Gerald Suster (2 August 1951 – 3 February 2001) was a British revisionist historian,

occult The occult, in the broadest sense, is a category of esoteric supernatural beliefs and practices which generally fall outside the scope of religion and science, encompassing phenomena involving otherworldly agency, such as magic and mysticism ...

writer, and novelist. He was best known for his biographies of

Aleister Crowley Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the prop ...

(''The Legacy of the Beast'') and

Israel Regardie Francis Israel Regardie (; né Regudy; November 17, 1907 – March 10, 1985) was a British-American occultist, ceremonial magician, and writer who spent much of his life in the United States. He wrote fifteen books on the subject of occultism. Bo ...

(''Crowley's Apprentice'').

Family life

Suster was born 2 August 1951 in Hampstead,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

, and was educated at

Highgate School Highgate School, formally Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, is an English co-educational, fee-charging, independent day school, founded in 1565 in Highgate, London, England. It educates over 1,400 pupils in three sections – Highgat ...

and

Trinity Hall, Cambridge Trinity Hall (formally The College or Hall of the Holy Trinity in the University of Cambridge) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. It is the fifth-oldest surviving college of the university, having been founded in 1350 by ...

. Suster's father, Ilya Suster, an entrepreneur in the egg products industry, was born Ilya Shusterovich in Harbin,

Manchuria Manchuria is an exonym (derived from the endo demonym "Manchu") for a historical and geographic region in Northeast Asia encompassing the entirety of present-day Northeast China (Inner Manchuria) and parts of the Russian Far East ( Outer ...

on 17 October 1914, grew up in

Hamburg Hamburg (, ; nds, label=Hamburg German, Low Saxon, Hamborg ), officially the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (german: Freie und Hansestadt Hamburg; nds, label=Low Saxon, Friee un Hansestadt Hamborg),. is the List of cities in Germany by popul ...

, Germany, and emigrated with his family to the United Kingdom in 1938. Gerald Suster was married twice, in 1975 to Ann Nash (marriage dissolved) and in 1992 to Michaela Antonina Duncan (1948–2001).

Occult activities

While working in California Gerald Suster met

and

Gerald Yorke Major Gerald Joseph Yorke (10 December 1901 – 29 April 1983) was an English soldier and writer. He was a Reuters correspondent while in China for two years in the 1930s, and wrote a book ''China Changes'' (1936). Life Gerald Joseph Yorke was bo ...

, two of the few remaining occultists who had studied directly under Aleister Crowley. Suster made great progress in

A∴A∴ The A∴A∴ ( ) is a magical organization described in 1907 by occultist Aleister Crowley. Its members are dedicated to the advancement of humanity by perfection of the individual on every plane through a graded series of universal initiatio ...

, and became a well-known figure in the London occult and pagan scenes. He prefaced every speech & comment with the words: "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law"; the immediate source of the utterance is the Book of the Law. In 1989 he became a tutor at Boarzell Tutorial College in Sussex; however his teaching career came to an abrupt end when he was featured in an exposé of his occult activities in the ''

News of the World The ''News of the World'' was a weekly national Tabloid journalism#Red tops, red top Tabloid (newspaper format), tabloid newspaper published every Sunday in the United Kingdom from 1843 to 2011. It was at one time the world's highest-selling En ...

'' newspaper on 16 April 1989. Suster sued the paper for libel, citing extensive damage to his livelihood arising from the article and various lies by the reporter Chris Blythe.

News International News Corp UK & Ireland Limited (trading as News UK, formerly News International and NI Group) is a British newspaper publisher, and a wholly owned subsidiary of the American mass media conglomerate News Corp. It is the current publisher of ...

paid £10,000 into court; Suster accepted the offer and got £80,000 of costs from them. After the case, Gerald Suster & his new wife went on honeymoon to Madrid. On their return, he focused on being a full-time author, producing books of biography, occultism, and erotica. He called his new occupation "my most productive period of creative writing". Suster died on 3 February 2001 in London. The Suster family buried the body in the ground of the local Anglican church. The Central London Pagan Scene held a

goetic ''The Lesser Key of Solomon'', also known as ''Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis'' or simply ''Lemegeton'', is an anonymous grimoire on demonology. It was compiled in the mid-17th century, mostly from materials a couple of centuries older.''Lemegeto ...

memorial for him in the upper room of The Princess Louise in Holborn, one of Suster's long-time haunts.

Bibliography

Fiction

*''The Devil's Maze'' (1979) *''The Elect'' (1980) *''The Scar'' (1981) *''The Offering'' (1982) *''The Block'' (1983) *''Stryker'' (1984) *''The Force'' (1984) *''The Handyman'' (1985) *''The God Game'' (1986) *''The Labyrinth of Satan'' (1997)

Non-fiction

*''Hitler and the Age of Horus'' (1981; in the United States as: ''Hitler: The Occult Messiah'') *''John Dee: Essential Readings'' (1986) *''Hitler: Black Magician'' (1987) *''The Legacy of the Beast: The Life, Work, and Influence of Aleister Crowley'' (1988) *''Crowley's Apprentice: The Life and Ideas of Israel Regardie'' (1989) *''Champions of the Ring: The Lives and Times of Boxing's Heavyweight Heroes'' (1992) *''Lightning Strikes: The Lives and Times of Boxing's Lightweight Heroes'' (1994) *''The Truth About the Tarot: A Manual of Practice and Theory'' (1996) *''The Generals: The Best and Worst Military Commanders'' (1997) *''The Hell-Fire Friars: Sex, Politics & Religion'' (2000)

References

External links

Fantastic fiction: Gerald Suster
*Mortimer, George T

{{DEFAULTSORT:Suster, Gerald 1951 births 2001 deaths People educated at Highgate School Alumni of Trinity Hall, Cambridge English occult writers English male novelists 20th-century English novelists 20th-century English historians 20th-century English male writers English male non-fiction writers