Missing Witches - MW YOKO ONO - Smash Your Preconceptions

00:00:00.000 If you want to support the Missing Witches project, join the coven, come hang out with us.

00:00:05.840 Or buy our books, New Moon Magic, and Missing Witches, and our Deck of Oracles, the Missing Witches Deck of Oracles.

00:00:14.320 Find everything you need to know at missingwitches.com. 1.00

00:00:17.940 You aren't being a proper woman, therefore you must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:20.780 Be a witch, be a witch, be a witch, be a witch, be a witch, be a witch. 1.00

00:00:24.360 You must be a witch. 1.00

00:00:26.200 Listen, I'm no stranger to name-calling. 0.95

00:00:30.000 Having my visions and ideas mocked, I've been critiqued and jeered at because of my art, my appearance, my personality.

00:00:39.560 And I'm proud to say that none of that ever really stopped me for too long.

00:00:45.180 When I'm in the flow, the wind that gets knocked out of me pushes into my sails and drives me further.

00:00:52.120 I'm willing to take the heat, if that's the price of freedom.

00:00:56.160 When I got married, I didn't change my name.

00:00:58.000 this identity, the one I'm sitting inside right now, was hard fought. My mother has had three

00:01:06.440 last names, her father's and two husbands. And the idea of changing ownership just really never

00:01:13.900 resonated with my feminist ethos. Of course, there are a million reasons why you might want to change 1.00

00:01:21.560 your name, and I support all of them. But me, I'm Amy Torek. I'm Amy T. And I always will be

00:01:27.380 in name and vision. A witch. I don't care what they say. 0.66

00:01:35.720 Now, take that idea and times it by a million. How does a conceptual artist from an affluent

00:01:43.060 family in Japan become, for a moment, the most hated woman in music, if not the world? 0.95

00:01:49.860 Well, one of the first steps is to call her a witch. Then, use her name as shorthand to describe 0.92

00:01:56.980 music wags who stick their noses into boy bands and ruin them. I've been called a Yoko myself.

00:02:04.820 Kara Kolwicki wrote, quote, Yoko Ono's name is tossed around as an insult, sometimes jokingly,

00:02:11.700 sometimes really and truly hatefully. Any woman who dates a male band member and expects to be

00:02:18.480 treated like a person, or any woman who is seen to, in some way, cause a change in a male artist

00:02:26.020 of any kind, is particularly at risk of being called Yoko. To a lesser extent, so is any woman

00:02:33.900 who expects to be given equal consideration as her partner, and her partner's friend's friends.

00:02:40.380 Why is it an insult exactly? Well, because everyone hates Yoko. She's a mentally unbalanced, 1.00

00:02:47.920 scheming, money-grubbing, castrating bitch. Oh, and she broke up the Beatles. Or so they say. 1.00

00:02:56.020 End quote. As rumors swirled around her that she had enchanted or hypnotized a beetle with a black 0.91

00:03:03.120 magic love spell that made him powerless against her will, Yoko somehow managed to stay the course

00:03:09.780 as artist, activist, and disruptor, and shocked the world by declaring, yes, I'm a witch.

00:03:20.500 Through it all, and this is maybe her most amazing achievement, she remained Yoko Ono.

00:03:28.000 In name, in vision, in character.

00:03:32.580 Literally all of Yoko's art is an invitation, a provocation, and a spell.

00:03:38.020 She asks us to imagine worlds without borders, without war, no heaven, no hell.

00:03:44.720 No rules that tell us who gets to be heard and who must remain silent.

00:03:50.640 Rules about what constitutes music and art.

00:03:55.120 For decades, the media reduced her to a punchline. 0.81

00:03:58.500 A scapegoat for the rage of men who couldn't bear the sight of a woman who dared to be visionary.

00:04:05.460 But Yoko refused to be silenced. 0.92

00:04:08.780 She carried scars of war and displacement and turned them into instruction pieces 0.96

00:04:16.120 Tiny rituals of transformation 0.94

00:04:18.920 She taught us that art could be a whispered command 0.97

00:04:22.400 A chance to rewire consciousness

00:04:25.400 Breathe

00:04:27.000 Count the stars

00:04:29.240 Listen to the sound of the earth turning

00:04:33.500 not just songs sculptures poems or installations all the pieces of yoko ono's oof were are

00:04:44.540 invitations to magic she has always been an oracle in her own right using her voice her

00:04:51.840 body her art as portals to liberation through imagination yoko reminds us that vulnerability

00:04:59.520 is power, that joy can be a revolutionary act, that peace is not passive but ferocious, that war

00:05:06.940 is over if we want it. She said, quote, I think that all women are witches, in the sense that a 0.81

00:05:15.580 witch is a magical being, and a wizard, which is a male version of a witch, is kind of revered,

00:05:21.280 and people respect wizards. But a witch, my god, we have to burn them. It's the male chauvinistic 0.99

00:05:27.820 society that we're living in for the longest time, 3,000 years or whatever, and so I just wanted to

00:05:33.460 point out the fact that men and women are magical beings. We are very blessed that way, so I'm just

00:05:40.960 bringing that out. Don't be scared of witches, because we are good witches, and you should

00:05:47.900 appreciate our magical power." End quote. Despite all of her magical works, artistic engagement of

00:05:56.020 all six senses. Despite her obsession with the esoteric, consulting psychics, numerologists,

00:06:02.380 and astrologers before making any moves, shuffling tarot cards at business meetings, 0.86

00:06:07.560 perhaps what makes Yoko the most witchy is her persecution. Fear, superstition, and social 1.00

00:06:15.420 control have intersected with racism and misogyny throughout history. Accusations of witchcraft,

00:06:22.280 Trials and executions often followed unexplained illness, cropped failures, livestock deaths,

00:06:28.780 or any sudden misfortunes.

00:06:31.260 Marginalized or non-conforming women, widows, healers, outspoken women, were at highest

00:06:37.080 risk.

00:06:38.800 Continue to be at highest risk.

00:06:42.060 And in this history, we find Yoko.

00:06:46.160 The woman who broke up the world's most beloved band.

00:06:49.240 The woman who poisoned the Beatles. 0.67

00:06:52.280 apple. But the fact is, the Beatles were on a slow trajectory toward fragmentation before Yoko,

00:06:58.280 driven by creative divergence, business disputes, personal growth. Yoko's arrival didn't start the

00:07:04.900 unraveling, but John Lennon's insistence that Yoko be involved in his creative process gave the other

00:07:11.520 Beatles someone, something, on whom to focus their growing disdain for each other and for the band

00:07:19.000 that formed their identities. And yet, none of that fragmentation comes up when we talk about

00:07:24.800 the Beatles' breakup. We blame Yoko immediately, forgetting that she was an established and

00:07:29.920 respected artist before she ever met John, that she was a visionary, and it was her creative

00:07:35.960 spirit that attracted him to her in the first place. I'm gonna go on a bit of a tangent here,

00:07:42.100 so bear with me. There's this clip you can watch on YouTube of John Lennon playing music with Chuck

00:07:47.880 Barry, a man often hailed as the inventor of rock and roll. Yoko is doing background vocals,

00:07:55.320 and I admit, her famous or infamous primal guttural screeching feels at odds with the

00:08:02.000 classic chugga-chugga of the birth of rock and roll. The clip went viral because of Chuck Barry's

00:08:08.140 face as he reacts to Yoko's singing. Yoko is again the punchline. Yoko is a joke,

00:08:14.580 and Chuck Berry is a victim of Yoko's caterwaal.

00:08:19.260 But y'all, Chuck Berry has been accused of assaulting a woman at a New York hotel,

00:08:24.320 was sued by female staff at his restaurant for putting hidden cameras in the women's bathroom.

00:08:30.100 But he had a statue devoted to him in Missouri.

00:08:33.320 And John, too, had a history of violence and bad behavior.

00:08:36.320 But in the archive of history, it's Yoko who is the villain in this story.

00:08:41.700 because she dared to experiment in the face of sacrosanct, antique rock and roll.

00:08:50.900 When we talk about Yoko's caterwauling, we leave out something important.

00:08:56.740 Yoko can sing, she proves it, on albums like Double Fantasy, where her voice rings out clear and true.

00:09:04.380 She chose to make her guttural noises as an expression of pain, suffering, war, and desire,

00:09:11.700 keening and howling and silence. It's not like John Cage, whom Yoko's gang called J.C. John Cage,

00:09:20.740 Jesus Christ, a deity of the avant-garde, made musical pieces of silence and destruction because

00:09:26.620 he couldn't play piano. He was a skilled and gifted pianist who chose to make confrontational

00:09:33.660 art instead. Same goes for Namjoon Pike or Marcel Duchamp, who was an excellent painter,

00:09:40.900 but instead hung a urinal on a wall.

00:09:44.320 Yoko was formally trained in Japanese singing,

00:09:47.680 but said, quote,

00:09:48.800 I took and morphed my vocalization consciously from kabuki and no, end quote.

00:09:57.420 It wasn't ineptitude.

00:10:00.140 It was a choice.

00:10:03.300 I click a short clip of the Chuck Berry incident that was posted just one year ago.

00:10:08.560 It has 2 million views and 2,000 comments.

00:10:14.280 The comments on the video aren't surprising.

00:10:17.720 Quote, there are three musical legends in this video.

00:10:21.360 Lennon, Barry, and the guy who unplugged Yoko's microphone.

00:10:25.140 Quote, the lack of self-awareness and disrespect by that woman is remarkable.

00:10:31.140 Quote, I'm starting to think John hired someone to kill him.

00:10:36.060 Quote, 60 years of bashing Yoko Ono is not near enough.

00:10:42.600 Quote, rule number one, never bring your wife or girlfriend into the studio.

00:10:48.720 And of course, the ever-present, quote, the wrong person got shot.

00:10:54.140 again i can't imagine the fortitude required to continue in the face of such vitriol still

00:11:04.600 coming 60 years of bashing yoko ono is not near enough maybe i would change my name

00:11:11.320 shrink back into the hedges make myself small

00:11:16.120 But Yoko remained Yoko Ono. In name. In vision. In character. Make no mistake, Yoko Ono is

00:11:28.500 a witch. But it's her commitment to identity, vision, and imagination that, for me, warrants 0.92

00:11:37.100 her place in the Missing Witches pantheon. Yoko Ono remains Yoko Ono.

00:11:45.420 So for today, and I say this as a big fan and lover of the Beatles, fuck all this rock 1.00

00:11:51.900 and roll boys club, no cock, no rock, YouTube noise. 0.99

00:11:56.240 Let's get to know the Yoko who exists outside of the heavy shadow of the Fab Four and dismissive

00:12:03.360 eye rolls of the rock and roll crowd.

00:12:06.160 The one who said, quote, music, words, and silence, they are all spells.

00:12:14.180 They carry energy.

00:12:15.820 They change perception, end quote.

00:12:20.080 The one who said, quote, everyday life is full of rituals.

00:12:25.540 When you do them consciously, when you perform them with intention, they become magic, end quote.

00:12:33.300 The one who sang, quote, yes, I'm a witch. 1.00

00:12:37.740 I'm a bitch. 1.00

00:12:38.920 I don't care what you say. 1.00

00:12:40.760 My voice is real.

00:12:41.960 My voice speaks truth. I don't fit in your ways. I'm not going to die for you. You might as well

00:12:49.360 face the truth. I'm going to stick around for quite a while. We're going to say. We're going

00:12:56.080 to try. We're going to try it our way. We've been repressed. We've been depressed. Suppression all

00:13:03.980 the way. We're not going to die for you. We're not seeking vengeance, but we're not going to

00:13:09.820 kill ourselves for your convenience. Each time we don't say what we want to say, we're dying.

00:13:17.740 Each time we close our minds to how we feel, we're dying.

00:13:22.860 Each time we gotta do what we want to do, we're living. 0.79

00:13:27.900 Each time we're open to what we see and hear, we're living."

00:13:32.060 end quote. Of these lyrics, Jessica Hundley wrote, quote, Yoko Ono wrote these words in 1974,

00:13:41.400 bristling at media backlash over her relationship with John Lennon, targeting her righteous

00:13:46.380 indignation at the press, at the patriarchy, at the brittle, unyielding evidence of the cultural

00:13:53.700 establishment. Yoko was and remains a witch, defiant, powerful, a magical being, manifesting

00:14:02.560 the spell of creative action. By her very existence, she defies stereotype. By proclaiming

00:14:10.600 herself a witch, she transforms a legacy of persecution into an expression of empowerment.

00:14:17.080 end quote. Yoko Ono was born in Tokyo in 1933, straight into a life of contradictions,

00:14:26.620 wealth and devastation, tradition and dislocation, and this was a kind of aesthetic that she carried

00:14:32.860 throughout her life. For his 40th birthday, Yoko gave John a homemade tie that she had knitted

00:14:38.160 herself, plus a $25,000 wristwatch. Her father was a banker, her mother was an artist.

00:14:47.080 During the Second World War, she and her family fled to the countryside as Tokyo burned.

00:14:53.860 She remembers hunger, remembers trading her family's possessions for food,

00:14:59.500 remembers lying on the ground as bombs fell, staring at the sky and imagining she could pull the clouds down like curtains. 0.85

00:15:08.940 Out of devastation, she learned the witch's first lesson. 0.58

00:15:13.860 When reality collapses, imagination becomes survival

00:15:20.940 In the countryside, Yoko was with her younger brother, Kai

00:15:27.780 And she felt responsible for him

00:15:30.360 Quote, we were starving

00:15:32.100 My brother looking extremely sad

00:15:35.020 I remember thinking, why don't we make a menu that would really make us feel good?

00:15:39.980 How about starting with ice cream?

00:15:41.560 lying on our backs, looking up at the sky through an opening in the roof.

00:15:46.720 We exchanged menus in the air and used our powers of visualization to survive.

00:15:55.300 Her brother said,

00:15:57.140 We made those menus. We imagined the food.

00:16:02.140 That was my sister's first conceptual art piece.

00:16:06.740 And so it was that young Yoko found the medium for her art.

00:16:11.560 imagination. The artist and musician Laurie Anderson observed, quote,

00:16:17.800 Yoko had this revolutionary idea that art happens mainly in your head, which is where her work

00:16:23.720 manifests. And art historian and curator Raiko Tomi said, quote, she is a conceptual artist who

00:16:32.840 said you don't need an object or material to create art. Basically, all you need is your mind.

00:16:38.200 You can construct a painting in your head. In your mind, you can create an event.

00:16:44.740 It was a new concept of what art could be and who could make it. End quote.

00:16:50.880 It was witchcraft. In 1954, Yoko's father's work carried the family back to the United States,

00:16:58.620 where they had been for a time before the war. Yoko arrived in New York and enrolled at Sarah

00:17:04.000 Lawrence College, a place alive with philosophy, literature, and avant-garde whispers. In New York,

00:17:13.240 Yoko would carry that memory of bombs and imaginary ice cream forward. The war had taught

00:17:19.220 her that everything can vanish, that the ground beneath your feet is never certain. But she also

00:17:26.400 learned that the invisible is powerful. Thought, breath, and vision were tools as real as stone,

00:17:37.820 sounds, words, and paint. And New York in the 1950s had its own high magic. Jazz clubs, beat

00:17:47.200 poets, painters, and thinkers tearing open and reconstructing reality. Yoko stepped into this

00:17:53.540 electric current, carrying with her those scars of war, that discipline of survival,

00:17:59.040 and that power of imagination. In classrooms and lofts, she began to translate her visions into

00:18:06.640 instructions, her dreams into art, her voice into a tool of expression and invocation.

00:18:17.060 For Yoko, New York was another portal, and it was there that Yoko began to formalize her

00:18:23.800 imaginative weaving of the creative spells that would come to make her famous.

00:18:29.100 Yoko was there in the room when artist George Masiunas chose the name Fluxus for a fledgling

00:18:35.540 communal art project, and in fact, her makeshift loft gallery helped inspire and foster the

00:18:41.960 movement. She was already practicing what Fluxus preached, turning life into ritual, art into

00:18:48.800 instruction, imagination into event. Fluxus became an international interdisciplinary community of

00:18:58.460 artists, composers, designers, and poets who valued process over product, and experience over

00:19:05.920 definition, and rejected cold, sterile galleries in favor of events, happenings, and experimentation.

00:19:14.820 Fluxus is famous in the avant-garde world, artists like the aforementioned John Cage and Namjoon

00:19:20.760 Pike. Until I started researching for this episode, I didn't even know Yoko was a member.

00:19:27.780 It's like the world wanted me to think she didn't exist until John Lennon plucked her from obscurity.

00:19:33.380 Anyway, with Fluxus in the early 1960s, Yoko found a kind of constellation of artists like

00:19:43.040 her. Bent on dissolving the boundaries between art and life, Fluxus was a revolution against

00:19:50.240 the rigidity of art institutions. Its artists sought to strip art of its preciousness and

00:19:58.560 return it to the everyday, to laughter, to breath, to imagination. Yoko's loft in New York became one

00:20:06.480 of the epicenters. She opened her space to concerts, happenings, performances that blurred

00:20:11.520 music, poetry, silence, and chants. Here, John Cage, Lamonte, Young, and the Flux's circle gathered

00:20:18.960 with Yoko at the center, weaving her delicate webs. Her instruction pieces fit seamlessly into this

00:20:25.220 ethos. Art as event, art as ritual, art as suggestion. Imagine pulling the sky down.

00:20:35.620 Imagine painting with your breath. The invitation was magic. Fluxus celebrated impermanence,

00:20:44.960 and Yoko embraced it with a witch's gaze. Her works asked participants not to consume but

00:20:50.980 transform. Her piece, Apple, was designed to rot. To sit with emptiness and dissatisfaction.

00:21:01.900 To notice beauty in the mundane, pull clouds from the sky. To contribute to and participate in

00:21:11.620 the spell of possibility. In Fluxus, Yoko found her kin, but more than that, she sharpened her

00:21:18.360 own practice of art as invocation, as opening, as a doorway to the unseen. Inspired by the Dada 0.72

00:21:27.360 Manifesto by Tristan Zara, Masiunis wrote a manifesto for Fluxus. The movement's mission,

00:21:34.060 quote, purge the world of bourgeois sickness, intellectual, professional, and commercialized

00:21:40.800 culture. Purge the world of dead art. Imitation. Artificial art. Illusionist art. Mathematical art.

00:21:50.520 Purge the world of Europeanism. Fluxus would, quote, promote a revolutionary flood and tide 0.92

00:21:59.780 in art. Promote living art. Anti-art. Promote non-art reality to be grasped by all peoples,

00:22:08.120 Not only critics, dilettantes, and professionals, end quote.

00:22:13.700 None of the other members signed it, though.

00:22:16.820 Maybe a manifesto felt too permanent.

00:22:19.660 Too contractual.

00:22:22.780 Anyway, this feels like a good time to just straight-up list some of Yoko's major artworks from the 1960s.

00:22:28.820 just to, like, take this moment and really cast a light on them

00:22:32.960 and consider how many of the concepts are de rigueur in today's art world.

00:22:38.580 What a trailblazer Yoko was.

00:22:41.620 Painting to be stepped on, 1960.

00:22:45.520 A conceptual piece inviting viewers to walk on the painting.

00:22:49.560 Challenging place and reverence.

00:22:52.780 bag piece 1964 participants interact from inside a cloth bag an experiment in identity and ego

00:23:02.100 play it by trust 1966 an all-white chess set where both sides are white symbolizing the

00:23:12.100 futility of conflict film number four bottoms 1966 close-ups of naked walking bums to get to

00:23:21.680 know people from the bottom up. And while much ink has been spilled and many biographies exist,

00:23:28.880 if you really want to get to know the inner workings of Yoko, I suggest picking up Grapefruit,

00:23:34.960 a collection of her instructional pieces in book form, to truly get into her state of mind.

00:23:41.560 She calls them instructions, but the witch in you will recognize them as mini spells of

00:23:47.700 consciousness and perspective. Tools to, as Genesis P. Orridge commanded, seize the means

00:23:54.760 of perception. Earth Peace. Listen to the sound of the earth turning. 1963 Spring.

00:24:07.440 Tuna Fish Sandwich Peace. Imagine 1,000 suns in the sky at the same time.

00:24:17.700 Let them shine for one hour.

00:24:21.260 Let them gradually melt into the sky.

00:24:25.160 Make one tuna fish sandwich and eat.

00:24:28.780 1964, spring.

00:24:30.600 Many of the pieces reflected her inner turmoil.

00:24:33.780 Voice piece for piano from 1961 read,

00:24:36.700 Scream.

00:24:38.760 One, against the wind. 0.97

00:24:41.920 Two, against the wall.

00:24:44.540 3. Against the Sky

00:24:48.260 Blood Peace from 1960 read

00:24:51.900 Use your blood to paint 0.98

00:24:53.580 Keep painting till you faint, A 0.83

00:24:56.600 Keep painting until you die, B

00:25:00.280 It was Yoko's second husband, Tony Cox, who suggested the Grapefruit book,

00:25:06.720 turning years of instructional art and poetry into a book.

00:25:11.460 But his motives were real-world.

00:25:13.380 it's hard to sell art that exists only in the mind, right?

00:25:18.580 And yes, Yoko was married twice before John.

00:25:22.680 And truly, Yoko's three marriages almost appear as stages in a lifelong experimental ritual of becoming,

00:25:29.760 each entwined with a phase of her art and exploration.

00:25:33.840 With Toshi Ichionagi, the young avant-garde composer,

00:25:37.440 Yoko leaned into the experimental music ferment of post-war New York.

00:25:41.660 Her second marriage to Anthony Cox was a time of films, staged happenings.

00:25:48.360 These were those Fluxus years, years of opening herself to the world,

00:25:52.700 asking strangers to cut her clothing away in cut piece,

00:25:57.860 daring vulnerability to be the medium of transformation.

00:26:01.820 It's worth noting that cut piece predates Marina Abramovich's admittedly more harrowing version,

00:26:07.980 Rhythm Zero, by ten years.

00:26:11.660 Then came the third husband, John Lennon.

00:26:15.260 With John, Yoko expanded her magic from galleries to global rituals, bed-ins for peace, performance

00:26:21.620 as protest.

00:26:24.080 Three marriages, three initiations, each a portal, each a spell, and after each, Yoko

00:26:30.920 found herself alone again.

00:26:33.740 She said of the dissolution of her first two marriages, quote, better to be alone than

00:26:38.120 to feel like I can't breathe, end quote.

00:26:41.660 Through it all, Yoko remained Yoko Ono, in name, in vision, in character.

00:26:49.580 When she lost John, though, it was both. She was alone, and she couldn't breathe.

00:26:56.300 Imagine, your spouse, your soulmate, the love of your life is gunned down on the doorstep of your

00:27:04.140 home, right in front of you, close enough for the blood to spatter at your feet.

00:27:09.260 And while the world mourns, stationing themselves outside your window, singing songs that are a

00:27:17.080 constant reminder of what you've lost, you're also receiving death threats. I'm gonna finish

00:27:22.380 what Mark David Chapman started. You're next. Just imagine your staff is stealing your secrets

00:27:29.040 and objects from your home, threatening to go public with clandestine recordings of private

00:27:34.480 moments in pursuit of a quick buck. You need constant security details. You're in the depths

00:27:41.380 of grief, and your life is in danger. Would you be able to handle it?

00:27:50.040 Would you change your name or shrink your vision? Yoko didn't. Sure, she grieved. She stayed in bed

00:27:59.540 for a while, but through it all, she remained Yoko Ono. And amid this grief, Yoko decided on a title

00:28:07.740 for a solo album she was working on. It's alright, I see rainbows. If she said it, maybe it would come

00:28:16.180 to be. She fully believed that we can create reality by picturing it, meditating it, and saying

00:28:23.460 it out loud to the universe. She was desperate to change the negative energy around her into

00:28:29.180 positive energy and believed, had to believe, it was possible. I mean, she must be able to make her

00:28:38.300 own positive energy because she certainly wasn't getting it from the world at large. John and Yoko

00:28:43.560 were both married when they met and fell in love, so Homewrecker was one of the first insults hurled 1.00

00:28:48.620 at her by the press and Beatlemaniacs. Already, Yoko had become one of the world's most hated 1.00

00:28:55.500 women, and it only got worse from there. John insisted that Yoko be present during recording

00:29:02.040 sessions at Abbey Road where the Beatles tracked their hits. It was all John's idea. He sings about

00:29:08.400 not wanting to be away from her for even a single hour. Nonetheless, once again, everyone blamed

00:29:14.560 Yoko, an intruder, a witch who had put John Lennon under her spell. George Martin, the Beatles'

00:29:21.160 producer, heavily implied that Yoko was psychically sabotaging the Beatles' recording sessions.

00:29:28.300 He said that this other person there was affecting them with their thoughts, even if they weren't

00:29:34.780 spoken, and that these thoughts were impinging on what we were doing, he said. But maybe George

00:29:42.820 Martin wasn't exactly wrong. Yoko was a witch who moved in the medium of the mind, even if she

00:29:50.340 wasn't doing it on purpose, just the presence of an energy as strong as Yoko's would have upset

00:29:56.080 that delicate balance. But John and Yoko viewed marriage as a ritual that was important to both

00:30:03.880 of them. A ceremony of love and commitment to each other, and to a shared vision of creativity

00:30:10.960 infiltrating all things, including activism. Immediately after the wedding, Yoko and John

00:30:17.700 focused their attention outward. In March 1969, the war in Vietnam was raging. In America and

00:30:24.260 England, massive anti-war protests were being held, along with marches. Protesters held sit-ins.

00:30:30.940 Yoko came up with a twist on the sit-in. She and John would stage a bed-in. A bed-in for peace.

00:30:37.500 They knew that their marriage was big news, so they decided to use their honeymoon to protest

00:30:41.440 the war in Vietnam. It was performance art that came directly from Yoko, John said,

00:30:46.780 with the purpose of getting people talking about peace on the front pages of the newspapers.

00:30:52.320 Quote,

00:30:52.700 For us, it was the only way, Yoko said.

00:30:56.360 We can't go out in Trafalgar Square because it would create a riot.

00:30:59.960 We can't lead a parade or a march because of all the autograph hunters.

00:31:03.640 We had to find our own way of doing it.

00:31:06.860 And for now, bed-ins seem to be the most logical way.

00:31:11.640 We think the bed-in can be effective.

00:31:14.060 End quote.

00:31:15.040 As a Montrealer myself, I've visited the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where the bed-in took place.

00:31:20.380 The door of room 1742 still bears a plaque in John and Yoko's honour.

00:31:25.900 At the time, they were mocked, naturally,

00:31:28.660 but succeeded in making peace a part of the gossip hunter's conversation.

00:31:34.340 At a press conference, John said,

00:31:36.780 Yoko and I are quite willing to be the world's clowns, if by doing so, it will do some good.

00:31:42.360 end quote but being the world's clowns had its drawbacks as time went on yoko pre-assessed

00:31:49.380 everyone who might come into her and john's lives nannies groundkeepers journalists even

00:31:55.320 mega mogul david geffen with a combination of astrology tarot and numerology if the reading

00:32:01.740 wasn't right if the timing was off or the cards predicted a bad outcome the answer was no

00:32:06.640 David Sheff, whose book was one of my main resources for this episode,

00:32:12.180 his is the most recent biography of Yoko Ono,

00:32:15.160 and he and Yoko are friends.

00:32:17.700 So the book amounts to a love letter,

00:32:20.260 and honestly, I'm not above criticism,

00:32:22.860 and I don't think Yoko is either,

00:32:24.600 but I think she's had enough for now.

00:32:27.760 Anyway, David Sheff wrote,

00:32:29.440 Yoko had always been drawn to the occult,

00:32:31.860 and she regularly consulted astrologers, numerologists,

00:32:34.980 tarot readers, palm readers, witches, and other mystics and seers. Her friend Tadanori Yoku said

00:32:42.180 that she was always interested in very unscientific things. He said for her it was something really

00:32:48.600 important, something invisible, something incredible. To believe in something that you can't

00:32:54.180 see is a core principle of her art. Yoku believed in magic, things were meant to be. She read about

00:33:02.640 spirituality, reincarnation, separate realities, and how to use one's psychic powers. She could

00:33:09.320 be alarmed by bad signs and bolstered by good ones. She believed in positive affirmations.

00:33:15.740 When something went well, she said thank you, three times aloud, to the universe.

00:33:21.880 When I asked why she'd consulted the stars and numerology, she said, quote, because it's a larger

00:33:26.980 force than us, in a way. And I was dealing with that, not man-made forces, end quote.

00:33:34.540 Also, she relied on those systems as a way to, quote, free my brain, think about problems from

00:33:39.540 different angles. She meditated and practiced visualizing. She fervently believed that she

00:33:44.980 could create a different reality by visualizing it, imagining it. She believed that the words

00:33:50.760 she used in everything from song titles to conversation would influence the future.

00:33:56.300 She wanted to fill her brain with positive thoughts, not negative ones.

00:34:01.040 She said, 0.50

00:34:01.640 I knew I didn't have the power to stop the dangerous things that the lawyers would try to do.

00:34:07.500 The only power I had was to manage to move the date of the meeting

00:34:11.520 to when the moon was void astrologically, not in line with the Earth.

00:34:16.760 If you have a meeting when the moon is void, everything you decide will later be annulled.

00:34:21.460 I said, well, we have to meet on this particular date because it's the only one available to me.

00:34:27.060 And we met, and they decided on a lot of things I couldn't stop, and later the decisions were annulled.

00:34:34.980 While doing business, Yoko consulted her tarot card readers, numerologists, astrologers, and other psychics multiple times a day.

00:34:43.980 Some of those who knew her well claimed she relied blindly on their business advice,

00:34:48.180 while others maintained that she used them to disorient her adversaries. 1.00

00:34:53.040 Both were true.

00:34:55.420 She believed, but the advice from tarot and other belief systems

00:34:59.180 also freed her mind from preset patterns and traditional thinking.

00:35:05.180 It prompted her to consider problems from fresh angles.

00:35:08.940 She believed the universe had its own force,

00:35:11.980 and she was an extension of that force.

00:35:15.180 She felt more comfortable making business moves,

00:35:17.500 knowing she was channeling a force bigger than herself.

00:35:22.460 End quote.

00:35:23.660 And she agonized, pulled and torn between justifiable mistrust

00:35:29.860 and a desire to live out her values.

00:35:33.440 And I think we can all relate.

00:35:34.820 Being bogged down by resentment and fear can drastically impact our ability

00:35:40.660 to go out into the world with love and courage.

00:35:43.280 after john's murder her occult obsessions became desperate she shuffled a deck of tarot cards

00:35:50.820 constantly not so much divination as a nervous habit here's david chef again quote yoko's belief 0.98

00:35:59.020 in the paranormal made her ripe for exploitation she had regularly consulted psychics when john 0.88

00:36:04.700 was alive but after the murder in a continual state of distress she turned to dozens of people

00:36:10.320 who claimed to be in touch with and connected to larger forces.

00:36:15.280 Her reliance on psychics came from a desperate attempt

00:36:18.220 to find answers about what had happened

00:36:20.660 and protect herself from the very real threats.

00:36:25.320 She paid mediums to hold seances

00:36:27.420 during which she attempted to communicate with Sean,

00:36:30.280 and she believed some were successful.

00:36:31.820 Her friend Sam bugged a psychic's phone.

00:36:35.920 The psychic whose phone he bugged would talk to Yoko,

00:36:39.420 hang up and call Yoko's other psychics. They used the information they exchanged to make their

00:36:46.840 readings and advice consistent and therefore more believable. They'd get their stories straight,

00:36:52.520 Sam said. They were disgusting. Sam played Yoko a week's worth of the psychics' calls with her 0.99

00:36:59.440 cohorts. Yoko heard the psychics talking after they consulted with her, sharing stories. Sam

00:37:06.240 thought he'd succeeded. I thought it was a job well done. But later he realized she'd continued

00:37:12.040 to consult the psychics behind his back. Everyone close to Yoko witnessed her obsession with tarot

00:37:19.080 cards. Whether she was in her office, or in a recording studio, or in the kitchen talking with

00:37:24.020 friends, in person, or on the phone, she constantly shuffled a deck of cards. After John was killed,

00:37:30.520 others asked her, and she asked herself, why had none of the psychics anticipated John's death

00:37:35.240 and protected him. Yoko obsessed over this, concluding, there were premonitions and warnings.

00:37:44.620 One tarot card reader warned Yoko, John sleeps in blood, a vision that chilled her.

00:37:53.340 She followed his and other psychics' advice to protect him. It wasn't enough, Yoko said.

00:37:58.300 The forces against us were too powerful. In 2010, she said,

00:38:04.400 there is within me this feeling of guilt because I couldn't stop it.

00:38:12.280 Sam loathed her obsession with the supernatural and especially her reliance on psychics. I would

00:38:17.420 always tell her, so why don't they play the lottery if they can predict the future? Why do

00:38:21.580 they live in this shitty house? Why don't they have a car? I mean, if they see everything, 1.00

00:38:26.040 it's just so pathetic. But I come from a more practical world. 0.97

00:38:30.840 he recalled a psychic giving a group reading in palm beach everybody was always a princess

00:38:38.340 a queen a pharaoh in their past life you know i never met somebody who was a normal person in a

00:38:44.400 past life sam saw some of the psychics manipulating her by issuing scary warnings of the tragedies

00:38:50.660 that would befall yoko and sean and insisting that they and only they could prevent the calamities

00:38:57.220 And though he continually tried to convince her that the psychics were frauds,

00:39:01.260 he also understood why she believed.

00:39:04.800 She was so insecure.

00:39:07.100 She felt so alone that she wanted some help for herself, he said.

00:39:12.020 Yoko was desperate to feel safe.

00:39:18.020 End quote.

00:39:20.080 Yoko was suspicious of everyone, but can you blame her?

00:39:24.160 However, if Yoko became cold or hard or desperate during that time, it was because multiple tell-all books were being planned by people she had trusted.

00:39:34.940 The whole world felt against her, and the death threats and vitriolic telegrams continued to roll in.

00:39:44.080 The world was chaotic and scary.

00:39:48.160 Her son Sean said, quote,

00:39:49.900 It had been true on one level when my dad was alive, they were followed by the FBI, Nixon was trying to deport them, and their phones were tapped.

00:39:58.260 There were screaming fans and weird people writing them disturbing letters, and then my dad was killed by a fan.

00:40:06.500 And it was even more chaotic and scary.

00:40:10.500 I do think spirituality was something she clung to because it gave her a sense of control and some power during an overwhelming time.

00:40:18.040 It felt like she was dealing with trauma that she couldn't deal with by distracting herself with tarot and psychics

00:40:25.180 I didn't like seeing her that way

00:40:27.820 It felt like it came from a part of her that was out of control and overwhelmed 0.98

00:40:33.240 End quote

00:40:35.700 Man, I think all we witches can relate to this

00:40:39.220 We have to contend with the possibility that our healing practices, divination, or belief in the otherworldly

00:40:47.180 might amount to escapism, a distraction from chaos we know we have no hope of controlling.

00:40:56.300 We all need a sense of power during hard times, but we definitely can't just hand that power over

00:41:02.620 to anyone or anything that might become like a personal cult. Obsessive, repetitive card pulls,

00:41:10.480 or unquestioning obedience to a psychic guru.

00:41:14.680 In the depths of Yoko's grief, though,

00:41:18.700 magic was a coping mechanism that helped her come out on the other side.

00:41:23.440 I can't begrudge anyone that.

00:41:26.480 So if we're to take another lesson from Yoko, let it be this.

00:41:31.960 Cope.

00:41:33.640 Cope however you can,

00:41:36.280 but make sure those coping mechanisms aren't at odds with who you know yourself to be.

00:41:42.460 Keep your coping, but keep your name and keep your vision.

00:41:51.040 Her husband was murdered in 1980 and Yoko Ono has made it through the past 45 years by continuing to follow her visions.

00:41:59.280 keep John's legacy alive, speak out for peace for women and children and the earth and all

00:42:04.980 creatures. She has spoken at UN conferences and shaken her ass on the stages of gritty rock clubs. 0.97

00:42:11.560 Yes, she licensed instant karma to Nike for an ad and people were upset. 0.93

00:42:17.120 But what we maybe didn't know is that Yoko donated the proceeds, all $800,000 to the United

00:42:23.920 Negro College Fund, and she saw it as another piece of John's legacy, getting his music and

00:42:29.060 message into ears that might not have heard it. In March 1992, Yoko released Ono Box, a box set

00:42:37.240 that included more than a hundred songs on six CDs. Some called it a vanity project, but it did

00:42:43.380 exactly what she hoped it would. It made people look at her body of work anew. A sticker on the

00:42:49.820 box set asked listeners to Smash Your Preconceptions, which is where we got the title for this episode

00:42:56.960 and what I hope we have done for our thoughts on Yoko herself. Smash Our Preconceptions.

00:43:05.820 The collection was the musical equivalent of an art retrospective that spanned her career

00:43:10.340 to that point. It showed how much her work had evolved, but also how consistent she'd been

00:43:16.080 in the themes she'd tackled and styles she'd explored. The six CDs contained whimsy,

00:43:22.960 lighthearted love songs, and political statements about feminism, sexism, class, violence, and peace.

00:43:31.680 The songs were forceful illustrations of the way Yoko channeled her emotions through her music.

00:43:37.600 Into the 21st century, Yoko continues to weave spells across sound, word, light, and spirit.

00:43:46.980 With rising, she returned to music beside her son, Sean.

00:43:50.340 She ceded the Lenin Ono grant for peace, sending blessings and resources to those who carried the torch of justice.

00:43:58.360 In Reykjavik in 2007, she raised the Imagine Peace Tower, an eternal column of light,

00:44:05.620 A beacon stitched into the earth.

00:44:08.340 With a rising, she invited women to speak out about their lives.

00:44:12.620 She has collaborated with The Flaming Lips, Cat Power, Peaches, Sonic Youths, Thurston Moore, and Kim Gordon, and many more.

00:44:21.360 DJs that remixed her work and brought Yoko to the top of the dance charts, sampled by Wu-Tang's RZA.

00:44:27.760 And in a world where kids ask their parents, who's the old guy on stage with Kanye and Rihanna at the Grammys, the old guy being Paul McCartney, Yoko has remained forever and always Yoko Ono, creeping her way slowly out from under the Beatles' shadow and into the light of her own legacy.

00:44:52.860 And in time, the chorus will change from Yoko Broke Up the Beatles to, as one t-shirt maker's creation states, John Lennon Broke Up Fluxus.

00:45:05.160 Museums and galleries worldwide unfurl her prolific history in exhibitions that treat her art as living ritual.

00:45:14.360 In 2024, she was awarded the Edward McDowell Medal for Lifetime Achievement in the Arts,

00:45:20.440 recognizing her influence over many decades. She was never just Mrs. John Lennon.

00:45:28.740 She has always been Yoko Ono. On her 80th birthday, the Houston Press ran a piece titled

00:45:36.400 Yoko Ono Turns 80. Still weird as hell.

00:45:43.640 I recently interviewed Jessica Hundley, you'll hear that interview next week,

00:45:48.120 and knowing that Jess once interviewed Yoko herself, I asked her for her thoughts.

00:45:54.740 I was lucky enough to interview her and one of the things she said, which I always go back to

00:46:03.460 and I feel like is so important, especially for younger people, I think, to understand is I asked

00:46:11.760 I said, you know, you were sort of at this moment of revolution and change and, you know,

00:46:20.820 of the 60s moving into a whole new era. And do you think that the world is a better place now

00:46:29.260 or then? And without hesitation, she said, the world is by far a better place now. She said,

00:46:38.220 you know there were so she said you have to remember there were so few of us that yes our

00:46:44.460 voices were loud and in retrospect you think it was this massive movement she said there were so

00:46:50.220 few of us and now you have she said you know now you have housewives in iowa doing yoga you have

00:46:58.540 you know she's like the the expansion of people taking control of their own

00:47:05.340 lives and taking care of themselves through you know all these different practices which were

00:47:16.620 considered obscure or weird or they're now universal and we have this tool the internet

00:47:26.980 which she uses very very powerfully and wisely um and art and music to be able to express these

00:47:36.440 ideas and she was unequivocally you know as hard as it is to kind of see there are more people

00:47:45.400 in the world trying to transform it in a positive way than there were in 1968 you know so for her

00:47:58.900 that that really someone that wise who's been here that long to say that it's something I always go

00:48:07.620 back to and I I myself I just turned 55 and I can tell you unequivocally that the world is a better

00:48:15.060 place now than it was when I was a child in the 70s is as as much as we're bombarded by

00:48:21.580 the chaos and the sadness and the crisis they're still people in general are kinder more accepting

00:48:31.740 more open and more loving than they've ever been in the history of human civilization so I think

00:48:39.300 that's something really important to hold on to when you feel overwhelmed and you know again

00:48:45.480 bringing it back to yourself how can you be the kindest most open most loving person you can be

00:48:52.160 from there it's everything is possible right I'll link to Jess's full interview with Yoko

00:48:59.220 in the show notes but in it Yoko said quote it begins on a very day-to-day level of knowing

00:49:06.060 yourself. Knowing that you are powerful inside. Power is not something we should be afraid of.

00:49:14.020 Power is great. Power is energy. And in terms of energy, the most important energy is human

00:49:20.200 spiritual energy. And when I say spiritual, I feel like I have to be very careful. I don't mean

00:49:31.180 religious, I mean the energy of the mind, the energy that exists within us. If you're able to

00:49:38.300 tap into that energy, then you're part of the network, and really, your power is absolutely

00:49:44.740 limitless. End quote. Yoko won't be with us forever. While specific details about her condition

00:49:53.680 are not publicly disclosed, it's been widely speculated that Yoko has been living with dementia.

00:49:59.460 She's currently 92 years old, and has significantly reduced her public appearances.

00:50:06.140 She has been observed using a wheelchair, and rumors swirl that she now requires round-the-clock care.

00:50:13.580 And, as Yoko approaches her reunion with John on the other side, it's even more important to solidify her legacy.

00:50:21.200 Her contributions to the worlds of magic and the avant-garde as a virtuoso in the medium of human imagination

00:50:29.320 cannot be allowed to be outweighed by YouTube comments, misogyny, and obstinate fear of change.

00:50:40.140 In her song, Will I, a clock ticks. 0.93

00:50:44.840 Then Yoko speaks.

00:50:47.200 She asks.

00:50:48.540 Will I miss the skies? Will I miss the clouds? Will I miss the ocean? Will I miss the bay? Will

00:50:58.740 I miss the sunrise? Will I miss the moon? Will I miss the mountains? Will I miss the trees? Will

00:51:05.820 I miss the city lights? Will I miss the snow? Will I miss the laughter? Will I miss the jokes?

00:51:12.220 Will I miss touch? Will I miss love? Will I miss you? Will I? Will I?

00:51:26.700 John Lennon sang, the goddess really smiled upon our love, dear Yoko. And I truly hope,

00:51:32.620 as time passes, that future history will center Yoko. That the goddess will smile upon her and

00:51:39.820 all of us witches. Yoko will always be a beacon, inspiring us to make our declarations,

00:51:47.500 to stay true to our ideas and imaginations no matter what the critics say,

00:51:52.780 to conjure better worlds, and make our dreams come true with the singing of tra-la-la-la.

00:52:01.180 Let's take up Yoko's charge, smash our preconceptions, stay weird as hell,

00:52:07.340 Tell. Give peace a chance. Do magic. Be a witch. Be a bitch. Be the villain in someone's story. 0.98

00:52:20.380 Don't care what they say. Your power is absolutely limitless. Imagine one thousand suns in the sky at

00:52:32.780 the same time. Let them shine for one hour. Let them gradually melt into the sky. Make

00:52:42.820 one tuna fish sandwich and eat. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Tra la la la. You must

00:52:54.040 be a witch. If you want to support the Missing Witches Project, join the coven, come hang 1.00

00:53:00.780 out with us or by our books new moon magic and missing witches and our deck of oracles the

00:53:08.120 missing witches deck of oracles find everything you need to know at missingwitches.com

Missing Witches - October 02, 2025

MW YOKO ONO - Smash Your Preconceptions

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