OAKRIDGE  is  a  little town nestled in the green mountains  of  the
Pacific Northwest. It's a typical small Oregon lumber town, the sort
of  place  where people still talk about the day the town's  brothel
burned  down  back  in  1928. In the spring of 1983,  a  politically
ambitious police chief and a fundamenalist minister managed to  stir
up enough excitement to last the town through another 60 years.

During  the  winter of 1982 a young girl named Ginny Walker*  killed
herself  in a fit of adolescent despair, leaving behind two  shocked
parents. But the Walkers' grief was disturbed only a week after  her
death,  when  they were approached be police chief John  Schurz  who
said  he  had  evidence that Ginny had been involved  with  witches.
These  witches,  Schurz  claimed, were responsible  for  the  girl's
suicide.

Before her death Ginny had told some friends how she had rescued the
head  of  a  childhood doll from a trash fire and how  she  found  a
coyote's skull in
the   forests   surrounding  Oakridge.  In  going  through   Ginny's
possessions  after her death, her parents found the scorched  doll's
head,  the coyote's skull, an incense burner, and buttons of various
rock  groups. Her friends later recalled Ginny's mundane explanation
of  these  items,  but to the police chief they were  proof  of  her
involvement with witchcraft.

The  police began an investigation of the girl's friends  and  found
that  Ginny's  best  friends  mother , Susan  Newell,*  was  calling
herself  a  witch.  Newell  actually knew nothing  about  modern-day
Withcraft or Pagan beliefs. She was not aware of the basic tenets of
modern   Witches--that  the  earth  is  sacred,that  everything   is
connected to everything else,and that each person is responsible for
his  own actions.** Newell had no notion of witchcraft's origins  in
the  ancient  nature-worshipping religions of pre-Christian  Europe.
All  she  knew  she had learned on the late-late show and  in  cheap
Gothic novels. But that was sufficient for the police.

Newell was taken to the police station for interrogation, where  for
several hours police chief Schurz asked her questions.

Schurz: "In my line of work, I work with alot of people. Sometimes I
can  ell  alot  about people. You know what I think?  I  think  that
you're a high priestess.
Newell: "What?"
Schurz: "You're a witch, aren't you?"
Newell: "I guess you could call it that."

When  further questioned in the manner, Newell claimed that she  was
the  high  priestess of the Golden Dawn, the name of her  coven,  so
Schurz related.


That she was an actual member of the Golden Dawn is highly unlikely.
This  was a notorious group of early-20th-Century British occultists
who  included  Aleister Crowley as well as the  Irish  poet  William
Butler  Yeats. It disbanded in 1947. It may have been the only  real
occult  group  Newell had ever heard of and was probably  the  first
name that came into her mind.

Under  the  pressure  of the interrogation Newell  named  six  other
witches  residing  in  Oakridge. Several of these  people  had  been
friends of Ginny Walker.

Selected portions of the tapes of Newell's interrogation were played
to  the  city  council and local ministers. Durring  these  selected
playings only two of the accused witches' names were mentioned.  The
newly  accused  were  two young women, Betty  Taylor*  and  Jennifer
Lindsay.*  Both  attributed the public  relase  of  their  names  to
Schurz's personal dislike of them.

"I'm an uppity woman," said Taylor. "I live with my boyfriend and  I
don't  wear a bra. I don't have church connections. I'm not  one  of
them."  She  said  that  since  the  tapes  were  released  publicly
indicating  that she was a witch, "grocery store people whisper  and
scurry away, pointing fingers."

Lindsay  left  town  to  avoid  the  harassment  to  which  she  was
subjected. Taylor continued to live in her Oakridge home, spied upon
by neighbors.

-------------

MEANWHILE,  Dave  Stewart, a minister and part-time police  officer,
took the doll's head and other "evidence" of witchcraft to show  his
and other congregations.

Witchcraft had caused Ginny's death, the people were told. No  other
reasons were advanced as causes of her suicide. Never mentioned were
the  rumors  of the Walkers' marital problems, Mr. Walker's  failing
health, of Ginny's possible lack of adult guidance.

Public  meetings were schedualed, led by Schurz and a fundamentalist
minister, the Rev. C. E. Thomas. The first meeting attracted only  a
handful  of people but the second drew nearly 40, quite a crowd  for
the small town. And the press was there in force.

Although state law says that public meetings must be opened to  all,
announcements  distributed in the churches contained this  sentence:
"Unwanted  people will be excluded from the meeting."  The  meetings
were  advertised to "discuss witchcraft, sexual abuse,  child  abuse
and  pornography," but witchcraft was the only topic ever spoken  of
at the meetings.

Dispite the "evidence," the Walkers doubted that witchcraft had  any
part  to  play  in  their  daughter's suicide.  "We'er  not  blaming
anybody," they told the press.

The  Walkers' doubts notwithstanding, Thomas and Schurz were  riding
high  on  the wave of hysteria. They called a third meeting  at  the
high  school.  Three  hundred persons showed  up.  The  press,  too,
arrived  but  television and tape recorders  were  banned  from  the
auditorium in direct violation of state law.

The meeting opened with a plea to bring Christianity and prayer back
into the schools. Ministers told the crowds that the only protection
they  had  against the evils of witchcraft was "to come to  church."
The  ministers  advised  them that there  would  be  counseling  and
classes taught by the ministers themselves.

Another former Oakridge police officer, who claimed to have had ties
with  the  occult but who recently had been "born again," testified.
He,  too,  had a late-late-show view of witchcraft. Not everyone  in
the audience believed his stories about witchcraft.

But  most  accepted  what the ministers told  them.  One  man  asked
Reverend  Thomas  for his credentials to discuss witchcraft.  Thomas
raised  a Bible over his head. "This is my credentials!" he shouted.
And the crowd cheered.

"We  used to be able to burn them or cut off their heads," said  the
reverend  of  witches. "We can't do that now, but we can  sure  stop
them."

Newspapers,  television and radio all over the state  were  covering
the  story.  Although Thomas wanted the public to be  aware  of  the
existence  of witches, he was not happy with the media coverage.  It
had made the town the laughingstock of the state.

Besides  the  public meetings, the city council,  school  board  and
police advisory board convened in secret.

-------------

IT  WAS  IN  the  secret meetings that officials may have  made  the
decision  to  remove all books pertaining to "the occult"  from  the
school library. Student president Shannon McPherson protested. "It's
lousy," he said. "They're trying to keep us in the dark." The school
superintendent, Ken Carver, denied that the books had  been  removed
from the shelves. He claimed that he had merely "checked out" all 40
of  the books "just like anybody can." He then passed them on  to  a
censorship committee made up of parents and teachers.

With the books gone, the lack of information availible on witchcraft
only  helped  spread to alarm through the school student population.
Any  excuse  was enough for one student to accuse another  and  they
enacted  medieval tests to determine whether another student  was  a
witch.  One  student was suspected because she wore a black  sweater
and skirt. She was approached by another student who pressed a paper
cross against her arm.

"You  must  not be a witch," the student accuser said. "because  the
cross didn't burn you."

Other  students used the situation to get attention. They  pretended
that  they  were  witches;  they left death-threat  notes  on  other
students'  lockers or claimed they'd hexed or been  hexed  by  other
students and teachers.

The  school  superintendent made up a list of all students  who  had
ever checked out any of the "occult" books and distributed it to the
teachers.  Those  on the list were watched for possible  involvement
with witchcraft.

Reverend Thomas advised parents to watch their children for signs of
"occult" activity. He told parents and students to look to  him  and
other  local  ministers  to  lead the  fight  against  non-Christian
religions such as witchcraft, Hinduism and Buddhism.

"If  you  arn't a Christian, you can't fight it," he declared.  "The
devil will deceive you. This is a spiritual battle and the Devil  is
as  real  as God is. We have witches here in Oakridge from the  very
pits of hell."

  But  the reverend and police chief had long since lost control  of
the situation, and the monster they'd created began to turn on them.
Thomas  was  receiving negative letters from other ministers  around
the  country. "They tell me I'm off the wrong end. Well, that's what
told Peter and John," he said.

Betty  Taylor, one of the original women accused of being  a  witch,
hired  a  lawyer who started making slander-suit noises. Accusations
could  no  longer  be  made without proof for  fear  of  litigation.
Although  it was announced that there would be other meetings,  none
was ever held.

-------------

SEVERAL  WEEKS  after the final meeting, the Walkers appeared  on  a
statewide  television talk show. They told the audience  that  after
learning  about Paganism and Witchcraft from legitimate  members  of
the Old Religion and other occult groups, they concluded that Newell
wasn't  a  witch, although they still disliked her and  thought  she
might  have  some responsibility for their daughter's suicide.  They
said they saw nothing wrong with Witchcraft and nature religions and
felt everyone should be free to choose his own style of worship. "We
don't believe in banning any religion," they said.

The  reverend  continued  to  rail against  witchcraft,  other  non-
Christian  religions  and  liberal  Cristianity,  which  he   called
"tommyrot."  But he could no longer make direct accusations  against
individuals  for  fear  of  legal  action.  The  police  chief   was
subsequently demoted.

Ironically, durring the entire episode no one ever explained how so-
called witchcraft had led to Ginny Walker's suicide.

Since the episode Oakridge has again become the quite little town it
once  was. But beneath the surface here, and in places like it, runs
a  fear  of  things  and people who might be different.  Persecution
takes many forms and comes in many guises. Witch hunts--- real witch
hunts---  are  not dim memories from the Dark Ages. They  are  real,
they still happen and they can happen again.

=============

* All names with astericks are pseudonyms.