Season of the Witch: How the Occult Saved Rock and Roll

Bebergal (Too Much to Dream: A Psychedelic American Boyhood) displays an intelligent understanding of the interaction between religion and culture when he argues that the "occult imagination is the vital force of rock-and-roll culture." Yet his book is also maddeningly pedestrian at times. Bebergal details how, starting in the late 1960s through the '70s, "Sex, occultism, and Satan would become synonymous in various pockets of pop culture," and his examples include films such as The Wicker Man and games such as Dungeons & Dragons as well as the usual suspects, such as the Rolling Stones song "Sympathy for the Devil," to argue that mysticism was "not the only source towards unconventional spirituality available to youth culture. But in his recounting of many staples of rock lore%E2%80%94Led Zeppelin founder and guitarist Jimmy Page's fascination with the writings of occultist Aleister Crowley; David Bowie's "messianic" obsession with "aliens, magic, and mysticism"; and the blatantly occult "arsenal of symbols" of Throbbing Gristle%E2%80%94Bebergal too often conflates the symptoms with the disease. It's not enough for him that "Rock's essential rebellious spirit is a spiritual rebellion at its core, and this, like all forms of occult and Gnostic practices, is a threat to the establishment, be it political, religious, or social." He must further claim that "without the occult imagination there would be no rock as we know it," an argument that basically ignores the many other influences on different genres of rock music. (Oct.)