Wiccan Author, Teacher, Speaker
Interview with Mike Nichols By Rev. David Reffit

I first met Mike Nichols in 1997. He was asked by my High Priestess and teacher, Lady Shyra, if he could come in and speak. He agreed. I met him and spoke with him. I was awed by his knowledge and his down- to-earth attitude. I searched the BBS’s and PodsNet (before the internet boom) and found and read everything he wrote. (I still have all those papers.)

Now 12 years later, I am privileged and proud to call him friend.

When Christopher Blackwell put out a call for interview ideas, I was glad to help. So I called up Mike and asked if I could interview him.

I am glad he agreed. I want everybody to know about my friend and author. One thing that most people will find out when they meet him, he is friendly, humble, and has a wonderful spirit. He is very kind. And as I have said, I am honoured to call him friend. Here is my

interview:

Rev. David: First, I am honoured you took the time out of your busy schedule to speak with me.

Mike Nichols: The honour is all mine!

Rev. David: Were you born and raised in Kansas City? Or are you transplanted from elsewhere?

Mike Nichols: I was actually born in Kansas City, but only because my birth presented some medical problems for my 40-year-old mother. She and my dad took an apartment in Kansas City about a month before I was born so the doctors at St. Luke’s could deliver me. But my parents were actually living in Carrollton, MO, at the time, which is where I grew up.

Carrollton is a small town of about 5,000. It was a great place for a boy to grow up. I’ve often compared it to growing up inside a Ray Bradbury novel. I moved to Kansas City in 1976, after attending university in Columbia, MO.

Rev. David: Were you born into a “Magickal” family? If not, how did you come to your path and what path would that be?

Mike Nichols: Well, I was raised in a Christian family, but arguably the most “magickal” branch of it, being Roman Catholic.

I don’t mean to offend any Catholic readers, of course. I just mean that, among Christians, Catholics are the greatest example of a highly liturgical tradition. And this was at a time before all the changes instituted by Vatican II.

So as an altar boy, I actually served at the old Tridentine mass, spoken in Latin. So from a very early age, I was initiated into a religious lifestyle which contained lots of ceremony and ritual.

However, despite going to a Catholic grade school and having religion classes every day of my life, I soon started having problems with the theology of Christianity.

As early as fourth grade, I was questioning much of Church dogma, and by eighth grade, I had pretty much decided that I could not really buy into the idea that humankind was fallen from grace, or that it needed salvation. Which, for all practical purposes, meant that I was already outside mainstream Christianity.

However, I never lost the feeling that religion *was* an important part of my life, so I started looking around to see what other religions were available.

I was initially attracted to some of the Eastern religions, like Taoisn and Shinto, but I ultimately felt that my Western mind-set was not a good fit for them. So, that got me wondering what religions had been practiced in Western Europe before Christianity came onto the scene.

What I discovered, of course, were these wonderful per-Christian nature religions with their large pantheons of both Gods and Goddesses, similar in many ways to Native American religious traditions.

I realized immediately that their beliefs filled my own religious needs. I had been looking for a religion that had both a Feminine and Masculine model of divinity; one that was highly liturgical or ritualistic, celebrating the holidays and seasons of the year; one that saw Nature itself as sacred; one that viewed psychic phenomena and magic in a positive light; and one where every member of the religion was seen as clergy, not just laity.

The only “problem” (at least from the perspective of my upbringing) was the label usually attached to this pre-Christian European religious tradition was “Witchcraft.” But it didn’t take me long to unlearn the negative connotation of the label, and to realize it was negative only from the perspective of the Christian tradition, which believed itself to be the one, right, true, and only way.

So by the summer before I started college, I had dedicated myself as a Witch and, a few years later, I received initiation into a Welsh tradition of the Craft, and have followed that tradition ever since.

Rev. David: What inspired you to write your book: “The Witches’ Sabbats”.

Mike Nichols: Well, I never set out to write a book, actually. To begin with, I was asked by the editors of a local magazine called “The Rune” to write a series of articles on each of the eight Witchcraft Sabbats. That had long been a special interest of mine, so I was happy to comply. I owned a bookstore at the time, called “The Magick Lantern”, and I also published these essays in the store’s newsletter, as well as on the store’s BBS system (in the early days of the Internet).

They were picked up from there and echoed on other BBS and websites around the world. Eventually, I was contacted by book publishers (twice!), asking me if I’d like to publish them as a book.

Rev. David: What is/are your favourite thing(s) in it?

Mike Nichols: The bibliography. Seriously. But if I had to pick from my own writings, I’d probably have to say the chapters on “The Death of Llew” and “The Ever-Widening Circle”, because they represent my own original contributions to the field.

I also like “Two Witches”, a kind of modern Craft fairy tale, which I really did feel “inspired” to write. Most of the rest presents my research (in a highly concise form) into the folklore and traditional practices surrounding each of the Witchcraft holidays.

Rev. David: Have you thought about writing another book?

Mike Nichols: I’ve not only thought about it, I’ve done it. I actually did write a book long *before* writing “The Witches’ Sabbats”, but I never got around to having it published. It is a kind of reference handbook for the modern High Priestess or High Priest of a Coven. But since it was written some 30 years ago, it needs a lot of tweaking to bring it up to date for current publication.

Rev. David: Are you going to publish it?

Mike Nichols: Well, my publishers have already committed to publishing it, if and when I finish it. But it’s a long book (it was already longer than “The Witches’ Sabbats” when first written) and about 50% of it needs to be rewritten to bring it up to date.

Right now, there are lines in it such as, “We will have to await the publication of Aidan Kelly’s book on Gerald Gardner’s sources...”, which of course happened long ago.

The other problem is that “The Witches’ Sabbats” just “happened”. I didn’t set out to write a book, but had just written some essays that people liked to collect together as a book and, finally, publishers came to me asking to publish it as a book. This one, because of the length and depth, is going to require a lot more work to finish.

Rev. David: I know you love music and I have seen your collection, but tell our readers what is your favourite music?

Mike Nichols: Hmm... got about an hour? :) Well, in order of preference: Sixties music (the more obscure, the better), Ragtime, Celtic, Movie Soundtracks, Cajun, and Gregorian Chants. For starters.

Rev David: Where can people find out more about you and your event schedule?

Mike Nichols: The best thing to do is just Google “The Witches’ Sabbats” and my web site should be the first hit. http://webspace.webring.com/people/wm/mike_nichols.geo

From there, you will find a link to my publisher’s website, Acorn Guild Press. They host a more formal biography, reviews of my book, and an event schedule of my public speaking engagements.

Rev. David: Anything else you would like people to know?

Mike Nichols: Well, I’m glad you asked me that question about music. I have lots of other interests besides the Witchcraft holidays, and I fear that people who don’t know me think of me only in that one dimension. I think that’s why I went to such trouble listing my other hobbies and interests on my MySpace page and my Facebook page, because I wanted people to know that I’m a real, three-dimensional person, not just an author.

Folks who have met me at Pagan festivals are often surprised to learn that I love to play guitar and sing (I used to be in a band called “Spellbound”). In fact, one person once commented to me that he thought I was more concerned that people like my music than that they like my writing! And I suspect he was right!