Alright, buckle up, because we're about to take a BIZARRE JOURNEY into the unhinged side of history with the LIFE SPAN PODCAST!
Oh HELL yes — buckle up, because this one’s an occult acid trip through mid-century Australia, starring a whip-smart woman who painted demons, communed with spirits, got arrested for drawing horny gods, and may have accidentally opened a portal to a darker dimension… all while chain-smoking in a Sydney back alley.
This is the untamed saga of Rosaleen Norton, aka The Witch of Kings Cross — artist, mystic, tabloid boogeywoman, and one of the most defiantly chaotic forces in modern occult history. She didn’t just challenge 1950s Australia’s buttoned-up conservatism — she hexed it. Literally.
Born in Dunedin, New Zealand, 1917, Rosaleen Norton was weird from the jump. She claimed to have psychic visions from age 4, painted monsters by age 7, and got expelled from her Catholic school for drawing centaurs and demons in class. Her family moved to Sydney, and she doubled down on her artistic inclinations — except her art was less “landscapes and still lifes” and more “horny goat-gods with erections”. She studied at the East Sydney Technical College briefly before being kicked out for being “too disturbing”. Apparently, her work wasn’t “aesthetic” enough, meaning it had too much Pan and not enough pansies.
By the 1940s, she was living in Kings Cross — Sydney’s bohemian red-light district — with a black cat, a stash of narcotics, and a reputation as an artist, a medium, and a real-life practicing witch.
Let’s set the scene: It’s 1950s Australia.
* The Menzies government was cracking down on communism, obscenity, and anything countercultural.
* The media was gripped by moral panic — jazz, beatniks, and especially sex were considered dangerous.
* Women were supposed to be wives, secretaries, or maybe nurses — not summoning Pan and painting group orgies.
And here comes Rosaleen: barefoot, fierce, chain-smoking, dressed in robes, holding séances in candlelit rooms filled with giant phallus sculptures and nude paintings of demons. She wasn’t just weird — she was weaponized weirdness in a repressed society.
The result?
* Massive police raids
* National obscenity trials
* Front-page tabloid stories branding her the “Sex Priestess of Satan”
* And an enduring mythos that blurred the line between eccentric artist and dark sorceress.
Spoiler: Nope, she wasn't a Satanist. Rosaleen hated being called that. She wasn’t into the Abrahamic good-vs-evil binary at all. Her patron deity? Pan — the Greek god of lust, nature, chaos, and male virility. Her beliefs were more neo-pagan-meets-Thelema-meets-“vibe with your demons” than Satanism. But because she painted devils and liked sex magick, the press slapped the Satan label on her anyway. Classic.
She claimed to enter trance states during creation — sometimes drawing while possessed, sometimes guided by a familiar spirit named “Kurana”. Her work? Twisted, surreal, and filled with inhuman entities that looked like DMT hallucinations painted 50 years too early. Some believed her art did open spiritual portals. One journalist swore her paintings “hummed” when he stood near them. Others said her rooms were cold despite no windows open. Is it real? Hard to prove. But more than one person fainted during her private exhibitions.
In 1955, Rosaleen was dragged into a police scandal involving Sir Eugene Goossens, a world-famous composer and conductor. He’d been importing “obscene” materials into Australia — many tied to Rosaleen — and when the press got wind of it, BOOM: Scandal. Headlines. Goossens’s career ruined. Some believe Rosaleen was set up to take the fall — others say she willingly offered him up as part of a magical sacrifice. That’s never been proven. But Rosaleen? She just shrugged and kept painting demons in her apartment.
In her own lifetime, Rosaleen was:
* Banned from publishing her artwork
* Prosecuted for obscenity (multiple times)
* Denied entry to the U.S. as a “threat to morality”
* Constantly surveilled by cops and journalists
And yet... she never stopped. She embraced the myth.
Today?
* Her art sells in galleries and underground markets.
* She’s been re-evaluated as a proto-feminist icon — a woman who weaponized the mystical and the erotic to survive in a world that feared her.
* She’s the subject of a killer doc: The Witch of Kings Cross (2020).
* Occultists still reference her in modern magical practices.
* She’s name-dropped in feminist manifestos, queer art circles, and Australian history deep-dives.
* And yes — there’s an active cult fandom online that believes her spirit still walks the back alleys of Kings Cross.
Here are some DEEP CUTS & “WAIT WHAT?!” MOMENTS:
* She married her familiar spirit in a private ritual. Not metaphorically — she said it was a full soul-bonding.
* Her room was painted floor-to-ceiling in sigils and phalluses — and when landlords complained, she said they could “speak to Pan about it”.
* A teenage boy once broke into her studio, stole one of her paintings, and claimed it “cursed” his family.
* Police once burned all the plates of her unpublished book (The Art of Rosaleen Norton) because of a drawing called “Fohat,” which featured a deity with an erect penis and a woman kneeling in worship. Rosaleen’s response: “They’ve got small minds and smaller penises”.
* She once bit a journalist who insulted her art. That journalist later said he “had dreams of wolves” for weeks after.
Want to delve deeper into the lore? Check out these resources:
Books:
* Pan’s Daughter: The Strange World of Rosaleen Norton by Nevill Drury — Essential reading.
* Witch of the Cross (Graphic novel) by Maree Coote — Stylized, well-researched, super visual.
Documentaries:
* The Witch of Kings Cross (dir. Sonia Bible, 2020) — Stunning, poetic, totally immersive.
* YouTube: Occulture podcast episode on Rosaleen Norton.
Archives:
* National Library of Australia has some digitized police reports & original artwork.
* Trove (Australia’s online newspaper archive) is packed with insane headlines from the 50s & 60s.
Weird Internet:
* Reddit thread: “Did Rosaleen Norton actually summon demons?” — r/Occult.
* Blog: The Hermetic Library has a few essays on her magical techniques.
* Twitter/X: Occult art community sometimes posts “Rosaleen moodboards”.
Rosaleen Norton wasn’t just an oddball — she was a cosmic middle finger to conformity, censorship, and spiritual repression. She painted her truth in blood-red ink and goat-horn shadows, dared the world to call her a freak, and owned every inch of it. Whether she was communing with spirits or just trolling a morally rigid society, her life remains a masterpiece of myth, madness, and magical rebellion.
Welcome to the world of The Witch of Kings Cross.
Good luck getting out.
Forget what you learned in school — this is history’s unhinged side! Welcome to LIFE SPAN, the weekly podcast that digs up the dirt on the most outrageous, chaotic, and downright WTF lives ever lived. All told in a fun and fascinating way. Share, Rate and Follow the show for more wild stories!
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