“Welcome to the world of witchcraft, to the world of magic. Magic — the very world is magic.”

So begins this great collection of stories and lectures on witchcraft and the occult by suave cinema spook Vincent Price. The actor’s LP recording Witchcraft-Magic: An Adventure in Demonology was released in 1969 and its track list is to die for:

1. Prologue – The Tale of Master Seth
2. Hitler and Witchcraft – Witchcraft in History
3. Women as Witches – Witch Burning
4. Witch Tortures
5. Witch Tortures (continued) – The World of Spirits and Demons
6. Preparation for Magic – Instruments of Magic
7. How to Invoke Spirits, Demons, Unseen Forces – The Magic Bloodstone
8. The Witches’ Cauldron – How to Communicate with the Spirits
9. How to Communicate with the Spirits (continued) – Gerald Yorke and Necromancy
10. How to Make a Pact with the Devil – How to Become a Witch
11. Curses, Spells, Charms
12. Curses, Spells, Charms (continued) – Potions
13. The Hand of Glory – The Witches’ Sabbat
14. Witchcraft Today – Epilogue

Here’s the word from the Record Fiend…

Even though it isn’t a Halloween record per se, this two-LP set – billed as “The Secrets of Witchcraft & Magic Revealed by Vincent Price, Distinguished Actor & Demonologist” – is probably creepier than anything else that was marketed as a horror album. If you have nosy, ignorant neighbors, you might want to keep the volume down when playing this lest they think you’re preparing for a Satanic sacrifice or some other supernatural activity. Obviously, the producer of this project, Roger Karshner, could not have selected a more suitable narrator than Vincent Price, whose oratory skills and knowledge of the occult made him a perfect choice. In addition to his articulate Transatlantic-accented commentary, this album employs Douglas Leedy’s primitive synthesizer work to create sounds such as bubbling cauldrons, howling winds, and other atmospheric effects. (There are sections wherein he creates sounds very similar to David Gilmour’s electric guitar “seagull” effects featured in Pink Floyd’s “Echoes.”) In between certain passages there are chanting witches (a la Macbeth) with treated vocals, and throughout this audio adventure, the listener can hear Price’s voice move from speaker to speaker, giving it a slight psychedelic flavor. This was recorded in the late 1960s, after all. According to one source, Price read the entire 122-page text on which this album is based in a single five-hour recording session. The best sections were apparently culled from these tapes to create what you are about to hear.

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Nowadays, when we think of witches we imagine Halloween cartoons with warts on the ends of their big noses or maybe we even have a friend who celebrates the Spring equinox instead of attending Easter mass. 400 years ago the country of Norway killed 91 people found guilty of witchcraft during a century-long purge. The victims were all burned or tortured to death. This week, Norway unveiled a new sculpture to mark the tragedy and to apologize to those who lost their lives. Here’s the word from The Daily Beast…

Right off the crashing waves of the Barents Sea is the remote town of Vardø, known as the “witch capital of Norway.”

Four hundred years ago, Vardø embarked on a crusade to rid itself of witchcraft. For more than a century—between 1593 and 1692—there were more than 140 witch trials in the small village.

At least 91 people, both men and women, were found guilty of sorcery and burned at the stake or tortured to death.

The number may not be as large as elsewhere in Europe, but in northern Norway’s sparsely populated landscape it touched a disproportionately large chunk of the population.

About a third of these trials were specifically targeting Norway’s indigenous Sami population who arose suspicion by practicing traditional healing rituals.

The killings came in spates—one in the 1620s and another in the early 1660s, when 20 of the 30 people were put on trial were killed.

The proceedings were meticulously recorded, giving modern historians insight into the accusations and reasonings that fueled the witch hunt.

“There was an idea in Europe that in the north people might be more inclined to witchcraft and evilness than other places.”
Testimony from the time revealed that witchcraft was believed to be something one consumed—it came in the form of magically tainted milk, bread, or beer.

According to an article by historian Rune Blix Hagen at the Arctic University of Norway, the sudden spate of sorcery accusations came after a particularly brutal Christmas storm that killed 40 fishermen in the early 1600s.

It took three years for legislation that allowed mass prosecution on suspicion of witchcraft, but with that go-ahead, Vardø prosecuted with fervor.

When a woman arrived in the court and described how witches had tied knots and cast spells that caused the wrecks she was swiftly tossed to sea. When she floated, she was dubbed a witch and killed.

That year, in 1621, many more women followed in her ghostly wake after being accused and found guilty of sorcery. Many were burned at the stake, others were tortured to death.

The geographical remoteness may have had been related to the vengeance with which witches were persecuted in northern Norway.

Of course, we no longer fear witchcraft because we all know there’s no such thing as magic, right? But, if these rites and rituals are strictly for show, why have they endured for centuries and continued to be handed down through the ages even at penalty of death?

Here’s a creepy, cool BBC documentary from 1979, looking into the “Power of the Witch…”

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While the date varies depending on the source, sometime within the last 48 hours, way back in 1647, the first American woman was executed in Salem, Massachusetts for being a witch. Achsah Young was hanged for using her knowledge of natural herbs to cure her neighbors of their ills. In 1692, 24 alleged witches were executed in New England, but Young and 11 others were killed in the nearly 50 years that lead up to the full-force-frenzy of the Salem witch frenzy.

Religion, superstition, folk magic, psychedelic wheat fungus, racism, the imaginations of children, the paranoia of adults, post-traumatic stress and litigiousness all may have played a role in this madness. Fears about women and their powerless positions in the American colonies definitely did.

With the revelations about Elliot Rodger’s sorority-focused massacre in Southern California coming to light at this same time, some might see coincidence at work or even a meaningful synchronicity at play or even a conspiracy. But I see something deeper and darker — it can be found in the very heart of America’s origins and in the manner in which our culture’s projected fears and anxieties often cast a spotlight on women as scapegoats for perceived ills and wrong-doing. This most recent tragedy is, sadly, nothing new.

This History Channel video must have been made before that channel went to shit. This account of the later horrors of the witch frenzy is full of actual public testimony from the time. The story is confused and panicked and shot through with secret hates and fears, vendettas and the force of privelege. It’s also all too familiar…

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