Author: A Solitary Pagan
Alex Sanders – The Young Initiate
There was nothing about the day to suggest it would change the course of his life and influence him until the day he died. It was grey and cheerless, like many other days in Manchester, and Alex was an undersized seven-year-old passing through mean back streets on his way from St George’s Primary School in Hulme to the home of his grandmother. The Sanders family had recently moved to a semi-detach...
Biddy Early (1798–1874)
Irish seer and healer often described as a witch. Most of what is known about Biddy Early has been collected from oral tradition, and many of the stories about her have numerous variations. Nonetheless, Biddy seemed to have possessed real powers, and many people from all over Ireland and even England came to her for cures. She was widely believed to be “of the fairies.” She was born Biddy O’Connor...
Dafo
The pseudonym or magical name of the woman who initiated Gerald Gardner into witchcraft around 1939–40.The identity of Dafo remains uncertain. She is sometimes confused with Old Dorothy Clutterbuck, who was Gardner’s first high priestess. He described her as his teacher and an authority on witchcraft. Little is known about Dafo’s life. She lived in Christchurch, Hampshire, and was a member of the ...
Crowley, Aleister (1875–1947)
The most controversial and perhaps least understood magician and occultist of his time, Aleister Crowley has been both vilified and idolized. He was a man of both low excesses and high brilliance. He considered himself to be the reincarnation of other great occultists: Pope Alexander VI, renowned for his love of physical pleasures; Edward Kelly, the notorious assistant to occultist John Dee in Eli...
Abramelin the Mage (1362–1460)
A Jew from Würzburg, Germany, Abraham, or Abramelin, created a body of magical works that for centuries influenced magicians, including Aleister Crowley. An expert on the Kabbalah, Abramelin said he learned his magical knowledge from angels, who told him how to conjure and tame demons into personal servants and workers, and how to raise storms. He said that all things in the world were created by ...
Fortune, Dion (1891–1946)
The magical name of Violet Mary Firth, British occultist and author whose books continue to have an impact on modern witchcraft and Paganism. Considered one of the leading occultists of her time, Dion Fortune was an adept in ceremonial magic and was perhaps one of the first occult writers to approach magic and hermetic concepts from the psychology of Jung and Freud . Some contemporary Witches and ...
Leek, Sybil (1923–1983)
English witch and astrologer who moved to America in the 1960s and gained fame by publicizing the renaissance of witchcraft in the Western world. Her trademarks were a cape, loose gowns and a jackdaw named Mr. Hotfoot Jackson who perched on her shoulder. She always wore a crystal necklace, passed on to her, she said, by her psychic Russian grandmother. Leek claimed to be a hereditary witch and als...
Cornelius Agrippa
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, 1486-1535, German mystic and alchemist. Agrippa of Nettesheim was born of a once-noble family near Cologne and studied both medicine and law there, apparently without taking a degree. In 1503, he assumed the name, Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, adopting the von to suggest a noble background; three years later, he established a secret society in Paris d...
Eleanor Bone
English Witch, one of the original high priestesses initiated by Gerald B. Gardner. Eleanor “Ray” Bone followed Gardner’s footsteps in the media attention and was sometimes called the Matriarch of British Witchcraft. Bone was born in London; her mother was a school headmistress. As a child, she saw the ghost of a pet, which stimulated her interest in reincarnation, folklore, magic, and the occult....
Levitation
A paranormal phenomenon whereby a body or object is raised up into the air in defiance of gravity. Levitation has been reported in cases of bewitchment, hauntings and possession; it also is attributed to saints and holy persons. In 1550 in Wertet, Brabant, a group of nuns reportedly levitated into the air, climbed trees like cats, and were pinched by invisible fingers. A townswoman was tortured in...
Sacred Space in Witchcraft
Sacred space means different things to different people. So really, the only way I can get around that is to tell you what it means to me. Sacred space is an enclosure we create, if you like, an artificial bubble in mundane reality, inside which we create an environment that is conducive to whatever type of ritual work or craftingwork we plan on doing. Now there are a lot of different methods in d...
Witchcraft in Brief
Witchcraft is the ability to harness and use the powers of nature and one’s own personal energy in order to create a desired effect in theworld. It is ancient and found the world over, in various forms under different names and titles. It is often seen as an innate ability, something that one is born with and which may be passed down through generations. We often hear the term “Wise Woman” or “Wis...