page_title: Victor Henry Anderson
section_title: Childhood: 1917–1931
hierarchical_section_title: Victor Henry Anderson / Early life / Childhood: 1917–1931
caption_attribution_description: Clayton, New Mexico
context_page_description: Victor Henry Anderson was an American priest and poet. He was a founding member of the Feri Tradition, a form of the modern Pagan new religious movement which was established in California during the 1960s. Much of his poetry was religious in nature, being devoted to Feri deities.
  Born in Clayton, New Mexico, to a working-class family, Anderson was left visually impaired during childhood. His family regularly moved around within the United States during his early years, with Anderson claiming that encounters with Mexican, Hawaiian, and Haitian migrants led to him gaining an early understanding of these various cultures' magical practices. The family eventually settled in Oregon, and Anderson later claimed that it was here that he was initiated into a tradition of witchcraft by an African woman. He later claimed that, in 1932, he joined a magico-religious group known as the Harpy Coven which was based in Ashland and which dissolved in the 1940s. According to his description, the group was devoted to a god and goddess, Setan and Lilith, and were influenced by both American folk magic and Huna.
context_section_description: Anderson was born on May 21, 1917 at the Buffalo Horn Ranch in Clayton, New Mexico. His parents were Hilbart Alexander Anderson (1883–1952) and  Mary Frances Anderson (née Smith, 1886–1973). Regarding his ethnic ancestry, he later stated that "I am mostly Irish and Spanish with some Native American, including Polynesian". He also claimed that his maternal great-grandmother had been one of the Blue Fugates, a community living in Appalachia whose skin had a blueish coloration due to methemoglobinemia. Anderson became almost completely blind when he was two years old, either because of an accident or untreated diabetes. By 1920, the family were living in Burkburnett, Wichita County, Texas, where a sister, Elsie Glenan Anderson, was born in February. Here, Hilbart worked as a floor worker on some of the many oil rigs in the town. From there they moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they were recorded as living in the 1923–24 directory, and where Anderson later claimed that he had made many friends among Mexican migrant children. Anderson's later wife claimed that he was also instructed in how to use his etheric vision by "Mexican Witches" during childhood. The family next moved to Olustee, Oklahoma, where Hilbart's brother resided.
  After several months in Oklahoma they proceeded to the area around Ashland, Oregon, where Anderson claimed to have befriended Hawaiian and Haitian migrant families who were working as fruit pickers. Anderson often claimed that he had been instructed in the magical practices of Hawaiian Kahuna and Haitian Vodou, with his later wife referring to him as both "one of the last Kahuna" and "a priest of Voudou". He claimed to have been instructed in Vodou by Haitians who were working in southern Oregon. While living in that state he attended a school for the blind, although despite this was largely self-educated. The family moved around the state in the coming years; in August 1928 they were living in Pinehurst, where Hilbert was recorded as working as an engineer at a lumber mill in the 1930 census. By the 1940 census, the family were recorded as living in East Phoenix, Jackson county, Oregon, with Higbert adding that he had also been living there in 1935. At this point, Hilbert was working as a millwright and Mary as a trained nurse. In 1942 they were recorded as living in Ashland, and it was here that they attended the First Baptist Church, before relocating to Bend prior to 1944.
  Anderson claimed to be initiated into a tradition of witchcraft in 1926 by a woman "of the Fairy race", whom he elsewhere referred to as "a priestess from Africa".
  Anderson informed the journalist Margot Adler that when he was nine years old he encountered a small old woman sitting in the centre of a circle containing brass bowls of herbs. He alleged that he instinctively stripped naked and that she then sexually initiated him into a witchcraft tradition, during which he had a vision of a goddess and a horned god. After the vision, he claimed that they sat in the circle and she instructed him in the magical use of the various herbs, after which he was washed in butter, oil, and salt, before putting his clothes on and returning home. The Pagan studies scholar Ethan Doyle White described this as being "difficult to accept as a literal account", but suggested that Anderson may have undergone a significant spiritual experience with an older woman in 1926, which was subsequently "embellished into the later tale" that he told Adler. A woman who knew Anderson, Cornelia Benavidez, later stated that "He says that he became friends with a woman in the circus who was a fire dancer and when she got older worked the stands. She somehow joined the circus in South Africa and made her way to the US. When he first met her she was 60 years old and he was a nine-year-old boy. He knew her for 15 years". Researcher WIlliam Wallworth provided potential supporting evidence for this claim when he noted that a number of the circuses that performed in Oregon during the 1920s and 1930s had Africans in their travelling retinues.
caption: Anderson was born in Clayton, New Mexico, in the early 20th century (pictured)
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