NEWS FEATURE: Hollywood’s Sought-After Sorcerer Has No Use for Hocus-Pocus

c. 2000 Religion News Service LOS ANGELES _ He’s a straight shooter, all right. No gimmicks and no fakery. None of that hocus-pocus stuff. George Derby, longtime practitioner of the occult, just tells it like it is. “I try to keep my feet on the ground,” explained the 60-year-old sorcerer, who draws on both positive […]

c. 2000 Religion News Service

LOS ANGELES _ He’s a straight shooter, all right. No gimmicks and no fakery. None of that hocus-pocus stuff. George Derby, longtime practitioner of the occult, just tells it like it is.

“I try to keep my feet on the ground,” explained the 60-year-old sorcerer, who draws on both positive and negative energy to exercise his powers.


Sitting comfortably in his antique-style red velvet chair, Derby cheerfully greets curious customers who wander into Panpipes Magickal Marketplace, a small occult shop near the corner of Cahuenga and Hollywood boulevards. His affable personality seems at odds with his gray goatee, bald head and black shirt. A silver pentagram dangles from his neck.

“I take it off when I leave the shop,” Derby admitted.

Although Derby loosely refers to himself as Panpipes’ operations director, he’s better known as L.A.’s most sought-after master of the occult. He’s lent his expertise on many movies, including “Angel Heart,” “The Lawnmower Man,” “The Craft” and “The Ninth Gate,” as well as six episodes of TV’s “Jag.” As for the popular Harry Potter series of books, he’s never read any.

“In the modern media, witchcraft and the occult are done on a candy-coated level,” he said.

Celebrities, teachers, tourists and housewives regularly seek Derby’s advice on love, money and just about everything else. On Tuesdays he reads tarot cards from his snug corner in Panpipes.

“I get priests and rabbis in here,” said Derby. “We sit around and drink coffee and we discuss philosophy.”

A native Louisianan, Derby moved to California in 1959. He boasts a mixed ancestry of Japanese, Choctaw, Scottish and English. He came from a diverse religious background: His father was a practicing occultist and a member of the Masons. His mother, a Christian Scientist, was also a tarot card reader.

Derby is divorced with five grown children (one is a practicing occultist), and he now lives with a female friend who collects cartoon memorabilia.


“Everything in our house is either Mickey Mouse or Tweety Bird or Winnie-the-Pooh or something like that,” he said.

Panpipes, billed as “L.A.’s oldest and most respected occult supply shop,” first opened in 1961. Derby was well acquainted with one of its founders, the late occultist Donald R. Blyth, who then called the shop the Ram Occult Center.

In 1984, the shop burned to the ground. The name changed and so did its ownership. Today Panpipes is owned by “The Craft” star Fairuza Balk.

Panpipes sells assorted herbs, oils, tarot cards, candles, jewelry and Ouija boards. A strong aroma of incense pervades the store; small gargoyles peer at the steady stream of visitors. Handsome stainless-steel daggers, some with inlaid stones, line a display case.

“They’re used to cut the air,” Derby explained as he grasped a dagger and horizontally sliced above a silver goblet, which represents water. It’s how sorcerers call forth the elements to complete the ritual magic.

But despite the store’s elaborate ceremonial objects and collection of chants _ some appeal to angels and deities _ Derby believes true magic comes from within the sorcerer.


“I work magic from the source, which is more commonly seen by traditional occult practitioners as working from within. I build formats of projected energy and conjure from there,” he said.

“I’m not here as a church,” Derby explained. “The belief of my customers is what I work with. My beliefs have nothing to do with your beliefs.”

Derby’s beliefs draw from a deeply rooted intellectual interest in the occult _ he studied ancient religion at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He dismisses the more showy, flashy practitioners like the late Anton LeVey, high priest of the Church of Satan.

“He dressed up in silly costumes and went for the shock effect. It paid off,” Derby said.

“We deal in philosophy,” Derby continued. “Metaphysics doesn’t have to translate to silly. We should be going forward, not falling back. So it’s up to us to take everything we know and impart it to the next generation.”

One member of that next generation is Derby’s protege, Jymie Darling. The 30-year-old sorcerer’s apprentice is also Panpipes’ perky store manager.


“Georgie was like a godsend,” Darling said. “In this business, you run into fakers and posers and you become disillusioned. With him, there was no faking, no posing, and no ego to pass. He was very down to earth.”

He’s so down to earth, she said, that he even hesitates to peddle oils and potions to distraught customers.

“He’ll sit down with them and say, `You know what? There’s nothing wrong with you. Go away,”’ she added.

Nevertheless, Derby hired Darling to create Panpipes’ rather extensive Web site (http://www.panpipes.com) that sells oils, blends and formulas throughout the United States and abroad. Customers can order Spell Kits and Mojo Bags, a combination of herbs and other ingredients wrapped in a bundle.

But despite the public’s fascination with spells and magic, Derby believes today’s practitioners of the occult still bear a social stigma. Many fundamentalist Christians don’t tolerate occultists, he said.

“The lowest line of intellect seems to congregate in certain groups and tends to go after us,” he explained. “If they don’t agree with you, they’re going to attack you.”


But the mainstream Catholic and Protestant groups rarely bother him.

“Generally, we’re not going to have problems with those organizations,” he said.

KRE END ALEISS

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