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tyetknot · 2 years ago

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King of the Witches - A Review | Chapter Five - Bewitched

King of the Witches Chapter Five – Bewitched

This update will be rather more robust and full-bodied than several others, because this chapter was overflowing with Shit That Didn’t Happen and is eminently quotable. There is some bonkers shit in here. Don’t say I didn’t warn you!

The year is 1953. Two days after performing his Shrove Tuesday Rite of Ineffable Evil we find Sanders selling formulae from his old job to someone looking to set up as a pharmaceutical supplier (copyright infringement! evil!)

That evening he discovers while walking evilly through Picadilly Gardens in that Black Magic kind of way that he is being followed by a middle-aged man and woman. He confronts them and they tell him that he is the spinning image of their son who died three years before. They invite him to dinner at their hotel, which he attends, and then to dinner at their own home in Fallowfield, a suburb of Manchester, the next day. Ron and Maud (last names never given, Ron was a stockbroker, their son Kenneth died of meningitis at the age of 20 in [presumably] 1950, the only other descriptor being that they live in a “large old house with enormous bay windows”. I was unable to find any information on these persons after a little bit of searching and it is entirely possible they never existed) take a real liking to Sanders and they repeatedly beg him to come and live with them because he needs someone to look after him. They want him to come and stay, and don’t care that he practices witchcraft. Eventually Sanders relents and moves in.

This seems kind of implausible on the face of it, but I can say from personal experience that sometimes a couple will ‘take in’ a younger person in need – it is how I came to be in my current living situation. However, there are several things about this story that make it clear this is a flight of fancy, which we will now get into.

Sanders lives a life of idleness and Ron and Maud dote on him, giving him anything he wants.

“Each evening, after his friends had gone to bed, he walked the streets until dawn reciting his incantations which, for the first time in his life, seemed to have lost their magic and, in fact, their whole meaning. True, he had acquired a great deal of comfort without having worked for it, but it had not brought him the happiness he had expected.”

One evening his walk takes him past a large and run-down vacant house by the name of Riversdale, on Demesne Road, which to his shock is exactly the house he had seen in his earlier visions of wealth and luxury. The next morning he takes Ron and Maud to see it, and the caretaker shows them around – it has 26 rooms, among which is a forty-foot-long billiards room in the basement which Sanders had seen in his visions as a ballroom. The caretaker tells them it was built for Lord Egerton of Tatton in 1872. Cursory research on my part suggests this would have been Alan Egerton, 3rd Baron Egerton (1845 – 1920) but I have not been able to find any house named Riversdale. The road does exist, though.

Ron decides to buy the house for Alex and tells him he may live there indefinitely and will receive a regular allowance. Maud would much rather he stay with them, but Ron feels that Sanders needs his independence. They have it repaired and furnished to Sanders’ tastes, although he feels a little bad and worries that he is using them. “Several thousands of pounds went on restoring Riversdale’s solid mahogany staircase, decorating its sixteen bedrooms and painting its exterior.” However, having him around brings happiness to Ron and Maud.

Sanders lives a life of luxury and excess. “Seventeen hand-tailored suits hung in Alex’s wardrobe and two daily women were needed to clean the collection of Georgian silver and polish the antique furniture. Life became one round of gaiety. Each morning he would go into the city where he had joined almost every club. Inevitably, he had taken up drinking, and he would return home at night having drunk most of a bottle of brandy.”

While reading all of this and the pages to come I started wondering what Sanders’ actual parents thought of all of this, but they are not mentioned at all.

The basement billiards room at Riversdale is converted into an opulent ballroom and Sanders paints a magic Circle on the floor. Here he holds elaborate parties for wealthy guests – he has become popular with a particular sort of crowd and begins modeling under the name Paul Dallas. He hangs out with actors and businessmen and preys on lower-class women, makes up spells and potions for his friends, and does not keep staff in the house to ensure privacy for his weird rich people parties. As the evening progresses, most guests were encouraged to leave, while more discrete insiders, perhaps twelve or so couples, remained.

I said “weird rich people parties”. It’s going to get weird. I’m just going to quote the section entirely.

“Alex then showed the guests to their bedrooms and they would all return to the ballroom wearing exotic dressing-gowns. The conventional lighting would give way to coloured lighting (of the type now known as psychedelic). Rainbows flickered across the ceiling, and were reflected in the full-length mirrors that lined the walls. While Alex plied the girls with drinks, his closest friends would drive into the city to collect two or three down-and-outs, offering them a meal and plenty to drink. They seldom refused. As the party progressed, the dressing-downs would be discarded, and any other clothes, until all would be naked. To this wild scene would be introduced the bewildered, tattered strangers. Furnished with liquor and food such as they had not seen in years, they swallowed their scruples along with the provisions, and by the time the next act began they would be too far gone to care. One by one they were led upstairs to the bathrooms where, watched by an audience of half-drunk nudes, they were told to get undressed and have a bath. The filthier the stranger, the more disgusting his clothes and body, the more exciting the occasion. The well-fed guests gasped as the pitiful human carcasses were exposed to their eyes. By now the down-and-outs were usually sobering up and beginning to realize how they had been used. They seldom protested, however, aware, perhaps for the first time, of their own degradation. Silently they would dress and make their escape as fast as possible. To relieve flagging spirits, Alex would then call his fiends back to the ballroom where, with the lights now dimmed, he would set up an altar to worship the devil. Letting the others suggest the ceremony, he would drape a tapestry over the long table on which the food had been laid, and set it with bowls of flowers. Then the devil dance would start, increasing in abandon until a girl climbed on the altar and lay down to be worshipped by the others. Invariably her partner would join her and, urged on by the erotic gathering, they would consummate their passion to applause. Alex joined in the applause as much as the others, and tried to still the shame he felt in his misuse of witchcraft. When the guests had gone to bed he would bring out his athame, describe a witch’s circle, and chant the invocations that might bring him peace. He prayed to the great god to send him someone to love, someone who would love him in return, but not a candle flame would flicker; no breath from the outer world would disturb the incense.”

Not gonna lie, this straight-up sounds like some weird serial killer Eyes Wide Shut shit. Fortunately it’s very unlikely any of this crap happened.

All of this, of course, is paid for by Ron, who suspects nothing and supplies Sanders with money to spend as he pleases. However, people have started to notice him.

“Alex’s sudden affluence did not go entirely unnoticed. His story was, quite simply, that he had been left a fortune. In fact, quite apart from Ron’s disinterested generosity, he was showered with gifts from other men who were endowed with more money and sensuality than common sense. Deviates and perverts competed for his favours. One gave him a house designed after an Italian villa; several gave him valuable jewellery.”

Unfortunately none of this wealth and favour brings him happiness, and when he tries to read the Tarot cards they promise only pain and death in the future. He descends into alcoholism and becomes a hardened drinker, has a string of kept women (eight at one point) and begins to fall into the shadowy and decadent world of covert upper-class homosexuality. Sanders gets invited to parties that have some pretty weird sex shit that makes me think of the Equesticle after-after party from that one episode of Bob’s Burgers, you know the one, which I will also quote here:

“As at Alex’s parties, the fun did not begin until most of the guests had left. The thirty or so who remained taught Alex a number of perversions with which he was unfamiliar. One baronet put on a tight runner suit similar to those worn by frogmen, but with holes cut in various strategic places so that the flesh bulged out, grossly misshapen. Two women fought over the possession of a third, and a group of men rhythmically beat each other’s bare bodies with slender canes. If sex was normal it was too dull for these people; they vied with each other in finding new kicks.”

Entry into the world of rich-people 1950s BDSM brings the change to go to more, fancier parties. Sanders also attracts the attention of the powerful in other ways.

“A magistrate held one week-end party at his house outside Manchester while his wife was away. When the other guests had gone to their rooms, the host invited Alex to his inner sanctum: a small bedroom, the walls and ceiling of which were lined with mirrors set at various angles. As they both lay naked on the narrow bed, thousands of images of every part of their bodies were reflected on all sides.”

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A wealthy Italian count takes a liking to Sanders and showers him with gifts and wants him to be exclusive, and when rebuffed with the claim that Sanders is a witch and magician and not to be owned by any man is offered a place in Italy to set up a black magic coven and is sent a box of family jewels. Sanders, to his credit, rejects this offer and returns the jewels. Sanders keeps working his dark spells to ensure a constant supply of cash, but doesn’t want to draw others into that world.

“Playfully praying to the devil to stimulate sexual appetite was one thing, but raising evil forces in all sincerity was quite another.”

I’m going to assume that none of this shit happened, experimenting with homosexuality aside (as we all know, Sanders was bi as all hell), because.....well, because I have a few functioning brain cells left over after all my years posting on this hellsite.

All of this fast living and Black Magickque and drinking and using people may be fun for now, but eventually the price will have to be paid.

#Wicca #Witchcraft #Pagan #King of the Witches #Alex Sanders #Alexandrian Wicca #Alexandrian Traditon #Traditional Wicca #Review #Book review

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