The 1970s was a good time to be the self-proclaimed King or Queen of the Witches. The most famous couple claiming the title were Alex and Maxine Sanders, with good reason. Sanders had been the first really high profile witch in the UK since the repeal of the 1735 Witchcraft Act in 1951 – while the likes of Gerald Gardner had been there first, Sanders emerged at the right time, just as public fascination with all things occult began to reach its peak. An ardent self-publicist and showman along the lines of The Church of Satan’s Anton LaVey, Sanders was ever-ready to be interviewed and feature in sensationalist documentaries and paperbacks that were sold to an excited public on the promise of salacious naked initiation rituals and fevered sex orgies. Certainly, Sanders knew that the likes of lurid documentary Secret Rites were essentially soft porn films disguised as occult examination, but happily played along, as did his strikingly photogenic and frequently naked wife Maxine, whose skyclad body appeared in many books and films, from the serious to the opportunist. Whether the Sanders’ publicity drive helped dispel Christian fears of pagan beliefs and witchcraft or reinforced them is open to question.
The other famous British witch couple of the time were Stewart and Janet Farrar, who had met through and been initiated into witchcraft by Alex Sanders. They married in 1975, when she was 25 and he was 59, and had begun running their own coven a few years earlier. Perhaps because London wasn’t big enough for two sets of witchcraft royalty, the couple moved to County Meath in Ireland in 1976, at which point Janet declared herself Queen of the Witches in Ireland and challenged any rivals to a vaguely defined battle. Whether or not anyone stepped up to the challenge is unknown. Like Maxine, Janet was young, attractive and not averse to being photographed without her clothes on, so the press loved her.
Catholic Ireland was probably a more unfriendly place to be a witch than London, but the couple seemed to have settled into the role of local eccentrics rather than being seen as a pagan threat. Like the Sanders, they knew the value of publicity in both attracting initiates and deflecting religious paranoia – and they were clearly willing to ham it up for the cameras. In this RTE video clip from Halloween 1977, Janet literally appears in a puff of smoke holding a broom. In keeping with TV reports of the time, it is a straight-faced, slightly baffled look at witchcraft that has a bit of an obsession with how often people get naked. Stewart clearly knows this and gives matter-of-fact answers that don’t spoil the fantasy of nude frolicking, while Janet points out that witch covens are not to be confused with swingers clubs.
Stewart Farrar died in 2000. Janet then married Gavin Bone, with whom she and Stewart had had a ‘polyfidelitous relationship’ since 1993. The pair have authored several books on witchcraft, paganism and ritual magic. They are still important figures on the Wicca scene, though have been superseded in the public consciousness by younger, cooler Witches of Instagram.
Like what we do? Support us and help us do more!
