Part Four- Hollywood and the Magician

 This article  is the work of Nicolette Stevens, also known as Sylviana and as Lady Jasmine. The source of this material is paraphrased from  Jerik Daenarson himself, both in person and through recorded interviews that took place in 2001. The photo of Jerik above is one I snapped one night on Jackson Square. This essay is the fourth chapter in a series telling Jerik's life story and history in the Pagan community. If you didn't read the first chapters, you can find them further down on the home page of this blog.

Hollywood and and the Magician

It was the mid 1960’s. After a brief period of living with his teacher and first spiritual mentor, Jerik decided to move on from Riverside, California. He had some friends and some good experiences there, but for a teenager Riverside seemed to be a fairly dull town. Jerik knew that there was a lot more glamor, glitz, and fun going on in Hollywood, and so he decided to move there for a while and see if it held more of the excitement he wanted from life. 

A new youth culture was almost exploding in America. Now having escaped “parent land” and having moved out of his teacher’s home, he was free to explore in a more independent way. Things were changing rapidly in the world around him as the sixties generation had its inception. People were starting to listen to bands like the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, they were dressing differently, and acting more liberally than the generation before. Young people were discovering rock and roll, and rallying for peace. They were also experimenting with drugs, which Jerik said “he would have thought was aspirin and some vitamins” at the time. Political ideals and values were changing, and being more openly discussed than in more conservative times. The youth culture was coming on, and the idea of ‘finding yourself’ and ‘discovering the world around you’ was in. Spiritual exploration was a big part of that. 

At the time, spiritual paths other than those of majority religions were beginning to be discussed more openly, especially among young people. Many books were published on Eastern paths and meditation, which included a lot of ideas and ideals that were new to the Western world. It was now possible to meet people like the Buddhist Dean Strong in everyday life, who he had gotten to know as his high school art appreciation teacher. 

Jerik had also already discovered the Norse myths as a child and declared himself Pagan, but had not yet met anyone else who was following a similar spiritual path. Around the same time, books about Wicca and Witchcraft started to appear along with literature about other spiritual systems, and many people began to explore Pagan ideals. Interestingly, there are a significant number of other Pagan traditions whose founders lived in that area of California during the sixties. The timing of Jerik’s entrance into the Pagan world makes him a contemporary of some very well-known people, who are looked at as the forerunners of the most respected traditions of modern Witchcraft and Paganism.

It was in the midst of those social changes and the atmosphere of spiritual exploration prevalent in the 1960’s that Jerik met his second mentor, who went by the name Kelly Green. Picture a slightly skinny 6’2” leprechaun with bright red hair, flashing blue eyes, and a bouncy manner of speaking and behaving. He was slightly self-depreciating, had a huge grin and a marvelous talent for sleight of hand, and was as down to earth as he was creative. At the time Jerik met him, he was the manager of a magic shop on Hollywood Boulevard. Not the kind of occult magic shop that sells crystals and books about witchcraft, but the kind where you can learn to pull a rabbit out of a hat. 

When Jerik met him, he introduced himself saying “Kelly the Wizard, at your service.” With a beaming theatrical smile. He saw him do a couple of tarot readings for people at a local coffee shop, and in that moment Kelly looked something like Merlin to Jerik, who wandered over to him said “I want learn how to do what you do.” And asked how he had learned to read. In a way, that is perhaps when Jerik’s life really began. The wizard responded “Oh no, it’s the soccer’s apprentice- your name isn’t Arthur is it?”, and in that moment he Jerik did become Kelly’s apprentice. 

When Jerik finally got invited to Kelly’s house, he thought it was like a movie set from Arabian nights. It was not like the Ashram, which was a place of celibacy, fasting and quiet meditation. There was a five foot bronze Chinese gong on a stand with a big gong banger; Persian carpets on the floor instead of couches, harem pillows of enormous sizes, velvet curtains, and giant aquarium with fish underneath the Titanic. It was like a walk in fantasy, and this was the wizard’s lair. 

Kelly was in many ways different from his previous mentor. For instance, he encouraged people to have a few vices, because it keeps them from feeling self-righteous about the vices of others. He believed that life was here to enjoy and share the enjoyment of it with others. He didn’t see sexuality as a form of negative attachment, or have anything against drinking, smoking, and eating meat.  Jerik remembered him saying “I’m not going to tell you to be celibate Jerik; calling on the hand of the Lord is just fine, getting laid is fine, falling in love fine. Please do it as often as you can. And don’t become a drunk Jerik, make love all you can while you’re young, and do your drinking when you get old. “

Having been adopted and raised in a Japanese American household, Kelly was very culturally diverse and also encouraged Jerik and other people around him to develop a sense of cultural diversity. He was a Netrean Buddhist, a ceremonial magician, and a Pagan. Each of those magical and spiritual paths came together in him and affected how he thought about life and what he taught his students.

Kelly Green also had a sense of responsibility to community. Jerik was a young, long haired hippie, and like many of his contemporaries found that sometimes made it hard to keep a regular job or find a stable living situation. Kelly had a spare room and took him in many times during his time as a student. Kelly invited him to stay both when he had problems with his circumstances, and when he experienced some medical problems. Both Kelly Green and Dean Strong had a deep sense of family that went beyond one’s relatives, and their influence shows in the way Jerik lived his life. Later when he was in a position to do so for others, Jerik was very inclined to take in and look after people he cared about, including the writer of this essay. 

Once, from “living in unclean circumstances with questionable people” he developed a serious illness, and Kelly was kind enough to let him stay for an extended period of time while he got better. During his convalescence Kelly introduced him to other literature that made an impact on him in a philosophical and spiritual way, and also books that motivated him to become a great writer who could paint a moving picture with vividly descriptive language.  He shared with him “Stranger in a Strange Land” by Robert Heinlien, “Lord of the Rings” by J.R. Tolkien, and Alan Watts “The Book on the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are”.

Kelly was a fun and entertaining man, but he was also a hard master. Jerik said that “there was also a Japanese sensei in that leprechaun. Comparing magic to karate Jerik laughed, saying their relationship had moments where he would exuberantly ask something akin to “When are you going to teach me karate??” and his teacher would respond with something like “Rake the leaves.” Jerik was Kelly’s apprentice for a full year and a day. It should be noted that in many traditional settings of teaching the craft, a year and a day is a common period of study required for initiation to the first degree. 

Kelly Green was sometimes a rough mentor, but also very encouraging and compassionate. He was a great stressor of cleanliness and responsibility, which Jerik thought may have been really good for him and some of the other people that came up in his generation. He pointed out that having grown up in mostly conservative families, the kids of the sixties may have briefly forgotten some things in their new found independence and freedom, basic things that are good ideas for everyone. Jerik said the attitude was  something like “Wow, before we dropped out, we had to clean our rooms and stuff, but now, we don’t anymore. Peace, freedom, and grunge!” This apparently didn’t fly with Kelly.

While the mentality of young people in the mid 60’s may have had a few areas to mature in, the people of that generation were also vastly curious about the frontiers of consciousness. Jerik pointed out that it was an era in which great shifts and development of new kinds of thinking really started to happen. He referenced that this was the time in which the Carlo’s Castaneda books started to come out, the time which produced Timothy Leary and Richard Alpert, and some great music that people are still talking about. It was a time in which America became increasingly politically polarized, and a people who were also exploring religious and spiritual frontiers. He said “The American Neo-Pagan Movement gets its biggest infusion and maybe even part of its birth in this cycle of events.”

The story of Jerik’s time with Kelly is also a good example of the effect that one good teacher can have. Later, Jerik founded his own tradition, and was a master reader and palmist on Jackson Square for over 30 years. It’s incalculable just how many people Jerik must have read for in that period of time, and those are all people who he touched with skills that Kelly helped him to develop. Jerik went on to teach literally hundreds of students, and was a mentor of many different things. Many of his students went on to have students and circles of their own. He taught a lot of people how to read tarot, how to make a living at it, and how to be a Pagan Priest or Priestess in many different fashions. Jerik said “All Pagans should keep their word, their oath, and their values.”  In currents underneath those spiritual and magical practices he also taught people how to be an honorable member of a community, how to have values and live by them, how to have integrity.   

When people speak of Pagan lineage, it is like a family tree of teaching and sharing that has been passed down through many traditions by many people. It is sometimes useful to realize that if you have been taught something useful by someone, they also had to learn it somewhere and then develop their knowledge and skill beyond that through practice and experience. Sometimes such lineage is used to trace who has what initiations in what traditions and who has gone through what specific training, but perhaps this interlinked tree has a much greater meaning that is difficult to convey in words. If this man taught me something, I also recognize with gratitude those who taught him something. 

( This article is part of an ongoing effort by Jerik’s friends, family, and students; to create a proper memorial for him and preserve his stories and writing as he wished. Cody Allison and I are working on this along with other friends, and would be happy to include material and memories by others who had a connection to him, and to his tradition which was called Southshire. Please feel free to contact either of us to share your comments; memories, class notes, experiences, and any other writing from Jerik that it may be shared in honor of our friend. Thank you! )