Morning Glory Zell and Tim/Oberon Zell of the Church of All Words with Lady Sintana (right) at the Church of Wicca Samhain Seminar in 1978. Photo by Chas S. Clifton.)

Jason Pitz-Waters links to a newspaper article about Sintana (Candace Lehrman) and the House of Ravenwood, one of the best-known covens in the Atlanta area.

Ravenwood was also the subject of a book by a group of sociologists of religion: Allen Scarboro, et al., Living Witchcraft: A Contemporary American Coven (Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1994). Being sociologists, the authors concentrated quite a bit on issues of authority–when you have a charismatic and strong-willed founder who claims to have retired, has she really retired?

There is too much Lord-ing and Lady-ing in the Craft, mostly a bleed-through from the Society for Creative Anachronism, and it only gets in the way. British Witches, I have noticed, coming from a land where those titles mean something (like it or not), tend not to use them.

Sintana, however, could get away with it.