I was born in England to a family of academics. My father a mathematical genius, and my mother a mainframe computer programmer. We fled Thatcherism when I was young, travelling half way around the world to New Zealand. My family held no public religious beliefs, but my mother did believe strongly in the occult.

The community I grew up in did not accept outsiders, and I was shunned from a very early age. I was labelled a 'Pommy bastard', and frequently got into fights. After trying in vain to make friends, I retreated into myself, and found solace in books.

By the time I reached my teenage years I had become a very distant outsider. I had one friend who I relied on for all human interaction, though I doubt I offered very much in return. As with all children in New Zealand, I transitioned from school into college, following my friend to the college his parents chose for him.

My teenage years almost destroyed me. I immediately lost my friend, as he was placed in a class above me, and was therefore unreachable. I was then badly abused at school by a group of older children who wanted to teach me what being an outcast really meant. I started drinking heavily at an early age, often during the lunch hour at school, another outcast who I sometimes spent time with having an older brother who thought it amusing to fill his drink bottle with assorted spirits. We would get drunk and then slowly sober up in class, the teachers not really being all that concerned it seemed, as they had too many other teenage hooligans to deal with anyway.

I often attempted to kill myself, but never managed to follow through with it. I couldn't pluck up the courage to slash my wrists, and I could never get enough pills to be guaranteed of death. It was about then that I took a serious interest in the occult, deciding that I would either die in the pursuit of power, or obtain great knowledge and use it to destroy my enemies.

When I first began my pursuit there was no internet, or at least nothing like that we have today. The pursuit of occult knowledge involved trawling through musty old books in second hand bookshops, talking to older occultists, or doing endless hours of research in libraries. I would then use the information I had gained to practice what I had learnt, throwing everything I had at it, not caring if I lived or died.

This got me through my teenage years, through being repeatedly beaten up and abused, through all the nightmares made real. I channeled all my hatred and anger into magick, and used the knowledge I gained like a form of armour against the ignorance of others.

I couldn't shake the desire to completely destroy myself however, and progressed from alcohol into other drugs. By the time I left college I was addicted to many substances, the other outcasts seeming to be able to supply me with what I needed.

After college I attended university, and also learnt how to teach, doing two degrees at the same time. At university I studied English language and literature, and learnt how to read extremely quickly. At Teachers College I studied art and Maori studies, and basically lived on the Marae. During this time my magickal studies took new directions as I found new channels for my hatred, developing elaborate sculptures that scared people. I decided that I needed to start having more sex, so I started fucking prostitutes, going through at least two a week for seven years. Money wasn't an issue - I was extremely poor and deeply in debt, but I found ways to pay for sex and drugs.

After university I took a job teaching, but couldn't keep myself together to the degree necessary, often turning up to work so drunk and stoned that I would leave at the end of the day with no memory of what I had done. After teaching I fell into a string of meaningless jobs, their sole purpose being to fund my studies into the occult, and to keep me supplied with hookers, drugs, and alcohol. I got a girlfriend, and proceeded to ruin her life also, until she left.

Eventually, the friends I surrounded myself with, junkies and human trash, started to die from overdoses. I was visited by the demon Asmodeus and told that I was about to die, and had a choice to make. I could either take what fate had in store for me and be found dead, curled up next to the toilet in a pool of my own vomit, or I could stop throwing my life away and be born anew.

I quit drugs cold turkey. I left all my friends behind and never looked back. I found new ways of applying magic, ways that benefited me and brought positive change to my life. I found a job that used the skills I had, finding I had a natural aptitude for helping others, as I had no ego and didn't really like myself that much, so could take a lot of shit from other people without reacting.

Eventually I got married - this was a very big mistake. I jumped for the first girl who agreed to my advances, even though we had absolutely nothing in common. We had two kids. After putting up with seven years of abuse, arguments, and falling right back into drugs once more, we got divorced. I managed to quit drugs yet again, and decided to seek professional help to sort my life out.

I was diagnosed severely mentally ill and put on quite a few different anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. This turned me into a zombie, but allowed me to get up, go to work, go home, and go to sleep again. Once again I was visited by Asmodeus, who told me that I had it within me to overcome mental illness, but that I would always battle depression. He said that I had to trust in my magickal knowledge, and that this would allow me to function better than the psychotropic drugs I was taking.

So I did. And I stopped taking all the pills. And I beat a mental illness that you cannot beat. Yes, I still hear voices and hallucinate pretty much all the time, but I have learnt to use that in my magickal practices.

And here I am.