Jonathan Emmesedihttps://publicdomainreview.org/essay/roma-lister-aradia/#
Absolutely fascinating.
Leland , by the way, sounds rather a good egg:
>>He dined with pirates on the high seas, fought against monarchists in the 1848 French Revolution, railed against the American Confederacy and slavery as an editor of and contributor to pro-Union broadsheets, collected and utilised magical amulets, and even developed an arts and crafts–focused educational system that received praise from Oscar Wilde. <<
Roma Lister, Aradia, and the Speculative Origins of a Witchcraft Revival
In 1899, Charles Godfrey Leland published Aradia, “the gospel of the witches”, containing a goddess-orientated creation and saviour narrative, purported to descend from an ancient, hermetic tradition of witchcraft in Italy. A. D. Manns explores this text via an enchanting conjecture: that the writer, medium, and witch Roma Lister played a pivotal role in the formation of both Aradia and, therefore, a new form of paganism called Wicca.