Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals. The book came to play a special role in the history of Gardnerian Wiccan and its offshoots, being used as evidence that pagan witchcraft survivals existed in Europe.
About Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches in brief
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals. Scholars are divided, with some dismissing Leland’s assertion regarding the origins of the manuscript, and others arguing for its authenticity as a unique documentation of folk beliefs. In the 20th century, the book was very influential in the development of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca. The book came to play a special role in the history of Gardnerian Wiccan and its offshoots, being used as evidence that pagan witchcraft survivals existed in Europe. A passage from the book’s first chapter was used as a part of the religion’s liturgy. Leland had been informed of the Vangelo’s existence in 1886, but it took Maddalena eleven years to provide him with a copy. After translating and editing the material, it took another two years for the book to be published. The text is a composite. Some of it is Leland’s translation into English of an original Italian manuscript. The rest of the material comes from Leland and an Italian woman he called his ‘witch informant’ in Italy. The manuscript was written in post-WWII handwriting, but Leland understood it to be an authentic document of the witches, but explains that he did not know if he did the text came from oral sources or written by Leland himself.
It was published by David Nutt in 1899 in a small run, and it was first run through his early Wcanic author Raymond Buckland in 1968. The first reprint of the book in 1968 was through the early Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Witchcraft in his home town of Buckland, New Hampshire. It has since been re-issued by a number of different publishers, including a 1999 critical edition with a new translation by Mario and Dina Pazzaglini. It is not known if the book has ever been published in a large print run, but a small print run of it was run in the early 1990s through the Early Witchcraft Museum of W caniccan Art and Science in New York City, and a small reprint of it in the mid-1990s. It remains obscure until the 1950s, when other theories about, and claims of, ‘pagan witchcraft’ survivals began to be widely discussed. Aradia has been examined within the wider context of such claims. The main figure of that religion is the goddess Aradia, who came to Earth to teach the practice of witchcraft to peasants in order for them to oppose their feudal oppressors and the Roman Catholic Church. The majority of Aradia’s material is attributed to the research of a woman Leland referred to as ‘Maddalena’ and whom he called “Maddale Talenti’
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