WITCHES U.S.A. by Susan Roberts

Witchcraft '71! Author Susan Roberts covers big names in the midcentury American witchcraft scene like Joseph Wilson, the Air Force man who publishes a quarterly zine called The Waxing Moon, and Bill and Phyllis Janney, heads of a Cincinnati coven. There's another Bill on the scene, last name Saffin, and together he and Janney are "the two Bills." Get ready to meet a lot of Bills and Eds and Jennies who all swish about mysteriously over coffee and casseroles and cocktail parties while dropping cryptic hints about the divine thread and the caves of the unknown.

Roberts' perspective emerges early as she claims that a witch named Joe told her to write this book the day before her agent calls with the same suggestion ... spooky, right? 

Joseph Wilson's zine

As far as gossipy guides to midcentury magic go, Roberts' work here pales in comparison to Today's Witches (1970) by Susy Smith. There's way too much self satisfied preening by random witchy ding dongs and too much filler from Roberts about how kind, beautiful, intelligent, and wonderful your neighborhood witches are. Watch out, though, because Roberts also warns us that witches can zap us if we cross them! This is a dopey section where Roberts claims on the one hand that dedicated witches won't use their powers to harm people, but on the other hand, the universe might hit us with karma if we cross them! How convenient!

The most interesting chapter concerns the law firm of Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie and Alexander - yeah, that Nixon!

Yet the law firm in which President Nixon served as senior partner until his inauguration on January 20, 1969 — Nixon, Mudge, Rose, Guthrie and Alexander — apparently agreed with the views of Bill and Joe when they filed a petition at 4:47 p.m. on June 7, 1968, before the National Labor Relations Board. They requested that the Board set aside the victory of the International Association of Machinists in an election held on May 31, 1968. The employer the Nixon firm represented was the General Cigar de Utaudo of Puerto Rico.

The attorney’s charge? Witchcraft. Their client, they claimed, was hexed.

The National Labor Relations Board puts the kibosh on things, but Roberts goes over the 13 page white paper on historical witchery the firm filed to support their claim. This overview, covering grimoires and folk traditions, makes up a good chunk of Robert's historical treatment of witchcraft, and elsewhere her background on the craft also repeats the basic witch-cult hypothesis that a lot of vintage witch books took as read. Beside the high point of the Nixon chapter, the real meaty bits here are the profiles of real, random witches across America, who despite all their protestations come across as your average atomized suburbanites, searching for deeper meaning just like the rest of us.

Roberts ends with a ritual of self-blessing to "bring the individual into closer contact with the Godhead."

Above, a 1974 edition from Phoenix House. Susan Roberts also wrote The Yogi Cookbook (1968) with Yogi Vithaldas and The Magician of the Golden Dawn (1978), about Aleister Crowley. Roberts briefly covers Crowley in Witches U.S.A. too, along with the de rigueur chapter on Anton LaVey. 

Bill Janney died in a car accident before publication, but Roberts (tastefully) doesn't ask if this could be another case of karmic zappage. Witches U.S.A. is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Dell Publishing, 1971

WRITE YOUR OWN HOROSCOPE by Joseph F. Goodavage

Celebrity astrologer Joseph F. Goodavage returns to the blog to show us how to WRITE YOUR OWN HOROSCOPE! Goodavage was last seen writing some exceptionally stupid piffle around JFK's assassination in a chapter of Strange, Stranger, Strangest, and he doesn't disappoint here with more dumbass pontificating on the stars, society, and man's journey through the universe. Like the Creationists popping up on the scene around the same time, Goodavage takes issue with materialistic scientists and their billion year spree through evolutionary theory - after all, Goodavage tell us, the scientists claim that every organism on earth has the same genetic code, and how can that be possible? He's either clumsily misunderstood basic science writing or he's just grandstanding for his alternative audience. Another good bit has Goodavage asking us how so many cultures around the world could develop the "same" science of astrology if it's all a load of bull ... this ignores that the Chinese, Mayan, Egyptian, and European (and on and on) versions of astrology are all very different from each other, which is something Goodavage acknowledges elsewhere in the text! You're killing me, Joe! Apparently none of this fast and loose foolishness was a deal breaker for fellow superstar astrologer Sydney Omarr, who blurbs the book as a challenge to the open-minded.

As in his Strangest chapter, much opprobrium is heaped onto unnamed astrologers for giving the field a bad name with their poor work, as if Goodavage isn't guilty of all that and more. Noted fringe figure Richard Hoagland makes an early appearance, before his NASA coverup career - here he's just a concerned astronomer, saying we'd better find someone out there to talk to, and fast! In keeping with Goodavage's basically positive visions in the book, there's a brief bright spot (amidst a field usually littered with Cold War paranoia) where he reminds us that though America may see itself as a shining beacon of progress, the Communist Bloc thinks the same about themselves, and many worldwide agree. Regardless, Goodavage writes, all this "progress" is enforced at the barrel of a gun! That's part of his point about historical cycles and the relativism of our supposed "fact based" systems for navigating this crazy mixed up world. Of course, he just happens to think that he's got it all figured out himself ...

Goodavage, captivated by the unknown

To grant Goodavage some more credit, the actual how-to work on doing your own star chart is very involved, and it would take someone well-versed in the field to determine if he's bullshitting, giving bad advice, or just copy and pasting basic instructions - that ain't me! Apologies if that's a letdown after all this kvetching. All I can say is, the attendant fluff is simultaneously entertaining and aggravating. Joseph F. Goodavage, I shake my fist at you on the posthumous astral plane!

Goodavage's daughter Maria is also an author, albeit on more down-to-earth subjects.

Write Your Own Horoscope is available to read and download at archive dot org.

Signet Books, 1975 (original pub. 1968)

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ANCIENT AND FORBIDDEN KNOWLEDGE by Zolar

Here's a hefty tome that promises the COMPLETE guide to the occult, from Zolar ... of course! It's a mite more impressive than previous guides we've looked at, with Zolar offering a crash course in everything from crystal gazing to the Kabbalah. The handy table of contents gives the full rundown of what to expect.

As a neophyte to these occult practices, I'm practically bowled over by the density of text. Fortunately some quick googling reveals part of Zolar's secret - plagiarism! Over at the blog Learning Curve on the Ecliptic, commenter Stella had this to say:

As a teenager, I had Bruce King's (aka Zolar's) "The Encyclopedia of Ancient and Forbidden Knowledge" - one of those catch-all books with chapters on astrology, numerology, Tarot, etc.

Being young, I was very impressed with it. A friend and I even referred to it as "The Book", lol.

In later years, however, more books became available via the net. I can see now, for instance, that Zolar's crystal gazing chapter was cobbled together from bits of "A Course of Advanced Lessons in Clairvoyance and Occult Powers" by the wonderful C. Alexander (under the pseudonym "Swami Panchadasi", lol) John Melville's "Crystal Gazing and the Wonders of Clairvoyance". Entire passages are lifted almost word-for-word from both books.

It's possible that King was under pressure from the publisher to write an "occult encyclopedia", and his astrology writings may be his own, since that was his area of expertise. But I wouldn't be surprised to see them someplace else, in older books.

Stella has her own blog on card reading and fortune telling called Fate Keeps on Happening, which I recommend for her strong, eclectic perspective. You never know what you might miss if not for someone else's experience! I'll continue to dive into Zolar's encyclopedia and post excerpts as relevant in future. In the mean time, don't take any wooden nickels or xeroxed horoscopes!

Available to read and download at archive dot org.

Popular Library, 1970

THE TAROT by Brad Steiger and Ron Warmoth

Here's another Steiger volume that looks like it washed up on the shores of time, a little worse for wear but still ready to teach us THE ANCIENT ART OF THE TAROT! Steiger's teamed up with tarot futurecaster (and dowser!) Ron Warmoth, a colorful character who seems to have enjoyed B-tier celebrity on the psychic scene. Brad opens with a real wacked out scene of Warmoth giving a tarot reading to a small time hood in a hippie bar who turns out to be Jack "Murf the Surf" Murphy, another minor celebrity of the time who committed the "Jewel Heist of the Century" and held up Eva Gabor for her gems before going down for murder after a nasty Florida crime spree. Warmoth sees all of this in the cards and tries to warn Jack off his path but nothing doing. Later on Warmoth says he would do anything to save a human life, but I gotta say he doesn't seem to have tried too hard with Jack! His other psychic skills include "correctly interpreting personalities of men and women he's just met" so maybe Ron wasn't one to aim too high with his gifts.

After some flashy stories with Warmoth, we move into the meat and potatoes of tarot, and here again is more of the same you'd get in any similar guide of the time. The card art is uncredited but gets the job done. Perhaps someone well versed in tarot would recognize their provenance; I admit that's not my bag. Steiger does a neat job tying everything together, making this book a prime example of his talent at writing these cheap occult books. Just get a minor "name" to coauthor, throw in a little occult history on some specific subject, some psychic readings maybe, wrap it up in under 200 pages and bon appetit!

Award Books, 1969

THE SENSE AND NONSENSE OF PROPHECY by Eileen J. Garrett

An eminently readable guide to spiritualists, mediums, fortune tellers, and other purveyors of would-be prophecy! Garrett was a titan of the field herself, an interesting woman who "attributed her mediumship not to spirits but to the activity of a 'magnetic field'" or some other scientifically measurable influence. Chapter Three is an especially enjoyable rundown on psychic fakery featuring a composite "Madame Zola" with whom Garrett skillfully (and not without sympathy) illustrates both the mechanical aspects of fortune telling as well as the often ignored mental/emotional state of the fortune tellers, who often believe in their own "gifts" even as they deliberately defraud their marks. Garrett's writing is warm without being sappy or credulous, with following chapters delivering the same scoop on crystal balls, tarot, palmistry, and so on.

It's worth noting that Garrett was always researching and developing her theories on ESP and mediumship and evolved her positions over time:

Garrett wrote "In all my years' professional mediumship I have had no "sign", "test" or slightest evidence to make me believe I have contacted another world." She considered that her trance controls were personalities from her subconscious and admitted to the parapsychologist Peter Underwood, "I do not believe in individual survival after death".

Almost a decade after her death John G. Fuller wrote a book on her supposed contact with deceased airman Herbert Carmichael Irwin back in 1930. Despite statements against an afterlife (such as quoted above) this story seems to be her most lasting influence some 50 years after her passing, which does little justice to her complex personality.

The Sense and Nonsense of Prophecy is available to read and download at archive dot org.

A Berkeley Medallion Book, 1968 (original pub. 1950)