“Ding Dong: The Witch is Dead”
Thankfully The Wicked Witch Didn’t Turn 100 this week
“Once there was a wicked witch in the lovely land of Oz
And a wickeder, wickeder, wickeder witch there never, never was”
Thus began the song written for The Wizard of Oz, that great 1939 movie. Yond question. If you are interested you can watch the song from the original movie here: https://youtu.be/kPIdRJlzERo and enjoy.
Revealed: My Secret Passion, Turning Toads Into Frogs
Now of course I don’t believe in witches. Although I worked with a white one once. At first I wasn’t sure how to respond. My old Christianity would have had me covering myself in the blood of Jesus and thinking the other person had the problem, not me. (You covered yourself in what?)
Turned out he was a good man as dedicated to caring for people as I was and never once turned anyone into a frog. (Hey now wouldn’t that be good? My secret passion. I can think of a few people I’d love to promote that way: Trump, Putin, Uganda’s architect of kill the gay laws President Musseveni and a whole lot of hate preachers who inspire people to despise Queer folk. Note my list of Toads is all horrible men.
So, whilst not believing in black magic and witches, I do believe in coercive control and in narcissism and in spiritual, psychosocial and financial abuse. I’ve known all of them. And all through one woman.
This week past, on the 18th June 2023 Violet Dorothy Pryor would have turned 100 years old. She wasn’t the Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz, but she certainly was a controlling witch reminiscent of the song from that wonderful movie. Yet she claimed a pure Pentecostal Christian faith, and an Anointing from God that was literally be
I Was 19 When I Met The Witch
I have told many aspects of the story before but perhaps a different take on it now. I was fresh-faced 19-year-old when I first met Violet. She was impressive. I was a newly converted born-again baptised-in-the-spirit Christian. I could speak in tongues. Whoo hoo! The Holy Spirit was on my side. Beware! I knew the songs. I was learning the Scripture.
Violet was, then and always, dressed to the nines. That’s an old expression but let’s say that the most stunning of cross-dressing trans folk, today, condemned by the unholy ignorant, would have been little competition for her.
It was in the latter months of 1973 when I first met her. Actually I heard her first. Her Sergeant Major commands coming through the thick stone walls of the church and competing with busy traffic on Albion Street, Surry Hills, Sydney. Above the cacophony of cars, traffic lights, people, a busy city around me I heard her cacophony and I was smitten.
As I approached the church it grew louder and as I entered, somewhat tentatively, I saw her tiny Dolly Partonesque figure towering (not the right word) over a girl screaming and squirming and all but spinning her head like Linda Blair in the original “The Exorcist” film.
Dolly, (sorry Dolly) …. Violet was shouting at demons in the young woman supposedly possessed. It was eery and unreal. In hindsight, it was quite a performance both from Violet the witch in control, and the patient having witches cast out of her.
The stone-cold old St Michael’s Surry Hills in Sydney — a classic Gothic revival style church designed by Edmund Blacket in 1854. (
As that grand authority Wikipedia states the church was: “built of sandstone with a slate roof, it features a belfry, dormers (added in 1888), a fine interior of nave with side aisles, painted ceiling, and dormer lights. The chancel was rebuilt, and vestries added in 1917 by John Burcham Clamp.”
A beautiful old church. My great-great grandfather Sir Alfred Stephen was even on the committee to ensure it built “on the Surry Hills”.
Skinny 19 Year Old Meets Wonder Woman
Imagine, I’m a skinny 19-year-old journalist working for the Southern Cross magazine — Sydney Anglican Diocese 1973–74 — and I’m drawn to this church and the goings on inside from an article in a national paper which features the scary-looking gaunt black and white figure of the Rev Peter Hobson, Rector of St Michael’s.
Hobson was obsessed with demons and deliverance and healing and saw all the problems of the world to be spiritual and caused by those cranky spirits that had invaded not just everyone, but everyone.
(A side note: from memory I believe around 70% — 90% of all men who attended that ministry under Violet and Peter had homosexual spirits cast out of them. This, whether they had ever winked at another man or dreamt of it. This was a percentage a tad higher than the supposed 10% suggested by the famous Kinsey Report or modern research. This is curious. Why so many? The spiritually trigger happy couple of Hobson and Pryor either got it terribly wrong, or perhaps in a world where there was still shame for Queer people to overcome, there are and were more people with secrets in their closets than we can tell.
Whilst Violet and Peter seemed to work together well, as time went on she was soon to become his nemesis.
Violet was the evangelist to Hobson’s theologian. He researched demons. Cast them out as evidence of his research. Violet just cast them out. She waved her big black Bible as she did it, but she was better at convincing people she knew what was in the Bible than actually really knowing. Her message spoke with noisy evidence — demons screaming, bodies writhing, people slain in the spirit (or just falling over because it was easier not to resist). Cranky spirits had no chance with her. Nor did people.
Just like Hobson, she believed that the root of all humanity’s problems, from poverty to war, were spiritual in nature and caused by those cranky spirits that had invaded everyone. As with thousands of hard-line soft-minded preachers from the past (and present) they were both convinced we were in the End Times and Jesus was coming again very soon. How about a new theme park celebrating the number of near misses of Jesus Return and those who gave their all for it?
Pentecostal Conference And The Meeting of Giants
Hobson met her in 1973 at a Pentecostal conference in Wagga Wagga NSW. She had been having a ball casting out spirits and telling her vulnerable followers in the small country town of Leeton NSW that they were possessed and that only she had the power in Jesus name to heal them. The local Baptist minister didn’t believe her and refused her use of the church premises. Wise man. But she found welcome at another church.
But Hobson, like so many, was taken by her at first sight. Impressed by her authority and the gifts that she seemed so obviously to have. Adding her power to his preaching and they were ready to conquer the world for Jeeeezuz. All they needed was a few gullible people like me to make it a family.
A couple of years later Hobson became a real threat to the power of Pryor. Mainly because the one area of his theology that lined up with the conservative Sydney Anglicans at the time was that women should be under a man’s authority and not allowed to preach in church. (They still believe it, doh!) This just wouldn’t work for Violet whose modus operandi was to do the opposite and to assume as much power and authority over men, women, children and animals as she could. She just couldn’t stand competition, not even from other women who dressed better than her, and so in an act of pure and utter divination, God sacked him, or so she said.
It didn’t stop Peter or his wife Verlie. I understand Verlie too later claimed to have the stigmata just like Violet. More on that later. And their double act went on to have a successful ministry in India and Asia casting out spirits, healing the sick and taking donations.
Peter a softly spoken man of an apparent kind nature, wrote several books with his wife Verlie. Most out of print now. I can’t help but note:
The Crown Jewel of Peter’s Writings
Says it all really. On the cover you will see an endorsement by William D Banks, President, Impact Christian Books Inc, Author and “outstanding Renewal Minister”:
“… this is the Crown Jewel of Peter’s writings… I cannot recommend this book too highly.”
Banks wrote a number of books about healing and how childless couples could miraculously achieve pregnancy. (No sex ed though, I don’t think, pure scripture. Miracle births his thing.) No wonder he liked the miraculous writings of Hobson.
Strange. I prefer good science and medicine these days. Less confusing and less able to confuse.
Let’s remember however that there is a remarkable thing about exorcism or deliverance and healing. You only need two people for the show to begin and a small audience to tell the story:
- The Exorcisee — Normally a vulnerable and suffering person of any kind. Usually helps to have money. Mental illness also helps as does imposed guilt from hock and hawking preachers, priests and prophets. (Ok, “Hock and Hawking” simply means keep your distance, they spit.)
- The Exorcist — Normally a seriously looking gaunt priest (Hobson was a good fit) who in dim light looks very dim, or a nun or a lavishly dressed Dolly Parton look-alike. Did I mention that connection before?
Having a small gullible audience helps immensely to share the victory story whether the Exorcisee lives or dies. If they live “Praise Jesus”. If they die “Praise Jesus”.
A picture tells a thousand stories. This one, nothing to do with what I’m writing. Just an interlude. He looks so happy.
So when the lanky boy (me) met Violet she was claiming to have the stigmata. Featured in Hollywood horror and religious movies the stigmata is the physical evidence of the crucifixion of Christ imprinted in the bodies of mortals. St Francis of Assisi, is claimed to be one of them. I still admire him for his simple message of love and inclusion for all creatures and his passionate denunciation of the rich and powerful. I’m not sure what to make of the stigmata though.
So Violet claimed to have it. I don’t believe it. Back then I saw evidence in her hands and feet but were they chalk marks or some other kind of self-inflicted wounds? I questioned it then but never voiced my thoughts and I just don’t know now but I’m not afraid to doubt. I do know that back then I fell for it all hook, line and sinker and worse still, I myself was sunk.
What followed were 16 years at her beck and call. Servant to God (you’ve got to be kidding) and available 24 hours a day to her every whim. Fortunately nothing sexual. For that I am eternally grateful. Oh, in case you didn’t read that let me repeat it:
NOTHING SEXUAL, FOR THAT I’M ETERNALLY GRATEFUL!
The book of this story is available on audio streaming outlets.
Violet was a strange woman and had immense power over her followers who all came to worship her as God in human flesh. Like any narcissist, she could appear so sweet and so caring but underneath was a cold and calculating human being only out for her own ends.
Hard for me not to swear now but let’s just say it was all so bloody stupid (effing, effing, effing!) and I will never forgive myself for being sucked in. If you inherited money, she was quick to explain that God needed it (meaning her). That it had happened specifically for this time in history that you would be enabled to give your money to Him, via her.
So this week Violet who died at the age of 68 (thank God), in 1991, would have turned 100 years of age, born as she was on the 18th of June 1923.
I was sitting at my computer when I remembered. My wife Meg was watching television. I got up and announced in a loud voice that something very significant had occurred today (well, that day). Husbands do that sort of thing. Meg, like most wives who are used to utterances of stupidity from their husbands when they are not at all interested in being diverted from their current obsession, hardly batted an eyelid or whatever.
So I got her to pause the television. (It wasn’t the one in the picture.) She wasn’t happy. Then I announced to her that Violet Dorothy Pryor would have turned 100 years of age on that very day.
Her reaction? Not a sausage as they say.
To say her reaction was unimpressive is an understatement. She told me in polite terms that she couldn’t give a fig about Violet Pryor, her unachieved age, or anything else about her. She was dead and that was all that mattered. One of the best days of my wife’s life was when she heard the news that the Witch was dead. (Although we didn’t use that expression then, we should have.)
Many readers will have suffered from coercive control in marriages or in families with narcissistic parents or partners. it is something you don’t easily recover from. Over many years I have sought counselling but have never been able to open the can of worms that keeps my heart and mind closed.
Yet life goes on. To those who know me, I’m a busy man who will turn 70 next April. I work in disability support and love each of those people I am privileged to serve. I also run a charity trying to assist hated LGBTIQ+ people in East Africa to simply survive. My ongoingbattle is with aspects of the Christian church which have contorted a simple message of love to a message of hate and control — a church not unlike the Witch that was Violet Pryor seeking to control, pervert and diminish everything in its path.
Let me finish by saying the pain, and anger that I still feel against Violet remains. Curiously, a family member of hers I spoke to after she died only had praise for her, “she was just such a kind and wonderful woman”. How easily are we deceived? Or maybe she was sweet and kind, and it was the death of her beloved husband Alan and the temptations of power that came from her then new found Pentecostal faith that corrupted her? I don’t know.
Narcissism — turning every conversation to yourself and making sure that every issue that mattered centred around you — is not necessarily something that grows in fallow ground, is it?
I remain most angry I guess with myself. That I was so easily deceived. So gullible that I gave up being a man, a decision-maker, a husband, a father, son, a brother, a human being and that I subjected myself and my family to the whims of the Witch. Whims that saw us cut off from our loving parents and our children’s grandparents.
WHY NOT MAKE ONE PERSON’S LIFE BETTER TODAY
And so I find meaning today not in empty religion but by trying to make a difference in an otherwise cruel world. Seeing people like Violet everywhere, but thankfully seeing that people of true love, kindness and mercy outnumber her kind.
Ding Dong the Witch is Dead. And other Coercive Controllers will die too.
I have two mottos in life.
1: Love Always.
2: Choose Love not Hate.
If anyone wishes to help Humanity in Need — Rainbow Refugees save lives of good people whose only failure in life is who they love, please click on our website link or contact the author.
Please support us if you can.
www.patreon.com/nosexplease or Choose Love not Hate — Chuffed Appeal
My blog here, and my podcast @nosexplease on YouTube and giggling on audio apps like iTunes, Audible, Spotify, and others, tell the story of the abuse people have received through the church’s sex shaming that in recent years specialises in LGBTIQ+ people.
This blog and the podcast supports queer refugees in East Africa who need our help simply to survive. Many of them are killed or die from disease or hunger simply because homophobic cultures don’t merit them as human. So sad.
