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Charles Cardell (1895–1977) was an English Wiccan who propagated his own tradition of witchcraft, the Old Tradition, which was distinct from that of Gerald Gardner. Cardell's tradition of Wicca venerated a form of the Horned God known as Atho and worked with a coven that met on the grounds of his estate in Surrey .
Aradia is one of the principal figures in the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland's 1899 work Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, which he believed to be a genuine religious text used by a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, a claim that has subsequently been disputed by other folklorists and historians. [1]
The witch-cult hypothesis states that such stories are based upon a real-life pagan cult that revered a horned god. The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. According to its proponents, accused ...
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy, that documented their beliefs and rituals.
The Witchcraft Research Association was a British organisation formed in 1964 in an attempt to unite and study the various claims that had emerged of surviving remnants of the so-called Witch-Cult, such as those of Gerald Gardner, Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek, Charles Cardell, and Raymond Howard.
Grimassi shares in common, in his books, the general "Witch-cult hypothesis" that appears in the writings of Charles G. Leland (Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, 1899), a discredited theory that European witchcraft was the continuation of an ancient pre-Christian religion.
Neopagan witchcraft, sometimes referred to as The Craft, is an umbrella term for some neo-pagan traditions that include the practice of magic. [1] These traditions began in the mid-20th century, and many were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis; a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches in Europe had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion.
The history of magic extends from the earliest literate cultures, who relied on charms, divination and spells to interpret and influence the forces of nature. Even societies without written language left crafted artifacts, cave art and monuments that have been interpreted as having magical purpose.