The Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, formerly known as the Museum of Witchcraft, is a museum dedicated to European
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
and
magic
Magic or Magick most commonly refers to:
* Magic (supernatural), beliefs and actions employed to influence supernatural beings and forces
* Ceremonial magic, encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic
* Magical thinking, the belief that unrela ...
located in the village of
Boscastle
Boscastle ( kw, Kastel Boterel) is a village and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Forrabury and Minster (where the 2011 Census population was included) . It is south of Bude and northeast of Tint ...
in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, south-west England. It houses exhibits devoted to
folk magic
In religious studies and folkloristics, folk religion, popular religion, traditional religion or vernacular religion comprises various forms and expressions of religion that are distinct from the official doctrines and practices of organized rel ...
,
ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an ex ...
,
Freemasonry
Freemasonry or Masonry refers to fraternal organisations that trace their origins to the local guilds of stonemasons that, from the end of the 13th century, regulated the qualifications of stonemasons and their interaction with authorities ...
, and
Wicca
Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was ...
, with its collection of such objects having been described as the largest in the world.
The museum was founded by the English folk magician
Cecil Williamson
Cecil Williamson (18 September 1909 – 9 December 1999) was a British screenwriter, editor and film director and influential English Neopagan Warlock. He was the founder of both the Witchcraft Research Center which was a part of MI6's war aga ...
in 1951 to display his own personal collection of artefacts. Initially known as the Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft, it was located in the town of
Castletown on the
Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
. Williamson was assisted at the museum by the prominent Wiccan
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brosseau Gardner (13 June 1884 – 12 February 1964), also known by the craft name Scire, was an English Wiccan, as well as an author and an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist. He was instrumental in bringing the Contemporary Pag ...
, who remained there as "resident witch". After their friendship deteriorated, Gardner purchased it from Williamson in 1954, renaming it the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft. Gardner's Castletown museum remained open until the 1970s, when Gardner's heir Monique Wilson sold its contents to the
Ripley's company.
In 1954, Williamson opened his own rival back in England, known as the Museum of Witchcraft. Its first location was at
Windsor, Berkshire
Windsor is a historic market town and unparished area in the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead in Berkshire, England. It is the site of Windsor Castle, one of the official residences of the British monarch. The town is situated west of ...
, and the next at
Bourton-on-the-Water
Bourton-on-the-Water is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, that lies on a wide flat vale within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village had a population of 3,296 at the 2011 census. Much of the village ...
,
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
; in both cases it faced violent opposition and Williamson felt it necessary to move, establishing the museum in Boscastle in 1960. In 1996 Williamson sold the museum to Graham King, who incorporated the Richel collection of magical regalia from the Netherlands in 2000. The museum was damaged and part of its collection lost during the
Boscastle flood of 2004
The 2004 Boscastle flood ( kw, An Lanwes Kastel Boterel 2004) occurred on Monday, 16 August 2004 in the two villages of Boscastle and Crackington Haven in Cornwall, England, United Kingdom. The villages suffered extensive damage after flash f ...
. In 2013 ownership was transferred to Simon Costin and his
Museum of British Folklore
A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and other objects of art
Art is a diverse range of human activity, and resulting product, that involve ...
.
The museum is a popular tourist attraction and is held in high esteem by the British occult community. A charity, Friends of the Museum of Witchcraft, has been established to raise funds for the exhibits. The museum also contains a large library on related topics that is accessible to researchers.
History
Origins: 1947–60
After the Second World War, the former film producer
Cecil Williamson
Cecil Williamson (18 September 1909 – 9 December 1999) was a British screenwriter, editor and film director and influential English Neopagan Warlock. He was the founder of both the Witchcraft Research Center which was a part of MI6's war aga ...
decided to move into the museum business, and—probably influenced by personal interest—decided to open one that would be devoted to the subject of
witchcraft
Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have us ...
.
Williamson tried to open a museum to hold his collection of witchcraft and occult artifacts in
Stratford-upon-Avon
Stratford-upon-Avon (), commonly known as just Stratford, is a market town and civil parish in the Stratford-on-Avon district, in the county of Warwickshire, in the West Midlands region of England. It is situated on the River Avon, north-we ...
in 1947, but faced local opposition and had to abandon his plans. He then decided to open it in
Castletown on the
Isle of Man
)
, anthem = "O Land of Our Birth"
, image = Isle of Man by Sentinel-2.jpg
, image_map = Europe-Isle_of_Man.svg
, mapsize =
, map_alt = Location of the Isle of Man in Europe
, map_caption = Location of the Isle of Man (green)
in Europe ...
, an area which had much folklore surrounding
fairies
A fairy (also fay, fae, fey, fair folk, or faerie) is a type of mythical being or legendary creature found in the folklore of multiple European cultures (including Celtic, Slavic, Germanic, English, and French folklore), a form of spirit, o ...
and witches, a tourist season, and local laws that were congenial to the establishment of a museum. He had it set up in a dilapidated old mill known locally as ''the Witches' Mill'' which he had purchased in 1948, and, at the advice of his wife, opened an adjacent restaurant, known as ''the Witches' Kitchen''.
The museum was first named the Folklore Centre of Superstition and Witchcraft.
The launch of the museum was timed to coincide with the government's repeal of the
Witchcraft and Vagrancy Acts in June 1951. In an interview with ''The Sunday Pictorial'' newspaper, Williamson claimed to be friends with at least a dozen witches, and that he had invited a coven from southern England to come and practice their rituals at his museum. The historian
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism. He is a professor at the University of Bristol, has written 14 bo ...
deemed this to "fairly clearly" be a reference to the
Bricket Wood coven
The Bricket Wood coven, or Hertfordshire coven Page 289 is a coven of Gardnerian Wicca, Gardnerian witches founded in the 1940s by Gerald Gardner. It is notable for being the first coven in the Gardnerian line, though having its supposed origins ...
which was based in
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire ( or ; often abbreviated Herts) is one of the home counties in southern England. It borders Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire to the north, Essex to the east, Greater London to the south, and Buckinghamshire to the west. For govern ...
and run by the Wiccan
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brosseau Gardner (13 June 1884 – 12 February 1964), also known by the craft name Scire, was an English Wiccan, as well as an author and an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist. He was instrumental in bringing the Contemporary Pag ...
. In press interviews, Gardner was described as the museum's "resident witch" and performed a magical ritual at the museum's opening ceremony. For Williamson, the press interest served to promote his museum, while for Gardner it gave the opportunity to promote Wicca at a safe distance from his main coven.
Williamson also had a practical interest in magic, and in a 1952 interview with popular magazine ''Illustrated'' described himself as a consultant on the subject who could help remove curses from people, akin to an old
cunning man
Cunning may refer to:
* Cunning (owarai), a Japanese comedy group
* Cunning folk, a type of folk magic user
* Cunning (surname), a list of people with Cunning as a surname
See also
* Cunningham
*
*
* Sneak (disambiguation)
* Sly (disambigu ...
. He acknowledged that he knew many of these spells from reading about them in books. He took an interest in the late
ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic (ritual magic, high magic or learned magic) encompasses a wide variety of rituals of magic. The works included are characterized by ceremony and numerous requisite accessories to aid the practitioner. It can be seen as an ex ...
ian
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (; born Edward Alexander Crowley; 12 October 1875 – 1 December 1947) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, painter, novelist, and mountaineer. He founded the religion of Thelema, identifying himself as the pro ...
and wrote to Crowley's friend
Gerald Yorke
Major Gerald Joseph Yorke (10 December 1901 – 29 April 1983) was an English soldier and writer. He was a Reuters correspondent while in China for two years in the 1930s, and wrote a book ''China Changes'' (1936).
Life
Gerald Joseph Yorke was bo ...
to enquire as to whether he could send him the instructions for any of Crowley's rituals.
However, Gardner fell out with Williamson over what he saw as sensationalist displays. Williamson, in retaliation, removed a photograph of Gardner from the display.
Williamson sold the museum to Gardner.
The Williamson-Gardner split: 1953–64
Williamson decided to return to England, and took his collection of witchcraft artefacts with him. In 1954 Gardner bought the Witches' Mill from him, and renamed it ''The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft'', filling it with his own collection of artefacts. During the 1950s, Gardner discussed moving his museum to
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
with his then friend,
Charles Cardell
Charles Cardell (1895–1977) was an English people, English Wiccan who propagated his own tradition of witchcraft, the Old Tradition, which was distinct from that of Gerald Gardner. Cardell's tradition of Wicca venerated a form of the Horned God ...
, but decided not to.
[ Page 88] According to the historian
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Edmund Hutton (born 19 December 1953) is an English historian who specialises in Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and Contemporary Paganism. He is a professor at the University of Bristol, has written 14 bo ...
, this left Gardner with "a secure and congenial base" from which he could promote Wicca by writing such books as ''
Witchcraft Today
''Witchcraft Today'' is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner. Published in 1954, ''Witchcraft Today'' recounts Gardner's thoughts on the history and the practices of the witch-cult, and his claim to have met practising witches in 1930s ...
'' (1954) and ''The Meaning of Witchcraft'' (1959).
Gardner continued to run the museum until his death in 1964, when it was briefly run by his High Priestess Monique Wilson before it was shut down and the collection sold off.
Ripley's Entertainment Inc. bought the collection and in 1972 opened the "Museum of Witchcraft and Magic" at Gatlinburg, TN and San Francisco, CA. In 1975, due to pressure from the local church and religious groups, Ripley's changed the name of the museums to the "World of the Unexplained". More attractions and items were added to the present witchcraft collection. In 1985, Ripley's closed both museums due to poor ticket sales. The collection was disbursed to other Ripley's museums. A lot of the witchcraft collection was sent to Ripley's Believe It or Not museum at Blackpool, England.
In his will, Gardner left the museum to his assistant there, with the proviso that if he did not want it then it would go to his initiate Monique Wilson, which is what happened.
On his return to England in 1954, Williamson opened the museum, now known as the ''Museum of Witchcraft'', to
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
. Here it stayed open for the tourist season, and was quite successful, but local opinion was still against it, and so Williamson decided to move it again.
In 1954 Williamson moved the museum to
Bourton-on-the-Water
Bourton-on-the-Water is a village and civil parish in Gloucestershire, England, that lies on a wide flat vale within the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village had a population of 3,296 at the 2011 census. Much of the village ...
in
Gloucestershire
Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean.
The county town is the city of Gl ...
. The museum suffered various persecutions, including signs being painted on walls and dead cats hung from trees, and eventually it was largely damaged in an arson attack.
Boscastle: 1960-present
In 1960 Williamson moved the museum to
Boscastle
Boscastle ( kw, Kastel Boterel) is a village and fishing port on the north coast of Cornwall, England, in the civil parish of Forrabury and Minster (where the 2011 Census population was included) . It is south of Bude and northeast of Tint ...
in
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
. Williamson displayed some artefacts associated with ceremonial magic, but was largely interested in folk magic and the practices of what he called the "wayside witch".
Williamson retired in 1996, selling the museum to Graham King and Liz Crow.
A practising Pagan with interests in witchcraft, King owned a business manufacturing specialist cameras in
Hampshire
Hampshire (, ; abbreviated to Hants) is a ceremonial county, ceremonial and non-metropolitan county, non-metropolitan counties of England, county in western South East England on the coast of the English Channel. Home to two major English citi ...
when he discovered that the museum was for sale in a newspaper article. King and Williamson finalised the purchase at midnight on Halloween 1996. King and Crow reorganised the museum and removed some of the more sensationalist exhibits, such as a partially clothed female mannequin which had been laid on an altar to represent the
Black Mass.
King appeared on
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
''. He organised the burial of Joan Wytte, a woman who died in
under accusations of witchcraft in 1813, and whose corpse had been at the museum for many years. She was buried in a local area of woodland in 1998. The museum was damaged during
in August 2004, resulting in it being closed for repairs until March 2005.
After King took over, a group known as the Friends of the Museum was established; it holds an annual weekend of lectures. It was subsequently converted into a charity. To commemorate the museum's sixtieth anniversary, in 2011 the Occult Art Company published an anthology entitled ''The Museum of Witchcraft: A Magical History''. The idea for the work had been provided by the chair of the Friends, Judith Noble, with the volume itself being edited by Kerrian Godwin. It contained contributions from 51 individuals involved in the esoteric and Pagan communities, including prominent figures like
'' journal, he welcomed the volume yet described its contents as a "mixed bag, with the articles varying in their quality and relevance to the subject at hand."
On Halloween 2013 King transferred ownership of the museum, its collection and library, to the designer and curator
, who had founded the Museum of British Folklore in 2009. King retained ownership of the museum's building, which was leased to Costin's Museum.
Costin informed the ''
'' that "The museum will continue to run exactly as it is. It won't change at all."
In keeping with Williamson's original plan, most of the exhibits in the museum feature artefacts related to historical folk magic and the
. This includes a room which recreates a tradition cunning woman's cottage, termed "Joan's cottage", with a mannequin of a nineteenth century cunning woman, surrounded by various herbs and divination tools. The museum also contains exhibits devoted to the
. There is also a small case on modern religious
, in which a distinction is drawn between it and modern Pagan witchcraft.
A number of artefacts in the collection were owned by prominent figures in the history of magic and witchcraft; it contains a ritual chalice used by the
, talismans created by Gerald Gardner, and ritual swords and an altar slab formerly owned by the noted Wiccan
. The museum's collection of artefacts continues to grow with new acquisitions. Many contemporary practitioners of witchcraft and magic have bequeathed their working tools to the museum in their wills. According to the anthropologist Helen Cornish, the exhibits in the museum "work to build narratives that illustrate witchcraft over time, and situate it as a significant force in the present".
In ''The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca'', Rosemary Ellen Guiley described it as the "world's largest collection of paraphernalia and artifacts related to folk magic, witchcraft, Wicca and ritual magic".
The museum functions as an information resource centre for media and the public. An independent organisation, the Friends of the Museum of Witchcraft, operates to raise funds through which to purchase further items for the collection. It also acts as a meeting place for Wiccans and other Pagans.
According to Doyle White, the museum has become "something akin to a site of pilgrimage" for British Witches, with a "special and irreplaceable place in the hearts of many in the British occult community."
Cornish conducted ethnographic research among the local Witches who had relationships with the museum in the late 1990s and early 2000s. She found that there were mixed views on aspects of the museum. Commenting on the "Joan's cottage" room, she found that some Witches felt that it provided "a marker of historical identification, and illustrates the ways that independent, rural magical workers provide a central focus and source of heritage, while for others it indicates an ongoing problem of romanticized historical invention." Various practitioners interviewed by Cornish were sceptical about the claims that Williamson had made for many of the artefacts which he placed on exhibit, questioning whether there was sufficient evidence to warrant their continued display.