, wrote and published
Fallen Angel
to warn other fans about the infectious diabolism that lurks at the core of Led Zeppelin’s music, and especially. To complete his task, Friend read over thirty of Crowley’s books, and he now has a better handle on occult Kabbalah than he does on all but the crudest strains of fundamentalist Christianity. The fellow is no scholar: Hecites an illustrated
Wizards and Witches
Time–Life book and quotes Faust as a source—the fictional character, that is, not the text. He makes much of synchronicities and numerology, and takes poetic language for supernatural fact, which makes the more imaginative passages in his book entertaining and occasionally illuminating. 15 Unfortunately, Friend’s final interpretive move is maddeningly predictable. Every mythic figure who struts across the stage—Apollo, King Arthur, Horus—turns out to be Satan in disguise, with all your favorite rock musicians his eternal acolytes. Even Abba gets exposed for the devilish pacts alluded to in the title of their box set
Thank You for the Music
.
    Probably the most famous soul-swap in rock and roll lore was committed by Led Zeppelin, who supposedly pulled a Robert Johnson in exchange for musical greatness. (If so, they certainly got a better deal than the Delta bluesman, who died at age twenty-seven, probably poisoned, after making a handful of largely poorly-selling sides.) The Zep rumor was tawdry, teen-mag stuff, but its cheesy ubiquity attests to the band’s power to make mass mythology with teeth. Just compare Zep to the Stones, darkside dabblers widely embraced as Bad Boys by the press. Yes, the Stones doffed Papa Ghede top hats and expressed sympathy for the devil. But who really holds more satanic majesty? Eurotrash