Hans Holzer's "The Witchcraft Report"

I haven't had an installment of the Hans Holzer series since February and The Psychic World of Plants, so today — the day we mark the autumnal equinox — seems like a great day to delve into this 1970s book about spookiness, weirdness and incantations.

• Title: The Witchcraft Report
• Additional cover text: "An up-to-the-minute report on Pagan groups in America by the author GHOST HUNTER, ESP AND YOU and CHARISMATICS."
• Back cover excerpt: "What makes a person of sound mind and body turn to Witchcraft and the 'Old Religion' as opposed to the traditional, orthodox forms of worship?"
• Author: Hans Holzer (1920-2009)
• Publication date: October 1973
• Publisher: Ace Books 
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 222
• Cover price: $1.25
• Epigraph: "Ye shall dance, make music, sing, feast, and make love — all in my praise." (The Gospel of Aradia)
• What's the Gospel of Aradia? Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is an 1899 book by Pennsylvanian Charles Godfrey Leland comprising his translation of a religious text believed to be used by pagan witches in Italy. Though there are many questions about whether the religious text was genuine, Leland's book had a major influence on Wicca's development in the 20th century.
• First sentences: Ever since I wrote THE TRUTH ABOUT WITCHCRAFT and THE NEW PAGANS people from all over have been writing to me in the hope of becoming witches. Some of these are twelve and thirteen year olds whose chances of being introduced to a coven or even a solitary practitioner of "The Old Religion" are practically nil until they reach the age of reason, or what passes as the legal age.
• Last sentence: Finally, if you who seek the ways of Witchcraft find that it is a philosophy that goes deeper than surface, a religion that is more than skin deep, don't be ashamed to get involved: body, mind, and spirit are the true trinity of life.
• Random excerpt #1: Individual witches may still practice in Cincinnati but there is, to the best of my knowledge, no organized coven now in operation. 
• Random excerpt #2: A pert, dark-haired lady who goes by the craft name of Cassandra Salem, or Sandy Salem for short, rides her jolly broom around Anaheim, California. 
• What was Sandy Salem's real name: Judy Malis, according to Holzer. And she lived in Huntington Beach.
• Random excerpt #3: If anything, it proves that Pagans have the same basic problems Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans have and, for that matter, all religions all over the world: sometimes they can't get along with each other, sometimes they exaggerate things out of proportion because they are so close to their problems, they cannot see how really insignificant these problems are to someone taking a long range view of things.
• Online reviews: This specific book doesn't have any reviews of note on Goodreads, Amazon or elsewhere online. And a search of Newspapers.com also came up empty. In 2002, Holzer published Witches: True Encounters with Wicca, Wizards, Covens, Cults and Magick, a hefty tome that incorporates some witch-themed material from his 1960s and 1970s books. Of that 2002 book, Green Stone wrote this review on Amazon in 2011: "The main problem I have with this book is that it seems to have been primarily written in the 1970's, and then updated to include a LITTLE 21st century (year 2000 and later) culture and Witchcraft information. ... If you want details on some of the goings on in Witchcraft in the 1960's or 1970's, or a taste of what some of the covens were like then, this book may give you some help with that. The many highly imaginative prayers, invocations and rites by Lady Svetlana of Feraferia which are included will give a good taste of the 'loose' 1970's when if what you said was beautiful and poetic, you weren't expected to make any sense." [Feraferia is mentioned extensively in The Witchcraft Report.] 

I thought it would be appropriate for black cat Stubby to pose with today's paperback.