{"id":334,"date":"2004-12-17T20:42:00","date_gmt":"2004-12-17T20:42:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=334"},"modified":"2004-12-17T20:42:00","modified_gmt":"2004-12-17T20:42:00","slug":"334","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=334","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Llewellyn George, Patent Medicine, and Pagan Publishing<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 1993, when I was editing the Witchcraft Today<\/a> series for Llewellyn Publications<\/a>, I few up to Minnesota to spend a couple of days conferring with Carl and Sandra Weschcke, who own the company.<\/p>\n

Driving me around St. Paul in his black Cadillac, Carl told me the story of how he came from a German family heavy with doctors and pharmacists, inheriting a company that made cough lozenges and other over-the-counter medicines. In the 1960s, however, he took a different turn, buying a tiny astrological publishing firm founded by astrologer Llewellyn George<\/a> (1876-1954). He even legally changed his own middle name to Llewellyn in homage.<\/p>\n

Llewellyn Publications is still in St. Paul. It publishes (in short runs) more books on contemporary Paganism, astrology, ceremonial magic, and other such topic than any other firm, although the quality is sometimes uneven.<\/p>\n

So much for the astrology connection. But there is also a patent (OTC) medicine connection: Llewellyn George was in that business also, as the journalist and critic H.L. Mencken<\/a> noted in one of his “Free Lance” columns almost ninety years ago. I have put Mencken’s full text here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

UPDATE:<\/strong> Llewellyn now plans to move<\/a> to suburban Woodbury, Minn., and the old Coca-Cola bottling plant that has served as office\/warehouse will become part of some waterfront re-development.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Llewellyn George, Patent Medicine, and Pagan Publishing In 1993, when I was editing the Witchcraft Today series for Llewellyn Publications, I few up to Minnesota to spend a couple of days conferring with Carl and Sandra Weschcke, who own the company. Driving me around St. Paul in his black Cadillac, Carl told me the story […]<\/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-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-334","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7581,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7581","url_meta":{"origin":334,"position":0},"title":"The Passing of Carl Weschcke","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 9, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"First, the official announcement from Llewellyn, then my comments. It is with profound sadness we share the news of Carl Llewellyn Weschcke\u2019s passing. He passed peacefully on Saturday, November 7 surrounded by family. He was 85. Carl Llewellyn Weschcke was Chairman and the driving force behind Llewellyn Worldwide, Ltd., the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"weschcke","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/weschcke-219x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10966,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10966","url_meta":{"origin":334,"position":1},"title":"Interview with Carl Weschcke’s Biographer","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 10, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I once stayed a couple of nights at Carl Weschcke's house, when he lived out in Marine on St. Croix, and on the drive back and forth to the old Llewellyn Publications office in St. Paul I heard a lot of his stories \u2014 but I am sure there are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/melanie-marquis.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6","url_meta":{"origin":334,"position":2},"title":"Reprinting "Crafting the Art of Magic"","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 13, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"A round of discussion on the Nature Religions Scholars Network e-mail list about the desirability of reprinting Aidan Kelly's book on the origins of Gardnerian witchcraft, Crafting the Art of Magick Book 1 (there was no Book 2), which came out a decade ago from Llewellyn Publications. Although primarily based\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":653,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=653","url_meta":{"origin":334,"position":3},"title":"Llewellyn Takes on a School Board","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 21, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Llewellyn, the largest New Age\/Pagan\/astrological publisher in the US, has pushed a North Carolina school board into a corner. When the board said that \"religious groups\" could distribute \"scripture\" in the school's, Llewellyn's publicist decided that the works of Silver Ravenwolf would qualify as well. Jason Pitzl-Waters has the details.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":390,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=390","url_meta":{"origin":334,"position":4},"title":"Some Pagan Publishing Gossip","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Sarah Pike's new book, New Age and Neopagan Religions in America, just landed on my desk with instructions to review it for Nova Religio. Given that many contemporary Pagans are ambivalent at best about the \"New Age\" movement, it will be interesting to see how she sorts out and categorizes\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2005\/03\/BARBIE.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":941,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=941","url_meta":{"origin":334,"position":5},"title":"A Manufactured Conspiracy in Wiccan Publishing","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 24, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I have started reading Aidan Kelly's Inventing Witchcraft: A Case Study in the Creation of a New Religion, published by Thoth Publications but also available from Amazon. In simplest terms, it's an enlargement and reworking of Crafting the Art of Magic, Book 1, which Llewellyn published in 1991--Kelly's study of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"publishing\"","block_context":{"text":"publishing","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=publishing"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","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=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}