Magical
Lives~Herman Slater
By Natalie Zaman
I'll never forget when I was first told about The Magickal Childe. All of my friends were familiar with the mysterious shop in New York. We all lived in New Jersey and went into "the city" on a regular basis, but still, I'd never heard of, nor seen the place. I asked where it was, and I was told, "down town"--no address, no phone number (this was before the days of internet and cell phones!). All I had was the name.
"How will I ever find it?" I wailed.
"You find the Magical Childe when it's ready for you to find it," I was told. And that was that. No matter how many times I went into New York, and no matter how much I explored, I never found The Magickal Childe... until many years later, and it was totally by accident.
After I got out of school, I started working in New York City. One day while I was walking around on my lunch hour, I caught site of a faded banner on East 19th Street. There it was--The Magickal Childe! I still have the book that I bought on that first visit. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was here that I began my journey on the path I'm on now. I also wasn't aware that I'd walked into an historical site. The person who owned the store helped to shape the Pagan community as we know it today. That person was Herman Slater.
Heeere's Herman!
Herman was born in New York in 1935 to Jewish parents. Because he grew up in a time where prejudice against Jewish people was widespread (Jewish professors couldn't hold positions in colleges, and the Catholic Church still held Jews responsible for the death of Jesus), he became involved in the cause for equal rights at a young age. As a young man, his jobs and his education were varied. He attended New York University, Hunter College and even the Traffic Management Institute of New York.
When he was about thirty four years old, he was diagnosed with bone tuberculosis and had to have one of his hips replaced. It took him three years to recover, and at least one of those years was spent in a full body cast. While he rested, Herman read. And read, and read. He read about tarot cards, levitation and the occult. By the time he got out of the hospital, he wanted to do the things he had only experienced in books.
Herman joined a coven that practiced a Welsh tradition of Witchcraft. After he was inititaed in 1972, he and the high priest of the coven, Ed Buczynski, opened up The Warlock Shop in Brooklyn. The shop was quite successful, thanks not only to Herman's business savvy, but the fact that there were so few--if any--places like it. Can you imagine a world where there isn't a Barnes and Noble bookstore within a drivable distance from your home, or no internet access to find instant information? That's what life was like when the Warlock Shop opened its doors. In starting this business, Herman Slater did the Pagan community a great service. Suddenly, books, tools, tarot cards, candles, herbs--and most importantly, knowledge--were accessible to a larger number of people than ever before.
The shop (and its mail-order list) outgrew its Brooklyn digs. Herman and Ed moved to Manhattan and renamed the shop The Magickal Childe. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the place became a learning center and meeting place for Pagans, famous and unknown, to meet, learn and participate in rituals. As I remember it, the Magickal Childe was something right out of Diagon Alley--dark and somewhat spooky with books and tools and jewelry crammed into every corner.
Did Herman write this book, or just collect the spells and rituals inside it?
Running a successful business that centered around witchcraft brought Herman a measure of fame; not just because of the services he provided, but how he dealt with people. Folks who knew Herman remember him as sharp and intelligent--and a magnet for controversy. He had a knack for sizing up people and situations, and an in-your-face way of exposing them for what they were. One person who worked at the shop recalled an afternoon where she and Herman had fried chicken for lunch. When they were done, Herman said that he could sell the chicken bones. While the worker thought this was an outrageous thing to do, Herman cleaned up the bones and put them on velvet pillows by the cash register with a sign: "Bones for your magical use! Only $2.00!". Sure enough, he sold them all, making several points: so many people will just accept things; they don't ask questions, and they let superstition get the best of them.
Stunts such as this earned him the nickname "Horrible Herman." But he didn't seem to care. He continued to run the Magickal Childe just as he pleased, and eventually added a publishing segment to the business. Herman published Earth Religion News, a magazine that took what the Magickal Childe was doing to a new level. The shop had become a learning center for folks in New York and neighboring states, and was also supplying people who lived farther afield through mail order. Something was lacking though--a means of keeping folks up to date with news, innovative rituals and happenings in the community. Earth Religion News was born.
An early issue of Earth Religion News.
Like Herman himself, Earth Religion News was successful and infamous. Many of the covers were for adults only, as was a good deal of the writing, but it did what it set out to do: promote paganism as a peaceful earth-based religion to a wider audience.
Herman also published several books, including A Book of Pagan Rituals--and courted more criticism. The problem was that many people questioned whether Herman actually wrote the book--a collection of spells and rituals--himself, or just compiled the information and published it under his name. No other person was ever given credit in the book. This made Herman many enemies, but because he took this path, more people had access to the knowledge (several pieces from the book were made available to the public for free in other magazines that had sprung up).
Herman passed away in 1992, and The Magickal Child closed its doors in 1999. However, both are still very much with us. Today, if you go to New York, make your way through Greenwich Village to 9th Street by Avenue A. There you'll find a shop called Enchantments (www.enchantmentsincnyc.com). It's very small and packed with herbs and candles and tools and tarot cards, and it has its roots in Herman Slater and the Magickal Childe. When I visited them, they made a candle for me using Herman's spell book...
The Enchantments shop in New York City.
Was Herman really horrible? One thing is certain--he was human. Some of his methods may be questionable, but he helped to bring the Pagan community together, he educated people, and he impacted many lives in a positive way. People who knew Herman and the Magickal Childe have shared their memories on the Magickal Childe website, www.magickalchilde.com (people can still get copies of Herman's Spell Formulary books here too). Merry part, Herman, and merry meet again some day!