The Curse of Led Zeppelin | Music's Dark Side

Jimmy Page, the erudite and softly spoken lead guitarist of Led Zeppelin, once told a journalist, I do not worship the devil, but magic does intrigue me. Magic of all kinds. It wasn't for some years until I understood what it was all about. Page, a native to Hounslow, West London, shook the world of rock and roll unlike any other star before him. Broodingly handsome, witty, and with a quirky and exotic taste, Page was a peacock among pheasants. His circle was the most eccentric of the age of Aquarius. Finger snapping, hash smoking, LSD dropping dandies. Page's circle, however, had a darker side, a side entrenched in mystical eastern esotericism and ancient magic, the occult. Jimmy Page's peacocking connected him with many of the of rock and roll, from Eric Clapton to the Rolling Stones, both of whom he regularly jammed with as a session guitarist. Page eventually founded Led Zeppelin, the experimental evolution of his former band, the New Yardbirds. Zeppelin, in his own words, came together like magic. First, he found John Paul Jones, the bass guitarist, then Robert Plant, the lead singer, and finally, John Bonham, the drummer. An unholy quaternity, reflected by their personal symbols, four sigils. Admittedly, this was an unusual choice of logo for a band. At the time, sigils were little known outside of esoteric circles. A sigil is a symbol used in magic, often the pictorial signature of a demon or other spirit, today most frequently employed in chaos magic. They can be used for blessings, just as they could be used for curses. It's speculated that Page's foray into the occult may have had devastating consequences for him and for his bandmates. Over a curious slot of time, bad luck, accidents, sickness, and eventually several deaths would plague the band members and those close to them. This is known as the Curse of Led Zeppelin. For this investigation, we'll take a closer look at the historical facts surrounding these events, and with all due respect for the victims involved, explore the detailed speculations of long-time Zeppelin fans, as well as occult researchers. Some say that Jimmy Page sold his soul, the soul of Robert Plant, and the soul of John Bonham, to the devil. To understand the Curse of Led Zeppelin in its full mystery, we must go back long before the era of rock and roll, rewinding nearly six centuries to the infamous alchemist Johann Georg Faust. Welcome to Occult Mysteries. A pact with the devil, also known as a Faustian bargain, is a literary trope as old as time itself. Christian tradition tells that a contract with the devil is a transaction between Satan and a person. Satan delivers worldly goods, which the person exchanges for their soul. History abounds with tales of famed public figures said to have made pacts with the devil. The most famous of these tales is of Johann Georg Faust. The story of Faust begins with a dissatisfied scholar who has exhausted all means of human study. In exchange for infinite knowledge and a boundless hedonistic lifestyle, he trades his soul. The story opens with Faust alone in his study, preparing a ritual to conjure a spirit. Therefore myself to magic I give, he says. When the devil, Mephistopheles, is summoned and agrees to serve Faust, the scholar implores, how must I thy services repay? To which Mephistopheles responds, under sinus merely with a drop of blood. Which means, in no uncertain terms, with his soul. Faust accepts. Alas, the deal ends in tragedy. The story is said to have been based upon the real-life German alchemist Johann Georg Faust, who supposedly died in a laboratory explosion after the devil came to collect his soul personally. The devil, or Lucifer, which in Latin means the morning star, was created as the anointed Cherub, the most powerful of God's angels. According to the book of Ezekiel, Lucifer had musical instruments built into his very being, stating that, quote, the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created. And thus, Satan is thought to have been heaven's finest musician. It is because of this that there is an intrinsic, almost natural relationship between the Faustian bargain and music. And many of you may already be aware that deals with the devil are a common trope in nearly every musical genre. In the year 1713, famed Italian composer Giuseppe Tartini dreamt that the devil visited him and promised to serve him in exchange for his soul. In the dream, Tartini accepted and out of curiosity presented the devil with his violin. The great spirit began to play the most beautiful solo Tartini had ever heard. It left him breathless. When he awoke, Tartini frantically attempted to recreate the composition to the best of his recollection. This piece became the Devil's Trill Sonata, a composition noted for its incredibly difficult and technically complex double-stop trills, even though Tartini had only just taken up the violin three years prior. He went on to become one of the most influential violinists that ever lived. It is often speculated that Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin's most famous song and often regarded as the most popular rock song of all time, was a product of the devil. Besides the well-known theory that the song played backwards is an audible ode to Satan, Robert Plant once said that the song came to him in a dream, and we must wonder, was it one similar to Tartini's? Dreams aside, we must now fast forward two centuries to the genre of music more notorious for Faustian bargains than any other, the blues. Robert Johnson, who would be a significant influence on Led Zeppelin long after his death, began as a struggling blues musician from the Mississippi Delta, born around the turn of the 20th century. He is perhaps most known not for his music, but for his alleged deal with the devil. Johnson is said to have approached the crossroads late on an October's evening, while the moon was full, and sold his soul to the devil, who came to him in the form of a large black man. The devil took Johnson's guitar and tuned it, completing the deal. The crossroads has long been associated with the paranormal. In both European and African folklore, the crossroads are a meeting point where the eternal truth touches the passing world. Stories of the crossroads were very popular among the southern African-American community in Johnson's time. In Africa, the crossroad legend goes back as far as the Anansi people of West Africa. In Anansi tradition, the crossroads symbolized the making of decisions, spiritual communion, and the crossing of boundaries, both physical and metaphysical. Stories of the crossroads often do present a symbolic boundary. For example, in one version of Robert Johnson's pact, the devil says to him, If you take one more step in the direction you're heading, you're going to have the blues like never known to this world. Whether Johnson did sell his soul or not, we will never know. What we do know, however, is that prior to Johnson's supposed deal, he was considered by contemporaries to be an awful musician. He was said to have had no rhythm. He didn't have the blues. Johnson was murdered at the age of 27 by the jealous husband of one of his many girlfriends. A poisoned bottle of whiskey saw him crouched over, dead and bleeding from the mouth. What is perhaps most curious about Johnson's deal is not the Faustian bargain itself, as that's been seen hundreds of times, but rather the embodiment of the devil as a black man at the crossroads. In African esoteric religion, specifically Haitian voodoo, the guardian of the crossroads is Papa Legba. Legba serves as a gateway between the physical and spiritual worlds, providing a way for both to communicate with one another. Papa Legba is thought of as a trickster, but not a particularly evil or malevolent one, differing considerably from the Faustian concept of the crossroads devil. If we interpret the story of Robert Johnson through the lens of African religious folklore, then the dark figure Johnson meets is not a vile and despicable spirit, but rather a friend. In fact, folklorists have theorized that Johnson was a practitioner of voodoo, not Christianity, and this tells a very different scenario where Johnson did not visit the crossroads to sell his soul, but instead to ask his god for divine guidance and wisdom. The same outcome, however, might not translate to those who may have recreated his legendary actions with the wrong idea and intention. It may not be Papa Legba that they summon. Whatever Johnson did on that fateful night, he lived and died a legend and inspired countless musicians after him, the members of Led Zeppelin included. We know for a fact that at least two of the band's songs were directly influenced by and arguably taken from Robert Johnson, specifically the Lemon song and Trampled Underfoot, and in 1969, they covered his song Traveling Riverside Blues. Rock and roll music as we know it today emerged from the blues. Bands like the Rolling Stones were inspired by musicians such as Howling Wolf, Muddy Waters, and Robert Johnson. The Rolling Stones began playing blues music fused with rock and roll in England. The Stones would later cite Muddy Waters as their main source of inspiration. Waters' song Rolling Stone was where they got their name. Another artist who drew great inspiration from the blues was Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix claimed that Muddy Waters was the first guitarist he had ever heard, and that Waters' performance blew him away. His rock and roll attitude and onstage persona he borrowed from Chuck Berry. Hendrix's blues roots gave way to a successful, albeit tragically short, career as a psychedelic rocker until his sudden death at 27. Artists like The Beatles, Cream, The Yardbirds, and The New Yardbirds, which would later become Led Zeppelin, were also inspired by the blues. In 1998, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant even journeyed to the Mississippi Delta to pay tribute at the tombstones of dead bluesmen. The supernatural has been with the blues for as long as the blues have been the blues. References to the devil are made in countless blues albums and singles. It is no surprise then that impressionable young British men, inspired by the great bluesmen of their generation, would also become interested in the supernatural. The birthplace of the blues is commonly thought to be Mississippi. To this day, you'll find large African-American communities there who still hold their African roots close to their chests. It is from within these communities that we find the source of the supernatural elements of the blues. Many of the people there, while now largely Christian, were originally practitioners of voodoo, and much of their spirituality spilt over into the music that they wrote and produced. The supernatural influences on blues music fed into early rock and roll. As rock was becoming popular in England, there was a countercultural revolution taking place. The youth were growing out their hair, turning away from authority, and embracing freedom. Jimmy Page was one of these long-haired British teenagers, shunning societal norms. The occult, for many young people at that time, including Page, was a polar opposite to the traditional Christianity that pervaded all sectors of British society. While the blues profoundly influenced Page and his generation's interest in the occult, there, of course, were other sources of inspiration. Alistair Crowley is a controversial figure, to say the least. He's also incredibly misunderstood. Many claim Crowley was a Satanist, though that suggests little understanding of the occult. Crowley was a magician, but not a devil worshipper, at least in the conventional sense. However, Crowley's magic was far from the play magic of David Blaine. His interests were not in illusions, but in unlocking dimensions, conversing with angels, and summoning demons. Crowley was a former member of the Golden Dawn Society, a group founded by Samuel Little McGregor Mathers toward the turn of the 20th century. The Society was a secret one, akin to the Freemasons. The group claimed to have access to secret magical Egyptian knowledge. The Golden Dawn's intentions were not evil. In fact, the Society wanted humanity to rise to higher levels of consciousness and awareness. They wanted the world to wake up. One member of the Golden Dawn was famed Irish poet William Butler Yeats. Another was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, a medical doctor and author of Sherlock Holmes. Crowley was supposedly responsible for tearing the group apart through bitter infighting. Many of the Golden Dawn's leadership considered Crowley's form of magic to be self-centered and selfish, a sentiment he would later embrace with his After the Golden Dawn split, Crowley founded his own secret society, Ordo Templi Orientis, also known as OTO. The organization's religious headquarters was in Cefalu, Sicily. Crowley's life was spent in orgies and the consumption of copious amounts of drugs. Regardless, he never abandoned his commitment to esoteric magic and continued to mystify and allure his followers long after his death. In fact, he is said to have been the inspiration for L. Ron Hubbard's Scientology. Crowley was a well-cultured, educated, and clever man. He was also selfish, domineering, and cruel. It was his cruelty that, in the end, pushed people away from him. By the time of his death, Crowley had only a few followers. He died in a boarding house in Hastings, England. His last words, according to a friend, were, Sometimes, I hate myself. It was not Crowley's life that was particularly remarkable to the teenagers of the 1960s, with whom he became an icon, but rather his do-what-thou-wilt credo. Musicians, beatniks, and rebels began to live, according to this phrase. Ultimately, what Aleister Crowley and his teachings stood for was the rejection of society, self-gratification, and the pursuing of one's desires, however depraved and however abstract. It was this attitude that spurred the 60s countercultural revolution. Young people became emboldened, courageous, and were finally able to enjoy themselves through sex, drugs, and rock and roll. So the occult was fashionable, most certainly. But with all types of fashion, we find people who take them much more seriously than others. One such person was Jimmy Page, who came, in a way, to almost worship Crowley, going as far as to join his organization, OTO, where he has remained a member for nearly 50 years. Crowley's particular brand of magic was inspired by a spirit named Iwas, who he channeled through his wife while in Cairo. Thus, the magic he promoted was supposedly of the ancient Egyptians, which we can see from his religious texts and writings, as they are abound with references to a mystic, secret form of Egyptian magic. This too was something embraced by Jimmy Page. In the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, one of Page's stage outfits is displayed. On it, we see the Eye of Horus enveloped in a pyramid. What is, for one person, a passing breeze, is, for another, a tornado that consumes every part of them. For Jimmy Page, it appears that he was of the latter persuasion. Page's life has been shrouded in mystery. He is an elusive and intriguing figure, and undoubtedly one of the greatest rock stars to ever walk on this earth. A rock star unlike any other. Jimmy Page was born to James and Patricia Page in West London on the 9th of January, 1944. His father was a personnel manager at a plastic coating plant. His mother was a doctor's secretary. In 1952, Page's family moved to Epsom, Surrey, which is where Page first developed love for music. His first guitar was a Spanish one, and he found it mysteriously in a cupboard in his home, as if by magic. He would later say, I don't know whether the guitar was left behind by the people in the house before us, or whether it was a friend of the family's. Nobody seemed to know why it was there. Jimmy Page, to his credit, was largely self-taught. He attended very few guitar classes, and mastered the instrument on his own. In 1957, he appeared on BBC One with a guitar he had bought with his savings. His first electric guitar he bought secondhand. From an early age, Page was a fan of the blues, citing Elmore James, BB King, Otis Rush, Freddie King, and Muddy Waters as his inspirations. Page's interest in the occult also began young. As a schoolboy of 15, he read Alistair Crowley's Magic in Theory and Practice. After coming across the book, he would later be quoted as saying, yes, that's it, my thing, I've found it. By the mid-1960s, Page had become an accomplished session guitarist, and surrounded himself with groupies, hippies, and pot-smoking dropouts. The sex, drugs, and rock and roll, however, were not enough for the young Jimmy Page. After rising to fame in the Yardbirds, Jimmy founded a new quartet, Led Zeppelin. Zeppelin was quickly signed to Atlantic Records, and managed by Peter Grant, who previously managed Chuck Berry and the Animals. Within a year, the band had gathered a cult-like following among rock fans in the United Kingdom, Europe, and United States. Fans immediately began to notice Page's fascination with the occult. In the few interviews he gave, he made frequent reference to the occult and his study of it. He once told a journalist that, you cannot ignore evil if you study the supernatural as I do. I have many books on the subject, and I've also attended a number of seances. I want to go on studying it. And go on, he did. Page is thought to have asked his bandmates, Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones to perform a ritual with him that would cement Led Zeppelin's name in rock and roll history and set them up for life. The ritual, however, could not be spoken of. It would redefine their futures and that of Led Zeppelin. Among occultists, this type of magic is not taken lightly. It involves the conjuring of ancient spirits, the gods of men. These rituals, which would have been all too familiar to Aleister Crowley, should only be performed by experienced occultists and wizards, not half-stoned musicians, one practitioner would later claim. It is commonly thought that, out of the quartet, the only member to refuse to participate in the ritual was John Paul Jones. The trouble started for Led Zeppelin soon after their rise to popularity, coinciding with the alleged ritual. First, Robert Plant was nearly killed in a serious car accident. Then, just two weeks later, his Aston Martin fell on top of him and crushed him, breaking his ribs. Perhaps this was an omen of the greater harm that was still to come. Perhaps the half-stoned rockers of Led Zeppelin were not as great magicians as they thought they were. Almost immediately, Led Zeppelin's fanbase began to swell to become an indomitable and unforgettable rock force still adored by millions to this day. And as Led Zeppelin's fame grew, so too did Jimmy Page's wealth and freedom to practice the occult without restraint, financially or otherwise. Page purchased Boleskine House on the shores of Loch Ness. It was the former home of his idol, Aleister Crowley, and the supposed location of a ritual said to have torn the fabric of our universe and allowed evil unlike any other to enter into it. Crowley's mentor, Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers, had translated the medieval occultist grimoire, The Book of Sacred Magic of Aubermellon the Mage. His translation, albeit a poor one, was used by Crowley to perform a ritual to summon the Twelve Kings and Dukes of Hell. Now, Crowley seldom criticized himself, but even he admitted that his rituals at Boleskine House had gotten out of hand. After his housekeeper's ten-year-old daughter and one-year-old son died suddenly and inexplicably, Crowley abandoned the property. He would later claim that a former employee of Boleskine House turned by the evil he saw there and attempted to murder his entire family. To this day, locals claim that evil spirits walk the grounds of Boleskine House, and it's easy to see why they might. In 1965, the new owner of the property, an army major, took his own life with a shotgun. Friends of Jimmy Page and visitors to Boleskine House would claim that at dusk, as the sun disappeared, that the patio and gardens would become awash with shadows, phantoms, and specters, the residue of a century of ritual magic. Servants and maids came as quickly as they went, all agreeing that the home was pure evil. In 1992, after spending less than three months living there in his 22-year ownership, Jimmy Page sold Boleskine House, stating that bad vibes ran through it. In 2015, the most recent owners of Boleskine House returned from a trip to the grocery store and found the manor set ablaze. The property was empty at the time the fire started, and no explanation has ever been offered in its wake. The evil of Boleskine House did not begin with Aleister Crowley, however. The earliest mention of death on the property is from the 10th century. According to legend, a church once stood on the property's grounds, but, like Boleskine House, was set ablaze and burnt to the ground, trapping the entirety of its congregants inside. The cemetery, which sits at the foot of the hill Boleskine House stands on, has long been the site of cult rituals. A hidden tunnel linked the manor to the cemetery, supposedly to give the property owners quick access to the graveyard to prevent body snatching, which was, at the time, very common. But, returning to Jimmy Page, his obsession with Aleister Crowley was not limited to just buying his one-time home. Page bought an esoteric bookstore, which was a namesake of Crowley's journal, The Equinox. Around the corner, Page purchased the infamous Tower House, a building long associated with paranormal activity. One of his girlfriends, Pamela DeBar, claimed that Page had her travel to San Francisco and Los Angeles to search for Crowley's lost artifacts. There, she was able to locate a number of manuscripts, pieces of magical apparatus, and Crowley's ritual robes. Page, of course, had his own robes. He often arrived on stage wearing custom-made, one-off costumes. Possibly the most notorious of these was Page's infamous dragon suit, a black one-piece embroidered with his personal sigil, a full-length Chinese dragon, and astrological symbols. Experienced occult practitioners assert that Page's costume was, indeed, a magical robe used in on-stage rituals. Page's fascination with Crowley spilled over into Led Zeppelin's album covers and artwork, too. On Led Zeppelin III, carved into the vinyl with a stylus, we find the inscription, So Mode It Be, on one side and on the other, Do What Thou Wilt. Do What Thou Wilt is a core article of faith in Crowley's Thelemite belief system and powerful magical incantations. The infamous magician and friend of Page, William S. Burroughs, believes strongly in the power of electrical magic, the idea of harnessing electricity to perform occult rituals. So, a Thelemite magical incantation spinning on millions of turntables across the world at the same time would make for a good example of this. The other phrase, So Mode It Be, originated among the Freemasons. In English, it is customary to end a prayer with the word Amen, which is a Latin word meaning, So Be It. The word Mode, in English, is an archaic verb that means Might or May. So Mode It Be then means, So May It Be. In Freemasonry, every ceremony ends with these words, which is likely where Jimmy Page took it from. However, there is a more interesting theory. In the Arabic language, Mode or Al-Mode means Death. So Mode It Be could, in theory, mean, So Death It Be. When we consider Page's fascination with Eastern Esotericism and Ancient Egypt, the theory holds some weight. By Led Zeppelin 4, the occult symbolism became painstakingly obvious, as if Page no longer made any attempts at hiding it. On the inside of the album's cover was a painting of the Hermit, a tarot card symbol, and from left to right on the inner sleeve were four sigils, representing Page, Jones, Bonham, and Plant, respectively. Most of these sigils can be traced to Rudolf Koch's 1955 Book of Signs, a work featuring a collection of ancient magical and alchemical symbols from across the world. Robert Plant's sigil is said to be the Feather of Truth, a representation of the Egyptian goddess, Mayit. John Bonham's was the least occult-like, a simple drum kit. John Paul Jones' sigil was a Celtic symbol, co-opted by Christianity to represent the Trinity among the Britons. Page's personal sigil, an inscription that reads Zoso, is harder to pin down, however. Some say it originated in the famed black magic grimoire, Le Dragon Rouge, an arcane text which contains detailed instructions for making a pact with the devil. Page has publicly claimed that he will never tell anybody what the sigils mean, not least his own. This is interesting in and of itself, as occultists and chaos magicians ascertain that a powerful sigil must not be spoken of after the spell is cast, or the spell will backfire. Page purportedly once revealed the meaning of sigils in a quiet moment to an intoxicated Plant. Plant would later say, The band members themselves were not the only ones to receive their own personal sigils, however. Sandy Denny, a frequent collaborator, even got her own, perhaps to her detriment. Denny would, sadly, become one of the first victims of the alleged curse of Led Zeppelin. In 1976, she suffered a dramatic downward spiral of mental illness and began throwing herself off of flights of stairs. In 1978, Denny was found at the foot of a staircase in her home, having fallen into a coma from which she would never awake. The underground filmmaker, drug taker, and freak, Kenneth Anger, first met Jimmy Page at an auction for some of Aleister Crowley's collectibles. Page outbid Anger. The two became close shortly after, and Anger commissioned Page to compose a soundtrack for his latest project, Lucifer Rising. Fair warning to all of you watching, the film Lucifer Rising is believed by occultists to be a form of electric magic, similar to the vinyl etchings on Led Zeppelin 3 mentioned earlier. The entire film is likely a ritual in and of itself. In theory, by watching the film, you participate in the ritual and sacrifice your own energy. So for that reason, I won't show footage from the actual film here, only stills. Lucifer Rising had, at that point, already been a chaotic production. The film's seven-year development had already gone awry after its lead actor, Bobby Beausoleil, a member of the Manson family, had abruptly quit. Beausoleil stole rough cuts and cameras from the studio, and to take his revenge, Kenneth Anger constructed a magic talisman, on which one side there was a likeness of Beausoleil, and on the other, a toad. Beausoleil would end up in prison for life within a year of the curse. Jimmy Page happily agreed to perform the soundtrack for Lucifer Rising. Time would tell, however, that Anger could not work with Page, as he found the rock star's drug addictions impossible to accommodate. After multiple delays, Page only delivered 20 minutes of music out of the 40 that Anger had paid for. Anger was infuriated, and equally, Page became annoyed with Anger's demands to complete the job. The project degenerated, Page pulled out, and he evicted Anger from Boleskine House, where he had allowed the filmmaker to live rent-free. In response, Anger flamed in the media, and publicly placed a curse on Jimmy Page and his band. This curse, many claim, marked the beginning of the end for Led Zeppelin. While Led Zeppelin had already experienced its fair share of tragedy, the real problems only began after Anger's supposed curse. Mere months later, Robert Plant was nearly killed in a second, albeit more serious, car crash, where he drove off of a cliff in Greece. The accident nearly claimed his life, and that of his wife and his child. Plant was wheelchair-bound for several performances afterwards. Then, as soon as he recovered and prepared to tour, he was struck with serious laryngitis, leaving him unable to sing. Plant's laryngitis caused the band to cancel the tour that was set to be Led Zeppelin's biggest tour ever, with tickets selling out at a rate of $72,000 per day. This shocking cancellation was the catalyst for a riot in Cincinnati, where disgruntled and scorned fans stormed the planned venue. Oddly, the scene of the Cincinnati riot would later become the scene of 11 deaths after the Who's notorious trampling incident, just two years later. When the tour eventually kicked off an entire month late, there were major problems backstage. A promoter staff assaulted the band manager Peter Grant's 11-year-old son for taking a dressing room sign. John Bonham saw this and kicked the man away from the child. Later, he informed Grant and two of the band's road crew of what happened, and they attacked the man in retaliation. All four of them were arrested on serious assault. In fact, they nearly found themselves sentenced to prison. Only a short while after, Robert Plant received a phone call from his wife informing him that their five-year-old son, Karic, had suddenly fallen ill. Two hours later, she called back. Karic had died, and the band immediately canceled the remainder of the tour. This absolute tragedy spiraled Plant and the rest of the band into their darkest days. Plant withdrew from the public eye completely and returned to his family and farm in the West Midlands of England. While all of these events were taking place, Jimmy Page was battling an intense heroin and cocaine addiction that saw him comatose from drugs on an almost daily basis. Meanwhile, John Bonham was becoming a volatile alcoholic and grew more unpredictable by the day. The events surrounding Bonham would unfortunately prove to be the undoing of Led Zeppelin. In 1980, after a day of extremely heavy drinking, he was sent home from a band rehearsal to Page's Windsor home. A friend tucked him into bed, assuming that he would sleep it off. He died in his sleep. After Bonham died, Led Zeppelin was over. They released a statement. We want it to be known that the loss of our dear friend and the deep respect we have for his family, together with the feeling of undivided harmony that we and our manager feel, have led us to decide that we can't continue as we were. Rather than replace their drummer and their friend, Led Zeppelin chose to disband and would never release new music again. The curse of Led Zeppelin is tragic, though no less compelling than the many mysteries that shroud the history of rock and roll. One aspect of the curse that critics often pick up on is that Jimmy Page, the alleged figurehead of the ritual and the person who was a recipient of Anger's supposed curse, escaped relatively unharmed. A counter to that, and one that is often overlooked, is that Page, though alive and well, has not been able to write a popular song or achieve commercial success in nearly 40 years. It's almost as if the magic just one day stopped. What do you make of the events surrounding Led Zeppelin? Do you believe Jimmy Page made a pact with the devil? Or did Kenneth Anger seal their fate? Leave your speculations in the comments below. Anger once said on the subject of the curse that They had so many servants, yet they would never offer me a cup of tea or a sandwich, which is such a mistake on their part because I put the curse of King Midas on them. If you're greedy and just amass gold, you'll get an illness. So I did turn her and Jimmy Page into statues of gold because they've both lost their minds. He can't write songs anymore. I'm Mr. Mythos. Thank you for watching.