Director Jacqueline Castel is working on A Message from the Temple, the first feature-length documentary about Thee Temple Ov Psychick Youth (TOPY), a fellowship started by experimental music and video art group Psychic TV, known for their innovative use of video and involvement in ritual ceremony—seen here in Moonchild, a film directed by frontman and industrial music pioneer Genesis P-Orridge. Here, Los Angeles-based Castel talks about the project:

"Moonchild is a long lost gem in the canon of esoteric cinema. The title references a 1923 novel by Aleister Crowley, and Genesis originally stated of the film, 'Moonchild is a spell, to create a new person or a new stage in people, through compassion and through thought, and it's a construct, just like a spell is.'" 

The film stars Genesis’s wife at the time, Paula P-Orridge, and is dedicated to their first-born child, Caresse. It also features John Gosling of Zos Kia and Psychic TV. 

"Moonchild was originally broadcast in 1984 on Spanish television show La Edad De Oro, alongside interviews with Genesis P-Orridge, filmmaker Derek Jarman, and musician and conceptual artist Jordi Valls, and performances by Psychic TV and Vagina Dentata Organ, which caused a forced shutdown of the network by the government at gunpoint. 

"The Spanish titles and voiceover, which have never before been translated into English, feature text from Thee Grey Book, the original TOPY manifesto. I sourced this copy of the film from the Genesis Breyer P-Orridge archives at the Tate Britain, where our team has been working to transfer and preserve TOPY and Psychic TV artefacts off of hundreds of video cassettes and film reels, along with original photographs, art, publications, and audio for our documentary, A Message from the Temple, which we are currently raising funds for on Kickstarter. 

"The project was born of the desire to preserve the legacy of Thee Temple, an international anti-cult, in its quest for individual liberation via radical experimentation." 

Learn more about A Message from the Temple on the project's Kickstarter campaign here.