Fortean Times – September 2019

FT383 37

both accounts alignedRosemary’s Baby
with a deep sense of misfortune.Whether
through coincidence or diabolical conspiracy,
bad things seemed to happen to those who
worked on thefi lm, and itsgrowing legend
carried a clear, cautionary message. As
Nikolas Schreck put it:“Anyone who dares
to make afi lm about the Devil is askingfor
trouble”.
It was not allWilliam Castle’sfault,
though. Anton LaVey, High Priest of the
Church of Satan, thereligious organisation
he founded in SanFrancisco in 1966,
merrily allowed the rumour to circulate
that, atPolanski’srequest, he had acted asa
consultant to the production. He also claimed
that he appeared inRosemary’s Baby– as the
Devil, no less. In thefi lm’s infamous dream/
rape sequence, in which Satan impregnates
Rosemary, the audience is given onlya
glimpse of an unearthly, beast-likefi gure.
According to LaVey, he was the onewearing
the costume – an assertion that ClayTanner,
the actor whoactuallywore the outfit on set
and performed the scene with MiaFarrow,
would dispute.^5
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, the
weird aura ofRosemary’s Babyfed into the
popularity of the Church of Satan. Herewas
a horrorfi lm that gave the source of its ‘evil’
a certainmystique. Bad things happened, but
the perpetrators ultimatelyfound success
rather than punishment, divine, diabolic or
otherwise.The fi lm’s Satanistswere affluent,
cultured practitioners who suggested that
with the rightexercise of the will one could
achieve wealth, status and power. What
LaVey offeredwas a ready-made belief
system thatrefl ected thisworldview and,
ever the opportunist, he pushed ahead with
the publication ofThe Satanic Bible(1969)
to capitalise on thefi lm’s success. Standing
with his doctrinal text in hand, LaVey was
ready andwaiting towelcome those prepared
to follow the path marked outbyRosemary’s

Babyand itsmythology: a step across the line

from thefi ction of Satanism to its ‘reality’.

Although itgrew in thewakeof Polanski’s

fi lm, the Church of Satanwas also born out

of, and tapped into, what the writer Nat

Freedland called America’s late Sixties

“occultexplosion”. Equallyrefl ected in

andfosteredby the mainstream success of

Rosemary’s Baby, this revival of interest in

tarot cards, astrology, paganism and other

such topicswas supportedby the appearance

of magazines likeMan, Myth and Magic

(1970-72) andCoven 13(1969-74). Booksby

andabout Aleister Crowley, practical magick

andfolk-beliefswere easilyavailable, and

an increasingnumber of head shopswere

becoming occult dispensaries that supplied

suburban witches with crystals,wands and

black candles. At the same time, a slew

of post-Rosemaryoccult thrillers likeThe

Deathmaster(1972),The Satanic Rites of

Dracula(1973) andWilliamFriedkin’s all-

pervasiveThe Exorcist(1973) installed the

Devil as the ubiquitousface of horror in the

early Seventies. Meanwhile,recordsby bands

like The CrazyWorld of Arthur Brown, Black

Sabbath,Jacula, and Coven ensured that

ideas of the occult, however hazily defined,

were no longer confined to the shadows.

It was Arthur Brown who declared

himself “the God of Hell-fire” at the start

of his 1968 single “Fire” before treating the

British audience ofTop of thePopsto the

spectacle of him dancing with his head in

fl ames. Brown would have been the perfect

support actfor Co ven, who included the

track “Satanic Mass” on their debut album,

Witchcraft Destroys Minds and Reaps Souls

(1969). Presented as “thefi rst Black Mass

to berecorded, either in writtenwords or

in audio”, itwas thereal deal, according

to the band, “as authentic as hundreds of

hours ofresearch in every known source

can make it”. As such, itwas potentially

just as harmful to the health of the listener

asRosemary’s Babywas to those within

range of its ‘curse’.The band “did not

recommend” the track to “anyone who has

not thoroughly studied Black Magic and is

awareof the risks and dangers involved”.

This ‘phenomenon’, asFreeland puts it,

invited the usual polarisedresponses. In

his studyThe Occult Explosion in America

(1972),Freeland cites the Harvard

theologian Harvey Cox, whoregarded

the post-war popularity of astrology asa

positive shift in the cultural landscape. It

demonstrated how a “tight, bureaucratic

society” could stillfi nd itself “fascinated

with slipstream knowledge” – that which

“doesn’tfi t”. On the other hand, the

clergymanWilliam Sloane Coffin madea

similar pointabout “America’srenewed

interest in occultism”, but came to afar

more negative conclusion, offering it

as a “beautifulexample of lobotomised

passivity” thatresults from the “alienating

influence of modernity”. Summarising the

debate,Freedland argued that whatever

the assessment of public commentators,

therewas anoverridingvalue connected

to popular occultism: it had quickly proved

to be “fashionably commercial”. AsTime

magazine put it in their March 1969

cover story, ‘The Cult of the Occult’,by

the late Sixties itwas estimated that this

‘niche’ interest hadgrown into something

approaching a million-dollar ‘industry’.^6

ABOVE LEFT:Mia Farrow inRosemary’s Baby.ABOVE RIGHT:SharonTate and RomanPolanski arrive at thefi lm’s UK premiere on 24 January 1969.

“Anyonewho

dares make a film

about the Devil is

asking for trouble”

JOE

BA

NGAY / DAILY EXPRESS / HUL

TO

N ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES