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If Gerald Brosseau Gardner is the father of the religion that calls
itself Wicca, then Charles Godfrey Leland is the grandfather of
Witchcraft as a religion in the English-speaking world, and his
small book, "Aradia," is that religion's birth-announcement.
It is the first work in English in which Witchcraft is portrayed as
an underground old religion, surviving in secret from ancient Pagan
times.
Until now "Aradia" has been a work more often cited than read. Its
first edition (1899) garnered only one review, and sank from sight
like a stone cast into murky waters; it sold poorly and is now a
rare book. By chance a copy fell into the hands of Theda Kenyon,
who devoted a few pages to it in her sensational "Witches Still
Live" (1929), thereby calling it to the attention of many readers.
By the 1950s Doreen Valiente had read "Aradia," and she
incorporated some of its most beautiful passages into the Wiccan
rituals that she wrote. In the '60s and '70s it was reprinted four
times, but always from a defective copy of the first edition that
had lost its last page. Only in the '90s did another reprint
finally restore the missing page.
"Aradia" has always been a controversial work, among Witches and
scholars alike. Scholars have questioned whether it may be a
fiction or a forgery by Leland or by his principal informant,
Maddalena (Margherita Taludi). Witches have objected to it on
theological and ethical grounds, since some of the myths that it
tells are about Lucifer and Cain as well as Diana and Aradia, some
of its spells work by threatening or coercing the Deities and
spirits, and in its revolutionary fervor it does not shrink even
from teaching that the poor and downtrodden should use poisons to
destroy their feudal overlords. Despite all that, it remains a
beautiful and compelling work.
This edition has brought the format and typography up to date,
while keeping the text unchanged. A modern reader will undoubtedly
find this new edition of "Aradia" much easier to read than the
original or any of its facsimile reprints.
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Memoirs
Charles Godfrey Leland
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R632
Discovery Miles 6 320
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