A Witch's Guide to the Underground: Sixties Counterculture, Dianic Wicca, and the Cultural Trope of the “Witchy Diva” Available to Purchase

This chapter investigates the midcentury Anglo-American fascination with the witch archetype, linking it to the concurrent rise of the sixties counterculture and second-wave feminism. The surge in interest in Wiccan practices and women's empowerment at this time led to a proliferation of spell books and guides across the Global North. Louise Huebner's influential Wiccan incantation records met this demand, offering a pathway to self-actualization for aspiring witches through connection with an ancient, divine feminine. Scholar Justyna Sempuch interprets this popularization as an "herstorical fantasy," a means of renegotiating women's roles in patriarchal society. The chapter also explores how female vocalists such as Stevie Nicks, with her Wiccan anthem "Rhiannon" (1976), embodied and projected the witch archetype, influencing subsequent generations of Wiccan-inspired indie rock artists. By adopting this symbolic stance, women artists of the sixties critiqued patriarchy within popular music cultures, employing essentialist notions of the numinous feminine for gender-based cultural resistance.