PAGANISM PERSISTING

Robin Douglas and Francis Young. Paganism Persisting. A History of European Paganism Since Antiquity. University of Exeter Press, 2024.

The first question of course, is 'what is Paganism?' The word 'pagan' arose amongst Christians in the fourth century to describe their unconverted neighbours. It was derived from the Latin paganus, which has a number of possible translations, including 'civilian' and 'villager'. It is not clear why this term was used, but it is clear that it was meant to have negative overtones. 

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WITCHCRAFT-ON-SEA

Philip Heselton. In Search of the New Forest Coven. Fenix Flames, 2020. 

This book seeks to untangle the story behind Gerald Gardner’s initiation into a ‘witch cult’ in 1939, and to identify and explore the lives of the people in that cult, and the nature of the ‘cult’ itself. Although most people now accept that whatever the background to Gardner’s ‘coven’, it was not, as he claimed, “one of the ancient covens of the Witch Cult which still survive in England”. 

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HEART OF THE MATTER

Paul Davies and Caitlin Matthews (Editors). This Ancient Heart: Landscape, Ancestor, Self. Moon Books, 2015.

This is an anthology of essays by thirteen authors exploring the threefold relationship between the landscape, ancestors and ourselves. Each writer gives a unique and idiosyncratic viewpoint on pagan themes of honouring the ancestors, connecting with nature and following a spiritual path or practice.

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WITCHCRAFT USA

Helen A. Berger. A Community of Witches: Contemporary Neo-Paganism and Witchcraft in the United States. University of South Carolina Press, 1999. (Repr. 2013)

Berger, an associate professor of sociology at West Chester University in Pennsylvania, started this study almost by chance. She gave a series of lectures at Boston Public Library on Witchcraft in New England, mainly the notorious trials at Salem, Massachusetts, in the 1690s. She discovered that she had several Witches in her audience.
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BLACK ARTS, GREY AREA

John William Wickwar. Witchcraft and the Black Art. Fonthill Media. New edition 2012. (Originally published 1925)

Witchcraft, or not so much witchcraft as the belief in it, is a very mysterious thing. Why is it that, throughout the ages, in many different cultures that could have had no contact with each other, there was, and is, a belief that certain people, usually women, have great paranormal powers, and that they use those powers for evil?
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TEATIME WITH THE DEAD

Christian Day. The Witches’ Book of the Dead, Weiser Books, 2011.

This book comes with its own in-built health warning – unfortunately at the end, rather than the beginning, when it’s far too late to protect yourself. Author Christian Day lists the horrors that came upon him as he struggled to finish it: death (appropriately enough) of close loved ones, debilitating injuries and resurfacing of old enemies.
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TREASURE TROVE

Johannes Dillinger. Magical Treasure Hunting in Europe and North America. Palgrave Macmillan. 2011.

When we think of treasure hunting today, the image that comes to mind is of an individual with a map and a metal detector scanning open farmland or on a beach. We see it in strictly practical terms: someone in the past has lost or hidden money, jewels or valuable artefacts, and the treasure hunter attempts to locate them through scientific equipment or by deciphering clues in maps, documents or the landscape itself.
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WICCA MEN

Michael Howard, Modern Wicca: A History from Gerald Gardner to the Present. Llewellyn Publications, 2009..

‘Wicca’ is usually understood to mean ‘witchcraft’, but as Howard observes, this has caused some controversy in places such as South Africa, where witchcraft is understood in a wholly negative way. I would suggest that witchcraft could be defined as ‘the exercise of occult arts’, which may be done by people of any faith, whereas Wicca is a religion, distinguished by the fact that unlike most other religions it encourages the exercise of occult arts.

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