by Wood Avens

Witchfest was the largest annual Wiccan gathering in the United Kingdom, organised by the Children of Artemis and held at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon, England. By 2004 it had grown large enough to span two days, with speakers drawn from across the British and American pagan community. This firsthand report captures a pivotal moment in Wicca's public life: a tradition that had moved from secrecy into the mainstream, grappling with questions of initiation, practice, and how the Craft should grow.

The voices preserved here include Maxine Sanders — half of the founding couple of the Alexandrian tradition, speaking of her training under Alex Sanders — and Galatea, an Alexandrian initiate who delivered an impromptu talk on the nature of initiation itself. Their words offer rare primary-source testimony about what Wicca's first generation believed they were transmitting, and how.

Wood Avens was a long-standing member of alt.religion.wicca.moderated, known for thoughtful, well-observed posts. This report from November 2004 is one of the few surviving practitioner accounts of a Witchfest event.

Witchfest 2004

Last year's one-day Witchfest in the Fairfield Halls, Croydon (England) attracted thousands and was packed to the rafters. As a result the organisers, Children of Artemis, decided this year to hold the event over two days, last Saturday and Sunday. It may have been a mistake. It looks as if a lot of people, like me, chose to pick one of the two days rather than commit a whole weekend, and Sunday, the day I went, was underpopulated. Pleasantly uncrowded for those of us who were there, not so good for the stall-holders and some of the speakers.

I picked Sunday because the list of speakers in the CoA magazine included R J (Bob) Stewart, but alas he didn't appear on the final programme. Still, I had the pleasure of listening to Maxine Sanders, to the American author Ashleen O'Gaea, to UK writers Kate West and Cassandra Eason, and to the Alexandrian initiate Galatea, who stepped into the breach when Rae Beth failed to materialise.

Ashleen O'Gaea — Adventure Wicca

Ashleen O'Gaea (the author of The Family Wicca Book) drew the short straw for first event at 11am: only 25 of us were scattered in the large main concert hall, perhaps because the whole-weekenders hadn't yet surfaced after a hard night's partying. Ashleen talked about her own tradition of 'Adventure Wicca', which aims to "challenge strictly regulated experience", and to "set out from doctrine, convention, and ease, and to make camp in the woods beyond". This is both metaphorical and literal: they spend more time outdoors in woodland camps than is, apparently, the practice for most American covens.

I was interested but a little bemused. My caveat is that 'Adventure' Wicca suggests that there's an alternative of safe, challenge-free Wicca; in my universe, challenge and risk, without which there's no learning, are at the heart of all Wiccan practice.

Maxine Sanders — Training and Tradition

Maxine Sanders, who is part of Wicca's living history, spoke about the rigorous training to which she and the other initiates of Alex Sanders' coven were subjected. The basic training took approximately two years, and among other things included the theory and practice of what she called 'basic magic': meditation and concentration, trance states, details of rites, chants, spells, herbs, poisons, sacred dance, use of scourging and sex to raise power, astral projection, psychic self-defence, mind control, ritual evocation of spirits, and telepathy with fellow-initiates.

Maxine and the others had their psychic self-defence tested to destruction at 2am in midwinter on Blackpool beach. They concocted healing and magical potions and then tried them on each other. They kept records of their dream-states, and they were expected to spend an hour each day recording their magical practices and their results in a diary, which was read by their supervisor once a month.

Towards the end of her talk she remarked that it is the responsibility of every good teacher to ensure that their students aspire to outstrip their teacher. If only this were more widely understood!

On the previous day Maxine had been speaking about Initiation, and I'm sorry I missed that. But I was delighted to have had the opportunity to listen to her, and to begin to appreciate the hours of sheer hard graft which enabled her to develop her knowledge and power.

Kate West — Real Witchcraft

Kate West was friendly and easy to listen to, giving an overview of what she called Real Witchcraft, witchcraft for real people with real jobs, homes, families, and other responsibilities. She spoke about the practical integration of one's principles into one's day-to-day life: it's more respectful of the environment to buy apples loose rather than packed in polystyrene trays; rather than burning incense, an appropriate offering to one's Deities might be going out and picking up rubbish. And when you call on the Goddess and the God, take a moment to think of Them incarnated in all the other people around you.

I liked her image of the Maiden, Mother and Crone as aspects of one's development: the Maiden stage of finding things out; the Mother stage when you put them into practice; and the Crone stage when you've acquired the wisdom to know what to do and when to stop. And I was glad that she pointed out that keeping Wicca in the public eye, as she does with her books and as some of us do in small, other ways, is a protection, since it makes it more likely (at least on this side of the Atlantic) that we'll be remembered and included in legislation.

Galatea — On Initiation

Galatea was holding belly-dancing workshops at this Witchfest, but when Rae Beth did not arrive Galatea came in at no notice (she'd been running her workshop for the previous two hours) and spoke about her own experience as an Alexandrian initiate in Alex and Maxine's coven. I came in part way through her talk, and was so fascinated that I much regretted missing the first half.

From her Alexandrian background, she told us that initiation is not a ceremony — a thousand ceremonies may not work. Initiation is a beginning — is the key experience, whatever it is, that starts you on your path. All Traditions are temporary and evolving: if you cling solely to your Book of Shadows you may as well give up now. Neither Alex nor Maxine had any sense of wanting to preserve a tradition: the Craft goes where it wants to go, develops as it needs to develop.

Cassandra Eason — Intuition and Practical Magic

Cassandra Eason is a prolific author, with books on divination, runes, crystals, chakra power, past lives, aura reading, and psychic development, to name but a few. In person she's a down-to-earth speaker, though I was a little distracted by her habit of gazing at the ceiling rather than looking at her audience. She said that we needed to re-learn to trust our own intuition rather than relying on 'experts', and not to assume we're doing it wrong just because we don't get instant results like Buffy or Willow do. Children exercise psychic power without thinking about it, and it's that innate psychic power which is behind spell-casting.

She had practical advice about making a home into a place of magic and peace. One that appealed to me was a 'Knot Pot', kept by the door, into which to release anger rather than bringing it into the house. Keep some strands of wool or string next to it, tie your anger into a knot in the wool, and put it into the pot. Use words to name the cause of your anger as you tie it in — and tie several knots if necessary. And periodically burn the knots that have accumulated in the pot. I shall try it and see if it works!

Congratulations to the Witchfest organisers for ensuring that everything ran to time, and for building in a fifteen-minute changeover between each session. It was a very enjoyable day, though I think I'd have been shattered if I'd had two days of it and an evening of excitement as well. But I hope that perhaps someone who went to Saturday's events — and indeed anyone there on Sunday who went to different talks and workshops — will let me know what I missed.

Colophon

Written by Wood Avens and posted to alt.religion.wicca.moderated, November 2004. An eyewitness account of Witchfest 2004, held at Fairfield Halls, Croydon, England, organised by the Children of Artemis. Speakers included Maxine Sanders (Alexandrian co-founder), Ashleen O'Gaea (author, The Family Wicca Book), Kate West, Galatea, and Cassandra Eason.

Preserved from the Usenet archive for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026. Original Message-ID: [email protected]

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