Book Review: Aradia or the Gospel of Witches by Charles G. Leland

Charles G. Leland was an America Folklorist of the late nineteenth century who became enamored with the folk and specifically witchcraft traditions of Italy and made an effort to preserve them. He believed that that he was preserving a dying tradition. While there is documentation that he was a hermetic, I do not believe that he was a devotee of Diana, Aradia or regularly practiced the incantations or charms collected in his work. If he did attempt to use the charms, I think that he would find that they didn’t work to his liking. Dr. Mario Pazzaglini points out in his essay “Leland and the Magical World of Aradia” included in this edition of Mr. Leland’s work that it is unlikely that an actual “Witches’ Gospel” really existed. Dr. Pazzaglini does not discount the truth of what Mr. Leland collected; only that it was not universal. I am inclined to agree. What Mr. Leland did not realize that this old tradition of witchcraft is not dying out, quite the contrary; over a century after his own death it is still being practiced by people like me.

I have my own growing collection of charms and incantation. While I might use pieces of those that worked very well for me, what is true of living witchcraft is that it is ephemeral. A spell is designed for a specific moment in time. It is also clear to me that this “Gospel of Witches” has been heavily influenced by Christianity and that it is an example of old folklore and ancient Pagan practices bleeding through into a more modern time dominated by the Christian religion. Here the Moon Goddess Diana (She of night and darkness) has Her Divine Brother named Lucifer (He who brings the light). Diana has another name in the Greek pantheon of Artemis, and Her brother, the Sun God (he who brings the light) is Apollo. It is through an incestuous mating of these two divine forms that Aradia in conceived. She then becomes a female messiah, helping the oppressed women of the country change their lot in life through witchcraft. Diana is depicted in this work as a very wanton, sexual being and at first I was offended by this image of my patroness Goddess. I had an image of her as the powerful and chaste Goddess of maidenhood who eschewed the company of men. The idea of her having a child with Christianity’s Lucifer was inconceivable. However I realized that I was judging this work of myth with tainted eyes. In older times, the idea of Virginity did not necessarily mean a woman who did not have sex; to be a virgin meant to be a woman who held power in her own right.

I was forced then to consider the idea that this was Diana’s definition as Divine Virgin. To see my Goddess as a sexual being forced me to reconsider sex as a divine act and not as an act of subjugation to men. This was a valuable lesson that perhaps I would not have processed, if not for the reading of this work. I do think that Aradia was an important figure to the impoverished women of the Italian countryside, and perhaps still is. She is a figure of hope. Her stories show a way beyond oppression. That said I am not moved to evoke her, or to utilize the incantations of this work that are lost in my world.