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| Witches today can't hold a candle to the ones of the past. |
NOTE: This article continues my coverage of Ed Wood's When the Topic is Sex (BearManor Media, 2021).
The article: "Witchcraft in America Today." Originally published in Lesbo Lassies (Calga Publishing), vol. 3, no. 2, April/May 1971.
Excerpt: "It can be seen from these Hippie witches that witchcraft is anything but dead in this country and has over recent years been undergoing quite a revival. Many of the modern-day witches, involved as they are in terrorist actions, would like to see nothing better than authority overthrown and destroyed."
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| A 1969 album by the band Coven. |
Reflections: America's young people were definitely trying to find their own way in the late 1960s and early 1970s, rejecting the values of their square, uptight parents—whose actions had led to the Vietnam War, polluted cities, racial segregation, and the Nixon presidency—and trying to form a groovy new culture to call their own. There were many avenues for them to explore, including music, drugs, sex, fashion, hairstyles, art, and politics. Hippies famously got into all of those things, often combining them.
But what of religion? Some youngsters aligned themselves with the evangelical "Jesus movement," anointing Christ as the ultimate hippie. The Son of Man was, after all, known for having long hair and a beard, wearing sandals, promoting peace, and rejecting capitalism. Others, however, weren't down with the J-man. They went in the exact opposite direction, embracing Satanism and witchcraft. I'm not sure how seriously they took it. The rock band Coven seemed fairly sincere in their beliefs, but Victor Luminera's film Psyched by the 4-D Witch (A Tale of Demonology) (1973) makes the whole "hippie witch" phenomenon look like a joke or a gimmick.
"Witchcraft in America Today" is Ed Wood's attempt to make some sense of the fad and explain it to others in his own demographic, i.e. horny middle-aged men who just want to know what kinky things the youngsters are doing these days. This is one of the articles in When the Topic is Sex for which Ed did no research. Not a single book or author is cited, though there is a fleeting reference to the then-recent Charles Manson trial. Ed feels, however, that it is important to make some distinctions when talking about this subculture: "While the Satanists use sex and drug to pervert and deprave, the Hippie witches use the same tools simply because they enjoy them and feel that they are the natural thing to do."
Ed's arguments are all over the place. At first, he suggests that the witchcraft revival comes from "the largely Negro areas of the big cities," but then he switches tactics and focuses on "hippie witches," who tend to be young, attractive, white females. Eddie suggests that a typical hippie witch will be "thrown into such fields as political and social reform" and is frequently seen "at the student demonstrations, using her skills to bring others over to her way of thinking." He even mentions a political organization called W.I.T.C.H., whose acronym stands for Women's International Terrorist Corps from Hell. I thought this was purely a product of Eddie's imagination, but there is evidence that W.I.T.C.H. was a real organization and staged protests against abortion laws "using street and guerilla theater."
Surprisingly, considering this article was written for a magazine called Lesbo Lassies, Ed downplays the sex angle in "Witchcraft in America Today." He doesn't ignore it, though. He simply states that modern hippie witches feel that sex is "a natural part of life" and therefore practice it without restrictions, guilt, or hangups. In this way, witchcraft may offer a refreshing alternative to Christianity. As Ed explains:
Certainly the evil interpretation of Satan has only come about as a result of Christianity and its doctrines. Because to the church, sex was a cardinal sin, therefore the sexual practices of the witches seemed like a monstrous blasphemy against God. In fact, the sex orgies that the church so condemned were basically nothing more or less than fertility rites, a joyous thanksgiving to nature for the gift of life and fertility.
If that doesn't sell you on witchcraft as a lifestyle, nothing will.
Next: "Origins of a Fur Fetishist" (1971)