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This chapter presents some concluding thoughts from the author. It begins with an assessment of reflexivity as a nontraditional methodology for religious studies scholarship. It then talks about the implications of the author's religious practice for new models and ways of scholarship investigation concerning religion.

This short epilogue talks about the changes that have come to the Merry Circle. The Merry Circle no longer exists as a single practicing group, because some of its members either have already relocated or will relocate so far from one another geographically. This chapter talks about the last meeting between the four High Priestesses, and how it gave the author the strength to complete this book.

In colonial America, only 15% of the population belonged to a church. The majority was nonetheless spiritual at a personal level, but fashioned their personal beliefs by drawing upon a variety of magical and occult philosophies. Astrology, divination, and witchcraft permeated everyday life in the colonies. By the early and mid‐nineteenth century, the writings of the Swedish mystic Emanuel Swedenborg and the American Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson gave middle‐class Americans a new vocabulary for describing their inner‐relationship to unseen spiritual dimensions of life. And, by the latter part of the nineteenth century, both mesmerism and spiritualism provided general audiences with new ways of exploring this inner‐relationship to the spirit world.

This chapter presents the author's thoughts about Wicca and philosophy. The chapter talks about the author's initiation into the Craft, the insider/outsider dichotomy, and her study of religion and philosophy. The author believes that philosophy is not exactly a particular thing, a discrete disciplinary subject in a course of study at the university. Rather, philosophy is itself a doing, a practice, a temperament, an engaging of oneself with the world, a way of living in the world, a way of asking questions, a deep curiosity about the ways we are and why.

This chapter begins with the author's account of her introduction to the Craft. It then discusses deities, the coming of the “Jahweh-in-Drag”, coven structure and organization, ritual, text and authority.

This chapter introduces the author's coven and describes its basic ritual patterns. The author established her coven, called the Merry Circle, in 1984. The Merry Circle is composed of six Priestesses and two Priests. The Merry Circle usually performs its group rituals at night and, whenever possible, outdoors in nature. Formal group rituals are held in a specially prepared space called the Circle. The Circle is often marked off from the space around it by a ring of stones (if outdoors), a ring of red yarn (if indoors), or some other distinctive marking determined by the creativity of the individual Witch. The four directions — north, east, south, and west — are plotted as accurately as possible using a compass and then marked by specially blessed and prepared candles that are used in the ceremony.

This chapter focuses on the initiation of the path towards Wicca. Topics covered include the recruitment of new members, public education and outreach, teaching the craft to those interested in joining a coven, the skills and expertise needed by Wiccan practitioners to teach, the process of learning Wicca, hands-on practice, and ending the introductory class.

This chapter discusses the Rite of Dedication, the first formal, ritualized step toward initiation into the coven. This ceremony of self-blessing and dedication to study marks a change in the status of the student from the merely curious to the serious seeker. The rite formally blesses and dedicates the student to a path of self-discovery that may lead to initiation. Dedication marks a significant step in the acquisition of skills for the student and demands an intensified commitment to the learning process from both the student and the teaching Witch.

This chapter focuses on the Dedicant's initiation. It discusses the screening process for potential Dedicants and the actual rite of initiation. An analysis of how the initiation ceremony continues some of theological and practical groundwork begun with the Rite of Dedication is presented.

This chapter discusses significant developments in the career of Gerald Gardner. The 1950s were the decade in which Gardner announced the existence of his witch religion to the world, and succeeded in establishing it as a lasting component of modern spirituality. In 1954 his book Witchcraft Today gave that religion a generic name, of ‘Wica’, adapted by the 1960s to its enduring form of ‘Wicca’. Throughout the mid-1950s Gardner promoted Wicca with press, radio, and television interviews, and this public profile brought liabilities as well as rewards.

This chapter extends the analysis of Greatrakes cures to include discussion of his own peculiar explanation for the success of his cures, which he construed as a form of exorcism. Greatrakes, as described here, was something of an expert in all things demonological and had formerly played a prominent role in one of Ireland's best-documented witch trials. Similar interests permeated the thinking of many of his most committed followers. The chapter concludes by arguing, paradoxically, that belief in witchcraft at this period was characteristically invoked in order to promote religious reconciliation and unity among Anglicans and dissenters.

Chapter 4 explores the debate around enthusiasm in late Stuart England. After looking at the French Prophets’ millenarian assemblies, during which they performed Biblical allegories and miracles, it considers how enthusiasts and dissenters took advantage of the lapsing of the Licensing Act in 1695 to promote their beliefs. With their claims to divine inspirations and insight into the future, the French Prophets sparked a spectacular battle of pamphlets of at least 150 extant titles in just three years. This controversy contributed to the early Enlightenment debate on the nature of enthusiasm. It shows how beliefs in witchcraft and demonic possessions persisted beyond 1700 and how satire became a weapon against enthusiasts in general. The case of the French Prophets would later serve as a precedent against the Methodists in the mid eighteenth century.

This chapter comprises the study of John Wagstaffe's The Question of Witchcraft Debated (1669) that was published in 1995. This is a reprint close to its original form, and has been cited by other scholars during the intervening period. Wagstaffe's book can bring one closer to the otherwise elusive phenomenon of oral, fashionable scepticism about which contemporaries complained, and hence to the nature of free-thought in the Restoration period. That this is the case is further suggested by the debate between Wagstaffe and two orthodox antagonists that followed the work's initial publication. In replying to his critics, Wagstaffe enhanced the learned character of his work, and this may illustrate how printed controversy had the effect of directing intellectual discourse into predictable channels.

This chapter expands more fully on Wagstaffe's legacy. It takes the story forward into the early eighteenth century. The chapter considers the comparable views that were expressed by Deists and freethinkers at that point and the way in which orthodox thought at last began to change — not least in the hands of Francis Hutchinson. Hutchinson's reference to Wagstaffe's book in his Historical Essay concerning Witchcraft (1718) neatly encapsulates just how far the orthodox did and how far they did not follow their freethinking precursors. The chapter focuses on him both to try to understand what factors underlay the change of beliefs among the educated about witchcraft, and to explore how far thinkers like him were now speaking the language previously espoused by the heterodox.

This chapter discusses Luciferian Witchcraft, which is to a great extent a spin-off from the Wicca movement, but with a satanic twist. While Wicca has created a “medium tension” towards society, by utilizing the negative witch figure as its central metaphor, Satanism has generated a stronger such tension by focusing on the strongly negative figure Satan. Both, however, are part of a larger movement where partly similar renegotiations of cultural symbols are being conducted. The interpretation of Lucifer is of central interest, as Lucifer can be seen to act as a crossover deity that appears with different meanings both within non-satanic as well as satanic interpretations of witchcraft. The chapter concludes that Luciferian Witchcraft can be seen as an example of the typological difficulties of positioning Satanism as an autonomous milieu within the larger Dark Magical subculture.

Religion may be one factor that enabled large-scale complex human societies to evolve. Utilizing a cultural evolutionary approach, this chapter seeks explanations for patterns of complexity and variation in religion within and across groups, over time. Properties of religious systems (e.g., rituals, ritualized behaviors, overimitation, synchrony, sacred values) are examined at different social scales, from small-scale forager to large-scale urban societies. The role of religion in transitional societies is discussed, as well as the impact of witchcraft, superhuman policing, and the cultural evolution of moralizing gods. The shift from an imagistic to a doctrinal mode of religiosity is examined, as are the relationships between sacred values and secular worlds. Cultural evolutionary approaches to religion require evidence and methods from collaborative and multidisciplinary science. The chapter concludes with an overview of several projects that are working to provide conceptual, methodological, and empirical groundwork. Published in the Strungmann Forum Reports Series.

The activities of the first local notable person related to Glasgow astronomy form this chapter. George Sinclair, Professor of Natural Philosophy, is known for his tracts on physics, astronomy, mathematics, religion and witchcraft. His chief astronomical text of 1688 on the ‘Celestial Sphere’ was ‘The Principles of Astronomy and Navigation’. He was notoriously accused of plagiarism on several occasions, particularly in claiming authorship of ‘Truth's Victory over Error’, a religious text simply translated from a Latin script of Dickson of Edinburgh. He wrote on the principles of coal mining, but it was suggested that he was better at ‘mining the minds of others’ rather than writing with originality. He observed Newton's Comet of 1681 but was taken to task by Professor Gregory of St Andrews on the uselessness of his observations. Other astronomical studies related to the secular movements of the Sun and Moon were also castigated in similar vain. He had a passion for understanding the behaviour of the barometer according to the weather and was the first person, at least in Scotland, to measure the heights of mountains by barometric pressure changes on their summits. He is also credited with inventing the diving bell for undersea wreck salvaging.