Legend of the Witches (1970) & Secret Rites (1971) [DVD + Blu-ray)

It’s a good entry to have a general understanding of the subject.

.Fascinating curiosity from the early 1970's. Remember being into all this then as a teenager.. Of its time.

EXCELLENT

I think that this video is one of the best ones about Witchcraft. Like "Witchcraft 70" and others, it shows a lot of traditional witches and also shows the main rituals of the Alex Sanders' Coven with his wife and Priestess Maxine Morris/Sanders (like the First Degree Initiation Ritual).In "Legend of Witches" we can even watch the first version of the Witchcraft Museum before Gerald Gardner bought it! We could even see the scrying ritual using some modern tools, like electric lights and so..This is a really good video. If you like witchcraft and wicca, you'll love it.

Interesting collection of British films about witchcraft. 'Legend Of The Witches' is worth the price of the collection alone. Stunning restoration on this and 'Secret Rites'. Shame about the opinionated twaddle written on the back of the box, but then you cannot have everything.

You would have to have read "What Witches Do" when it came out in the early seventies as I did to really appreciate seeing the people it was about "doing their thing" as they said back then. This is a true documentary of the Witch faith not all that long after it went public beginning in the 1950s. Unfortunately, this will not play on my American DVD played but it works in a Mac.

Introduction.During the latter half of the 1960's the individuals who had inherited Wicca from Gerald Gardner (after his death in 1964) sought to apply a blanket policy of "No Publicity & No Dealings With The Media", after Gardner's foolhardy associations with tabloid-journalism had created a National anti-Witchcraft propagandist frenzy. Then along came Alex Sanders, whose publicity-seeking strategy made Gardner look like a rank-amateur. Sanders, furthermore, appeared completely un-concerned on the occasions that his high-profile strategy appeared to fail, backfire or give Witchcraft as a whole a bad name. He further incensed the existing Witchcraft Community by self-proclaiming himself "King Of The Witches In Britain", appearing on talk-shows, chat-shows and giving as many interviews to journalists as possible. Sanders used all of these media opportunities to attempt to sell his "Alexandrianism" as "White" Witchcraft, thereby (mis)informing the gullible masses that there were two types of Witchcraft & Magic: Black & White. This is because Occultism in general has found it utterly impossible to break free from the Judaeo-Christian, Good versus Evil, socio-political schema: that nebulous, arbitrary value system which has dominated the collective Western human mind for 2000 years. But, because of the particularly sinister, "evil" reputation traditionally attached to Witchcraft, the concepts of "Black" and "White" Magic/Witches had to be invented in an attempt to gain public acceptance for self-proclaimed practitioners of Witchcraft - all of whom (like Sanders) were quick to dub themselves "White", "Good", "Right-Hand Path" Witches. This false, Christian-based polarity was never really taken very seriously by anybody and it failed as a public relations exercise because the brainwashed masses assumed (and still maintain) that the whole thing was a cover for sordid, sinister, Satanic, anti-Christian activities. As for Sanders himself: his showmanship and lust for publicity led to allegations of charlatanism, but there exist enough anecdotes about his charismatic, magnetic personality and demonstrable powers of Magic to refute them: There are many accounts of him curing people of drink and drug addictions and other malaises and illnesses; he performed innumerable Spells, Charms and Rituals for specific goals which repeatedly worked. April 30th 2013 will mark the 25th anniversary of Sanders death and, perhaps, a re-appraisal of this prominent, significant figure in the history of Occultism.Legend Of The Witches.1969 was the year of both the film, "Legend Of The Witches" and a book, "King Of The Witches", a biography written by June Johns. Both the film and the book raised Alex Sanders' public profile to a national level - the film in particular displaying levels of nudity which are rather explicit even by today's standards. How many people, I wonder, queued up to watch late-night screenings of this black & white flick - not because they were remotely interested in the subject of Witchcraft, "White", "Black" or 666 shades of grey - but because they wanted to get more than an eyeful of the young, blonde, sexy, shapely, beautiful Maxine Sanders, dancing bare-arsed around a fire with several other beautiful, butt-naked girls? Unfortunately, other scenes are far less titillating: the ritual sacrifice of a chicken, for example, in order that its guts be examined to predict the future remains a damning indictment of "White" Witchcraft practices.The film is - in essence - a pocket history of Witchcraft, quite nicely shot and told in an informative, atmospheric and interesting manner by an un-credited Narrator. The history includes extensive footage of the Witchcraft Museum in Boscastle, Cornwall, run (at the time of filming) by Cecil H. Williamson. But arguably the most significant footage is that of the Alex Sanders Coven performing several Witchcraft Rituals: significant because (as incredible as it seems) such footage of the man is said to be something of a rarity. As previously stated, the outside Rituals display unexpectedly uncensored levels of nudity - a traditional element in Witchcraft Ceremonies.What is made crystal clear during this Witchcraft history lesson is that Paganism and Christianity once shared common ground, at a time when the new religion of Christianity adopted a "softly-softly" approach to religious conversion. When the stance of the religionists inevitably became more aggressive and Paganism became the enemy, the division between itself and the Christian Faith should (by all the laws of logic and reason) have become absolute and irreversible. Because this did not happen, Witchcraft has existed for over 60 years as a 90% Christianity/10% Paganism hybrid - many of whose adherents, proponents and practitioners have repeatedly waxed lyrical about their "Earthy", "non-religious", "non-Christian" credentials. This film begins as a distinctly Pagan, Earthy study - but soon drifts into an over-extended focus on the links between Alexandrianism and Christianity. It goes off, in fact, on several tangents, but remains watchable.This remastered DVD is certainly a must-have for all students of the Esoteric. After all, the true Student must diligently study all paths, strands, disciplines, philosophies and modes of Occultism - precisely in order to realize that they are all a load of nonsense: at which point (being beyond Good & Evil, Self-Initiated and truly Evolved) he or she will be ready to finally read Anton LaVey's "Satanic Bible" and join the Church Of Satan...

Bought for the historical time capsule of 60s/70s Wicca. Alex Sanders “King of the Witches” leads the initiation ceremony and a rare interview with Gerald Gardner was included on the disc.