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Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) (YouTube Edit) (Patreon)

Published:
2025-11-02 23:45:15
Imported:
2026-06
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Bedknobs and Broomsticks (1971) (YouTube Edit)

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Adam Pacio

So... where to start on this one. LOL. The German invasion of England in the end of WWII is the key to answering WT-actual-F is this film about? Long story short -- in the 1960s with the rise of feminism and the hippie movement and the Rainbow Tribe/Age of Aquarius consciousness rising from the US countercultural movement, modern neopagan witchcraft, specifically the initiatory, structured practice of what is known today as "British Traditional Wicca", was getting a lot of press, still. A religion based on a priesthood of witches preserving folklore and Goddess-worship from "prehistoric Europe", Wicca later in the 70s became a pop culture 'watered down' "make-your-own-tradition" kind of thing in the US and later across Europe. But Wicca itself had been launched in the New Forest region on the southern shore of England in the 1940s when retired expatriot Gerald Gardner returned from a life in the colonial properties in Malaysia and Sri Lanka's rubber plantations and came home to England to settle near Christchurch. He was himself a distant relative of a woman who had been burned at the stake for witchcraft, Lizzy Gairdner, and because of this and his interest in the occult, he was considered by the locals to be 'one of the witch blood' and fell in with the New Forest Coven, run by Dorothy Clutterbuck, the matriarch of all of the witch families in the area still practicing their family traditions. Or so the claim went. Gardner took the tradition he got initiated into and convinced everyone who would listen that they had to gather together all of the lore and give it the structure of the New Forest group, and eventually he got the approvals from the elders needed, and Brit Trad Wicca was born. It's still going strong today. Just, quieter. LOL. So what does that have to do with Bedknobs and Broomsticks? Well, in the late 60s, around the end of Gardner's life, Wicca surged into popular consciousness as an 'alternative' 'new religion' by the counter culture movement. What's more sexy than goddess-worshipping neopagan faith surviving all these years without Christian influence? At least to a hippie. The idea of stodgy, proper English housewives practicing witchcraft, of all things, in their lovely seaside Channel cottages? How bizarre. And more than that, one of the claims that these witches in the New Forest kept making was that during World War II, when England was very concerned that Germany would invade, launching an attack across the Channel from occupied France, was that the Witches had called a Grand Sabbat for the express purpose of working magic to put doubt and fear into Hitler's mind to make him hesitate and cancel any plans for invading across the Channel. It was called "Operation Cone of Power", and immediately after the war, the new publicity-seeking Wicca would often relay the story of what they did to help Mother England escape the Nazis, proving that Witches were not only harmless, but proper patriotic English folk, too! Contributing to the War Effort and all that. Operation Cone of Power has since come to be pretty universally accepted by Wicca as having zero truth to the tales at all, although there are circumstantial pieces of evidence that could suggest such a thing, but nothing real or conclusive. The legend goes that all of the witches of the New Forest region and all the families with witch blood were gathered together under the dark of a moon to dance in the woods naked at midnight around a large bonfire. The dancing raised power to be shaped into a spell, urging Hitler to "DO NOT CROSS THE CHANNEL! FAILURE AND DEFEAT WILL COME IF YOU CROSS THE CHANNEL!". Per the legend, the witches knew they had raised enough energy for the working when a couple of their older members passed out from the extertion in the damp cold night air spent in frenzied dance to get Hitler to stay away. Also by apocryphal accounts, one or two of the elderly members of the coven who had passed out died shortly thereafter, sacrificing their lives to ensure the spell succeeded. Operation Cone of Power was received with bemusement by many, not that the public doubted that the spell had taken place, but bemusement because see here even these poor deluded "witches" were so patriotic that they worked themselves to death in the hopes that they could cast a spell to keep Hitler out. Bedknobs and Broomsticks, the entire film, is actually celebrating? Lampooning? Parodying? the Operation Cone of Power, and the rather amusing concept that proper English women would be out doing anything as scandalous as practicing witchcraft, of all things! Disney gave it a bit more of a comedic twist and totally defanged the whole thing and passed it off as a (albeit confusing) fable. And thus Bedknobs and Broomsticks was born. How do I know? I have led a rather 'adventurous' life, blazing my own trail through all the myriad options of 'weird' I could find, and I took the training for seven years to become a coven leader, and I spent another dozen years after that running a coven to train other Brit Trad Wicca. I "retired" a number of years ago, but I'm still connected to the so-called Old Crone's Network, and I still count many of my former contacts to be some of my best lifelong friends. So. I can attest to quite a bit of familiarity with Operation Cone of Power and the early 20th century history of Gerald Gardner and what little is still known of the New Forest Coven he joined. Angela Lansbury makes a wonderful charicature of many of the proper English women who preceeded me in my association with Brit Trad Wicca. And Bedknobs and Broomsticks always held a special place in my heart for indirectly lampooning the alleged Operation Cone of Power. A most obscure reference, but if you Google, it will show up. :) Enjoy.