|
Coven
A coven () is a group or gathering of Witchcraft, witches. The word "coven" (from Anglo-Norman language, Anglo-Norman ''covent, cuvent'', from Old French ''covent'', from Latin ''conventum'' = convention) remained largely unused in English language, English until 1921 when Margaret Murray promoted the witch-cult hypothesis, idea that all witches across Europe met in groups of thirteen which they called "covens".Murray, Margaret (1921). ''The Witch Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology''. Modern paganism In Wicca and other similar forms of modern pagan witchcraft, such as Stregheria and Feri Tradition, Feri, a coven is a gathering or community of witches, like an affinity group, engagement group, or small covenant group. It is composed of a group of practitioners who gather together for rituals such as Drawing down the Moon (ritual), Drawing Down the Moon, or celebrating the Wheel of the Year, Sabbats. The place at which they generally meet is called a covenstead. Th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Covenstead
A covenstead is a meeting place of a coven (a group of witches). The term relates specifically to the meeting place of witches within certain modern religious movements such as Wicca that fall under the collective term Modern Paganism, also referred to as Contemporary Paganism or Neopaganism. It functions to provide a place for the group to conduct rituals, undertake lessons and recognise festivals. It can also be referred to as the home of the coven. A group's covenstead is often a physical geographical location, however it can also be a concept such as an astral temple. A covenstead is commonly located in the house of the priest or priestess or a member of the coven, but it can also be a public area such as a park or a room in a community building. An appropriate location is selected depending on a number of factors including the size of the coven. The types of covensteads recognised by practitioners have developed over time as technology and the various denominations of Neopagan ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wicca
Wicca (), also known as "The Craft", is a Modern paganism, modern pagan, syncretic, Earth religion, Earth-centred religion. Considered a new religious movement by Religious studies, scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esotericism, developed in England during the first half of the 20th century, and was Witchcraft Today, introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon paganism, ancient pagan and Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, 20th-century Hermetic motif (folkloristics), motifs for theology, theological and ritual purposes. Doreen Valiente joined Gardner in the 1950s, further building Wicca's liturgical tradition of beliefs, principles, and practices, disseminated through published books as well as secret written and oral teachings passed along to Initiation, initiates. Many variations of the religion have grown and evolved over time, associated with a number of diverse lineages, sects, and Religious den ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Church Of Universal Eclectic Wicca
Universal Eclectic Wicca (UEW) is one of a number of distinctly American Wiccan traditions which developed following the introduction of Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca to the United States in the early 1960s. Its corporate body is the Church of Universal Eclectic Wicca (CUEW) which is incorporated and based in Great Falls, Virginia. It is particularly noted for its early Internet teaching coven – the Coven of the Far Flung Net (CFFN), and for its inclusive approach to solitary as well as coven based practitioners. History Silver Chalice Wicca What was to become UEW began, in 1969, as the core coven associated with the Silver Chalice Land Trust, an intentional community based in Westchester, New York. Silver Chalice had a diverse membership drawing from both Dianic and British Traditional Wiccan backgrounds. It was partly as a response to this diversity, as well as a perceived need for reform in Wicca, that their High Priestess, Jayne Tomas, began to create a body ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray (13 July 1863 – 13 November 1963) was an Anglo-Indian Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist, historian, and folklorist. The first woman to be appointed as a lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom, she worked at University College London (UCL) from 1898 to 1935. She was president of the Folklore Society from 1953 to 1955, and published widely. Born to a wealthy middle-class English family in Calcutta, British India, Murray divided her youth between India, Britain, and Germany, training as both a nurse and a social worker. Moving to London, in 1894 she began studying Egyptology at UCL, developing a friendship with department head Flinders Petrie, who encouraged her early academic publications and appointed her junior lecturer in 1898. In 1902–1903, she took part in Petrie's Excavation (archaeology), excavations at Abydos, Egypt, there discovering the Osireion temple, and the following season investigated the Saqqara cemetery, both of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Witch-cult Hypothesis
The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the Witch trials in the early modern period, witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a Paganism, pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. According to its proponents, accused witches were actually followers of this alleged religion. They argue that the witch Cult (religious practice), cult revolved around worshiping a Horned God of fertility and the underworld, whom Christian persecutors identified with the Devil, and whose followers held nocturnal rites at the witches' Sabbath. The theory was pioneered by two German scholars, Karl Ernst Jarcke and Franz Josef Mone, in the early nineteenth century, and was adopted by French historian Jules Michelet, American feminist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and American folklorist Charles Leland later that century. The hypothesis received its most prominent exposition when it was adopted by British Egyptologist Margaret Murray, who presented her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Amber K
Amber K (born 9 July 1947 in Bronxville, New York) is an author of books about magick, Wicca and Neopaganism, and a third-degree priestess of the Wiccan faith. She was initiated at the Temple of the Pagan Way in Chicago, Illinois, and served on the council of elders there, and has taught the craft throughout the United States for over 30 years. She has served as national first officer of the Covenant of the Goddess for three terms, and is a founder of Our Lady of the Woods and the Ladywood Tradition of Wicca. She has worked with various Neopagan organizations such as Circle Sanctuary and the Re-Formed Congregation of the Goddess, and is a Grey Council member of the online Grey School of Wizardry founded by Oberon Zell Ravenheart in 2004. She is the executive director of Ardantane, a non-profit Wiccan and pagan school and seminary in northern New Mexico. Family K spent most her childhood growing up in Chicago. Her father was a Roman Catholic and her mother Episcopalian, and she ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Feri Tradition
The Feri Tradition is an American neo-pagan tradition related to Neopagan witchcraft. It was founded in the West Coast of the United States between the 1950s and 1960s by Victor Henry Anderson and his wife, Cora Anderson. Practitioners have described it as an ecstatic tradition, rather than a fertility tradition. Strong emphasis is placed on sensual experience and awareness, including sexual mysticism, which is not limited to heterosexual expression. History Anderson met Cora Ann Cremeans in Bend, Oregon, in 1944; they married three days later, on 3 May, claiming that they had encountered each other many times before in the astral realm. Born in Nyota, Alabama, in January 1915, Cora had been exposed to folk magic practices from childhood; reputedly, her Irish grandfather was a "root doctor" who was known among locals as the " druid". The Andersons claimed that one of their first acts after their marriage was the erection of an altar. The following year, a son was born, a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wiccan Organisation
Wiccan organisations are groups formed by Wiccans, particularly in North America. While in Europe Wicca is most often organised into independent covens, in the United States some covens choose to combine to form a Wiccan church or other organisation. Churches are often formed from hive covens. Legal status Some Wiccan and neopagan witchcraft organisations have chosen to achieve formal legal status by becoming non-profit corporations within their states or provinces, and sometimes they additionally obtain tax-exempt status in the United States under § 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. List of organisations * Aquarian Tabernacle Church * Bricket Wood coven * Children of Artemis * Church and School of Wicca * Circle Sanctuary * Coven Celeste * Covenant of the Goddess * New Forest coven * New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn * Panthean Temple * The Rowan Tree Church * Universal Eclectic Wicca * Wiccan Church of Canada * Witchcraft Research Association ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wheel Of The Year
The Wheel of the Year is an annual cycle of seasonal festivals, observed by a range of Modern paganism, modern pagans, marking the year's chief solar events (solstices and equinoxes) and the midpoints between them. Modern pagan observances are based to varying degrees on folk traditions, regardless of the historical practices of world civilizations. Modern Paganism in the United Kingdom, British neopagans popularized the Wheel of the Year in the mid-20th century, combining the four solar events ("quarter days") marked by many European peoples, with the four midpoint festivals ("cross-quarter days") celebrated by Insular Celts, Insular Celtic peoples. Different paths of modern Paganism may vary regarding the precise timing of each observance, based on such distinctions as the lunar phase and Hemispheres of Earth, geographic hemisphere. Some Wiccans use the term sabbat () to refer to each festival, represented as a spoke in the Wheel. Origins Seasonal festival activities of pag ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Modern Pagan
Modern paganism, also known as contemporary paganism and neopaganism, spans a range of new religious movements variously influenced by the Paganism, beliefs of pre-modern peoples across Europe, North Africa, and the Near East. Despite some common similarities, contemporary pagan movements are diverse, sharing no single set of beliefs, practices, or religious texts. Religious studies, Scholars of religion may study the phenomenon as a movement divided into different religions, while others study neopaganism as a decentralized religion with an array of Religious denomination, denominations. Adherents rely on Christianization, pre-Christian, folkloric, and ethnographic sources to a variety of degrees; many of them follow a spirituality that they accept as entirely modern, while others claim to adhere to Prehistoric religion, prehistoric beliefs, or else, they attempt to revive indigenous religions as accurately as possible. List of modern pagan movements, Modern pagan movements are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stregheria
() is a neo-pagan tradition similar to Wicca, with Italian and Italian American origins. While most practitioners consider to be a distinct tradition from Wicca, some academics consider it to be a form of Wicca or an offshoot. Both have similar beliefs and practices. For example, honors a pantheon centered on a Moon Goddess and a Horned God, similar to Wiccan views of divinity. Author Raven Grimassi has written on the topic. Grimassi taught what he called the Aradian tradition from 1980. He discusses elements of 'Italian witchcraft' adopted by Gardnerian Wicca with ideas inspired by Charles G. Leland's '' Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches'' (1899). The name " Aradia" (a version of Herodias) is due to Leland, who claimed she was venerated by a " witch-cult" in medieval Tuscany. Names The word is an archaic Italian word for "witchcraft", the most used word in modern Italian being .''Nuovo Dizionario Italiano-Latino'', the Società Editrice Dante Alighieri (1959) is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
