I first began this book in 1975 when I was on remand in Brixton Prison awaiting trial for alleged ‘witchcraft offences’, some of which [and which was later to be stated at the Old Bailey] were said to have taken place at Highgate Cemetery.
The trial proper began in June 1974 and attracted world-wide headlines and as a result I was sentenced to almost five years imprisonment, despite having not committed the offences in question.
The drawn-out legal [or rather ‘illegal’] technicalities of this trial, however, would really demand another manuscript, legal prejudices and enforcement towards Wicca [White Witchcraft] really being an entirely separate story [although I have touched upon these briefly in the present book].
I put the ‘final touches’ to this present book in 1977, having served my prison sentence. This was a period that afforded an unhindered opportunity to expose the unjust prison sentence, and to add to what had already been written, but on reflection, I felt that this would somehow distract from the intrinsic thoughts and feelings that had been ‘wrenched to the surface’ whilst in prison.
Legal material was therefore left aside all at the risk of otherwise clouding the essence of events as these really occurred; events which by some quirk of fate, - have lain in a tattered manuscript until some 25 years later. The present book, although belated, has really been the result of persistent demand and I hope it gives some hindsight into facts which have hitherto remained unpublished.

 

 

"It was perhaps some consolation that during the course of my early life and troubles at school, I was able to obtain badly-needed guidance from my mother. She, at least, understood how I felt, and to my childish eyes, seemed strangely aware of something beyond the boring necessities of everyday existence. Driven to despair by the almost formidable expectations of my father, I began to suspect that she, alone, held the key whereby I might escape through the great door that was dividing my life. I could not pinpoint the reason for this but she had the power to make me aware of 'another world'; one that shone with alluring mystery through the grey confines of my surroundings. It seemed she could not me push too obviously along this path (because of my father); but instead she watered the seeds of 'spiritual awareness' that struggled for survival beneath a blanket of supression..."