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Mandrake Speaks Newsletter
Edited by Mogg Morgan
No 207
Monthly info for friends of leading occult publisher and bookseller Mandrake of Oxford
info on ours and other interesting publications, reviews and events.
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Contents
Fire Child, The Life and Magic of Maxine Sanders ‘Witch Queen’ |
The Sixth Sense (review) |
Fire Child, The Life and Magic of Maxine Sanders ‘Witch Queen’
by Maxine Sanders
An appreciative tribute for the release of Fire Child by Mogg
‘Maxine just told me that she can no longer remember what is in her book; and when she looks at the extract from the opening chapter of her book we’ve put on the Amazon site, she says "God, did I write that?" "Yeah, you did!" I say to her, remembering that authors are often so close to their own work, they forget what's it like.
I first met Maxine some years ago at a Pagan Federation Conference in London through my wife who was a past member of the 'Temple of the Corn King'. Maxine was a bit of a legendary presence although not then part of my own particular magical journey. Even so I have a treasured copy of her earlier book Maxine the Witch Queen. I particularly like the 1970s cover which I showed as part of a lecture on occult publishing at that conference.
These days I'm happy to self-identify as a Pagan because I think it covers a multitude of sins. Interestingly Maxine says that she is a witch and not a Pagan. Of course the rumour mill has it that Maxine has returned to the Catholic church, for Catholic Church, read 'Liberal Catholic' - one of many organisation that benefited from Maxine's support all the way through the heady days of the 'Witch Queen' and 'Witch King'. All this is documented in this spiffing new biography.
I enjoyed Maxine's earlier "biography", despite it being not quite my style of magic. Before that I'd been more drawn if anything to the Alex Sanders side of the equation. There is/was a kind of orthodoxy amongst the Pagan world, that it was all Alex's show really. Maxine was not seen as important compared with the 'Svengali' Alex. But was she really just a pawn in his hands?
When I met Maxine, Alex was already dead. I knew that because I was offered some of his magical record to publish, nothing came of that apart from the odd death threat! So I definitely knew Alex was dead and I really didn't know what Maxine was doing.
Having read Maxine's earlier biography, I thought that her story could do with a new appraisal of her life and work. Occult books in the 1970s had to stick to certain conventions. There are things that they had to do which were important at the time. Thirty-five years or so later, things have moved on quite a bit and there is room for hindsight, re-appraisal, or for saying things that could not be said back then, and we all know what they are.
I don’t know how it came about but the task fell into my lap. It was a task I was very glad to take on. My vision was that, yes, the stuff that was in the earlier biographies was great, but it needed more. It needed the missing bits reinstated. It would all benefit from some hindsight, wisdom and context.
Maxine is definitely a bit of a dark horse. Kim and I travelled to her wonderful hideaway in deepest Snowdonia, one of my very favourite parts of Wales. The story of how she fetched up on the slopes of mount Snowdon, is told in great, often heartbreaking detail in Fire Child. Her home is an occultist's dream; a substantial stone cottage full of books, in a magical Welsh landscape. In every corner one glimpses a piece of furniture once used in the rituals. Maxine's beautiful whippet, Bilbo, guards some stunning regalia, magical swords, lots of fascinating things really.
At the top of the stairs sits a big chest full to the brim with photographs. I spent a whole very pleasurable afternoon going through every single one. Over a drink I asked how the new writing was going, "Have you actually written anything?"
Maxine replies with typical understatement "Oh well, I’ve written a little bit." When we got started, it all just flowed. Maxine turned out to be a natural writer. Maybe that was a potential she wasn’t aware of. If that's so then there's my role as publisher, which we might say is under the aegis of Hermes - the communicator. It’s magick too, setting people in motion. I acted as a sounding board, letting Maxine know how much I was enjoying what I read. That's the way I do it anyways - for me its all about whether I enjoy the story, if it moves me. If it does then I keep saying "I like that, tell me more".
There are lots of fantastic, wonderful episodes in this book Fire Child. There are also some real heartbreakers. Some things only briefly sketched in the earlier books are finally resolved. What first struck me was the personal cost back then somebody such as Maxine pays for revealing what they believe. She entered the world of magick in her teens, back then in the 1960s it was risky to stick your head over the parapet.
The earlier books spoke some about the way the police and media hounded Maxine in particular after that first schlock horror headline in a local rag. In the new book Fire Child you learn things that the publisher of the earlier editions would not have wanted the author to say. They were cut because they were just too painful, just too real. People were just beginning to realise that the police could be real pigs, but just how bad they could be will horrify some I'm sure. All the more extraordinary that someone can come through something like that as strong and as committed as Maxine undoubtedly was/is.
As a publisher I don't really believe in censorship, my instinct has always been to put more in, not cut. I want witchcraft warts and all.
Towards the end of Fire Child there is another very moving passage where Maxine talks about the bitter sweet legacy of her relationship with Alex. She speaks candidly of how the work continued, even though she went through some deep personal traumas, and descending into darkness and personal hell, which included heavy drinking.
And just when you think it cannot get any worse, then it gets worse. The things that land on Maxine's plate could really drag a lesser person down. But all the way is Maxine's wonderful voice, through the good times and the bad.
You'll read the book and you think "Wow! What an incredible journey!" And that journey isn’t over!
Even though this book is about Maxine, it is of course also about Alex, and he comes through BIG! You get the whole story about Alex, from the sublime ... to the ridiculous. For example the point at which Alex confesses to Maxine about his homosexuality, something that she probably long guessed. When 'Paul' left the coven to marry he also left a long standing and secret relationship with Alex.
As Nigel Bourne reminded us at the recent launch, Alex subsisted on a diet of chip butties. Alex was a typical northern bloke of the time, and it's this in my opinion, and not his suppressed homosexuality that explains his often overforgiveable lapses in care. For example he never even bothered to visit Maxine when she was hospitalised during Maya's birth, but yes he also took the opportunity for a non stop sex party! Before this we see Alex in turmoil, tears in his eyes, confessing to Maxine that his life is ruined and the final indignity "He’s even taken the chip pan with him!"
So we all have a lot of good jokes about Alex. Let’s not underestimated the power of humour and jokes. As Maxine tells you in Fire Child, Alex was a charlatan and a magus. In the old model, he was the Wise Man and the Fool. Both things really shine out from the book.
It is a real shame that Alex isn’t in the flesh to see this done. When you read Fire Child you see a different side to Alex, you really do. I think that if he had been alive, Alex would have been so very proud of the appearance of Fire Child. I had a few strange dreams about Alex while working on this book. So I suspect, wherever he is now he is going to be pretty happy about all this.
In Fire Child Maxine reveals some very painful truths. It is a controversial memoir; there is much here to provoke and make people talk. Maxine has squared the circle, coming through with a powerful sense of joy that Alex existed and that together they did the things that they did. So I am telling you, when you read this book, you are really going in for one hell of a trip.
*Fire Child : The life Magic of Maxine Sanders 'Witch Queen' * by Maxine Sanders * *Publication date: November 2007* *Format: Special Hardback Edition* *ISBN 978-1-869928-97-1* *Price: £19.99/US$40 * (Trade Paperback: 978-1-869928-780 £12.99)
*'This is one of the most important books ever published on modern paganism: a full and candid autobiography by one of its most influential, and charismatic figures.'
- Professor Ronald Hutton author of The Triumph of the Moon
One of the world's most influential and respected witches, Maxine first caught worldwide public attention while married to the celebrated - and controversial – ‘King of the Witches’, Alex Sanders. A highly respected Priestess of the Sacred Mysteries, in her role of teacher she has encouraged, enabled and inspired students of the Priesthood to take on the conscious mantle of their spiritual potential.
In this long awaited autobiography Maxine reflects on her life and magical experiences spanning Modern Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Gods and Goddesses, Seasonal rituals, Sabbats, Ceremonial magic, Kabbalah and The Sacred Magic of the Angels. This is a unique, poignant and often humorous memoir of an extraordinary life, by a rare, courageous and inspiring woman.
The Sanders were leading figures of the 1960s occult revival. The atmosphere of the era was vibrant with experimental creativity, and London the capital of the psychedelic music scene and fashion. Alex and Maxine were much sought after teachers of the Arts Magical, and initiated many spiritual aspirants into the Mysteries, when the Craft was still secretive and difficult to access for those seeking initiation. The Sanders popularised their own tradition widely known as Alexandrian witchcraft. Here many of the rumours regarding Alex and Maxine are either confirmed, verified and clarified, or denied; the real facts being far more interesting and humorous than those spread by jealous hearts or hearsay.
For thirty-five years, Maxine lived in Notting Hill Gate, London, where she was High Priestess of many training covens. Five years ago, she exchanged her life as a City witch for the remote Welsh countryside. Today, when she is not traveling or giving talks, Maxine practices the Art Magical and celebrates the Craft’s rituals in the mountains. Maxine practices her Magics alone; she has retired from the work of teaching, believing this is better performed by younger priesthood. Her vocation as a Priestess includes talking to audiences who wish to listen and counseling those who are in need of kindness, truth and hope.
Black Widow Live
Available from Mystic Records
www.mysticrecords.co.uk (cat number 82356644792)
Here is the show that caused so much controversy in the 1960s press and with audiences, got this cult group banned by the BBC and from touring in the USA.
For many years now, the Album Sacrifice and especially the single 'Come to the Sabbath' has been the unofficial anthem of the pagan movement.
Almost forty years ago, I remember buying my first ever album (Black Sabbath/Paranoid) then being told by friends that what I really wanted to hear was Black Widow - far more edgy. Trouble was no one could get a copy, and everyone confused them with Black Sabbath - the rest is history for what is called the most unfortunate of bands.
The release of their well crafted album, whose underlying concept and accompanying stageshow benefited from the input of the infamous Maxine and Alex Sanders (the whole story is told in Maxine's new autobiography Fire Child - see above) . Trouble was it also coincided with the Sharon Tate/La Bianca murders. So all in all the album sunk without a trace and Black Widow eventually split.
But steadily over the years, their albums, especially Sacrifice, continued a twilight existence. But no one really knew what they were like live and what was that infamous stage show?
Clive Jones, the talented saxophonist and flutist remembered that one of their singles was filmed for the German equivalent of Top of the Pops. For many years he worked to track down the original producer, and was eventually promised a remastered copy of the film. When it eventually arrived, he was stunned to discover that the DVD included the entire stage show, which had been done as a warm up in the afternoon before the broadcast. Clive has no memory of all this, perhaps it's another example of the old saying "if you can remember the 1960s, you weren't there".
This DVD and accompanying CD is a fine piece of Rock and indeed occult history. And what a wonderful undiscovered classic is on offer here. Filmed in black and white you get the full ritual opening, then the invocation of the Ashtoreth, whose look is clearly modelled on the original concept created by Maxine Sanders as documented in her autobiography. The story moves to the 'demoness' as she attempts to seduce and possess the magician, then the battle and final 'licence to depart'.
The Black Widow vocalist, musicians and dancer all look great. The whole performance is very dramatic, real and physical with the incense burning and the building of power tangible. Furthermore, it is a very aesthetically pleasing stage show.
It's a really great Rock film, it's a really great Pagan film, with the added bonus of live versions of all the tracks, all of which are longer and musically richer than the studio album.
Black Widow Live Stage Show DVD plus live bonus CD - circa 15.99 UK Pounds (12.99 if you order before end of January) - got to do it really. [Mogg]
PS: Very well worth checking out is the Black Widow official website www.blackwidow.org.uk also the Mystic Records UK website www.mysticrecords.co.uk and 'Pasi' and 'Black Widow' pages on myspace.
Sybarite Among the Shadows (the original story)
Richard McNeff's novel is reviewed on The Compulsive Reader website. Readers of Mandrake Speaks might like to read the original short story version of the novel which has an interesting history of its own. Richard's article 'The Beast and MI5' is soon to appear in ForteanTimes.
BERLIN. The yellow stars daubed on shop windows in the Jewish Quarter, overshadowed by the monstrous towers the Nazis called architecture – totems of the thousand-year Reich. Such a millenarian atmosphere suited Crowley, fresh, if that is the word, from a reinvigorating interlude of sex magic with a woman half his age in Lisbon. Like a gratified parent, he still doted on the “German Crusade”, as he called it. In turn, the authorities tolerated his existence. Names he had been invoking for years were on the lips of high-ranking SS officers: Ahriman, Horus, and Moloch – many deities were abroad that year. Besides, his relationship with the Nazis stretched back to the early days of the Party’s formation. Yet they did not like the relationship to be too defined. Already theirs was a hidden doctrine, a sect of intrigue and the esoteric, of ritual and symbol, posing as the modern.
A few years later, his eyes opened, the OTO suppressed in Germany, Crowley would describe them with contempt as the Black Brothers. Indeed, they were worshippers of the left hand, the perverted spirit – but in secret only. To the ostensible world, they presented themselves as the final cultists of the empirical. Crowley to them was something of a buffoon: an actor in a shadow play of rich widows and cocaine who shared their interests but not their intent. The Wanderer of the Waste was comfortable with this arrangement. He loved outrage and extravagance; while for them, purpose was enough. (More . . . )
Australian OTO Legal News: December 2007
Press Release
Two Australian residents who were found to have religiously vilified the OTO and its members in Australia have been sentenced to nine months imprisonment for contempt of court after failing to comply with orders issued by the Victorian and Civil Administrative Tribunal (VCAT) to remove offensive materials from their US hosted website.
Vivienne Legg and Dyson Devine had posted a document authored by Reina Michaelson, a child psychologist, in which she made comment that an abusive network operating in Victoria, in which children were sexually abused and killed in a scenario of satanic ritual abuse, appeared to be the OTO.
The OTO acted to defend itself, its members and Thelema against this vile and unsubstantiated slur. OTO officers Steve King, David Bottrill and Brent Gray appeared as litigants on behalf of the OTO and successfully sued Legg and Devine for defamation, and also filed complaints of religious vilification against them and Michaelson, whose document was also posted on her organisation's website. In a VCAT case settled last year Michaelson admitted she had not produced any proof that any OTO members were involved in such practices and acknowledged the offence caused by the release of the document.
The settlement is located at: http://www.otoaustralia.org.au/OTO_final_terms.pdf. Michaelson also removed the document from her organisation's former website and published a statement (see bottom of http://www.csapp.org.au) on her new website claiming that the document was placed there without her knowledge.
On 27 July 2007 Legg and Devine were found guilty of religious vilification and ordered to remove the offensive materials from their website. They failed to do this and contempt proceedings were initiated. To ensure their appearance before the Tribunal four police officers from Victoria travelled more than 1500 kilometres to New South Wales where Legg and Devine live, and brought them to Melbourne. Released on bail overnight with orders to appear the next day, they failed to take the opportunity provided by VCAT to comply with the Tribunal's orders and on the morning of Wednesday 28 November 2007 Judge Harbison found that their contempt was deliberate. She sentenced Legg and Devine to nine months imprisonment with no minimum period. Sadly, the internet has become a haven for bigotry, ignorance and hate but on a few occasions the perpetrators of vilification are able to be bought to task for their actions. We applaud the decision by Judge Harbison to jail Legg and Devine who clearly felt that the due process of law did not apply to them.
The Australian OTO is proud to have been able to defend its members and Thelema against these vile slanders and hope that others benefit from the action it has taken. The OTO was once again ably represented by Cathryn Prowse of DLA Phillips Fox who was joined on this occasion by Dr Ian Freckelton, newly appointed as Senior Counsel. The Australia OTO wishes to thank Ms Prowse, Dr Freckelton and all those who have previously provided us with assistance and representation. We also thank the numerous Thelemites around the world who have supported and encouraged us throughout these litigations - we will keep you posted on future developments.
The Sixth Sense
by Konrad Bayer, trans. Malcolm Green.
Atlas Press, 2007.160pp.
Edition of 999 numbered copies.
ISBN-13 978-1-900565-41-7
This is the first publication in English of the only full length novel by the Austrian experimental writer Konrad Bayer (1932-1964), whose work was informed by an interest in alchemy and hermeticism. The manuscript was left more or less finished at the time of Bayer’s apparently random suicide, and was assembled for publication by fellow Vienna Group member Gerhard Rühm. A third significant figure in the post-war Austrian avant-garde, Günther Brus, has made new illustrations for this edition.
In contrast to The Head of Vitus Bering (Atlas 1994), a stark work of arctic exploration and shamanic initiation, The Sixth Sense tugs at its moorings in the everyday but never entirely detaches itself from them. At its most transparent, the novel reads as a fictionalised account of Bayer and his wife Traudl (in the book, Goldenberg and Nina) in the period after their separation, and of various friends, lovers and associates. As such, it portrays a circle of radical artists who never quite became revolutionaries: here ‘all the nice people have visions’ and the social and sexual relationships between characters are regarded as a necessary solvent of identity.
For Goldenberg, these exchanges are overlaid with magical significance: ‘i … am in fact the grand magus, white, black, with a small cave and inside is my word HOARD … i meet someone and name him and i name it a good morning and we give a sigh of relief and he names me and thus exorcises me, which is to say what he fears in me’. While some of the characters encountered in the novel are little more than fictionalised portraits (for instance, of the artist / environmentalist Hundertwasser), others possess a mythic weight: Oppenheimer with his tattooed hand and ‘skull ... made entirely of glass’ is reminiscent of Vitus Bering, and Dobyhal seems to function as an antagonistic other (indeed, a double) who steadily supplants Goldenberg.
In Rühm’s edit, at least, Goldenberg appears only as a nameless ‘I’ at the beginning of the book, and does not come into being in the third person until he receives a letter from Nina, as if she has conferred this identity upon him. In the course of the novel, he gases himself (as Bayer had done before and was, fatally, to do again) only to find that his life does not pass before his eyes. Instead, he leaves ‘his body with a skew-whiff nose lying on the sofa’ to loop through scenes of military aggression and civic unrest, days of routine broken by an excursion into the country (‘the air is made of marble, i’m living in rock, the world is my suit’), and heroic drinking sessions in Viennese bars.
The sixth sense is born in Goldenberg as a result of his separation from Nina. It is an instrument that can be used both to destroy consensus reality - at its most violent in a theatrical performance that escalates into a tremendous spectacle of carnage betwen ‘meat puppets’ within a building itself made of living flesh - and to impose other structures upon it, as in the scene in which Goldenberg’s eye brings a peopled scene to life from the weave of a coat, suggesting that interconnected passages elsewhere in the book are similarly scryed. While Dobyhal asserts that ‘we cannot penetrate the world, we have nothing to do with it, we create images of it that suit us’, Goldenberg abolishes the space between bodies, places and times by vision, ‘the deep fairytale fountain named alcohol’ and the inherent ambiguity and malleability of language.
Paul Holman
Lectures
Details of location below
Date |
Speaker & Topic |
Event |
Jan 30, 2008 |
Dr David Luke An investigation of the evidence for the reality of discarnate beings. Parapsychologist David Luke examines a commonly occurring demonic/angelic encounter experience naïvely induced through the ingestion of psychoactive compounds, dreams and near-death states. Speculations about the origins of the entity are considered in the light of transcultural myths, magical folklore, neurochemistry and David's simple bewilderment. |
MWNN |
Feb 13, 2008 |
Rob Stephenson In legend London was inaugurated by the fabled Trojan leader Brutus with the construction of a temple dedicated to Diana on the spot now occupied by St Paul’s Cathedral. Hear about the city’s legends and founding myths, and their locations, from the founder of London Earth Mysteries Circle. |
MWNN |
Feb 27, 2008 |
Mark Pointer In this talk Mark will explore various elements from Mesopotamian and Ancient Iranian religions and their influence and impact upon Judaeo-Christianity. He will also look at the symbolism and history of the Seven-Headed Serpent and its appearance in various Middle Eastern traditions as well as in the Book of Revelation. |
MWNN |
Venues & Organisers:
Bath Omphalos |
Bath Omphalos The Omphalos Magickal Moot meets on the second Sunday of every month, downstairs in the Hobgoblin pub, St.James Parade, Bath, Somerset, and welcomes Website: http://www.omphalos.org.uk/ |
London Earth Mysteries Circle |
London Earth Mysteries Circle 7.00pm Tuesdays (2nd 4th in month) From 12 February 2008, New Venue: |
| London Secret Chiefs |
SECRET CHIEFS 8pm - at the Devereux Public House, 20 Devereux Court, off Essex Street, Strand, London WC2, near Temple Underground. |
MWNN |
THE MOOT WITH NO NAME |
R.I.L.K.O |
R.I.L.K.O |
| Treadwells Bookshop |
Treadwells Bookshop Full descriptions of all events are to be found now on website http:www.treadwells-london.com |
Groups Meetups
Harrogate Magical Moot |
A magical lore group, adhering to the study and research of esoteric and occult ideas and cosmologies, with the foundation of leading to ritual praxis. Practitioners from all paths welcome. Monthly meetings with talks followed by discussion. |
'Oxford Talking Stick Pub Moot' |
Meets every Thursday at The Angel Greyhound Pub (St Clements st) Oxford. See also below: |
| 'Oxford Talking Stick Pub Moot' | Cunning Arts Later in the year (when the weather is somewhat better) I'm planning
Benna'sywes JackDaw Bucca, both Dark and Fair, divine androgyne, be in all hearts |
| Nightside Tarot | LOGDOS rides again: Golden Dawn Occult Society in London will be reconvening shortly, with an initial meeting at Treadwells. (Details to be announced) . On the slab is a suggestion to share the work of other GDS groups currently exploring Liber 231 and the Klippotic or 'Nightside Tarot'. More details on request from Lawrence lawbright@... |
Conferences & Exhibitions
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