{"id":11858,"date":"2020-11-01T10:04:22","date_gmt":"2020-11-01T17:04:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11858"},"modified":"2020-11-01T10:04:47","modified_gmt":"2020-11-01T17:04:47","slug":"childish-and-credulous-fantasy-how-the-bbc-viewed-witchcraft-in-1962","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11858","title":{"rendered":"“Childish and Credulous Fantasy”: How the BBC Viewed Witchcraft in 1962"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

Cecil Williamson, left, and BBC interviewer Alan Whicker (BBC).<\/p><\/div>\n

Pop over to the BBC archive to watch presenter llan Whicker pontificate about witchcraft in a short television segment from Hallowee 1962.<\/a><\/p>\n

Among other non-information, Whicker trots out the bogus “nine million witches executed” figure from the Renaissance and Early Modern witch trials.<\/p>\n

He also interviews Cecil Williamson, Gerald Gardner’s original business partner in the Isle of Man witchcraft museum, whose opening, I suspect, had much to do with the formal creation of Wicca.<\/p>\n

William, meanwhile, announces his official “witch ratio”: 1 witch to 53,000 population. Now you know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pop over to the BBC archive to watch presenter llan Whicker pontificate about witchcraft in a short television segment from Hallowee 1962. Among other non-information, Whicker trots out the bogus “nine million witches executed” figure from the Renaissance and Early Modern witch trials. He also interviews Cecil Williamson, Gerald Gardner’s original business partner in the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[88,100,95,387,333,29],"class_list":["post-11858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-britain","tag-history","tag-journalism","tag-museums","tag-witch-trials","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-35g","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11816","url_meta":{"origin":11858,"position":0},"title":"Call for Papers: Pagans and Museums","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"NOTE UPDATED DEADLINES AT BOTTOM Museums and contemporary Paganism are inextricably linked. Gerald Gardner, founder of modern pagan witchcraft, first publicized Wicca in 1951 at Cecil Williamson\u2019s Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft at Castletown (later The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft) on the Isle of Man. Some of his\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"museums\"","block_context":{"text":"museums","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=museums"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/ray-buckland-34-17-at-museum.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":793,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=793","url_meta":{"origin":11858,"position":1},"title":"Helen Duncan’s Family Tries Again for a Pardon","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 17, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Mary Martin was 11 years old when her father taught her to box. She would come home from school scratched and bruised, her ears ringing with abuse from the playground. Mary Martin had the unhappy distinction of being the granddaughter of Britain's last convicted witch.Descendants of Helen Duncan, the \"last\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2900,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2900","url_meta":{"origin":11858,"position":2},"title":"Quick Review: Spellbound: Inside West Africa’s Witch Camps","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 16, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Karen Palmer, author of Spellbound: Inside West Africa's Witch Camps, is a veteran journalist, not a historian of witchcraft, so for me to read the book from the latter perspective is to do her a slight disservice. (As an inside, the subtitle might\u00a0 better read \"Inside Ghana's Witch Camps,\" but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Africa\"","block_context":{"text":"Africa","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=africa"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11001,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11001","url_meta":{"origin":11858,"position":3},"title":"Have We Indeed Reached “Peak Witch”?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 30, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I doubt it. But that is the kind of significant question that the New York Times is asking during Witchcraft and Paganism Media Month: \"When Did Everybody [sic] Become a Witch?\" Witches are your millennial co-workers doing tarot card readings on their lunch breaks, and professional colleagues encouraging you to\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8868,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8868","url_meta":{"origin":11858,"position":4},"title":"They Were Not Witches \u2014\u00a0They Are Our Martyrs","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 18, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"This is the memorial created in 1992 for the victims of the Salem trials in Salem, Mass. Each \"bench\" contains the name of an accused person: \"Margaret Scott. Hanged. September 22, 1692.\" Walk there, and you know that it has become a shrine. Then you realize that you are walking\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/red-coat-3.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":12980,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12980","url_meta":{"origin":11858,"position":5},"title":"How about Museum of Witchcraft Version 4.0?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 6, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"You can buy the former mill (built 1828) in Castletown, Isle of Man, that once housed housed Cecil Williamson and Gerald Gardner's \"Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft,\" whose name went through various permutations, even as its little restaurant went from being \"The Folklore Restaurant\" to \"The Witches' Kitchen.\" All\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Gerald Gardner\"","block_context":{"text":"Gerald Gardner","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=gerald-gardner"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tindle-web-prod.brightsites.co.uk\/tindle-static\/image\/2022\/06\/28\/11\/newFile.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11858"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11865,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11858\/revisions\/11865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}