Season of the Witch : How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll (9780698143722) by Peter Bebergal Page A
Authors: Peter Bebergal
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phrase was familiar: âHelter Skelter.â The title of a Beatles song from the
White Album
, these words had become the murderous rallying cry of the charismatic cult leader Charles Manson. The night before killing the LaBiancas, the followers of Manson had slaughtered five people, including Sharon Tate, wife of the filmmaker Roman Polanski (and as some occult conspiracy theorists would point out, a year earlier Polanski had directed
Rosemaryâs Baby
, about a woman who is impregnated by the devil by way of upper-class Satanists). At his trial, Manson would describe how the Beatlesâ music was in fact specific instructions to incite a race war: âHelter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down fast. If you donât see the confusion coming down fast, you can call it what you wish. Itâs not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says âRise!â It says âKill!â Why blame it on me? I didnât write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness.â The Beatles were devastated that their music was interpreted in this way, and became increasingly sensitive to how they were being perceived by the public.
The Beatles had become a mirror of the 1960s, a decade that had been tempered with a deep and almost anxious need for spiritual meaning, for a religious experience that was not governed by Christianity. The Beatles were the perfect mediating principle between their audience and the tumultuous decade. They offered a way to measure the effects of every experiment, be it acid or Eastern mysticism. By the time it was all over, the Beatles had each gone their separate ways, musically and spiritually. Lennon would later pen his own personal response to what he saw as the failure of the 1960s, of the starry-eyed naiveté oftheir own âLove Is All You Needâ absolutism: âI donât believe in magic . . . I donât believe in Tarot . . . I donât believe in mantra . . . I donât believe in yoga . . . the dream is over.â In a 1971 interview with
Rolling Stone
, Lennon was even harsher. He was tired of having become a messianic figure of sorts, seen by many as a spiritual savior whose private life was nonexistent insofar as it could shed meaning on their own lives: âIâm sick of it,â he said. âIâm sick of them, they frighten me, a lot of uptight maniacs going around wearing fuckinâ peace symbols.â
While Harrison would later regret the way things ended with the maharishi, his mystical quest only deepened. He would eventually devote himself to the spiritual movement known as Krishna Consciousness through his relationship with Shankar. Apple Records, the Beatlesâ boutique label, would even release
The
Radha Krishna Temple
, an album of devotional chants, and in 1969 the first single, âHare Krishna Mantra,â would reach number twelve in the UK charts. Once the Beatles broke up and Harrison was free to explore his spirituality through his music unfettered, he offered âMy Sweet Lord,â one of the most explicitly religious songs to ever land as number one on the Billboard singles chart.
To bridge the personal quest with the cultural, it took a band with a public persona inflexibly the same as the bandmatesâ private lives, a band who wore their spiritual search in the often indecipherable lyrics of their music as well as in interviews with the press. In other words, it took the Beatles to drive home the idea that a new spiritual age truly was dawning, but they were also the band to show that you could only take it so far.
III
In the January 1967 issue of the seminal underground newspaper the
San Francisco Oracle
, a full-page spread announced the Human Be-In, a âGathering of Tribesâ bringing together politics and spirituality, often the estranged bedfellows of the 1960s counterculture. The ad put a
White Album
, these words had become the murderous rallying cry of the charismatic cult leader Charles Manson. The night before killing the LaBiancas, the followers of Manson had slaughtered five people, including Sharon Tate, wife of the filmmaker Roman Polanski (and as some occult conspiracy theorists would point out, a year earlier Polanski had directed
Rosemaryâs Baby
, about a woman who is impregnated by the devil by way of upper-class Satanists). At his trial, Manson would describe how the Beatlesâ music was in fact specific instructions to incite a race war: âHelter Skelter is confusion. Confusion is coming down fast. If you donât see the confusion coming down fast, you can call it what you wish. Itâs not my conspiracy. It is not my music. I hear what it relates. It says âRise!â It says âKill!â Why blame it on me? I didnât write the music. I am not the person who projected it into your social consciousness.â The Beatles were devastated that their music was interpreted in this way, and became increasingly sensitive to how they were being perceived by the public.
The Beatles had become a mirror of the 1960s, a decade that had been tempered with a deep and almost anxious need for spiritual meaning, for a religious experience that was not governed by Christianity. The Beatles were the perfect mediating principle between their audience and the tumultuous decade. They offered a way to measure the effects of every experiment, be it acid or Eastern mysticism. By the time it was all over, the Beatles had each gone their separate ways, musically and spiritually. Lennon would later pen his own personal response to what he saw as the failure of the 1960s, of the starry-eyed naiveté oftheir own âLove Is All You Needâ absolutism: âI donât believe in magic . . . I donât believe in Tarot . . . I donât believe in mantra . . . I donât believe in yoga . . . the dream is over.â In a 1971 interview with
Rolling Stone
, Lennon was even harsher. He was tired of having become a messianic figure of sorts, seen by many as a spiritual savior whose private life was nonexistent insofar as it could shed meaning on their own lives: âIâm sick of it,â he said. âIâm sick of them, they frighten me, a lot of uptight maniacs going around wearing fuckinâ peace symbols.â
While Harrison would later regret the way things ended with the maharishi, his mystical quest only deepened. He would eventually devote himself to the spiritual movement known as Krishna Consciousness through his relationship with Shankar. Apple Records, the Beatlesâ boutique label, would even release
The
Radha Krishna Temple
, an album of devotional chants, and in 1969 the first single, âHare Krishna Mantra,â would reach number twelve in the UK charts. Once the Beatles broke up and Harrison was free to explore his spirituality through his music unfettered, he offered âMy Sweet Lord,â one of the most explicitly religious songs to ever land as number one on the Billboard singles chart.
To bridge the personal quest with the cultural, it took a band with a public persona inflexibly the same as the bandmatesâ private lives, a band who wore their spiritual search in the often indecipherable lyrics of their music as well as in interviews with the press. In other words, it took the Beatles to drive home the idea that a new spiritual age truly was dawning, but they were also the band to show that you could only take it so far.
III
In the January 1967 issue of the seminal underground newspaper the
San Francisco Oracle
, a full-page spread announced the Human Be-In, a âGathering of Tribesâ bringing together politics and spirituality, often the estranged bedfellows of the 1960s counterculture. The ad put a
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