Welcome to the Witchy World!

Hello everyone and welcome Witchy World! This article will talk about the history of witches, witchcraft, and all things magical!

Spiritualism, the belief that the dead communicate with the living, became a fad throughout America and Europe during the 1850s. Spiritualism, which owes its beginnings to Emmanuel Swedenborg's writings on the spirit world, received additional stimulus from Anton Mesmer's experiments in what he called "animal magnetism" (hypnotism) that he believed involved the influence of celestial bodies upon terrestrial. Many Victorians, particularly those who had begun to abandon conventional religion, fervently believed in spiritualism, Elizabeth Barrett Browning among them.

Although the Victorian era is often associated with scientific and technological progress, many Victorians were prone to the paranormal, supernatural and occult, of which the most popular forms in the late Victorian period included mesmerism, clairvoyance, electro-biology, crystal-gazing, thought-reading, and above all, Spiritualism. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, like many late Victorians, was fascinated by the possibility of communication with the departed souls.

It is generally agreed that the modern Spiritualist movement began on April 1, 1848, in the village of Hydesville, New York, when two teenage sisters, Margaret and Kate Fox, claimed that they had communicated with the ghost of a man murdered at the house years before their family moved in. Reports of this event first appeared in the New York Tribune and subsequently in other newspapers in America and Europe. The core belief of Spiritualism was that the living could communicate with the dead through the help of a medium endowed with a supernatural gift during mysterious and entertaining séance phenomena. Within the late Victorian counterculture of Spiritualism, a number of women and men gained renown and authority as skilled mediums.

In the late Victorian era, a great number of people admitted to have communication with ghosts. Victorian Spiritualism, also known as the Spiritualism movement, emerged in the late nineteenth century and attracted people from different social classes, including Queen Victoria. It should be noted that Victorian Spiritualism was particularly attractive to women because they were regarded as more spiritual than men. A female medium was often considered a better communicator than a male medium because she had allegedly a better predisposition to spiritual perfectability. Interestingly, spiritualists were concerned with the Woman Question and called for the recognition of women's rights.

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert participated in Spiritualist séances as early as 1846. On July 15 that year, the clairvoyant Georgiana Eagle demonstrated her powers before the Queen at Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight. In 1861, the year when Prince Albert died of typhoid, a thirteen-year-old boy living in Leicester, Robert James Lees, who took part in a family séance, passed a message from Albert to the Queen in which he called her by the pet name known only to her and her late husband. Lees was invited to give séances at Windsor Castle during which Albert was called. After her death Queen Victoria was reported to send messages to her last surviving daughter, Princess Louise, through the medium Lesley Flint.

In the 1860s, Spiritualism became part of Victorian subculture with its mediums, specialist newspapers, pamphlets, treatises, societies, private and public séances which included table rapping, table tipping, automatic writing, levitation, and other communications with spirits.

I look forward to seeing your thoughts and comments! Have a magical day!

Welcome to the Witchy World!

Hello everyone and welcome Witchy World! This article will talk about the history of witches, witchcraft, and all things magical!

Raymond Buckland (1934-2017) is ann early practitioner of Wicca in the United States. In 1963 he had his first and only meeting with Gerald Gardner, Buckland was initiated into Gardnerian Wicca, but he later formed his own tradition, called Seax-Wica.

Buckland was born in London on 31 August 1934. Of Roma descent, Buckland was raised in the Anglican Church. As a young man, he developed an interest in spiritualism and the occult.

He was educated at King's College in London and later Brantridge Forest College in Sussex. He earned a doctorate in anthropology at Brantridge. From 1957 to 1959, he served in the Royal Air Force. He and wife Rosemary immigrated to the United States in 1962, and moved to Long Island, NY.

In the US, Buckland soon read the books The Witch-Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Murray and Witchcraft Today by Gerald Gardner, which gave him an insight into the Witchcraft religion, or Wicca as it is now more commonly known. Some sources relay that Buckland had established a relationship with Gardner when he was living on the Isle of Man and running his witchcraft museum; it seems this relationship was by correspondence.

The two became friends, and had several telephone conversations, which led to Buckland becoming Gardner's spokesman in America. Buckland also met and befriended Margaret St. Clair, author of the occult classic Sign of the Labrys.

Both Buckland and his wife Rosemary travelled to Scotland, where, in Perth, they were initiated into the craft by the High Priestess Monique Wilson (known as the Lady Olwen). Gardner attended the ceremony, but did not perform it himself. Gardner died shortly after, having never met Buckland again.

The Bucklands returned home to the United States following their meeting with Gardner, bringing the Gardnerian Book of Shadows with them. They moved to Timberline Drive in Brentwood. That same year they founded a coven in Bay Shore. This was the first group in the US following the Gardnerian Wicca lineage of direct initiation. Many fully initiated Gardnerians in the US can trace their origins back to this coven, which was a centre for Neopaganism in America for twenty years. The Bucklands tried to keep their identities secret at first, due to concern about unwanted and negative attention, however journalist Lisa Hoffman of the New York Sunday News published a news story on them without permission. Buckland also appeared on the Alan Burke talk show, which is when his neighbors discovered that he practiced Wicca. Once 'outed', Buckland purchased and drove around in a hearse, where he was a familiar sight in the community. When Buckland and his wife separated in 1973, they both left the coven.

In 1968 Buckland formed the First Museum of Witchcraft and Magick in the United States, as influenced by Gardner's Museum of Witchcraft and Magick. It started off as a by-appointment-only policy museum in his own basement. After his collection of artifacts grew he moved the museum to a 19th-century house in Bay Shore. The museum received some media attention, and a documentary was produced about it.

In 1973, following his separation from his wife, Buckland moved his museum to Weirs Beach in New Hampshire. In 1978, he moved to Virginia, disbanded the museum, and put all his artifacts in storage.

In 2008, the artifacts of the Museum were housed and entrusted to the care of The Covenant of the Pentacle Wiccan Church (CPWC), based in New Orleans, Louisiana, and led by Arch Priestess Rev. Velvet Rieth. After a period of neglect and mismanagement of the previous curator, Rev. Velvet, along with many members of her church, were able to begin the restoration process.

In 2015, the artifacts were turned over to the Temple of Sacrifice, a coven based in Columbus, Ohio, founded by Raymond Buckland and Kat Tigner. Toni Rotonda, APS of T.O.S., is the museum collections current owner. The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick is currently being displayed in Cleveland, Ohio.

I look forward to seeing your thoughts and comments! Have a magical day!