I was once a member of an Alexandrian Wiccan facebook group. While I was there, I made what apparently turned out to be a terrible mistake: I started asking questions.
Nothing particularly outrageous, either. I simply asked about some of the stories surrounding Alex Sanders.
One concerned the claim that Sanders lost his virginity to his grandmother at the age of fourteen as part of his initiation into witchcraft. This story appeared in a book that Sanders himself sanctioned, so I thought asking about it was perfectly reasonable.
Apparently not.
My question went down about as well as a pork pie at a vegan convention, and I received the first of several verbal slagging-offs.
Things became even more interesting when it was pointed out that Sanders’ grandmother was apparently already dead by the time he was fourteen.
This presented something of a problem with the story.
So, admittedly with my tongue firmly in my cheek, I asked the obvious question: if the story was still supposed to be true, were we now talking about necrophilia?
Strangely enough, that question wasn’t particularly popular either.
Then came another uncomfortable subject.
I had seen an old film clip on YouTube, apparently dating from the late 1960s or early 1970s, showing a young child participating in what was presented as an Alexandrian ritual. The child was interviewed and gave answers that, to me at least, sounded extremely well rehearsed.
So I asked about that as well.
Another mistake.
This time I received yet another slagging-off, accompanied by claims that the clip didn’t exist.
There was just one slight problem with that argument:
I’d watched it. On YouTube.
Eventually, someone came up with what they apparently considered the perfect explanation for all my troublesome questions:
“You’re only asking these things because you want to join an Alexandrian Wiccan coven, but you can’t.”
I explained that I had absolutely no desire to join a Wiccan coven, Alexandrian or otherwise.
Apparently, I was mistaken about my own wishes.
“Yes, you do want to join one. But we won’t let you.”
Well, there isn’t really anywhere sensible to go after that, is there?
I knew I didn’t want to join an Alexandrian coven.
They knew I desperately wanted to join an Alexandrian coven.
And clearly they knew what was going on inside my own head far better than I did.
How very mystical.
There is, of course, a moral to this story.
Perhaps it is about questioning accepted stories.
Perhaps it is about what happens when loyalty to a tradition becomes more important than examining its history.
Or perhaps the moral is simply that when someone has already decided what you think, what you want and why you are asking questions, actual conversation becomes rather difficult.
But I’ll leave the final verdict to you:
What do you think the moral of this story is?
