{"id":173,"date":"2004-04-29T02:56:00","date_gmt":"2004-04-29T02:56:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=173"},"modified":"2004-04-29T02:56:00","modified_gmt":"2004-04-29T02:56:00","slug":"173","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=173","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

50th Anniversary of Witchcraft Today<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Gerald Gardner’s Witchcraft Today<\/em><\/a>, a fascinating book, although flawed by the author’s pretense that he is a sort of anthropologist reporting on “them,” the witches, rather than in fact what he was–co-founder of the modern magical religion of Wicca.<\/p>\n

An American edition was published later by Citadel, now part of Kensington Books. My old copy (4th paperback printing) is dated 1973.<\/p>\n

Now Citadel has re-issued Witchcraft Today<\/em> with the original text and illustrations plus additional annotation and four additional essays. Those new contributors are Judy Harrow, the project’s editor, plus historian Ronald Hutton<\/a>, Wren Walker of The Witches’ Voice<\/a> web site, and Tara Nelsen, a graduate student, bookstore owner<\/a>, and Pagan activist<\/a> from southern Illinois.<\/p>\n

Harrow, in particular, has produced some fascinating work, tracking down nearly every one of the sources upon which Gardner drew (in his slapdash way), producing what amounts to an annotated bibliography of the original edition. In addition, she indexed the book–it always lacked an index–and wrote a second essay with reading lists, focused on all the themes, such as spellcraft, which Gardner touched upon.<\/p>\n

Preparing annotated bibliographies may not seem as sexy as writing about spells or shamanism, but they provide a true service to future researchers. Like the centennial edition<\/a> of Charles Leland’s Aradia: or The Gospel of the Witches<\/em>, which I was privileged to write an essay for in 1999, the appearance of this edition marks one more step in the maturation of contemporary Paganism.
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

50th Anniversary of Witchcraft Today This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Gerald Gardner’s Witchcraft Today, a fascinating book, although flawed by the author’s pretense that he is a sort of anthropologist reporting on “them,” the witches, rather than in fact what he was–co-founder of the modern magical religion of Wicca. An […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_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":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-173","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":11058,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11058","url_meta":{"origin":173,"position":0},"title":"Witchcraft Cycles and the Official Witch of LA","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 6, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Jason Mankey's Raise the Horns blog (in the sidebar) carries his look back over the previous decade, \"Paganism & Witchcraft in the 2010's.\" I urge you to read it. I would like to add just a little bit of nuance to one passage: Until recently Modern Witchcraft was generally tied\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"blogging\"","block_context":{"text":"blogging","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=blogging"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/Mayor-Sam-Yorty-Louise-Huebner-the-Official-Witch-of-Los-Angeles-Portrait.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11816","url_meta":{"origin":173,"position":1},"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":12291,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12291","url_meta":{"origin":173,"position":2},"title":"The 1970s, When Witchcraft Sold Skin Mags","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 14, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"From The Reprobate, \"Your daily slice of art, culture and social commentary,\" a photographic review of such long-gone late 1960s\u20131970s publications as Witchcraft, Bitchcraft, and Satan, all dedicated to the notion that \"the occult\" was sexy and could sell magazines. Much of the same content exists today, if you care\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/06\/witchcraft-1-212x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10422,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10422","url_meta":{"origin":173,"position":3},"title":"A Festschrift for Ronald Hutton","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Magic and Witchery: Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of 'The Triumph of the Moon' will be published in September by Palgrave Macmillan. I love rolling the word Festschrift around, and if you are not used to it, this is what it means: \"In academia, a Festschrift\u00a0 (plural Festschriften) is a book\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/magic-and-witchery-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":458,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=458","url_meta":{"origin":173,"position":4},"title":"Witchcraft and Magic: North AmericaAs\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"June 23, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Witchcraft and Magic: North AmericaAs long as I am promoting books that I myself have not had an opportunity to read yet (but will when I can), look for Helen Berger's new anthology from the University of Pennsylvania Press, covering North America in the \"Witchcraft and Magic\" series. You can\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":558,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=558","url_meta":{"origin":173,"position":5},"title":"Under Southern Skies","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 13, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Doug Ezzy, sociologist and co-editor of Researching Paganisms also edited an anthology by \"Down Under\" Witches called Practising the Witch's Craft: Real Magic Under a Southern Sky. He writes to say that it is now available from Amazon for the rest of the world. It ranges from Gardnerians to Goddess\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Australia\"","block_context":{"text":"Australia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=australia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173","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=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}