The King is dead,
long live the King,
Blessed Be Alex,
Blessed Be.
- Vivianne Crowley
Alex Sanders died on the morning of April 30 1988, the festival of Beltane,
having fought for a long time against lung cancer. The King of the Witches
- as he became known - was born in Manchester, England 1926 as the oldest
of six children. He was responsible for founding the Alexandrian tradition
of Wicca, now one of the main traditions of the Witchcraft movement.
Sanders claims to have initiated over 1,600 witches into the Alexandrian
tradition. Wicca is a syncretistic re-creation of pre-Christian European
nature religion and the medieval Western magical tradition. Wiccans
must therefor be distinguished both from other Pagans such as remnants
of African nature religions and from other magicians such as Satanists.
One
of Sanders initiates was Maxine Morris who later became his High
Priestess (she also played the role of Lady Astaroth in the Black Widow
live show, ended up naked, having sex with the vocalist Kip Trevor and
sacrificed as the shows climax.) Alex and Maxine were married in 1967
and later that year Maxine give birth to a daughter, Maya. In
1972 they had another child, a son named Victor. In 1973 they
separated and Sanders moved to Sussex were he lived rather unknown until
he died.
"The king of the Witches, Alexander
Sanders, has a message for Black Widow, leading group in the new "bandwagon"
of Black Magic musicians. "Stop your stage act - especially the
climax which you call 'Sacrifice'. You are treading on very dangerous
ground."
For despite "loaning" his wife Maxine
for the group's two recent ritualistic stage performances at London's
conquest club, Alex is worried that Black Widow will not only harm themselves
but could also harm innocent members of the public who happens to be watching.
The reason why their lead singer, Kip Trevor, has become so involved is
that he believes he has done all this before ... including the sacrifice.
He is certain he has been born before.
They had a girl whom they used for the 'sacrifice', but a lot of witches,
not from my coven I must add, phoned the group after their initial publicity
and warned the girl, she was in great danger."
Alex Sanders - know as Verbias - performes a marriage ceremony.
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