Gerald Suster

Gerald Suster (1951-2001) ‘Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law’ Gerald Suster, died in his home on Saturday the 3rd February. Gerald was very proud of his status as a professional writer. It was a niche he had carved out for himself after the media destroyed his earlier career as a schoolteacher. Erudite and totally committed to the great work, he was also a maverick with an alarming propensity for self-destruction. As a callow eighteen-year-old he corresponded with Israel Regardie, turning up unannounced at the great magi’s Californian home. He was to become Regardie’s student of all things Golden Dawn, eventually writing his teacher’s biography. Gerald wrote several further magical monographs, including a study of the tarot and a biography of the other great influence on his life, Aleister Crowley. As a novelist he was no mean scribbler, producing half a dozen mid range occult thrillers. As Alan Dale, he wrote, no doubt assisted by his wife Michaela, a dozen 1890s erotic romps. He was a feature at many a magical conference where he mercilessly wound up the speakers with his acerbic wit and incisive questions. I remember Gerald bursting onto the stage at the 1988 Golden Dawn centennial conference, saying he’d come to reclaim the event ‘on behalf of the living’. No magical order could hold such a personality for long and with some success he gathered his own devoted group of initiates under the banner of the Company of Heaven. How can I end this but as Gerald himself invariably ended any utterance that meant anything to him, ‘Love is the law’ ‘Love under will’ - Mogg