A traditional Witch by heritage, Lady Sheba was one of the first people this side of the Atlantic to make the Craft public. Her efforts were instrumental in the growth of modern Wicca in the United States. On August 13, 1971, Lady Sheba registered “the American Order of the Brotherhood of the Wicca” in Michigan, marking an important step towards the legal recognition of Wicca as a religion.
Thirty years later, Llewellyn is re-issuing The Grimoire of Lady Sheba, the first Wiccan grimoire ever published in the United States. Lady Sheba hand-copied this grimoire at the time of her initiation into her first coven. She also added spells and ancient ritual practices handed down for generations in her family tradition. This beautiful hardcover edition of The Grimoire of Lady Sheba is an indispensable guide for anyone interested in the history and practices of the Craft.
Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, president of Llewellyn Publications and himself a leading figure in the Wiccan community, took time to speak with New Worlds about Lady Sheba, her books, and the future of Wicca.
New Worlds: Why did you decide to re-issue Lady’s Sheba’s The Book of Shadows and The Grimoire of Lady Sheba?
Carl Weschcke: I had wanted to reprint both these books for years, but had hoped to do so with new material from Lady Sheba. We had lost touch with her a number of years ago, and tried to contact her through all the addresses we’d ever had without success. And then we heard that she had passed away. We were reluctant to merely reprint the books without regard to her relatives and again sought unsuccessfully to locate her heirs.
Finally, as the result of a listing on eBay for a signed copy, we did locate her daughter and learned that Lady Sheba is indeed alive and living in retirement. She was eager to have the books brought back into print, but did not feel anything new should be added to these two classics.
NW: How did you meet Lady Sheba?
CW: She wrote to me back in the late 1960s. We invited her to come to St. Paul and she brought the manuscript for The Book of Shadows with her and we signed a publication contract. She said that the Goddess had instructed her to come to Llewellyn.
It was at this same time that I was working with a small group of people in our own coven, and Lady Sheba initiated us into her tradition.
Following that first visit, Lady Sheba visited us yearly to participate in the annual “Gnosticons” that we sponsored in Minneapolis, and to meet with the growing number of local Wicca.
NW: What was it like to study with Lady Sheba?
CW: My study with Lady Sheba was largely informal since I had long been involved in the study and practice of Ritual Magick, had corresponded with Gerald Gardner, and had done a great deal of experimentation with our own group. Lots of questions and her answers exchanged by correspondence.
NW: Did you have any unusual experiences?
CW: There are a number of “stories” I could tell, but a few stand out. Before I talk about them, however, I do want to remark that the early 1970s was the time of the “Witch Wars” during which people were surfacing all over the place claiming this lineage or that, and most of them were name-calling and challenging each other. As Isaac Bonewitz once characterized it, people were essentially saying: “My Tradition is better than yours!” And very few of them had much to prove their claims. It was also a time of intense interest in Wicca, and many people were attracted to some unsavory “teachers” who abused and mislead them.
Some people have criticized Lady Sheba for breaking vows and publishing secrets. Her response was that the Goddess instructed her to do so. Others wrote that she was an impostor who had no “tradition” and no “power.” I learned differently.
When Lady Sheba initiated me—willing me “the Power” as she described it—I was taken totally by surprise for I had anticipated little more than a symbolic drama. Instead, I first had a psychic vision of her standing as if at the threshold of creation itself, calling powers into her own body. Then I was thrown out of my physical body and watched “lines of energy” passing from her hands through my body. I felt as if I was undergoing a cleansing and readjustment of my etheric matrix. I felt the Power as my own to pass on to others.
Another time Lady Sheba held out her “Queen’s Necklace” [pictured in the Grimoire of Lady Sheba] for me to kiss. As I did so, I felt my astral self grow and extend far up above my physical body, and I was filled with bliss. My psychic awareness and perception has remained at some level greater than before this experience.
Another, somewhat more amusing story, concerned an editorial discussion. One of our editors had wanted to change the archaic language in the Book of Shadows and Lady Sheba wrote from Michigan and said absolutely not. Later, that evening, our editor’s husband and one of our bookstore employees were laughing about this in a local Minneapolis bar. He appeared at work the next day with complaint of the most severe headache of his life. Two days later I had a letter from Lady Sheba writing that she had been “out on the Astral” and had witnessed this bar talk. “I took my Holy Book and hit Ron on the head with it.” It was enough to make a believer.
NW: What was the response from the public when Lady Sheba’s books were originally published in the early 1970s?
CW: Both positive and negative, as can be perceived from some of the above. Lady Sheba referred to herself as an “American Witch Queen” at a time when this very concept was anathema to most people who perceived in it a declaration of a theological hierarchy—the very antithesis of what attracted most of us to this non-institutional Nature-based free religion. Now the queen concept is more often seen in terms of “daughter” covens and recognition of lines of succession. Indeed, the truth of such succession lies within the actual transmittal of “Power” as I truly experienced it in my initiation. She had the Power. And I presume she still does. I believe I still do.
NW: How has the Craft changed since these books were originally published?
CW: Witchcraft has become Wicca, and Wicca has gone “mainstream.” Even though non-institutional (independent from theological colleges and professional clergy )people practice the Craft across the land and Wicca is respected and honored as a legitimate spiritual path.
Some groups have freely chosen to go “legal” and secure IRS recognition. Some have established colleges to grant ministerial degrees. Many have not. And all have found truth and satisfaction in their practice.
NW: What would you say to younger Wiccans who feel that the Wicca as practiced by Lady Sheba isn’t the same Wicca that they practice today?
CW: I am sure that many do and should. Wicca has evolved. And Wicca should evolve. It may be “the Old Religion,” but spirituality is not static, and we are moving into a New Age of expanding consciousness. Wicca has and is serving the needs of many people not only in America and Europe, but in Africa, Latin America, and Asia.
Wicca uniquely provides the personal religious experience that many hunger for and have not found in the traditional churches and temples of so-called “organized religion.” And because it is personal, it has been free to evolve just as its practitioners have freely evolved. That’s the message of this New Age: that we grow as individuals and accept personal responsibility for our role in planetary well-being. We are “co-creators.” What we believe and what we do shapes the world in which we have our being, and Wicca (and Magick) teaches us that thoughts are real and powerful.
NW: Now that Wicca has become more accepted as a religion, do you think that
people still need to follow the Laws as published in the Book of Shadows? If not, what is their purpose in modern Wicca?
CW: The “Laws” of The Book of Shadows have served their purpose. In many cases they were practical rules suited for the times when they were set down. In other cases they represent knowledge expressed in ways suited for personal and group guidance. They are, in many cases, “principles” for the practice of a magical religion. For some, I think they express a basic set of ethical concepts very much suited for the times in which we live.
They should be read, and they should find “life” in the minds of the readers. As living principles and concepts, they will grow and serve to mature the magical personality of the practitioner.
And this is important. The Laws should come alive in the Wiccan as should the symbols and tools of the Craft. One’s athame should live within the psyche; as should the wand, the cords, and other magical and religious implements. And the images of God and Goddess. If only “external,” they will lack “Power.” Take them within, and they live, and evolve.
NW: How do you see Wicca evolving over the next thirty years?
CW: Currently we see a growing interest in the shamanic side of the Craft, as contrasted to the celebratory (religious) side. By this I refer to the various “esoteric technologies” that have always been part of every magical religion. It is with these technologies—as simple as drumming, dancing, and chanting to more complex martial arts related practices and guided meditations—that the individual undertakes his spiritual journey of transformation.
It is with this that I see Wicca
moving—as in the past—in two pathways that are consistent each to the other; the Group and the Solitary. A person can follow both paths, or just one or the other. But it is “together and alone” that we journey into the New Age that is upon us, and that calls to each of us to respond with growth, purpose, and service.
