My favorite conspiracy theory about Taylor Swift is the one where she is the clone of Zeena Schreck. Zeena is best known as the daughter of Anton Lavey, and long-time spokesperson of the Church of Satan. The theory came about when the internet realized the two looked startlingly similar. Never let the high improbability of a story get in the way of a good time.
However, for someone who isn’t the clone of Zeena Schreck, Taylor Swift sure does let a lot of witchy imagery come through in her art. If you saw the Eras Tour, you’ll remember a stunning performance of Swift’s song, “Willow.” It features what can only be described as a coven of people dancing in ritualistic formations, glowing orbs in hand, while Taylor loses herself in a dervish—velvety, green cape swirling elegantly around her. She knew what she was doing.
Listening to “The Tortured Poets Department,” released in two parts on April 19, 2024, I couldn’t help but pick up on the occult references sprinkled throughout the anthology. A close listen of the lyrics would lead one to get the sense that something profound is occurring with each vulnerable track.
This can be confirmed in the initial social media message accompanying the midnight release of the first 16 tracks. Taylor talks about writing this album and what the words within mean to her. She says, “This writer is of the firm belief that our tears become holy in the form of ink on a page. Once we have spoken our saddest story, we can be free of it.” With this, she lets us know that this album is a purge of emotions she has been holding onto for too long.
The exorcism begins at “Florida!!!” with an admission: “Well, mе and my ghosts, we had a hell of a time/Yеs, I’m haunted, but I’m feeling just fine.” The relationships and events she’s speaking about on this album weigh heavily on her. She’s describing these people in her life as specters who have infested her memories. They are the demons she carries.
In “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” we are transported into scenes that evoke the Salem Witch Trials. With lines like, “So I lеap from the gallows and I levitate down your street,” we get this image of a floating, tortured woman who is asking to be believed about the troubles she has endured. Later, she says, “I wanna snarl and show you just how disturbed this has made me.” Here she is clearly struggling with that haunted past while naming the demons of those who have created her ghosts.
While “i’mgonnagetyouback” reads like a curse, “The Albatross” details how it’s going to happen. “Locked me up in towers/But I’d visit in your dreams.” We are, again, transported back to this idea of Taylor as witch, too powerful to be contained by physical means. It’s clear that at least one of the demons she carries is the anger she feels over how much she was hurt in her past relationships. We see this anger again in the later track, “Cassandra.”
“The Prophecy” is a track that has some of the most blatantly occult themes on the album. It seems to be telling the story from the perspective of a fortune teller who doesn’t want the future she knows is coming to materialize. With lines like, “Cards on thе table/Mine play out like fools in a fablе,” and “Gathered with a coven ’round a sorceress’ table/A greater woman has faith/But even statues crumble if they’re made to wait,” we begin to see the point where Taylor knows there is an inevitable wave of pain hurtling towards her, but the resistance to it will cause an even more devastating breaking.
The album comes to an end with “The Manuscript.” She spent 31 songs in a confessional, laying out all of the wrongs and mistakes that colored her past relationships and ultimately caused pain and anger—the ghosts she needed to exorcise. She summarizes them again in this song, but then it becomes this beautiful arrival to a better future. “And the tears fell/In synchronicity with the score/And at last/She knew what the agony had been for.” Taylor no longer needs to hold onto the demons she has been wrestling with because the light at the end of the tunnel is here and it’s warm and safe and built on a hope that is far more nourishing than the anger and sadness she has been feeding on.
Even the timing of this album drop is witchy. Coming on the heels of a lunar eclipse, the album released the day before Jupiter conjuncts with Uranus in Aries on April 20. According to astrologers like Jessica Lanyadoo, Lisa Stardust, and Kirah Tabourn, this is a time to really think about what is and isn’t serving you and truly cut ties from the old self and ways you would like to leave behind in the interest of really giving yourself a new start, a new beginning free of baggage.
The official music video for the first track on the album, “Fortnight,” also had notes of horror themes. For one, the first scene is Taylor opening her eyes to realize she is in the Tortured Poets Department which is made to look like an asylum. In a behind-the-scenes video released on June 21, 2024, she says the Tortured Poets Department is a “…government municipal building where they study the behaviors and minds of poets. And one of the stereotypical things about poets over the years is that people said they were crazy.” She plays into that as she’s handcuffed to a bed and made to take medication. The video then dips into a scene where Taylor Swift and Post Malone are in a room together with shadow figures in the background. They are stationed at typewriters dressed in period clothing out of a gothic fever dream. Smoke-like magic is erupting from the pages as the two type away at their manuscripts. One might think of Mary Shelley in a later scene where Taylor is strapped to a table and pumped with electricity like a Frankenstein’s monster. The video is another example of how Taylor herself is taking this album in the direction of a horror narrative. I’m hopeful we’ll see more visuals that highlight these darker themes outlined above.
In a social media message announcing the surprise second half of the TTPD anthology album, Taylor says, “And now the story isn’t mine anymore…it’s all yours.” With these final words, she casts off the loves and lives of her past.
So mote it be.
