Maxine Sanders

Last updated
Maxine Sanders
Born
Arline Maxine Morris

(1946-12-30) 30 December 1946 (age 76)
Cheshire, England
Occupation(s)Alexandrian Witch and Priestess, Co-Founder of the Alexandrian Tradition of Witchcraft
Spouse Alex Sanders
Children2

Maxine Sanders (born Arline Maxine Morris; 30 December 1946, in Cheshire) is a key figure in the development of modern pagan witchcraft and Wicca and, along with her late husband, Alex Sanders, the co-founder of Alexandrian Wicca. [1]

Contents

Witchcraft with Alex Sanders 1964–72

Raised a Roman Catholic, Maxine was educated at St. Joseph's Convent School in Manchester. In 1964, whilst a student at Loreburn Secretarial College, she first met Alex Sanders. [2] They met through his friendship with her mother who had a range of esoteric interests but their accounts of her introduction to witchcraft vary. Alex's memoir describes her as "shy and inexperienced," with her potential being awoken only through her contact with him. [2] Maxine's memoir gives a very different account, describing her experiences of witchcraft as already having been initiated at the age of 15 into a magical lodge in rituals performed in Alderley Edge, Cheshire, England. [3] [4] By the following year, she and at least one other person had been initiated and the coven was up and running. Maxine was quickly taken through the system of three degrees and by the age of 18 was a third degree Witch Queen although one source suggests that at that time her role was a somewhat passive one. [5] It was said that at Alex's lectures all Maxine had to do was to "sit there in her finery." It is alleged that Alex said, "All I want you to do is sit there and look beautiful and represent the Goddess." [6] [2]

Maxine's early career as a witch was not free from difficulties. In 1965, a midsummer ritual was attended by a newspaper photographer, unbeknown to some of those present, Maxine included. The subsequent report in a local newspaper published recognisable photographs of her and she was thus "outed" as a witch without her permission. Maxine's unconventional spiritual path led to strife with her mother, who she was reconciled with close before her death. Soon after Maxine's mother's death members of her mother's neighborhood chased Maxine, throwing stones, and the windows of the house which had been her mother's were smashed. [2]

Maxine and Alex were handfasted at Alderley Edge in 1965 and continued to initiate new witches in Manchester. In 1967, they moved to London where they lived and practised witchcraft in a basement flat in Notting Hill Gate, attracting much publicity and initiating many would-be priests and priestesses. [7] At Beltane 1968, the couple married in a civil ceremony in Kensington London. [8] Alex and Maxine had two children: Maya, born in 1967, and Victor, born in 1972. [7]

Over the next few years until 1972, Maxine and Alex trained and initiated new members of their coven, initially within a framework consistent with older traditions but subsequently incorporating more of the couple's own unique characteristics, preferences, and innovations. In 1971, Stewart Farrar, recently initiated by Maxine, gave their brand of witchcraft the new name of "Alexandrian", partly honouring its leaders and also referencing the greatest city of the Hellenistic world and the library of magical texts which it housed, [9] the library of Alexandria.

In 1971, Alex and Maxine had acquired a second home outside of London in the village of Selmeston, Sussex. There Maxine became a "fanatical gardener" [7] while she and Alex set up a second coven and started to train people locally. Maxine, however, became concerned that the standards and expectations of training were not so high as they once had been in London, and that there was an awkward atmosphere. The couple found the cost of running two homes was too much, and they returned to London in 1972. Maxine declared that she no longer wanted to bear the responsibilities that came with the title "Witch Queen" and ritually destroyed the ritual robes and other items she had acquired. [10] Shortly thereafter, Alex moved back to Sussex, and Maxine remained in London with their children. [11]

Alexandrian Witchcraft

From early 1970 onwards, both Alex and Maxine gained media attention due to their openness about practising witchcraft, appearing in a number of films, such as 'Legend of the Witches' (1970), 'Witchcraft ’70' (1970), 'Secret Rites' (1971), and numerous documentaries.

After Maxine and Alex separated, Maxine remained in their London flat where she ran her own coven, "The Temple of the Mother", continuing to initiate and train people in Alexandrian Witchcraft. Members of the Temple of the Mother also trained in the art of healing and became well respected for it and other charitable works in the community. [12]

Maxine remained in close contact with Alex until his death in 1988 and shortly before his death, he named Maxine as his next of kin. [13] [14]

In 2000, Maxine moved to Snowdonia, Wales, until 2010, when she returned to Abbey Road, London. Today, Maxine teaches Witchcraft and ritual in The Abbey Road Coven in London. She continues to travel, giving talks to those interested in witchcraft. [15]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gardnerian Wicca</span> Tradition in Wiccan religion

Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner (1884–1964), a British civil servant and amateur scholar of magic. The term "Gardnerian" was probably coined by the founder of Cochranian Witchcraft, Robert Cochrane in the 1950s or 60s, who himself left that tradition to found his own.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Skyclad (Neopaganism)</span> Ritual nudity in Wicca

Skyclad refers to ritual nudity in Wicca and Modern Paganism. Some groups, or Traditions, perform most or all of their rituals skyclad. Whilst nudity and the practice of witchcraft have long been associated in the visual arts, this contemporary ritual nudity is typically attributed to either the influence of Gerald Gardner or to a passage from Charles Godfrey Leland's 1899 book Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, and as such is mainly attributed to the Gardnerian and Aradian covens.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wicca</span> Modern syncretic pagan religion based on white magic, occultism and paganism

Wicca, also known as "The Craft", is a modern pagan, syncretic, earth-centered religion. Scholars of religion categorize it as both a new religious movement and as part of occultist Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Book of Shadows</span> Type of book or text found in Neopagan religions

A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious text and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Since its conception in the 1970s, it has made its way into many pagan practices and paths. The most famous Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The Book of Shadows is also used by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrian Wicca and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how to begin following non-initiatory Wicca in the 1970s onward, the idea of the Book of Shadows was then further propagated amongst solitary practitioners unconnected to earlier, initiatory traditions.

Dorothy Clutterbuck, was a wealthy Englishwoman who was named by Gerald Gardner as a leading member of the New Forest coven, a group of pagan Witches into which Gardner claimed to have been initiated in 1939. She has therefore become a figure of some significance in the history of Wicca.

Alexandrian Wicca or Alexandrian Witchcraft is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Alexandrian Wicca is similar in many ways to Gardnerian Wicca, and receives regular mention in books on Wicca as one of the religion's most widely recognized traditions.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Doreen Valiente</span> English writer (1922–1999)

Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente was an English Wiccan who was responsible for writing much of the early religious liturgy within the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. An author and poet, she also published five books dealing with Wicca and related esoteric subjects.

Frank Stewart Farrar was an English screenwriter, novelist and prominent figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, which he devoted much of his later life to propagating with the aid of his seventh wife, Janet Farrar, and then his friend Gavin Bone as well. A devout communist in early life, he worked as a reporter for such newspapers as the Soviet Weekly and the Daily Worker, and also served in the British army during the Second World War. He was responsible for writing episodes for such television series as Dr. Finlay's Casebook, Armchair Theatre and Crossroads, and for his work in writing radio scripts won a Writer's Guild Award. He also published a string of novels, written in such disparate genres as crime, romance and fantasy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">New Forest coven</span> Alleged British group of witches

The New Forest coven were an alleged group of pagan witches who met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the early 20th century. According to his own claims, in September 1939, a British occultist named Gerald Gardner was initiated into the coven and subsequently used its beliefs and practices as a basis from which he formed the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. Gardner described some of his experiences with the coven in his published books Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) although on the whole revealed little about it, saying he was respecting the privacy of its members. Meanwhile, another occultist, Louis Wilkinson, corroborated Gardner's claims by revealing in an interview with the writer Francis X. King that he too had encountered the coven and expanded on some of the information that Gardner had provided about them. According to Gardner, the faith they followed was the Witch-Cult, a supposed pagan religion that had survived in secret after the Christianization of Europe. This was in keeping with the now-discredited theories of Margaret Murray and her supporters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Janet Farrar</span> British writer and Wiccan priestess

Janet Farrar is a British teacher and author of books on Wicca and Neopaganism. Along with her two husbands, Stewart Farrar and Gavin Bone, she has published "some of the most influential books on modern Witchcraft to date". According to George Knowles, "some seventy five percent of Wiccans both in the Republic and Northern Ireland can trace their roots back to the Farrars."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Alex Sanders (Wiccan)</span> British Wiccan priest (1926–1988)

Alex Sanders, born Orrell Alexander Carter, who went under the craft name Verbius, was an English occultist and High Priest in the modern Pagan religion of Wicca, responsible for founding, and later developing with Maxine Sanders, the tradition of Alexandrian Wicca, also called Alexandrian Witchcraft, during the 1960s.

<i>What Witches Do</i>

What Witches Do is a book by Stewart Farrar, and is an eye-witness account of Wiccan practices, namely that of the Alexandrian coven run by Alex Sanders and his wife Maxine Sanders.

Eleanor "Ray" Bone who also went under the craft name Artemis, was an influential figure in the neopagan religion of Wicca. She claimed to have been initiated in 1941 by a couple of hereditary witches in Cumbria. She later met and became friends with Gerald Gardner, and was initiated into Wicca, becoming the High Priestess in one of his covens. She was a friend of several important figures in Wicca during the modern Witchcraft revival, including "Dafo", Jack Bracelin, Patricia Crowther, Doreen Valiente and Idries Shah. Bone was a close confidant of Gardner's initiator Dafo, and she reported that the New Forest coven was a hereditary coven that followed the old ways of the Hampshire region, and that they traced their origins to the time of the death of King William Rufus in the Norman era.

The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray. It also is based on the beliefs from the magic that Gerald Gardner saw when he was in India. It was subsequently founded in the 1950s by Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into the Craft – as Wicca is often known – by the New Forest coven in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses Doreen Valiente, Patricia Crowther and Eleanor Bone into other parts of the British Isles, and also into other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, new figures arose in Britain who popularized their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek and Alex Sanders, and organizations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association. It was during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734 and Dianic Wicca in the ensuing decades, and where organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess were formed.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Magical tools in Wicca</span> Tools used in the practice of magic in the religion of Wicca

In the neopagan religion of Wicca a range of magical tools are used in ritual practice. Each of these tools has different uses and associations and are commonly used at an altar, inside a magic circle.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vivianne Crowley</span>

Vivianne Crowley is an author, university lecturer, psychologist, and a High Priestess and teacher of the Wiccan religion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Neopagan witchcraft</span> Group of neopagan traditions

Neopagan witchcraft, sometimes referred to as The Craft, is an umbrella term for some neo-pagan traditions that include the attempted practice of magic. These traditions began in the mid-20th century, and many were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis; a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches in Europe had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion. The largest and most influential of these movements was Wicca. Some other groups and movements self-describe as "Traditional Witchcraft" in an effort to distinguish themselves from Wicca.

In Modern English, the term Wicca refers to Wicca, the religion of contemporary Pagan witchcraft. It is used within the Pagan community under competing definitions. One refers to the entirety of the Pagan Witchcraft movement, while the other refers explicitly to traditions included in what is now called British Traditional Wicca.

<i>Enchanted Feminism</i> Anthropological study of the Reclaiming Wiccan community of San Francisco

Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco is an anthropological study of the Reclaiming Wiccan community of San Francisco. It was written by the Scandinavian theologian Jone Salomonsen of the California State University, Northridge and first published in 2002 by the Routledge.

<i>Never Again the Burning Times</i>

Never Again the Burning Times: Paganism Revisited is an anthropological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in the United States. It was written by the American anthropologist Loretta Orion and published by Waveland Press in 1995.

References

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Hutton 1999, p. 324-332.
  2. 1 2 3 4 Hutton 1999, p. 324.
  3. ↑ Sanders 1976, p. 14-35.
  4. ↑ Ruickbie 2004, p. 141-2.
  5. ↑ Ruickbie 2004, p. 142.
  6. ↑ Parker 1993.
  7. 1 2 3 Sanders 2008.
  8. ↑ Howard 2009, p. 208.
  9. ↑ Farrar 1973.
  10. ↑ Howard 2009, p. 217.
  11. ↑ Sanders 2008, p. 166-169.
  12. ↑ Sanders 2008, Chapter 15.
  13. ↑ A C Towner Ltd (funeral directors) handwritten entry in Volume dated 16 June '86 - 9 Nov '88.
  14. ↑ Hastings Cemetery and Crematorium, Register of Cremations, Volume 19, Cremation Record 47733
  15. ↑ See "Maxine Sanders Web Site Diary entry" . Retrieved 2017-01-26.,.

Sources


This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.