The Occult Rejects

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Core Academic Studies
Callow, John. Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025. DOI: 10.1017/9781108956161.
Crandall, Lisa. Text A: Teasing Out the Influences on Early Gardnerian Witchcraft as Evidenced in the Personal Writings of Gerald Brosseau Gardner. Master's thesis, University of Ottawa, 2013.
Doyle White, Ethan. Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2016.
Feraro, Shai, and Ethan Doyle White, eds. Magic and Witchery in the Modern West: Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of The Triumph of the Moon. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Hutton, Ronald. “Crowley and Wicca.” In Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism, edited by Henrik Bogdan and Martin P. Starr, 285–307. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Hutton, Ronald. The Stations of the Sun: A History of the Ritual Year in Britain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Lewis, Liam. “‘Eko; Eko; Azarak’: Witchcraft, Medieval Gibberish and Queer Untranslatability in High Magic’s Aid.” Sexualities, first published online October 3, 2024. DOI: 10.1177/13634607241287419.
Urban, Hugh B. Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006.
Urban, Hugh B. “The Goddess and the Great Rite: Hindu Tantra and the Complex Origins of Modern Wicca.” In Magic and Witchery in the Modern West, edited by Shai Feraro and Ethan Doyle White, 21–43. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019.
Gardner, Valiente, and Early Wiccan Sources
Gardner, Gerald B. High Magic’s Aid. London: Michael Houghton, 1949.
Gardner, Gerald B. Witchcraft Today. London: Rider, 1954.
Gardner, Gerald B. The Meaning of Witchcraft. London: Aquarian Press, 1959.
Valiente, Doreen. The Rebirth of Witchcraft. London: Robert Hale, 1989.
Valiente, Doreen. Witchcraft for Tomorrow. London: Robert Hale, 1978.
Heselton, Philip. Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. 2 vols. Loughborough: Thoth Publications, 2012.
Lamond, Frederic. Fifty Years of Wicca. Sutton Mallet: Green Magic, 2004.
Pre-Gardner Witchcraft, Folklore, and Witch-Cult Sources
Leland, Charles Godfrey. Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches. London: David Nutt, 1899.
Murray, Margaret Alice. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.
Murray, Margaret Alice. The God of the Witches. London: Sampson Low, Marston & Co., 1931.
Ceremonial Magic, Crowley, and Related Source Material
Mathers, S. L. MacGregor, ed. and trans. The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis). London: George Redway, 1889.
Crowley, Aleister. The Equinox. Various issues, 1909–1919.
Crowley, Aleister. Book 4. Parts I–II originally published 1912–1913; Part III, Magick in Theory and Practice, 1929.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber XV: Ecclesiae Gnosticae Catholicae Canon Missae, commonly known as the Gnostic Mass.
Crowley, Aleister. Liber AL vel Legis (The Book of the Law). 1904.
Woodroffe, John, writing as Arthur Avalon. The Serpent Power. London: Luzac & Co., 1919.
Additional Historical Trails Discussed in the Episode
de Givry, Émile Grillot. Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy. English translation, 1931.
Fuller, J. F. C. “The Black Arts.” Occult Review 43, no. 5 (1926): 299–308. Discussed and traced by Liam Lewis in the 2024 study cited above.
The Occult Observer, Vol. I, No. 3 (1949), including Mir Bashir's article “The Book of Shadows,” later identified by Doreen Va

Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

Links For The Occult Rejects
https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects
Occult Research Institute
https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/
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https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page
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Venmo
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Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

Links For The Occult Rejects
https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects

Occult Research Institute
https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/

Substack
https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

Cash App
https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects

Venmo
@TheOccultRejects

Patreon
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BibliographyCore Academic Scholarship
- Bailey, Michael D. Battling Demons: Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages. Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003. Essential for Nider and the emergence of diabolical witchcraft before the Malleus. (https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/978-0-271-02225-3.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Briggs, Robin. Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft. HarperCollins, 1996.
- Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Clarendon Press, 1997. Excellent for inversion, natural/unnatural, Christian/anti-Christian logic.
- Davies, Owen. Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. Hambledon and London, 2003. Useful for distinguishing actual magical practitioners from the demonological witch stereotype. (https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article-abstract/119/482/801/499798?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Gaskill, Malcolm. Witchfinders: A Seventeenth-Century English Tragedy. John Murray, 2005.
- Hults, Linda C. The Witch as Muse: Art, Gender, and Power in Early Modern Europe. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005. Major source for Dürer, Baldung, sexuality, gender, and visual construction.
- Kors, Alan Charles, and Edward Peters, eds. Witchcraft in Europe, 400–1700: A Documentary History. 2nd ed. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Excellent collection of primary documents. (https://www.pennpress.org/9780812217513/witchcraft-in-europe-400-1700/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 4th ed. Routledge, 2016. Best general backbone for chronology, prosecution patterns, regional variation, gender, and numbers. (https://www.routledge.com/link/link/p/book/9781138808096?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Levack, Brian P., ed. The Witchcraft Sourcebook. 2nd ed. Routledge, 2015. Includes trial documents, demonology, sermons, literature, and visual representations. (https://www.routledge.com/The-Witchcraft-Sourcebook-Second-Edition/Levack/p/book/9781138774971?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Purkiss, Diane. The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations. Routledge, 1996. Particularly useful for later feminist, historical, literary, and modern witch reconstructions. (https://www.routledge.com/The-Witch-in-History-Early-Modern-and-Twentieth-Century-Representations/Purkiss/p/book/9780415087629?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Roper, Lyndal. Witch Craze: Terror and Fantasy in Baroque Germany. Yale University Press, 2004/2006. Essential for crones, fertility, motherhood, interrogation, sexuality, cannibalism, and aging. (https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300119831/witch-craze/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Stephens, Walter. Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and the Crisis of Belief. University of Chicago Press, 2002/2003. Important for demonic sex, bodily reality, flight, infanticide, and the Malleus. (https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/D/bo3628714.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Zika, Charles. The Appearance of Witchcraft: Print and Visual Culture in Sixteenth-Century Europe. Routledge, 2007. Probably the most important book for this episode’s thesis. (https://www.routledge.com/The-Appearance-of-Witchcraft-1st-Edition/Zika/p/book/9780203713921?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Davies, Owen, ed. The Oxford History of Witchcraft and Magic. Oxford University Press, 2023. Broad updated survey from antiquity through modern popular culture. (https://academic.oup.com/book/45627?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Fifteenth-Century Origins and Demonology
- Nider, Johannes. Formicarius, Book V, c. 1436–1438. Key source for the emerging diabolical witch sect before the Malleus; available in Levack and Kors/Peters. (https://sourcebooks.web.fordham.edu/source/witches1.asp?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Errores Gazariorum, c. 1430s. One of the earliest texts describing an organized diabolical witch sect; see Georg Modestin, “The Metamorphoses of the Anti-Witchcraft Treatise Errores Gazariorum.” (https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003007296-2s/metamorphoses-anti-witchcraft-treatise-errores-gazariorum-15th-century-georg-modestin?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Le Franc, Martin. Le Champion des Dames. Written c. 1440–1442; illuminated manuscript, 1451. The manuscript includes the famous Vaudoises image, widely identified as the earliest known witch depicted flying on a broomstick. (https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/722313-oldest-depiction-of-a-witch-on-a-broomstick?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Kramer, Heinrich [Institoris]. Malleus Maleficarum, first printed 1486–1487. Use Christopher S. Mackay, trans., The Hammer of Witches: A Complete Translation of the Malleus Maleficarum. Cambridge University Press, 2009. Mackay also discusses authorship and Jacob Sprenger’s disputed role. (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/hammer-of-witches/F8A8CC710EB1AEB13D9B91530AC0EAF3?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Molitor, Ulrich. De Lamiis et Pythonicis Mulieribus, 1489. Important for early printed imagery of flight, transformation, weather magic, and cauldrons.
- Hopkins, Matthew. The Discovery of Witches. London, 1647. Important for familiars, bodily examinations, and names including Pyewacket, Vinegar Tom, Grizzel Greedigutt, Sack and Sugar, and others.
Art and Visual Sources
- Dürer, Albrecht. Witch Riding Backwards on a Goat, c. 1500. British Museum. The Museum connects the reversed composition with witchcraft’s supposed reversal of natural order. (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1868-0822-188?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Baldung Grien, Hans. Early-sixteenth-century witch imagery and Weather Witches (1523). The British Museum discusses Baldung’s fascination with witches and female sexuality. (https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1834-0712-73?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Davidson, Jane P. The Witch in Northern European Art, 1470–1750. Luca Verlag, 1987.
- Rosa, Salvator. Witches at their Incantations, c. 1646. National Gallery, London. The Gallery documents both its witch imagery and the report that it hung behind a curtain for dramatic reveal. (https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/salvator-rosa-witches-at-their-incantations?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Trials, Gender, and Historical Accused
- Apps, Lara, and Andrew Gow. Male Witches in Early Modern Europe. Manchester University Press, 2003. Useful for dismantling the assumption that witches were universally female.
- Rowlands, Alison. Witchcraft Narratives in Germany: Rothenburg, 1561–1652. Manchester University Press, 2003.
- English Heritage / Diane Purkiss. “Witchcraft: Eight Myths and Misconceptions.” Useful for hanging versus burning, execution estimates, male witches, the Spanish Inquisition, and the herbalist-midwife myth. Purkiss gives a mainstream scholarly estimate of roughly 30,000–60,000 executions, rather than the old “nine million” figure. (https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/eight-witchcraft-myths?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Fairy Tale and Literary Witch
- Shakespeare, William. Macbeth, c. 1606. Especially Act IV, scene 1, for the influential cauldron scene.
- Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm. “Hansel and Gretel,” in Kinder- und Hausmärchen, first published 1812. Useful for the forest dwelling, old woman, food, children, and cannibalistic witch.
- Purkiss, Diane. The Witch in History. Particularly useful for witch representation in drama, domesticity, children, and later reinvention. (https://www.routledge.com/The-Witch-in-History-Early-Modern-and-Twentieth-Century-Representations/Purkiss/p/book/9780415087629?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
Victorian Costume, Salem, and Halloween
- Holt, Ardern. Fancy Dresses Described; or, What to Wear at Fancy Balls. 4th ed., 1884. Source for the witch costumes involving brooms, cats, toads, serpents, frogs, bats, lizards, an owl, and a black cat on the shoulder. The surviving scan identifies it as the fourth edition from March 1884. (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AThe_Witch1884.png?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
- Holt, Ardern. Fancy Dresses Described. 5th ed. Debenham & Freebody, 1887. Public-domain copy preserved by the Smithsonian. (

Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

Links For The Occult Rejects
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Occult Research Institute
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Bibliography
Primary Sources, Historical Texts, Legal Sources, and Reference Works
Ælfric of Eynsham. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The First Series: Text. Edited by Peter Clemoes. Early English Text Society, Supplementary Series 17. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Ælfric of Eynsham. Ælfric’s Catholic Homilies: The Second Series: Text. Edited by Malcolm Godden. Early English Text Society, Supplementary Series 5. London: Oxford University Press for the Early English Text Society, 1979.
Attenborough, F. L., ed. and trans. The Laws of the Earliest English Kings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922.
Bosworth, Joseph, and T. Northcote Toller. An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898; Supplement, 1921. See also the revised Bosworth-Toller Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, especially the entries for wicca, wicce, wiccedōm, and related terms.
Elliger, Karl, and Wilhelm Rudolph, eds. Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia. 5th corrected ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 1997.
England. 33 Henry VIII c. 8. An Act concerning Witchcrafts and Sorcery (1542).
England. 5 Elizabeth I c. 16. An Act against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts (1563).
England. 1 James I c. 12. An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked Spirits (1604).
Great Britain. 9 George II c. 5. An Act to repeal the Statute made in the first Year of the Reign of King James the First, intituled, An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked Spirits... Commonly known as the Witchcraft Act 1735; royal assent 1736.
Great Britain. Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951, 14 & 15 Geo. 6 c. 33.
Forshall, Josiah, and Frederic Madden, eds. The Holy Bible, Containing the Old and New Testaments, with the Apocryphal Books, in the Earliest English Versions Made from the Latin Vulgate by John Wycliffe and His Followers. 4 vols. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1850.
Gardner, Gerald B. Witchcraft Today. London: Rider and Company, 1954.
Gifford, George. A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes. London: John Windet for Tobie Cooke and Mihil Hart, 1593.
Krapp, George Philip, ed. The Junius Manuscript. Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records 1. New York: Columbia University Press, 1931.
Liebermann, Felix, ed. Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen. 3 vols. in 4. Halle: Max Niemeyer, 1903–1916.
Lyly, John. Mother Bombie. London: Thomas Scarlet for Cuthbert Burby, 1594.
Murray, Margaret Alice. The Witch-Cult in Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921.
Perkins, William. A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft: So Farre Forth as It Is Revealed in the Scriptures, and Manifest by True Experience. Published by Thomas Pickering. Cambridge, 1608.
Rahlfs, Alfred, ed. Septuaginta. Revised by Robert Hanhart. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2006.
Robertson, A. J., ed. and trans. The Laws of the Kings of England from Edmund to Henry I. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1925.
Tyndale, William. The Pentateuch. 1530. For a modern edition, see Tyndale’s Old Testament, edited by David Daniell. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992.
Weber, Robert, and Roger Gryson, eds. Biblia Sacra iuxta Vulgatam Versionem. 5th ed. Stuttgart: Deutsche Bibelgesellschaft, 2007.
Webster, Noah. An American Dictionary of the English Language. New York: S. Converse, 1828.
The Holy Bible, Conteyning the Old Testament, and the New. London: Robert Barker, 1611.
Modern Scholarship
Apps, Lara, and Andrew Gow. Male Witches in Early Modern Europe. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2003.
Arthur, Ciaran. “Charms,” Liturgies, and Secret Rites in Early Medieval England. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2018.
Bostridge, Ian. Witchcraft and Its Transformations, c.1650–c.1750. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Briggs, Robin. Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft. London: HarperCollins, 1996.
Clark, Stuart. Thinking with Demons: The Idea of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.
Cohn, Norman. Europe’s Inner Demons: An Enquiry Inspired by the Great Witch-Hunt. New York: Basic Books, 1975.
Davies, Owen. Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. London: Hambledon and London, 2003.
Davies, Owen. Witchcraft, Magic and Culture, 1736–1951. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1999.
Doyle White, Ethan. Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2016.
Gaskill, Malcolm. Crime and Mentalities in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Gaskill, Malcolm. Hellish Nell: Last of Britain’s Witches. London: Fourth Estate, 2001.
Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Hutton, Ronald. The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017.
Levack, Brian P. The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe. 4th ed. London: Routledge, 2016.
Liberman, Anatoly. Word Origins ... and How We Know Them: Etymology for Everyone. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Liberman, Anatoly, with J. Lawrence Mitchell. An Analytic Dictionary of English Etymology: An Introduction. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008.
Macfarlane, Alan. Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A Regional and Comparative Study. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1970. 2nd ed. with an introduction by James Sharpe, London: Routledge, 1999.
Purkiss, Diane. The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations. London: Routledge, 1996.
Sharpe, J. A. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England, 1550–1750. London: Hamish Hamilton, 1996.
Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic: Studies in Popular Beliefs in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1971.
Wilby, Emma. Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic. Brighton: Sussex Academic Press, 2005.
Particularly Useful Digital and Archival Resources
Folger Shakespeare Library. Digital editions and catalog records for John Lyly’s Mother Bombie, George Gifford’s A Dialogue Concerning Witches and Witchcraftes, and William Perkins’s A Discourse of the Damned Art of Witchcraft.
The National Archives (UK). Early Modern Witch Trials teaching collection, including the transcript and archival image of the 1604 Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked Spirits.
UK Parliament, Living Heritage. “Witchcraft,” overview of the English witchcraft statutes and their legal history.
UK Legislation. Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951, official text.
Dictionary of Old English / Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus, Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto.
Oxford English Dictionary. Entries for witch, witchcraft, wizard, warlock, and related historical forms.

Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.

Links For The Occult Rejects
https://linktr.ee/theoccultrejects

Occult Research Institute
https://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/

Substack
https://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-page

Cash App
https://cash.app/$theoccultrejects

Venmo
@TheOccultRejects

Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejects

Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball.