Witchcraft & Wicca: Books & Texts
Folk magic, the witch-cult, and the roots of modern Wicca.
Witchcraft encompasses both the historical practice of folk magic and healing and the modern religious movement of Wicca, which took shape in mid-twentieth-century Britain. Its sources include cunning-craft traditions, the records of the witch trials, and the folklore of rural Europe.
A key text for the modern revival is Charles Godfrey Leland’s Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches, which claimed to preserve the beliefs of an Italian witch tradition. Alongside anthropological studies of magic, these works form the documentary background to contemporary witchcraft.
Essential Texts
[Book of Psychology.] Historical, Philosophical, Practical; giving the Rationale of every possible form of Nervous or Mental Phenomena known under the technics of Amulets, Charms, Enchantment, Spells, Fascination, Incantation, Magic, Mesmerism, Philters, Talisman, Relics, Witchcraft, Ecstacy, Hallucination, Spectres, Trance, Illusions, Apparitions, Clairvoyance, Somnambulism, Miracles, Sympathy, etc.: showing how these results may be induced, the Theory of Mind which they demonstrate, and the benevolent uses to which this knowledge should be applied
Sunderland
Start Here
Leland’s Aradia is the classic starting point. Read it together with folklore collections and studies of European folk magic for historical grounding.
From the Collection
A Belief In Witchcraft Unsupported
Scriptures by James Paterson
A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraft
George Gifford
A Discourse Of The Subtill Practises Of Deuilles
Witches And Sorcerers by G. Gyffard
A Discourse Of The Subtill Practises Of Deuilles
Witches And Sorcerers by G. Gyffard
English · Witchcraft & Wicca
A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718
Notestein
A Practical Guide to Witchcraft and Magic Spells
Cassandra Eason
A collection of rare and curious tracts on witchcraft and the second sight; with an original essay on witchcraft
Webster, David, of Edinburgh, comp
A collection of rare and curious tracts on witchcraft and the second sight; with an original essay on witchcraft
Webster, David, of Edinburgh, comp
English · Witchcraft & Wicca
A historical account of the belief in witchcraft in Scotland
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe
A historical account of the belief in witchcraft in Scotland
Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe
English · Witchcraft & Wicca
A short history of the Salem village witchcraft trials
Martin Van Buren Perley
A short history of the Salem village witchcraft trials
Martin Van Buren Perley
1692 · English · Witchcraft & Wicca
An Expose of So-Called 'Spiritualism' (or 'Spiritism') and Its Champions and 'Mediums', Being a Religious Lecture Delivered by Mr. Campbell, the Australian Bush & Gold-fields Missionary, in the Societies' Hall, Ballarat, on Sabbath Afternoon, July 7, 1878
Campbell
An History of Magic Witchcraft and Animal Magnetism V1
Colquhoun