Note to Readers: Reviewing my recent posts from Utah and Idaho, I discovered a number of typos (now corrected), due to writing on a laptop instead of a desktop monitor. My apologies because… I hate typos! Hence, I must rethink the wisdom of posting in real-time from the road.
Salem, Massachusetts celebrates Halloween the whole month of October.
So let’s commence the festivities of All Hallows’ Eve with this account of my road trip 11 years ago to the witchcraft capital of the USA.
When I tell my primary care physician, a born again Christian, where I’m headed, he says he’ll pray for me. But he wasn’t praying hard enough because when my artist friend and I appear at LAX for our flight to Washington, D.C. they can’t find us anywhere in their computer system.
The good news: They have two seats left.
The bad: Not first class seats (as originally discounted to us) but dreaded economy.
Our first lesson: We are not in charge.
Result: We arrive in DC rumpled and stiff.
“What will you be doing in Washington?” asks the car rental lady at Reagan-National, either coopted by Homeland Security or just being nosy.
“Causing mischief,” I say.
She takes one look at the artist with his wooden boxes and says, “Wow, you really mean it.”
As if to supplement our stance and remind us the devil lurks near, she provides a bright red beast on wheels. “They know we’re coming.” The artist nods knowingly. “And they have a sense of humor.
An hour later we are staring up the 75 concrete steps in Georgetown made famous by The Exorcist, arguably the scariest movie ever made.
Edgar Allan Poe
Our first stop after hitting the road north to Salem is Baltimore, where Edgar Allan Poe’s bones lay interred for all eternity.
Fayette Street mysteriously morphs to Lafayette Street on a navigating iPad so we accidentally (if anything is accidental this trip) land in the downtrodden neighborhood of Druid Hill—dilapidation, seedy markets, corner saloons—until reeled in by Westminster Hall a few miles south.
Poe initially does not want to join us, seems perfectly happy dead, but I plead with his soul to engage our slog to Salem, and his spirit rallies, albeit with one condition: We have a beer at the bar where he drank his last drink.
Easy. We were going to do that anyway.
It was in 1849, outside The Horse You Came in On Saloon near the historical waterfront, that the “Tomahawk Man” was found incoherent, delirious and “in need of immediate assistance,” according to the man who found him. Poe died in hospital four days later at five o’clock in the morning after saying these last words: “Lord help my poor soul.” His cause of death has never been determined and to this day remains a mystery. (Poe was known as the “Tomahawk Man” because of those he scalped with his scathing pen.)
At a CD shop I try to find Poe’s favorite tune, Come Rest in this Bosom, for the drive north, but cannot, so the master of morbidity is disconcerted and wondering why he conjoined with a pair of creatives, autumn leaves deepening in hue as we traverse Connecticut until reaching Massachusetts, where foliage turns to death and dying (brightening Poe’s spirit somewhat).
An exit ramp dumps us into the outskirts of spooky Salem, where traffic thickens to a near standstill, moving at a snail’s pace before the culprit of such gridlock is revealed: A nightmare parade of witches and ghouls.
Our hotel provides a two-bedroom suite, drab and grim, reflecting what transpired here over three centuries ago when two girls convinced their town’s burghers that evil witches had infiltrated their pious community.
“Ley Line”
We soon find ourselves at the graveyard where Salem’s earliest settlers lay buried. It is Disneyesque, cannot possibly be real, with hordes of tourists traipsing over graves. But this cemetery is the real deal, meaning that perpetrators of the witch trials do not rest in peace but are trampled daily—a poetic punishment for their sins.
Onward to Essex Street, historic Salem’s main drag, a very haunted “Ley Line” (according to local lore), on this day inhabited by several drag queens and macabre mimes entertaining thousands of spirited day-trippers.
Add witchy street vendors and souvenir shops chock-a-block with replica occult objects: broomsticks and capes and magic wands galore.
We are not here to shop for just anything. Only talismans and amulets possessing real power.
Hex and Omen—classic witchcraft shops, owned by genuine modern witches—do not accommodate. Older things of quality, one-offs, can be scavenged only in vintage and antique shops.
We are on the prowl, specifically, for Witch Spoons crafted in sterling silver by an 1800s jeweler named David Low. The story goes that on a trip to Germany, Low discovered local merchants selling souvenir spoons to tourists hungry for a memento. Taken by this idea, he returned home and designed his own spoon featuring a witch on a broomstick with the word Salem.
“Got any?” I ask the lone clerk in a lonely antique gallery.
She strolls to a glass display case and reaches into a mug containing several silver spoons. A quick inspection confirms D. Low stamped in tiny letters.
Negotiating aisles, I spy a small brass owl with sparkling green eyes, a century-old match case that hoots at me. But I don’t buy it. Not yet anyway. I like to think about possible purchases, let such amulets nag at me for assessing the attraction between us. I need to feel what I cannot do without.
As sunset fades to dusk then darkness, the artist wedges a stick of burning Nag Champa incense into his Akubra; I arm myself with a silver Celtic cross weighing 21 grams, the precise weight of the human soul.
A not-quite-full Hunter’s Moon casts shadows on Essex Street…
…where shop windows are now eerily illuminated in orange featuring sexy witch-wear: bright red gowns, corsets and laced black boots.
Soon thereafter we come upon a larger-than-life statue of Roger Conant, the Puritan from Plymouth who first settled Salem in 1625.
Conant looks like a warlock but in fact was already dead before witchcraft hysteria seized Salem in 1692, when two young girls convulsed, hallucinated and blamed their sickness on local witches. Some say Betty and Abigail were traumatized to psychosis by their nanny, Tituba, a slave from Barbados who toyed with their minds through séance, magic and other occultist exercises deriving from voodoo.
Others subscribe to an organic explanation, citing St. Anthony’s Fire or ergotism, a consequence of ingesting rye bread contaminated by a fungus called ergotamine, from which LSD is synthesized. It causes hallucination and convulsions and can lead to psychosis and delusion.
By the time the witch hunt ended, 19 accused and convicted “witches” were hanged based on “spectral” evidence, that is, on the say-so of the girls along with others who got in on the act.
It was mostly a way of settling old scores with rivals or as a means to steal property.
Salem’s enduring legacy has rendered it a magnet for real witches everywhere—a marriage of irony and poetic justice.
Onward to a public square once home to the witch trials’ presiding magistrate, Judge John Hawthorne, where today stands (of course) a mocking statue of Samantha from the 1960s TV show Bewitched.
And finally, the only house remaining from 1692, The Old Witch Gaol Site, where suspected witches were imprisoned in rat-infested dungeons to induce confession or face a trial.
Asleep in bed that night, talismans from the antique gallery consume my dreams. My psyche tells me I must possess the Daniel Low spoon—or it me. But it is the emerald-eyed brass owl that, almost forgotten, stars in my dreams as the most powerful amulet I’ve encountered to date.
Upon awakening, the Salem Witch Museum beckons: If you pled guilty, we learn, they let you go but kept all your money and your property. If you pled innocent, a trial would be held. If it did not go well for the prosecution, Tituba’s girls would appear and sway the jury with convulsions.
Thereafter: Condemned to death by hanging. (Following a trial the girls would repair to a local tavern and reenact their courtroom performance; if someone objected, that person became the new object of the girls’ accusations.)
More importantly, this museum enlightens with regard to Wicca and its Celtic roots: Practitioners of Wicca, recognized as a religion by the United States in 1985, believe that God is within and without, synonymous with nature. Modern witches are not devil-worshipers and do not even believe in the existence of satan. If they have a creed, it is this: Do no harm to others. Wiccans believe that whatever you do to others will revert to you three times.
Ouija
I return to the antique gallery and purchase my talismans, allowing me to focus on an item that has thus far remained elusive: A vintage Ouija board.
Where better to pick up Ouija than in Wicca Mecca?
It is at a shop called Bewitched in Salem that I finally happen upon a formidable collection of vintage Ouija boards.
“How much?” I ask the salesperson, trying to conceal my excitement.
She shakes her head. “Not for sale.”
“Aww, not even one?”
“None.”
“C’mon,” I say, assuming this a sales ploy to gouge a high price. “You’ve got a lot of boards here. Certainly you can spare just one?”
“I’m not allowed to sell them,” she says. “You have to talk to Bill.”
“Okay, where‘s Bill?”
“He’s not here.”
“When will he be here?”
“He doesn’t come in much anymore.” She pauses. “But I think he’ll be here in 30 minutes.”
Thirty minutes later I return. A bearded man now sits behind the checkout counter.
“Are you Bill?”
“Yeah,” he says gruffly, like, who the hell wants to know?
“I want to buy a vintage Ouija board.”
“Oh, really.” Bill sounds half annoyed, half amused. “And how much are you willing to spend?” he adds with sarcasm, then preempts me. “Are you prepared to spend thousands of dollars?”
I shake my head dumbly. “No.”
“Well, that’s what the good ones go for.”
I shrug. “I just want a basic vintage wooden board. You seem to have a few of those.”
“Mine aren’t for sale,” he sniffs. “I could possibly search elsewhere for you. If you’re serious,” he sneers.
This is where my owl amulet comes into play. I put my hand in my pocket and stroke my new friend. “I’d really like to buy one of yours,” I say, looking Bill straight in the eye.
Bill stands. His expression and attitude seem suddenly different. “Well, let’s see what we got.”
Mildly astonished by his sudden change of demeanor, I follow Bill deep into his shop to consult a display case I hadn’t yet seen in which a number of boards are stacked. “Maybe you can have one of these.”
I immediately see what I want.
“I can’t get at it now,” says Bill, pointing to a bunch of stuff blocking access. “Can you come back tomorrow morning? We open at ten. I’ll make sure it’s waiting for you.”
I sigh. He must be playing me. But in talisman I trust.
Come early evening I carouse the streets of old Salem, settling on a bar called 42 Church Street for a glass of red wine. A woman comes up from behind and gives me a big hug, startling me from contemplation—then startling herself. “Ohmigod! I’m sorry—I thought you were someone else! You look just like him!”
Only in spooky Salem.
“Like who?”
“A guy who used to come here a lot.”
Is he dead?
Soon after, a couple stool themselves on the other side of me. They’re up from Providence for their daughter’s wedding because gay marriage is illegal in Rhode Island. It is bittersweet for them; they are weepy about their daughter’s path. I assure them they have done a tremendous thing by supporting her with their presence on this special day, whatever their discomfort with her gayness.
Back in our hotel suite, the artist switches on the TV.
And what immediately appears onscreen?
The Exorcist. It is nearing its conclusion, Father Merrin just died from a heart attack after trying to exorcise the demon from Regan. Discovering Merrin’s dead body and Regan gloating, an enraged Father Karras chokes her, challenging the demon to possess him instead. The demon obliges. Realizing he is now possessed, Karras hurls himself out the window and tumbles down 75 stairs to his death.
Next morning, I manifest myself at Bewitched in Salem with low expectations, the true secret of happiness.
Bill is not present.
But his wife has been instructed to sell me a classic William Fuld wooden board, circa 1920, with a matching planchette in its original box. It was Fuld who popularized Ouija during the early twentieth century, derived from Chinese automatic writing, a psychophysiological phenomenon.
“You’re lucky to have run into Bill,” she says. “He suffers from neuropathic diabetes, he’s dizzy all the time, often can’t even stand up. He comes in only four days a month and never stays long.”
In other words, it’s just short of a miracle that I am able to claim my prize, which I do not intend to use, but merely possess instead of it possessing me.
We pack up the Red Beast and roll to nearby Danvers, where the witchcraft hysteria began at the home of minister Samuel Parrish, whose daughter and niece, under the influence of Tituba, first exhibited convulsions and hallucinations.
Nothing remains but low stonewalls in a lonely, rarely visited yard.
Edgar Allan Poe, still with us, wants to see Boston, where he was born, along with a plaque in his honor, corner of Boyleston and Charles Streets near a nondescript alley called Edgar Allan Poe Way.
That’s where we leave Poe before rolling to the airport for an evening flight.
Our seats are in the last row, hence un-reclinable and adjacent to smelly toilets.
“That’s what you get for bringing a vintage Ouija board on the plane,” mutters the artist.
Insane Asylum
Two nights later I get checked into a mental hospital.
I am confused, disoriented and agitated; psychiatrists and nurses and orderlies swirl around me. A tray bearing six pills, different colors and shapes, is thrust before me. I hesitate but I am urged to swallow them.
Finally, left alone in my room, wearing a hospital gown and feeling exhausted, all I want is to lie down on the barren bed. But a doctor enters and commences an examination, tapping some kind of instrument on my left foot…
…at which point I awaken from this nightmare in a cold sweat.