'That Nice Girl Next Door Just Could Be a Witch', Tom Hopkins, Dayton Daily News, 26 April 1970

Dayton Daily News (Dayton, Ohio), Sunday 26 April 1970, page 121. Tom Hopkins reviews June Johns's King of the Witches. Modern witches, he tells his readers, "hold down 8-to-5 jobs, watch television and eat three meals a day"; the difference is one of religion. He repeats the book's account of Alex as descended from Welsh witches, initiated at seven by his grandmother and now head of 107 covens, with some 4,000 witches in Britain, and admits he found the chapter on the conjured "familiar" incredible. Cropped to the review, with the full page alongside. How to cite: Tom Hopkins, 'That Nice Girl Next Door Just Could Be a Witch', Dayton Daily News, 26 April 1970, p. 121. Alexandrian Witchcraft Timeline & Archive.

That Nice Girl Next Door Just Could Be a Witch KING OF THE WITCHES, by June Johns Coward-McCann. 155 pages. $5. If your idea of a witch is a cackling old hag with a wart on her nose and a broom for transportation, this book offers a few surprises. Modern witches - and there are hundreds of them - are pretty much like everybody else. They hold down 8-to-5 jobs, watch television and eat three meals a day. That miniskirted girl you admired yesterday might have been a witch. The difference? It’s one of religion. Instead of lighting a candle to a longdead saint, white witches embrace the worship of the Horned God and the Earth Mother, symbol of fertility. Emphasis is placed on doing good, restraining evil and promoting fertility, and Satan be damned. PROBABLY the most powerful witch in Europe, proclaimed “King of the Witches” by his converts, is Alex Sanders. He is descended from a long line of Welsh witches and now heads 107 covens in England. When a lad of 7, Sanders was initiated into the cult by his grandmother in a bloody ritual. Sanders has dedicated his life to bringing witchcraft out from under the cloud of black magic with which the white witches have been erroneously linked for centuries. All lumped into one cauldron of suspicion, they were persecuted mercilessly. It was fashionable in 16th century England, for example, to “test” suspected witches by stripping off their clothing, crossing their arms and tying their thumbs to their big toes, then flinging them naked into the nearest deep water. If they sank they were innocent - but that was small consolation, because most were drowned by that time. If they could swim they were guilty and headed for the hangman's noose. WITH THE relaxation of anti-witchcraft laws and an upsurge of interest in psychic phenomena, Sanders has increased his domain until there are some 4,000 practicing witches in Britain alone. The book is illustrated with pictures of actual ceremonies showing witches dancing naked to raise their clairvoyant power. As with other matters of the occult, each reader must decide for himself how much to believe. I found one chapter incredible, because it described how Sanders and his associates conjured up a “familiar” who materialized as a child. But the existence of witchcraft is without question, and man can perhaps be forgiven in a materialistic age for wanting to believe in something - TOM HOPKINS