THE ALEXANDRIANS

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2004-08-24 16:54:38

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THE ALEXANDRIANS

One cannot discuss the History of Craft without (unfortunately) including the infamous Alex Sanders (1926-1988). Though never as wide-spread as Gardnerian Craft, because of it's negative publicity, it never took a strong foothold in the US, but Sanders tradition nevertheless found its way into Maryland during the counter-culture, and was the chief Wiccan group in this area until the early eighties.

Sanders, self-proclaimed, King of the Witches, the name of his biographical book, (Coward-McCann, 1969) was known for his flamboyant lifestyle, and also claimed to have been initiated by his grandmother. When he was seven, he found her standing naked in the middle of the kitchen floor. She revealed herself as a true hereditary witch, ordered him to take off his clothes, stand in the circle and bend over. She then nicked his scrotum with a knife and said "You are one of us now." (Sexual rites with her followed during later rituals.) Since Sanders is described as desolated after his grandmother's death. He is said to have burned her 'Book of Shadows' after she died.

In his biography, King of the Witches, Sanders boasted about his alleged and unimaginable feats of magick. He claimed to have created a flesh-and-blood-baby in a rite of ritual masturbation with the help of a male assistant. Sanders said the baby disappeared shortly after its creation and "grew up" as a spirit which took him over during his trance channeling. This spirit, 'Michael', supposedly forced Sanders to carry on at wild parties, insult others and otherwise behave abominably.

Many photographs of Sanders coven appear in his biography. Curiously, in the photos, he is the only one wearing a robe (sometimes only a towel); the others are all naked. He said, this was because Witch Law required the elder of a coven to be apart from the others and easily identifiable. According to witches of his time. Sanders created his Alexandrian tradition after he was refused initiation into various Gardnerian covens. The Alexandrian tradition very closely resembled the Gardnerian one, except it had certain trappings of 'Ceremonial Magick' and the High Priest was preeminent.

Sanders married when he was 21, but the marriage rapidly disintegrated. His wife, Doreen, took their two children and left him when he was 26. After that, Sanders entered a long period of drifting, hard drinking, and sexual flings with men and women. He decided to follow the 'left hand path', and claimed to worship the devil. He usually attracted people who supported him financially, gaining him much media attention and much money. By 1965, he claimed to have 1,623 initiates in 100 covens, who then "persuaded" him to be elected King of the Witches!

In the 60's Sanders was handfasted to Maxine Morris, a nineteen year old Catholic girl, whom he also initiated, and they had one son, Victor in 1971. One year after the birth of his son, they separated. Before Sanders died he left a tape declaring that Victor should succeed him as King of the Witches, but according to Maxine, Victor had no desire to do so and moved to the US. Maxine continued practicing witchcraft after they separated, "(see Drawing Down the Moon, Margot Adler), but Sanders went into seclusion and died in 1988 of lung cancer.

An 'Alexandrian Witchcraft Council of Elders', which claimed 100,000 members in England alone, said no other successor would be elected. Note: In no other tradition is there such a thing as a King or Queen of Witches, though some have claimed that title. (In Los Angeles, there was a well publicized self-proclaimed Queen of the Witches during the seventies.) A Gardnerian or Alexandrian H PS who hives off many covens is sometimes called a Witch Queen'. The Queen wears a garter, and each time she hives off a new coven, she adds a buckle.

Years after his publicity peaked, it was revealed that Sanders passed off the writings and teachings of many others as his own. Stewart Farrar, a journalist, witch, and notable author of many Wiccan books, claims that Sanders, his former teacher, used material from the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, and took credit for it himself. Farrar also writes that Sanders passed off material written by French occultist, Etiphas Levi, and Austrian occultist, Franz Bardon, as his own. But Farrar seems to dismiss Sanders deranged behavior, writing that "Sanders was a born showman, but the fact remains he made a major contribution to the 'Craft' in his own bizarre way."

Some witches believe large Alexandrian witch councils were 'fabrications' of followers of Sanders, but in fact, a few Alexexandrian councils did assemble in DC in the late seventies, where often arguments over dogma and 'whose-who' took place. One report claimed that a dispute resulted in actual physical conflict during one such bru-ha-ha. As a former student of two different Alexandrian teachers, I, (and everyone else), was fully aware of the bad blood which ran between some of the members of the various Alexandrian groups. It is, however, highly unlikely that there were 100,000 witches in Britain, much less members of a council.

In the early 80's a public confrontation occurred in Baltimore, between an Alexandrian HPS and Selena Fox, founder of Circle Sanctuary (Madison, WI). Selena was invited to lecture and help inaugurate a newly formed eclectic pagan web in Baltimore -- but competition was unthinkable to many local Alexandrians, resulting in long standing hostility. Inevitably, inner rivalries developed on both sides. Ultimately, some former eclectic pagans joined the Alexandrians and vice- versa. Others grew weary of the rivalry, formed independent covens and dropped out of sight.

The purpose of the lengthy discussion of Sanders in this paper, is though his tradition was exported to other countries, it was the only recognized 'witch' tradition in Maryland until about 1981. For about seven years, after the confrontation with Fox, it declined, then surfaced again in the late eighties in one form or another. Today, it is still practiced in some local covens, along with it's many trappings and claims of heredity. All though some of the trappings have been modified, certain vestiges remain, and most Alexandrians still teach theirs as a hereditary, hierarchical tradition, unchanged throughout centuries. As with Sanders, the legacy of quantity seems more important to some Alexandrian groups than quality, and their standards for spiritual growth, creativity, moral character and maturity are controversial. European (hierarchical) titles are used when addressing each other. Initiation and degrees appear to be awarded less for spiritual growth than deference to the 'unquestionable' teachings of the hierarchy. Though many join, many also drop out, and few really know how many little groups exist here and there. It is debatable if an apprentice should even initiate into a path where they are not permitted to participate in most rituals until after they are initiated. But such is the nature of the mystique and secrecy, which is the password into some Wiccan covens. Such secrecy greatly entices the novice and uninformed, and promises the expectation of power once they are excepted.

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