Books: The Coven of One's Choice

KING OF THE WITCHES by June Johns. 154 pages. Coward-McCann. $5.

Alex Sanders, 44, likes to call himself the King of the Witches. That title, Author June Johns informs us, was last officially held in the 15th century by Owain Glyndwr, the last independent Prince of Wales. Sanders claims to be a descendant of Prince Owain, although he does not bother to offer any evidence of this. He is, says Sanders, a hereditary witch—as distinguished from the converts that Miss Johns' overly sympathetic biography obviously seeks to attract.

The attractions of Sanderian witchcraft appear to be many, and Sanders' own London coven (witch group) seems to hold the liveliest "esbats" (meetings) in town. In addition to the baldishly handsome Alex, there is Sanders' wife Maxine, a young (and, judging from the book's photographs, shapely) blonde who acts as official fertility symbol. Like some post-Freudian group-therapy sessions, Alex's esbats are conducted in the nude. Only he is robed—or at least toweled—to facilitate instant identification as head witch.

Esbats at the Sanderses' include dancing, chanting, feasting and the fondling of various ritual objects. When the occasion calls for the elevation of a member to a third-grade witch, there is highly formalized sexual intercourse. But Sanders insists that only those who are married or engaged to each other can partake of this ceremony, in which man and woman represent the sun and moon in fruitful conjunction. New witch recruits must be content to kneel before the altar and receive 40 purifying strokes across the buttocks. Some covens use whips made with shoelaces that may leave permanent scars. But Alex's group, Miss Johns reassuringly reports, uses a silver whip with thongs of embroidery silk.

Although Alex adheres to orthodox laws of witchcraft as set down in the ancient Book of Shadows, with income from lectures, public appearances and broadcasts he hopes to establish an international witch center as an alternative to traditional religions. "The simple worship of love and fertility," writes Miss Johns, "can be immensely appealing in a materialistic age overshadowed by the achievements—and horrors—of science." The declaration could hardly come during a more appropriate season. The most important fertility rites in all Wiccadom occur in spring. It is the time to worship fervently in the coven of one's choice. But no shoelaces, please!