A Witch's History: Sybil Leek

Lately there have been rumblings and grumblings amongst several Pagan blogs that our community's teaching methods have become a bit washed out. To put it better way, that quickie-witch books have taken over the shelves and have cheapened the extremely hard work, extensive training and research that many high priests and priestesses have gone through. You know the books  - the ones on display at Barnes & Noble that declare, "Turn your boyfriend into a toad!" Or the ones that have a six page chapter on the basics of Wicca and then jump right into, "Now you're a witch! Here's a spell for money! Here's a spell for love! Here's a spell to make your cupcake recipes even more cute!" Okay, that last one could be kind of fun.

In the spirit of improving my own training, I have been on the lookout for books outside of the Llywellyn genre - I just find that they publish a good chunk of the quickie-witch books without concise bibliographies or good editing. This completely explains why I picked up a copy of Sybil Leek's autobiography, Diary of a Witch. I really didn't know anything about her before I bought the book, but here's a very quick summary of what she writes. 

Sybil Leek was born in England to what I gather to be a fairly well-off family. She is a hereditary witch, and learned the arts of herbalism, astrology and transcendental meditation from her grandmother as a girl. She married early and after only two years her husband passed away. Afterward she went to live with a group of gypsies for the better part of a year - adding their lore of herbs to her own knowledge. Later in life she traveled around the U.S. doing TV appearances, ghost hunting, and connecting with the flower children of the 60's. 

I am not one to readily believe in psychics or ghosts, so it was difficult for me to get through parts of DoaW. Especially hard for me was her insistence that astrology is a science and should be fully researched and used for the good of humanity. She writes that astrological charts should be given to babies at birth, so that doctors can know what illnesses will come up in their lives and when. I think she gives way to much credence to astrology, and sort of reminds me of the girlfriend in "This is Spinal Tap" who bases the band's schedule off astrological charts. :)

Sybil Leek is also a proponent of reincarnation to the point where she is convinced that one day science will be able to prove its existence. She claims to have gone on a ghost hunting trip where she discovered a human thigh bone in a previously undiscovered secret passage, and then says she brought the thigh bone home to her young son as a gift. She also believed that the Krishna Conscious group would become a very influential force in the future.

Despite the fact that I am skeptical about her views on psychic abilities and the role of mysticism in science, not to mention that all her adventures went exactly as she claims, I did enjoy the book as a way of looking at the evolution of witchcraft through the mid 1900s. It's interesting to hear about how she is perceived in European vs. American culture. I also enjoyed her description of the flower children during her jaunt in Los Angeles:

"I liked the flower children with their naive approach to life and their childlike energy. Yet there is something infinitely sad in seeing so many beautiful young people leading aimless lives, playing around with bits of clay, making collages from garbage cans in the belief that they are entering a great new renaissance. I found that few of them seemed able to cope with life without the aid of drugs which took them to a world of fantasy as an escape route."

It is also extremely interesting for me, a witch in her 20's, to see the divide starting between traditional witchcraft - often passed down through families - and more modern-day teach-yourself witchcraft. Sybil Leek wrote that the vast majority of the flower children interested in witchcraft could not maintain the discipline it took to be a practicing witch, and most of them were more keen to hear stories about Leek's encounters with Aleister Crowley. Hm. Could this be the beginning of life-long fluffy bunnies? :) (I use the term "life-long fluffy bunnies" because, let's face it, we were all that once. We just always hope we grow out of it with experience. And yes, I too thought it was "athame" that rhymes with game and "tarot" that rhymes with carrot.)

I haven't read any of Sybil Leek's other books. I'd be interested to hear from others who have.  This book really doesn't talk about her husbands or children much at all and I'd like to know more about her personal life rather than hearing her arguments on the validity of mystic practices. If you haven't read anything by her though, I think DoaW is a good place to start. It's a definite escape from, "Achieve astral projection in only five minutes!"

Oh, and on a complete side note, Celia over at Adventures of the Striped Stockings is hosting a giveaway from some very beautiful faerie prints. Or as my niece would say, "FAERIES! AND PRINCESSES! AND FAERIES! OH MY GOD I'M GOING TO FORGET MY POTTY TRAINING, I'M SO EXCITED!" Hm. It's probably a good thing that kids don't actually talk the way I imagine.