Graham John Clifton Bond, a promising and clearly talented rock musician, was born in Romford, England, on 28 October 1937. John Russell Pope (who would later changed his surname by deed poll to “Pope de Locksley”) was born in England on 11 July 1953. These two individuals came to be linked by one single factor. They were drawn at an early age to the occult, in particular a brand concocted by Aleister Crowley known as Thelema.
In the early days Bond was noted as being a silent, humble figure with a plastic alto saxophone; always on the outskirts of what was going on, never part of it. The thing about him was that he was not noticed. This would change. The versatile keyboard player and saxophonist, who also did some vocals, developed an obsession with the occult, especially the brand of Satanism devised by Crowley, known as Thelema. Like his mentor, he also became seriously addicted to drugs and alcohol. Pope owns to using hallucinogens, albeit briefly, early in life, but soon found a preference for alcohol and forms of sex magic. According to the posthumous biography The Mighty Shadow, written by Harry Shapiro, Graham Bond sexually abused his stepdaughter. Pope might claim to be Crowley’s “spiritual successor,” but Bond went one better. He claimed to be an illegitimate son of Aleister Crowley. In the world of the dark occult nothing is too sacred or taboo for exponents of Thelema.
On 8 May 1974, Graham Bond fell, or perhaps jumped, in front of the wheels of a London Underground train at Finsbury Park station, and died. In the previous year he was called in by another rock star, Long John Baldry of Muswell Hill, London, to help in an “exorcism,” as the media insisted on describing it. Baldry had been receiving threats and curses from a local self-proclaimed occultist who was a close associate of John Pope. This was confirmed to be the case in repeated boasts published in local newspapers at the time, eg front page headline story of the Hornsey Journal, 28 September 1973. Baldry had reason to believe that his missing cat Stupzi had been sacrificed by Pope's associate in a black magic ritual. Whilst not denying the ritual sacrifice of cats during this period, the associate maintained that the one he killed in Highgate Wood was not Stupzi, but a stray.
On one occasion, Baldry and Bond arrived at the associate's bed-sitting room to confront the sender of black magic threats, but only found John Pope whom his collaborator had been using to deliver the clay effigies with accompanying menacing poems.
The two rock stars still continued to receive black magic threats from Pope and his collaborating occultist. When Bond met with his unfortunate death, Pope immediately claimed that he had "killed Graham Bond" with a curse, which he confirmed in a recorded interview (now available on a CD).*
Mystery has always surrounded the untimely demise of Graham Bond and many commentators in the media have looked for simple answers, sometimes erroneously describing Bond as a “white magician.” There is nothing “white” about the magic that springs from Crowley’s Thelema. Baldry grew ever more terrified of the curses he had received and quit England for Canada, never to return.
Pope's associate issued threats to multifarious people at the culmination of which he was arrested by Scotland Yard detectives who discovered a satanic altar with black candles and an image of the Devil in his small bed-sitting room. He was held on remand until his trials at the Old Bailey in June 1974, resulting in a four years eight months prison sentence.
Pope remained free to continue with Crowlianity. Bond died a month before Pope's collaborator faced his own fate in front of a judge and jury.
*www.gothicpress.freeserve.co.uk/Witch.htm
