A quirky story has been filtering out of Australia in bits and pieces.<\/p>\n
First came the discovery of the headless skeleton of Ned Kelly<\/a> (1854\u20131880), the country’s most infamous bushranger (outlaw) of the 19th century, which involved DNA matching and other modern techniques.<\/a><\/p>\n Then his descendents appealed for whoever had the skull to bring it back.<\/a><\/p>\n Then comes a “self-proclaimed” (a term used to avoid libel suits) witch from New Zealand who says that she has it<\/a> \u2014 “given” to her by a security guard (under what circumstances?).<\/p>\n This woman, Anna Hoffman, was supposedly a friend of Australia’s most famous pre-Wiccan witch and trance-artist, Rosaleen Norton of Melbourne. An Australian writer on occultism, Nevill Drury, has devoted quite a lot of time to writing about Norton.<\/a> including a recent article in The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies<\/em>, titled “The Magical Cosmology of Rosaleen Norton.<\/a>”<\/p>\n Which is why I am blogging about Ned Kelly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A quirky story has been filtering out of Australia in bits and pieces. First came the discovery of the headless skeleton of Ned Kelly (1854\u20131880), the country’s most infamous bushranger (outlaw) of the 19th century, which involved DNA matching and other modern techniques. Then his descendents appealed for whoever had the skull to bring it […]<\/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":[19,29],"class_list":["post-4555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-australia","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1bt","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":14146,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=14146","url_meta":{"origin":4555,"position":0},"title":"All Those Witches: Caroline Tully Sorts Them Out","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 4, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"\/ Caroline Tully, Pomegranate associate editor and long-time denizen of the Australian Pagan scene, gots onto an Australian podcast,The Briefing, as Witch-with-a-PhD to sort of in a very short time the difference between Wiccan witches, Etsy witches, and the rest of the social media witch-fauna. Released on Halloween 2025, of\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":[]},{"id":1236,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1236","url_meta":{"origin":4555,"position":1},"title":"Zippy, the Halloween Slug","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 24, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I have heard of most of these Halloween folk customs.The one with the slug is new to me, though, but maybe someone in the Pacific Northwest could try it and report.Meanwhile, Red Witch in Melbourne is in the midst of a Halloween countdown, examining the commercial side of the holiday\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":[]},{"id":417,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=417","url_meta":{"origin":4555,"position":2},"title":"Paganism--religion or fad? Stay tuned'Australia\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 24, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Paganism--religion or fad? Stay tuned'Australia Talks Back' tackles the question: Traditional religions continue to lose their flock to the evangelicals,but an increasing number of Australians are opting out of Christianity and turning to pre-Christian paganism, with its spells and witchcraft. Paganism may be on the rise, but is it a\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10035,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10035","url_meta":{"origin":4555,"position":3},"title":"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 3","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 5, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 1\" \"Season of the Witch(crap), Part 2\" \"Witchcrap\": superficial journalistic treatments of Wicca, Witchcraft, and related Pagan paths. \u2022 In The Atlantic,\"Young black women are leaving Christianity and embracing African witchcraft in digital covens.\" Except the article discusses a convention and gets to the digital\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\/2018\/12\/mercator.jpeg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/mercator.jpeg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/mercator.jpeg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":11816,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11816","url_meta":{"origin":4555,"position":4},"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":11724,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11724","url_meta":{"origin":4555,"position":5},"title":"Rosaleen Norton Documentary Film about to Release","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 19, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The Witch of Kings Cross, a documentary on the life of Australian artist and witch Rosaleen Norton (1917\u20131979), directed by Sonia Bible, is being premiered in Paris as part of L'Estrange Festival. Often described as Australia's \"most persecuted artist,\" Norton blended art and magic in a way often called \"demonic,\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"art\"","block_context":{"text":"art","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=art"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/rosaleen-norton-pie.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555","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=4555"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4561,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4555\/revisions\/4561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}