|
Adriana Porter
Adriana Porter (July 1857 – March 1, 1946) was an alleged witch. She was born in Nova Scotia, Canada, and died in Melrose, Massachusetts, United States. Porter's notability rests on a poem, '' The Rede of the Wiccae'', which was published by her granddaughter Lady Gwen Thompson in ''Green Egg'' magazine in 1975 and attributed to her. It has become a semi-sacred text within the culture of Wicca. Thompson claimed that she had inherited her Wiccan beliefs and practices from Porter, who had summarized them in the poem. If this were true, it would confirm that the hidden practices of witchcraft articulated by 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 his books existed in independent traditions, uninfluenced by his writings. The true authorship of the poem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 used malevolent magic against their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished, if found guilty or simply believed to be guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions. In some regions, many of those accused of witchcraft were folk healers or midwives. European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment. Contemporary cultures that believe in magic and the superna ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native English-speakers, and the province's population is 969,383 according to the 2021 Census. It is the most populous of Canada's Atlantic provinces. It is the country's second-most densely populated province and second-smallest province by area, both after Prince Edward Island. Its area of includes Cape Breton Island and 3,800 other coastal islands. The Nova Scotia peninsula is connected to the rest of North America by the Isthmus of Chignecto, on which the province's land border with New Brunswick is located. The province borders the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine to the west and the Atlantic Ocean to the south and east, and is separated from Prince Edward Island and the island of Newfoundland by the Northumberland and Cabot straits, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Melrose, Massachusetts
Melrose is a city located in the Greater Boston metropolitan area in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. Its population, per the 2020 United States Census, is 29,817. It is a suburb located approximately seven miles north of Boston. It is situated in the center of the triangle created by Interstates 93, 95 and U.S. Route 1. The land that comprises Melrose was first settled in 1628 and was once part of Charlestown and then Malden. It became the Town of Melrose in 1850 and then the City of Melrose in 1900. History Melrose was originally called "Ponde Fielde" for its abundance of ponds and streams or "Mystic Side" because of its location in a valley north of the Mystic River. The area was first explored by Richard and Ralph Sprague in 1628 and became part of Charlestown in 1633 along with a large area of land encompassing most of the surrounding communities. City of Melrose. Retrieved on January 26, 2008 In 1649, the neighborhood of Charlestown known as Malden wa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Wiccan Rede
The Wiccan Rede is a statement that provides the key moral system in the neopagan religion of Wicca and certain other related witchcraft-based faiths. A common form of the Rede is ''An ye harm none, do what ye will'' which was taken from a longer poem also titled the Wiccan Rede. The word "rede" derives from Middle English, meaning "advice" or "counsel", and being closely related to the German or Scandinavian . "An'" is an archaic Middle English conjunction, meaning "if." " Ye" is an archaic or dialectal form of "you" (nominative plural). History In its best known form as the "eight words" couplet, the Rede was first publicly recorded in a 1964 speech by Doreen Valiente. Other variants of the Rede include: *''Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill, An it harm none do what ye will.'' Note: this is the first published form of the couplet, quoted from Doreen Valiente in 1964. Later published versions include "ye" instead of "it" (as the second word, following 'An'): "Eight words t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lady Gwen Thompson
Lady Gwen Thompson (September 16, 1928 – May 22, 1986) was the pseudonym of Phyllis Thompson, author and teacher of traditionalist initiatory witchcraft through her own organisation, the New England Covens of Traditionalist Witches. Lady Gwen claimed to be a hereditary witch, with connections to the Salem witch trials of 1692, though she could not provide original sources to support these assertions. When she published a supposedly ancient poem called ''The Rede of the Wiccae'', it was believed by some to be partly her own work. Family Phyllis Thompson (née Healy) claimed to be a hereditary witch from New England. She was best known by the pseudonym (or public Craft name) of Lady Gwen Thompson, though she changed the forename to Gwynne in the 1980s. Thompson was her final married surname. According to Thompson, her grandmother Adriana Porter's family were the carriers of a secret tradition of folk witchcraft that had come down through Sarah Arnot Cook and Wealthy Trask ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Green Egg
''Green Egg'' is a Neopagan magazine published by the Church of All Worlds intermittently since 1968. The ''Encyclopedia of American Religions'' described it as a significant periodical. First version, 1968–1976 ''Green Egg'' was created by Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, who was the editor from 1968 to 1974. It started as a one-page ditto sheet. It continued under another editor for two more years, by which point it had grown over 80 issues into a 60-page journal. According to J. Gordon Melton in the ''Encyclopedia of American Religions'', it became "the most significant periodical in the Pagan movement during the 1970s and made Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, its editor, a major force in Neo-Paganism". It became dormant in 1976. Margot Adler's sociological study '' Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today'' was first published in 1979, shortly after the first incarnation of ''Green Egg'' ceased. (Adler's work was revised and updated in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices. Wicca has no central authority figure. Its traditional core beliefs, principles, and practices were originally outlined in the 1940s and 1950s by Gardner and an early High Priestess, Doreen Valiente. The early practices were disseminated through published books and in secret written and oral teachings passed along to their initiates. There are many variations on the core structure, and the religion grows and evolves over time. It is divided into a number of diverse lineages, sects and denominations, referred to as ''tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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 Pagan religion of Wicca to public attention, writing some of its definitive religious texts and founding the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. Born into an upper-middle-class family in Blundellsands, Lancashire, Gardner spent much of his childhood abroad in Madeira. In 1900, he moved to colonial Ceylon, and then in 1911 to Malaya, where he worked as a civil servant, independently developing an interest in the native peoples and writing papers and a book about their magical practices. After his retirement in 1936, he travelled to Cyprus, penning the novel ''A Goddess Arrives'' before returning to England. Settling down near the New Forest, he joined an occult group, the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, through which he said he had encount ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1857 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The biggest Estonian newspaper, ''Postimees'', is established by Johann Voldemar Jannsen. * January 7 – The partly French-owned London General Omnibus Company begins operating. * January 9 – The 7.9 Fort Tejon earthquake shakes Central and Southern California, with a maximum Mercalli intensity of IX (''Violent''). * January 24 – The University of Calcutta is established in Calcutta, as the first multidisciplinary modern university in South Asia. The University of Bombay is also established in Bombay, British India, this year. * February 3 – The National Deaf Mute College (later renamed Gallaudet University) is established in Washington, D.C., becoming the first school for the advanced education of the deaf. * February 5 – The Federal Constitution of the United Mexican States is promulgated. * March – The Austrian garrison leaves Bucharest. * March 3 ** France and the United Kingdom for ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1946 Deaths
Events January * January 6 - The first general election ever in Vietnam is held. * January 7 – The Allies recognize the Austrian republic with its 1937 borders, and divide the country into four occupation zones. * January 10 ** The first meeting of the United Nations is held, at Methodist Central Hall Westminster in London. ** ''Project Diana'' bounces radar waves off the Moon, measuring the exact distance between the Earth and the Moon, and proves that communication is possible between Earth and outer space, effectively opening the Space Age. * January 11 - Enver Hoxha declares the People's Republic of Albania, with himself as prime minister. * January 16 – Charles de Gaulle resigns as head of the French provisional government. * January 17 - The United Nations Security Council holds its first session, at Church House, Westminster in London. * January 19 ** The Bell XS-1 is test flown for the first time (unpowered), with Bell's chief test pilot Jack Woolams at t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
_map.jpg "Click for more on -> Melrose, Massachusetts")
