{"id":986,"date":"2008-02-16T17:28:00","date_gmt":"2008-02-16T17:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=986"},"modified":"2008-02-16T17:28:00","modified_gmt":"2008-02-16T17:28:00","slug":"after-the-witch-queen-steps-down-maxine-sanders-fire-child","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=986","title":{"rendered":"After the Witch Queen Steps Down: Maxine Sanders’ Fire Child"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the 1960s, when Pagan Witchcraft started to gain widespread media attention, Maxine Sanders<\/a> (b. 1948?) was one of its visible faces. A tall willowy young woman with bleached blonde hair, she was married in 1965 to Alex Sanders<\/a> (1926-1988) for whom the Alexandrian tradition is named.<\/p>\n

He was older, charming, verbal \u2013 she was photographed<\/a>, his words were recorded. That\u2019s her on the cover of my early hardback edition of Stewart Farrar\u2019s 1971 book What Witches Do<\/a>\"\"<\/em>, long hair flowing, eyes downcast towards the chalice.<\/p>\n

Now she talks — in print as opposed to classes and lectures — in a valuable autobiography, Fire Child: The Life & Magic of Maxine Sanders, ‘Witch Queen’<\/a>\"\".<\/span><\/p>\n

The book is not what it could have been. Material is not always straight-forwardly organized, punctuation is erratic and unclear, and words usedly mistakenly (\u201ctaught\u201d for \u201ctaut,\u201d \u201cvice\u201d for \u201cvise,\u201d that sort of thing). I fault the publisher<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Still, this is an important book. Sanders gave her life to the Craft in a way that few have, and she admits she paid a price: two failed marriages (Sanders, in the end, preferred men), financial hardship in the early years, breast cancer, and, most of all, the hardship of being always on-call in her role as priestess.<\/p>\n

Marriage with Alex had been rather like a working relationship. Unconsciously, we sacrificed the more personal and sharing aspects of a normal marriage<\/em>.<\/p>\n

To read Fire Child<\/span> is follow a trail of ups and initiations, rituals and happenings, magical politics, festivals and and visions.<\/p>\n

Yet it is also a frank admission of the dangers of magickal religion. Coming from a background of intense, small-group work, she is prone to opinions such as these:<\/p>\n

The modern Craft is a victim of its own success. Its tremendous growth since the heady days of the 1960s has outstripped the availability of experienced and reputable teachers, who in former days would themselves have served an arduous apprenticeship before being judged worthy to passon the tradition \u2013 and then only to a few<\/em>.<\/p>\n

(And she admits that even in her own group that rule was not always followed.)<\/p>\n

Witchcraft is so often perceived as a young person’s religion<\/a>\"\" that it is good to read a mature priestess\u2019s thoughts. Maxine Sander has gone through the fires \u2013 media celebrity, high-profile religious leadership, magic, suffering. Her book is valuable \u2013 \u201cfull and candid,\u201d to quote Ronald Hutton\u2019s<\/a> cover blurb. I recommend it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the 1960s, when Pagan Witchcraft started to gain widespread media attention, Maxine Sanders (b. 1948?) was one of its visible faces. A tall willowy young woman with bleached blonde hair, she was married in 1965 to Alex Sanders (1926-1988) for whom the Alexandrian tradition is named. He was older, charming, verbal \u2013 she was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[],"tags":[21,7,29],"class_list":["post-986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","tag-england","tag-publishing","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-fU","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":974,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=974","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":0},"title":"Gallimaufry: It’s Traditional","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 23, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 When an ill-informed blogger writes that \"Wicca Attempts to Control Life\" on a right-wing site, commenters weigh in. The gist: (a) religion has nothing to do with politics or (b) all religions are bogus. It's nice to see street-level libertarianism thriving.\u00b6 Maxine Sanders' new autobiography Fire Child: The life\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1869928784","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":196,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=196","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":1},"title":"Maxine Sanders interview The Wiccan\/Pagan\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"Maxine Sanders interview The Wiccan\/Pagan Times has an interview with Maxine Sanders, another pioneer of the Craft. It was her often nude and then-blonde self who appeared skyclad in so many late-1960s and early-1970s books and articles, such as the Time-Life Books Man, Myth and Magic encyclopedia, not to mention\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7223,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7223","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":2},"title":"This is Not a Film for Your Wicca 101 Class","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 14, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"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\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":985,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=985","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry with Big Rocks","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 13, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00b6 My copy of Fire Child: The Life & Magic of Maxine Sanders, 'Witch Queen' arrived, and I will post a full review soon. Short version: Better than I expected.\u00b6 When the Goddess Ruled the Earth is a new quasi-documentary film on hypothesized Neolithic religion. The trailers are all shots\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=1869928784","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":64,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=64","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":4},"title":"A Voice in the Forest","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 9, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"Here is something that you won't read about in The Spiral Dance or most of the other how-to-be-a-witch books. It's rare, but it happens: covens that claim mediumistic communication with their Craft ancestors. I've heard it claimed for followers of Robert Cochrane and Gwydion Pendderwen both. Gwydion was a friend\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Wicca\"","block_context":{"text":"Wicca","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wicca"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":457,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=457","url_meta":{"origin":986,"position":5},"title":"She Went among the Witches","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Waterbrook, Random House's evangelical-publishing operation, has announced Wicca's Charm: Understanding the Spiritual Hunger Behind the Rise of Modern Witchcraft and Pagan Spirituality, a new journalistic survey of Wicca in America.From the Web site:Hundreds of thousands of people practice Wicca and other forms of modern Pagan spirituality in America today, and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Wicca\"","block_context":{"text":"Wicca","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=wicca"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=chascli-20&l=as2&o=1&a=0877881987","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986","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=986"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/986\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}