Yesterday at the Gulu Gulu Cafe in Salem, MA a press conference was held by Ed Hubbard, founder and CEO of Witch School International, to discuss the upcoming online reality series to be filmed in Salem called “The Young Witches of Salem“.  The show will feature five “young Witches” who will be living and working in the Witch City while taking time to learn from Elders all the skills they will need to become successful “professional” Witches in Salem, MA.  They will take lessons in mediumship and psychic development, public speaking, general business skills, stone reading, and, of course, Witchcraft. The show will be filming in Salem from August through October, ending around Halloween. A total of 14 episodes, each approximately 22 minutes in length, will be aired beginning on October 1st.  But this isn’t going to be your average reality series.  It wont be on your television but on your computer.

Hubbard says the show will feature “cutting edge” technology including the ability for audiences to communicate directly with the cast and the use of something called “actionable video”.  This will allow viewers to click on things in the video itself as they watch in order to find out more information about objects, people, and businesses they are seeing.  Hubbard gave an example of seeing a necklace in an episode and how the viewer could click on it, find out who makes it, and then purchase one.  Somehow this didn’t surprise me, personally.  He also said that you could learn more about local Salem businesses by clicking on them when they are visible in the videos.

The show is being presented through ClickVision.tv, an online social video website that features a variety of online shows ranging in topics from news and talk to science fiction (and it’s clearly hosted through Ning from the looks of the site layout and features, not to mention the IP address goes back to Ning).  Including the upcoming “Young Witches of Salem”  there are 22 shows hosted through the ClickVision.tv site.   They have shows like “Squatters”, a show about two friends who make a bet to see who can go to longest without paying their rent.  “The Dirty Bomb Diaries”, a show about a woman trying to survive in a city after a dirty bomb has been detonated.  And “Two Jews on Film”, a show hosted by a married couple with ties to the film industry.  She is an actress and screenwriter and he is a writer most known for creating the Faces of Death film series.  On their show they review films together, often with hilarious comments (their review of “Eat, Pray, Love” was funny).   Frankly, I really like their show.  If you like “Curb Your Enthusiasm” you’ll like “Two Jews on Film”.

But back to the Young Witches thing.

So the show is going to be aired online through this website and it’s already boasting features where you can buy the things you see in the show, talk to the “stars” and learn more about their experience while you watch them live and work as professional Salem Witches.  I don’t know. This is leaving a bit of a bad taste in my mouth and it hasn’t even started yet.

At the press conference two of the five “stars” of the show (as Hubbard calls them), were there to introduce themselves and talk about their involvement in the show.  If you watch any of the other online “reality shows” that Witch School has attempted in the past, or if you watch the different vlogs and other videos on their MagickTV channel on YouTube, you’ll be familiar with these two faces; Danielle Young and Ryan “Coyotie” Mello.

Both were born and raised in Salem.  Young says she has been a practicing Witch for the last 10 years and that she works as a tarot reader at the World of Witches Museum, a museum in Salem operated by Witch School that opened in July of 2010, not long after the school relocated to Salem from the midwest.   She also mentions that she is a priestess of “the most public Wiccan temple in American, the Temple of Tituba”.  That I had to stop and scratch my head about.  The “most public Wiccan temple” in the entire country is a temple I’ve never heard of…and it’s named after Tituba.  Hmm.  Looking into that I wasn’t surprised to discover this is a Correllian Temple (the tradition of Witch School) headed by Hubbard and founded less than a year ago in Salem.  I’ll assume this is the place where they hold their Saturday weekly rituals and where the ritual videos on their YouTube page are filmed.

Mello spent 6 years in the Army and says he calls himself a “rasta Witch” because of his love of reggae.  Frankly I think it might be better to focus on being a military Pagan, something many people could use a dose of education about.

I don’t know what to think just yet about the whole thing but I am skeptical.  The folks at Witch School have had their online reality shows in the past (their own shopping show called The Home Shopping Cauldron, an interview series called Living the Wiccan Life, and one called “Witch City Soap” which Danielle mentions in the press conference saying it “didn’t go anywhere”).  I’m being cautiously (read: skeptically) open minded about “The Young Witches of Salem”.  Frankly I’ve had a big issue personally with how the Witch School folks swooped into town and seemed to start almost instantly trying to be the face of Salem in way. I also just find it a little off-putting that there is this emphasis on teaching these “young witches” (who haven’t seemed to reveal their actual ages yet) to be “professional practitioners in Salem” rather than focusing on teaching them quality personal and spiritual practice.  It just seems where Witch School goes dollar signs inevitably follow.

I’ll be especially curious to see what happens with this and the filming during Haunted Happenings.  I’ll be moved back to the area and living in town by then and I’ll be looking out for this on the home front.  You can be sure that, regardless of what opinion I form of the project as it unfolds, I’ll be keeping up with it here on the site.