{"id":7223,"date":"2015-05-14T13:30:50","date_gmt":"2015-05-14T19:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7223"},"modified":"2018-09-05T09:27:27","modified_gmt":"2018-09-05T15:27:27","slug":"this-is-not-a-film-for-your-wicca-101-class","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7223","title":{"rendered":"This is Not a Film for Your Wicca 101 Class"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/3w1Q214nzm4\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>On 4 December 1969 a press party was held for a documentary film on Witchcraft, <em>Legend of the Witches<\/em>, directed by Malcolm Leigh. Among the media types attending was a magazine writer on assignment, a fifty-something man named <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Stewart_Farrar\">Stewart Farrar<\/a>, but that is another story.<\/p>\n<p><em>Legend of the Witches<\/em> offers a very Margaret Murray-style reading of the &#8220;Old Religion&#8221; \u2014 which everyone in the Craft wholeheartedly believed in then, I think \u2014 complete with the &#8220;Plantagenet dynasty as pro-Pagan sacred kings&#8221; legend, the bit about Joan of Arc being &#8220;really a witch,&#8221; and the alleged founding of the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Order_of_the_Garter\">Order of the Garter <\/a>as a group of covens with royal patronage.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britmovie.co.uk\/1970\/01\/01\/Legend-of-the-Witches-1970\/\">One cult-movie site says<\/a>, &#8220;<em>Legend Of The Witches<\/em> remains one of those films so ephemeral and so synonymous with the very concept of \u2018collectable\u2019 that you sometimes wonder if people are refusing to buy it or maybe even refusing to acknowledge its availability in order to preserve the legend.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It is all presented <em>very seriously<\/em>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The narrator (whose name does not seem to appear on the credits, and who employs the quintessentially polite, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ealing_Studios\">Ealing-trained<\/a> yet slightly foreboding tone of voice so beloved of most contemporaneous documentaries, not too dissimilar to the camp voiceover that links the tracks on the equally-legendary 666 album by Greek prog-rockers Aphrodite\u2019s Child) delivers several pieces of information which, although maybe not entirely grounded in fact, seem well-informed and at least blessed with a certain degree of enthusiasm for the subject.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The star is <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Alex_Sanders_%28Wiccan%29\">Alex Sanders<\/a>, assisted by his Witch Queen, his wife Maxine in her bleach-blonde days. Sanders leads coven ritual, sacrifices a rooster and divines from its entrails, performs poppet magic at great length, and officiates at a Luciferian Mass, thus indulging his love of ecclesiastical vestments.<\/p>\n<p>That era was the peak of his publicity seeking, and Maxine was the most photographed nude Witch of the 1960s. In her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Fire-Child-Magic-Maxine-Sanders\/dp\/1869928784\">autobiography, <em>Fire Child,\u00a0<\/em><\/a>she writes,<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>[In 1969] the requests for interviews and documentaries continued; filming took priority over ritual wrok. The new flat was constantly abuzz with people who wanted to know the witches for one reason or another. If we were not filming or appearing on some television show, people would crowd into the living room to listen to Alex talk. They were beginning to worship him. Alex was, in my opinion, developing megalomaniac tendencies. He began to use tacky shock tactics that did not portray the Craft in a true light (p. 159).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Other highlights include footage of a pregnant woman eating allegedly unspecified herbal entheogens? (Hey, it&#8217;s the Sixties. The kid will be groovy.) and scenes from<a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cecil_Williamson#Gardner_and_the_Museum\"> one of the witchcraft museums founded by Gerald Gardner&#8217;s associate Cecil Williams<\/a>. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.witchcraftandwitches.com\/witches_leek.html\">Sybil Leek<\/a> is shown but not named.<\/p>\n<p>The video is available on YouTube, as linked, and elsewhere. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Legend-Witches-Documentary\/dp\/B0036264MC\/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1431631578&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=legend+of+the+witches\">You can also buy it on Amazon<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/legend of the witches\">.<\/a> I would not show it to new students without a lot of explaining, but then I am one who is more offended by historically unsupported statements than by chicken sacrifice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 4 December 1969 a press party was held for a documentary film on Witchcraft, Legend of the Witches, directed by Malcolm Leigh. Among the media types attending was a magazine writer on assignment, a fifty-something man named Stewart Farrar, but that is another story. Legend of the Witches offers a very Margaret Murray-style reading [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,36,29],"class_list":["post-7223","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-england","tag-movies","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1Sv","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11292,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11292","url_meta":{"origin":7223,"position":0},"title":"&#8220;The Witches of Manitou&#8221;\u2014More than an Urban Legend","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 18, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The old spa town of Manitou Springs, located in the foothills west of Colorado Springs. Photo by Mark Reis, ( a former newspaper co-worker of mine) from the Colorado Sun. Click to embiggen. The Colorado Sun, an online news site, dropped this into my inbox yesterday, giving M. and me\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"The old spa town of Manitou Springs, west of Colorado Springs","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/manitou-springs.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8553,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8553","url_meta":{"origin":7223,"position":1},"title":"&#8220;The Love Witch&#8221; \u2014\u00a0&#8220;Twin Peaks&#8221; Meets &#8220;Bell, Book and Candle&#8221;","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 12, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Last November, Peg Aloi of The Media Witches reviewed The Love Witch under the deadline, \"Why Real Witches Are Going to Love (or Maybe Hate) the Love Witch.\" A pagan friend I watched the film with was shocked and called it \u201cirresponsible and potentially damaging.\u201d His concern is not unreasonable;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/witch17-300x217.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/witch17-300x217.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/05\/witch17-300x217.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":267,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=267","url_meta":{"origin":7223,"position":2},"title":"H\u00e4xan Continuing our sporadic investigation\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"H\u00e4xan Continuing our sporadic investigation of cinematic paganism, M. and I watched H\u00e4xan (\"Witches\"), a 1922 silent Swedish film that is available subtitled in English as Witchcraft through the Ages. Released just before Margaret Murray swayed English-speaking readers with her \"survival of the Old Religion despite persecution\" theory, this film\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13560,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13560","url_meta":{"origin":7223,"position":3},"title":"Helen Cornish on Witchcraft Drumming and Chanting","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 9, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"The article \"Musicking and Soundscapes amongst Magical-Religious Witches Community and Ritual Practices\" by Helen Cornish is available as a free download from Religions journal. Abstract Drumming and chanting are core practices in modern magical-religious Witchcraft in the absence of unifying texts or standardized rituals. Song and musicality contribute towards self-creation\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Britain\"","block_context":{"text":"Britain","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=britain"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2190,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2190","url_meta":{"origin":7223,"position":4},"title":"Can You Prove that Witches Exist in Canada?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Somehow I missed this, but last September an organization of self-proclaimed Canadian skeptics challenged the world to prove that witches exist\u2014along with Bigfoot, voodoo, and the Easter Bunny. OK, all this fun hinges on the difference between \"anthropological witchcraft\" and capital-P Pagan religious capital-W Witchcraft. But still. Of course, if\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Canada\"","block_context":{"text":"Canada","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=canada"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":12197,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12197","url_meta":{"origin":7223,"position":5},"title":"Lucifer, Women, Witches, Freedom","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 20, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"Here Caroline Tully offers a detailed review of Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Women in Nineteenth-Century Culture by Per Faxneld. This is more a literary than a religious Satanism, although any story of Satan has its religious underpinnings: Although they attributed positive qualities to the figure of Satan,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"folklore\"","block_context":{"text":"folklore","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=folklore"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/satanic-197x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7223","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7223"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7223\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9782,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7223\/revisions\/9782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7223"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7223"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7223"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}