Dorothy Irvine – From Witchcraft To Christ

Dorothy Irvine – From Witchcraft To Christ: My True-Life Story (Concordia, 1973)

“As ‘Daring Diana’ she followed a life of prostitution, strip-tease, drink, drugs – and eventually witchcraft, where she became Queen of Black Witches. When freed from her sordid life and the power of demons, she became known as a trophey of grace.”

Sweet Jesus! I always figured Satanists were depraved, but I never for one second imagined ….

I noticed many posters displayed in prominent places, unusual posters.
“Come and hear Eric Hutchings at the Colston Hall,” read one. “Thousands hear, hear you too,” proclaimed another.
Yet the posters didn’t say who Eric Hutchings was or why he was coming to Bristol. There was only a picture of his face.
At first glance I surmised he was an all-in wrestler. I was puzzled and determined to find out just who he was. I marched into the Information bureau, followed by my giggling friends.
“Who is Eric Hutchings?” I asked the woman behind the counter.
“I haven’t the faintest idea,” she replied.
“Someone must know,” I insisted, explaining about the many posters I’d seen.
“I do believe he is an evangelist or a preacher of some sort,” spoke up another woman.
I nearly fainted. Oh no! Not again. I couldn’t get away from them.
“As if we haven’t got enough preachers in Bristol without him poking his nose in.”
I was angry and raised my voice in protest. By this time I had a small audience who were amused, if a little puzzled, by my outburst.
“Come on, girls. Let’s get out of here.”
They duly followed me, in fits of laughter.
“As my giggling friends watched, I proceeded to pull down every Eric Hutchings poster I could find. I was conducting my own crusade as champion poster-puller.
“Has everyone gone crazy in this city of churches?” I was saying. “Has everyone got religious mania?”
Much to my astonishment just a few days later even more posters had been put up. It seemed that six replaced each one I had removed. My anger flared again, but I changed my tactics.
Instead of pulling down the posters, I drew a big bushy beard on the face of Eric Hutchings, or a huge handlebar mustache, much to the delight of my friends.

(from the culmination of the terrifying Chapter 13: No Way Out. Relax, she gets “Out” in Chapter 14, so no harm done.)

I’ll say one thing for Satanism. It’s a piece of piss to become the King or Queen of it, or at least, it is if books like this (and there are legion) are anything to go by. It’s always amazed me that people who peddle their survival stories are never the coven dogsbody, but always the monarch of all the country’s Satanists or High Priest/ Priestess at the very least, though I suspect this is often news to their dastardly subjects. Obviously, their dark doings are miles too evil to tell you about so they don’t bother – there’s just the occasional reminder of how evil they were: “I know that witchcraft is real. Was I not at the top as queen of black witches?” as Dozzer puts it – but becoming #1 doesn”t seem to require any time or effort, so you can forget old fogey Dennis Wheatley and his “lifetime of serious study” nonsense.

The fact that my copy is an eighteenth printing from September, 1988, suggests they shifted a few copies of this.