Damien Echols
Time After All
West Memphis Three’s Damien Echols will discuss his new book High Magick with Sturgill Simpson in November
In the summer of 2015, Damien Echols found himself somewhere unexpected — at Harlem, N.Y.’s Big Gay Ice Cream with Sturgill Simpson. The circumstances that led the two of them there are … complicated.
Echols is one of three men who came to be known as the West Memphis Three. In 1994, when he was just 18 years old, Echols and two others — Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin — were convicted of murdering three young boys in West Memphis, Ark. The case was national news. At the trial, prosecutors alleged that the defendants were involved in satanic rituals. Supporters maintained the teenagers’ innocence, and the WM3 were finally released in 2011 after almost 20 years behind bars. Their release came after new evidence was introduced in their case in 2007, and a 2010 Arkansas Supreme Court ruling changed the way the state handled new DNA evidence. Ultimately, they were released on an Alford plea — a deal in which they were allowed to proclaim their innocence, but had to state that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict them.
A few months before the ice cream date, Echols had heard “Turtles All the Way Down” — a song that riffs on a fable that uses a turtle to represent the unknowable origin of the universe — from Simpson’s 2014 record Metamodern Sounds in Country Music. Had he heard the song before? Echols knows old country tunes, but he couldn’t place this one. When he realized what he was listening to was something new, he sent a text to his friend Shooter Jennings, which led to meeting Simpson in New York.
“I thought, ‘How did I miss this? This is amazing,’ ” says Echols. “And when I texted Shooter, he told me he actually knew him and that he’d hook us up. It just kind of turned into a friendship, and I came to Nashville just to see him play. I just really admire him.”
The two will meet up again in Nashville soon. Simpson and Echols are slated to have a discussion Nov. 8 at Unity Church, just after the latter releases his new book High Magick: A Guide to the Spiritual Practices That Saved My Life on Death Row (out Oct. 30 via Sounds True Publishing). Echols already has one bestselling book, his memoir Life After Death, which details the nearly two decades he spent on death row.
Echols says that during the time he spent in prison, he had to learn to put his mind in other places. That doesn’t mean simply thinking about other things, he says, but rather using ceremonial magick — a spiritual tradition “that equals the Eastern practices of Buddhism and Taoism in beauty,” he says. “It’s an ancient discipline that lets you literally change reality by working with the divine energies of creation.”
During his time in prison, he spent nearly a decade in solitary confinement.
When he was released, he moved from Arkansas to New York City. “I wasn’t used to dealing with people, with moving place to place, wasn’t used to doing things like going to the grocery store,” Echols says. “It drove me to having a nervous breakdown.”
The reason Echols decided to write the book was to expel the notion that ceremonial magick has anything to do with satanism.
“A lot of this book was designed to show people what it is, that it’s nothing dark or scary or any of that sort of thing,” Echols says. “Smear tactics from fundamentalists or really bad horror movies just turn it into this really fictional stuff, like a joke. And part of writing it was wanting to show people that this is a valid and incredibly beautiful path toward wholeness.”
Echols says in prison he spent nearly eight hours every day practicing techniques that allowed him not to think about where he was. He says he’d try to “manifest freedom” during his practice. When he was released, he says, he lost that ability for a long time.
“I’m now working on these things between five and seven hours a day,” he says. “And honestly, that’s what’s healed me. I don’t really think about prison that much, but when I was first released I would call what I experienced psychological devastation. And I’ll always have side effects from my time spent there.”
But he says his life now is all about living in the moment, not worrying too much about the past or the future, not dwelling on what happened to him and not thinking too hard about the reasons why things happen. After all, it’s turtles all the way down.
Well-Read
Check out our list of can’t-miss book events coming this fall
Sept. 23: Reese Witherspoon Whiskey in a Teacup Tour at Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Reese Witherspoon — actress, producer and owner of the cute (but pricey) Draper James boutiques — has added “author” to her list of achievements. Her debut book Whiskey in a Teacup (subtitled What Growing Up in the South Taught Me About Life, Love, and Baking Biscuits) offers a modern take on Southern style, parties and traditions, along with anecdotes about growing up in the South (mostly, in fact, in Nashville). She’ll be onstage at the Schermerhorn with an unnamed special guest.
Sept. 24: Salon@615 with Sally Field at TPAC’s Polk Theater
Acclaimed actress Sally Field’s new memoir In Pieces digs into what she’s described as a challenging and lonely childhood. In a special edition of book-event series Salon@615, Field will discuss the memoir, which also looks at her early days in Hollywood and some of her personal relationships. After the recent death of her onetime boyfriend Burt Reynolds, Field told The Inquisitr she was “glad that he wasn’t going to read it, he wasn’t going to be asked about it, and he wasn’t going to have to defend himself or lash out, which he probably would have.” She added, “I did not want to hurt him any further.”
Oct. 12-14: Southern Festival of Books at War Memorial Plaza and the Nashville Public Library
The event of the year for book lovers, the annual Southern Festival of Books, has a stellar lineup this fall. Attendees will hear from Pulitzer Prize winner Rick Bragg, who recently released a half-memoir, half-cookbook called The Best Cook in the World: Tales From My Momma’s Table; Celeste Ng, who wrote the family-drama page-turner Little Fires Everywhere; and Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who has two spinoffs of her memoir My Beloved World coming soon. Also among the more than 200 authors in attendance will be Radley Balko, who will discuss The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist — a nonfiction tale he co-authored about the shady work of a medical examiner in Mississippi — and Sonny Brewer, who edited the late William Gay’s newly released The Lost Country. All the events at the Southern Festival of Books are free, which means you have to get there early to grab a seat. Visit humanitiestennessee.org for the full schedule.
Oct. 29: Salon@615 with Pete Souza at TPAC’s Polk Theater
Pete Souza, the White House photographer during President Barack Obama’s two terms and for the first 500 days of Trump’s administration, has become known these days for posting photos via his social media accounts that throw shade at the new administration. When Trump tweeted about a witch hunt in August, Souza posted a photo of Obama greeting kids in costume at Halloween with the caption: “Witch Hunt during the Obama administration.” Now Souza has released a book called Shade — a series of photos meant to show what it looked like when we had an actual adult in the White House. He’ll show off some of the images at this Salon@615 event at TPAC.
Nov. 27: An Evening With Annie Leibovitz at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Annie Leibovitz, the famed photographer known for her masterful portraits, is coming to Nashville to show off the expanded edition of 2008’s Annie Leibovitz at Work. The book also gives readers a behind-the-camera look at photo equipment, studios and working with writers, and it includes a section about the 10 questions people always ask her. At the event, she’ll tell some of the stories behind her most famous photos — the subjects include The Rolling Stones, Queen Elizabeth II and much more. Maybe she’ll talk a bit about one of her most recent shoots: Stormy Daniels for the cover of the October edition of Vogue.
