tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188095128035151601.post8911464767854477551..comments2024-03-19T00:28:50.450-07:00Comments on Necropolis Now: CFP for a special issue of The Pomegranate on Pagans and MuseumsCaroline Tullyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18295336008587199702noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188095128035151601.post-55208331769882016812020-10-05T00:20:32.222-07:002020-10-05T00:20:32.222-07:00Hi Jesse,
According to Chas Clifton, editor of Th...Hi Jesse,<br /><br />According to Chas Clifton, editor of The Pomegranate, it’s based on Philip Heselton’s research. In GERALD GARDNER AND THE CAULDRON OF INSPIRATION (2003), Heselton quotes a letter from Gardner to Cecil Williamson, when they are setting up the museum, in which he says in relation to a ritual sword: “I’ve been to several more Theatrical People, but none of them will make the sword, so Ime [sic] bringing 2 swords for you to see, & I think we can fake them up . . . I have written out a lot of the grimoire . . . I think it will look quite imposing when its [sic] stuck up. Binding it is impossible but will fake up something” (341).<br /><br />He also writes of knowing a dentist who will cast a silver “ritual bell.”<br /><br />I think that it is safe to say that many of the items in the “witch’s cottage” at the museum were either purchased and re-purposed or created from scratch for the exhibit.<br />Gardner also suggests creating an Isle of Man Druid Lodge with himself as Founder so that Druidic rituals can be staged at the museum (358–59). <br /><br />There is more in Heselton’s two-volume WITCHFATHER (2012), where PH quotes letters that, as I read them, show Gardner’s little working group of three morphing into “the Southern Coven of English Witches.” This is all in Vol. 2, chapter 24, “Making a Museum.”<br /><br />Gardner runs the museum — seasonally, since winter is dead for tourism — for ten years, 1954–1964. All his writing and organizing takes place with some relationship to the museum. I think it a reasonable assumption that the needs of the museum influenced the shape of Wicca and its formalization, if you will. For instance, Gardner and Cecil Williamson at the beginning are talking about holding a “witches jamboree” and inviting practitioners to the Isle of Man (this never happens, as I read it), but again, to do that, you need people willing to self-identify as witches.<br /><br />So yeah, I would argue that the museum and Wicca shaped each other to some extent. Gardner was always in a hurry, and if he did not have what he needed, he would “fake something up.”<br />Caroline Tullyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18295336008587199702noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188095128035151601.post-16920634555393068322020-10-04T01:59:47.438-07:002020-10-04T01:59:47.438-07:00I would be very interested in hearing more about t...I would be very interested in hearing more about this:<br /><br />"Some of his correspondence suggests that the first formal Wiccan coven might have been created partially to provide provenance for the museum’s exhibits."Jessehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04114241788186032401noreply@blogger.com