Customer Reviews

Fire Child: The Life & Magic of Maxine Sanders 'Witch Queen'

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Fire Child is one of those books that are necessary to an understanding of fondational things. In this book the reader can catch a glimpse of Wicca in the early days of the Alexandrian and Gardnerian period. Much has been written about Gerald Gardner, but comparatively little on Alex Sanders. Fire Child helps to correct this oversight, and brings to light two important figures - Maxine and Alex.

I think the book is an important contribution, and is a good study to add to a history of the rise & fall of Wicca. Old Timer's in the Craft will most likely enjoy the memories stirred by Fire Child, and newbies can catch a glimpse of Wicca before it became diluted and heavily customized by a new generation of practitioners.

The Craft community has recently lost several of its elders, such as Doreen Valiente and Stewart Farrar. Others have long ago left the Craft for a variety of personal reasons. As Maxine notes near the end of the book, the growth of numbers in Wicca has not kept up with the lineage trained & available teachers, which has left much in the hands of the "self-initiated" who turned to an eclectic gathering of what is available in print. It is encouraging to read in Fire Child that some elders are still with us, and that Maxine remains a witch, and still believes in the old magic.

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 - she was photographed, he was recorded. That's her on the cover of my early hardback edition of Stewart Farrar's 1971 book What Witches Do, long hair flowing, eyes downcast towards the chalice.

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'
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 ("taught" for "taut," that sort of thing). I fault the publisher.


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.

"Marriage with Alex had been rather like a working relationship. Unconsciously, we sacrificed the more personal and sharing aspects of a normal marriage."

To read Fire Child is follow a trail of ups and initiations, rituals and happenings, magical politics, festivals and and visions.

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:

"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 - and then only to a few."

(And she admits that even in her own group that rule was not always followed.)

Witchcraft is so often perceived as a young person's religion that it is good to read a mature priestess's thoughts. Maxine Sander has gone through the fires - media celebrity, high-profile religious leadership, magic, suffering. Her book is valuable - "full and candid," to quote Ronald Hutton's cover blurb. I recommend it.

Professor Ronald Hutton's statement [on [...]] that "[t]his is one of the most important books ever published on modern paganism" is easily corroborated, even by the uninitiated: as disclosed at page two, the copyright of this very well written and highly readable book is jointly held by Mandrake (one of the leading Publishers in the subject area) and the author herself, Maxine Sanders.

We believe it is rare for a reputable Publisher (such as Mandrake) to share copyright except when the material is considered of great significance to the subject area and competition for the publishing rights is keen.

That should be enough to compel anyone with a genuine interest and natural curiosity to schedule the space to curl up with this great book - an amazing story of one very gifted person's journey through life that, for her, is not remotely over.

This autobiography is clearly not a memoir and Maxine Sanders is definitely no wilting lily.

The trials and tribulations, the joy and sadness, the pain and elation are all courageously and objectively shared with wit, humour and valuable insights on the human condition.

It was both a genuine pleasure and real privilege for us to read this book.

Unlike Professor Ronald Hutton, whose valued opinion appears to yield out of Maxine Sanders' role as a teacher, ours is from direct experience as clients of Maxine Sanders over some thirteen years - more than enough time for even the most naïve to figure out the "real thing".

Over the years, we have consulted Maxine on a wide range of business as well as personal matters. In our experience, her timely and valued insights - oddly enough in the range of probability, never wrong, which is amazing by any reasonable standard and a huge credit to her Craft - would not have surfaced through any other medium, in every sense of that word on this or any other plane.

We highly recommend this book, as well as a visit to Maxine's website [ ...].

Tom and Laura, London.

I finished reading Maxine Sanders' new autobiography, "Fire Child," the other day. I have to say I keep thinking about it.

Maxine Sanders was a teenager when she fell in love with Alex Sanders, the founder of the Alexandrian Wicca denomination. Alex ended up marrying Maxine and they had two children together (a daughter and a son.) Maxine was and still is considered to be the Witch Queen, the High Priestess of Alexandrian Wicca by many people.

Maxine is very honest and open in this book about her relationship with Alex. As an outsider, it's painful to hear about as it's clear Maxine loved Alex deeply while he does not seem to have reciprocated. Maxine is also very clear in her account that there was a good reason for this -- Alex was primarily gay although he wanted a wife and kids. And like many young women who marry too early and end up separated from their philandering husbands, it is after Maxine moves out of Alex's shadow that she really begins to blossom as a woman to be reckoned with.

Alex was not Maxine's introduction to alternative spiritual paths and occultism (although he was the one who brought Maxine into the witchcraft community.) Maxine's mother was a dabbler in all things related to alternative religions, and through her mother Maxine met and became involved in quite a few different groups including an offshoot of Gurdjieff's teachings, an Indonesian cult called Subud, Spiritualism, an Egyptian group, and Roman Catholicism among others. It was actually through Maxine's mother that she came in contact with Alex (first as a child and then later as a teenager).

The book chronicles Maxine's rapid immersion in Wicca once she got involved with Alex -- she was an initiated third degree Witch Queen before she had reached her twentieth birthday. She talks about Alex's constant publicity seeking and what it was like not only speaking publicly about witchcraft but performing rituals for the cameras. She recounts a number of interesting apparently supernatural incidents that she witnessed and how she dealt (or didn't deal) with them. Her life has definitely been colourful!

One interesting thing that I took out of this book is how to Maxine (and apparently also to Alex) Wicca was a flexible enough religion to practice side-by-side alongside other religions and magickal systems. When Alex and Maxine had their children, they sought out Christian baptisms for them. They also joined and participated in a number of other spiritual and magickal groups including Christian ones. Even after the couple had split, Maxine became quite involved in a liberal Catholic church group while simultaneously running and teaching a Wiccan coven.

Another thing that I found interesting was the confirmation that Alex was primarily interested in men for his romantic relationships. I had heard that Alex was likely bisexual, but after reading Maxine's account of her life with him there's little doubt that Alex was mostly on the gay side of the bisexuality spectrum. He also clearly didn't feel that homosexuality or single-gender covens wouldn't work in Wicca as Maxine recounts how Alex ran a male-only coven at one point. (She "helped out" in one ritual as the High Priestess -- the only woman present!)

"Fire Child" is an interesting read and will undoubtedly spur discussions of Wiccan history for years to come. As with most new historical information, there are new questions that will come up while other ones have been settled thanks to Maxine's honesty.

This was a very insightful book into the lives of the progenitors of the Alexandrian lineage.
Brings to light some interesting details that many may not have been aware of.
A wonderful autobiography from an exceptional woman.

This is one of the most honest books I've ever read. It's three stories combined.

Firstly, the story of a new religion, from the early 1960s when a witch risked being murdered by her bigoted neighbours, through the spiritual and sexual liberation of the late 1960s, to the present day.

Secondly, the story of a person, the author Maxine Sanders, following her development from earliest childhood to the present (she's now in her sixties). Maxine examines herself unflinchingly, concealing none of her own flaws, fears, uncertainties and errors. Even at the end of the book she emphasises that she is still learning and developing.

Thirdly, the story of a lifelong relationship, between Maxine and Alex Sanders, founder of the "Alexandrian" version of Wicca. Maxine potrays him as combining the best and worst of human qualities in full measure.

How much wiser we could be if all founders of religions had been described so honestly by their first followers! I was also struck by the immense dedication required of witches in the 1960s. Does social acceptance inevitably result in diminished dedication and thus diminished power? Or were these early wiccans a product of a special time in history, when so many new ideas were fearlessly explored?

I have always wanted to meet Maxine Sanders and when this book came out I was thrilled at the opportunity to read her story. So much has been written about Alex Sanders and I wanted to learn more about her role in the Craft's early days. I couldn't put it down and enjoyed every moment of it, although it was sad at times. Thanks Maxine and may the Old Gods bless you....

I so looked forward to reading this book and was not disapointed. Maxine Sanders has written a truly wonderful autobiography of her life before and after meeting Alex Sanders, and revealed quite a few personal revelations in the process. She takes us through the trials and tribulations of her life with Alex while being under a "media microscope" and how difficult it was to find a sense of balance in the whirlwind that revolved around them at the time. Through her writing, she allowed us a glimpse of what it was like to try and raise a family,run a coven, teach The Craft in a responsible way to the flood-gate of people that wanted to learn, endure the masses of needy people that came knocking on her door and calling at all hours, and of course dealing with Alex and the media circus that came as a result of being the wife & High Priestess to "The King of The Witches". Her endurance & fortitude are truly phenomenal! Today, we take much for granted, because Maxine, Alex and many others paved the way for us. This book will help readers understand the amount of pressure our Craft Elders were under back in those early days when Witchcraft was coming out of the shadows, so to speak. Maxine writes quite frankly about mistakes that were made and the lessons learned from them. This book covers many aspects of Maxine's life. She talks about not only her involvement with Witchcraft, but also of her involvement with an Egyptian Magickal Order she was initiated into earlier on. She wrote about being advisors on the film "Eye Of The Devil" and meeting up and coming actress Sharon Tate. Maxine reveals what occured between Alex and Sharon during filming and insight into the aftermath that followed. I found myself reading & re-reading certain chapters over & over again, enthralled with what Maxine had written. Her honesty about her relationship with Alex and her life overall is to be commended. This is a truly remarkable book that I would highly recommend everyone to read. Thank-you Maxine for all you have done & all that you continue to do!

I'm not really interested in Wicca or its early history; my main interest is with magic and witchcraft. I just wanted to read a book about someone else's experiences in the occult. In that regard, this book did not disappoint. Maxine recalls many interesting incidents involving magic and the occult. There is of course plenty of information on Alexandrian Wicca and Alex Sanders, which I also found very interesting. It was interesting to get a behind-the-scenes look at what went on in the early covens.

Overall, this book will probably be of interest to those interested in the early days of Wicca, and also for those of us who just want to read about magical experiences of someone who has been in the occult world for awhile.

Fire Child will be of great interest to insiders - people who practice Wicca. I don't think it will make a great impression on outsiders, except those who have a fondness for British eccentrics.

And it needed an editor to catch the grammatical errors and smooth out the prose.