Aradia, Gospel of the Witches [], full text etext at leondumoulin.nl
Table of contents
This is a book of witch lore. I enjoyed the stories and the spells. I learned a lot about Diana and her daughter. Dec 29, Jen rated it liked it. Short, somewhat interesting read. Recommended to me as 'necessary' reading for a deeper understanding of Trad Witchcraft. The book reads like a pamphlet or a brief essay and is anecdotal at best.
I wouldn't consider this even an abstract of stregheria. Raymond Buckland's book on Gypsy Magic, much maligned over the years, has more depth regarding Roma than Leland susses out in his months of research and so-called immersion. This book is at best a five-and-dime paperback with some incantations thr Short, somewhat interesting read.
This book is at best a five-and-dime paperback with some incantations thrown in to spice things up. May 09, Isobel rated it really liked it Shelves: Has some beautiful ideas in it; though it is the gospel of the witches, don't take everything in it as gospel. I've read alot of folks reviews before reading the book and after reading the work myself it just comes to me that alot of people don't really "read" it with a view to understand it.
I have alot of areas to cover so I guess I will just jump into the first thing that comes to mind.
There are alot of people who claim that the witchcraft in Aradia is to mean and evil. They need to remember that this is not modern wicca, this is real witchcraft. The type that has been used throughout history and thro I've read alot of folks reviews before reading the book and after reading the work myself it just comes to me that alot of people don't really "read" it with a view to understand it. The type that has been used throughout history and throughout the world.
This type of "witchcraft" can still be seen in many ATR faiths even today. I also seen that many people have complained about the threatening of the goddess and how that should never be done. Threatening of the goddess or god or any spirit is not unusual historically, and is most definitely a very ancient survival. Also one can also look into "Arcana Mundi" by Georg Luck in the introduction and find examples of statues of the gods being whipped in order to get them to do the bidding of the people. Leland gives an excellent example of how a town dealt with a saint that wasn't doing its bidding.
All of these actions bespeak of ancient tradition living up to the present. Further that an ancient religious survival wouldn't be influenced a single bit by the predominant religion is ludicrous. You have modern examples of this very same process today, simply look at Santeria for example. Now for the naysayers that Aradia was made up and couldn't possibly exist in this fashion Leland himself never claims that their is an actual written gospel. In fact he uses gospel in quotes in his intro.
Shouldn't that tell you something? Further he believed that the majority of the information collected for him came from "oral" rather than written material. He also states that he had many sources and Magdalenna was not the only source. In fact the small amount that she provided in the "Gospel" would only be a tiny fragment of the information that he had published in "Etruscan Roman Remains" and "Florentine Legends" as well as a large amount of unpublished material he had collected over the years from other sources.
Many of which support stuff that Magdalenna provided. And for those who do not believe in her as an actual person, how do they explain the handwritten letter of hers photocopied in the Phoenix edition of Aradia? One last thing to relate is that this "Gospel" was given to the oppressed as a means to level the playing field between them and their oppressors.
Do you think that a polite society can be created on paper or just in general and people will just do it? No, don't think so. A certain amount of fear of reprisal for one's actions is necessary in order to create a "polite society" or at least a tolerable and less repressed one.
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The witchcraft of the old days enables those who would be oppressed to have the ability to "remind" those who would naturally oppress of their duty to "do unto others as they would do unto you. Ok one more thing to relate.
The Phoenix Edition contains another translation more modern and according to them corrected. After comparing them both I found that the translation errors are rather minimal, though there are some instances where it would change the meaning quite a bit, but when I look at what Leland presents and what the modern translator presents I am going to utilize Lelands.
His goal was to make it readable, rhythmic, poetic, in other words he took a little poetic liberty.
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
The same is done today by many moderns making new translations of ancient material. Rather than blowing Leland off he should be congratulated and held in esteem for the contributions he made. Oct 20, Victoria Haf rated it liked it. Hay una parte en la que habla que en los llamamientos antiguos se usa mucho el amenazar a la divinidad: May 08, Molly rated it really liked it. I've read this several times and never seem to read every word. It's one of those strange books that you can pick up repeatedly and always see something new. For that, I think I will continue to re-read "Aradia" again and again.
It's a very small book, but dense in language. The stories are interesting and quite different from what we see in other mythology concerning witchcraft. For clarity and the option to use invocations in their original language I very much appreciate Leland giving them i I've read this several times and never seem to read every word. For clarity and the option to use invocations in their original language I very much appreciate Leland giving them in both Italian and English, though he does reference once or twice adapting pieces that are not shown in their original form.
For a dangerously curious person like me such changes seem like mysteries that can never be unraveled. How were the originals different? Did a style change also become an emphasis change, as Leland himself laments between traditional witch charms and the classical poetry made after them? It seems suitable that this is one of those books that is consistently on the reading list for all modern witches. But I don't think anyone should read it just because "it's a classic. This book is clearly important to the history of modern paganism.
The cadence and phrasing of the poetry presented here is replicated in many places that I have encountered. The story focuses on the "witch cult" idea that was popular in the early to mid s and apparently the late s, as well , which tied ideas about witches sabbats common from folklore with the idea of witchcraft being a survival of pre-Christian religion, in this case, the worship of Diana.
As folk stories and mythology, This book is clearly important to the history of modern paganism. As folk stories and mythology, this story remains enjoyable, but as a historical document, it doesn't work terribly well. One of the things that seemed odd to me was that the poetry of these Italian devotees of Aradia and Diana was in English. Perhaps Leland translated it, but I tend to doubt it.
That was only one of the problems with this, and one that could easily have been noticed by contemporary critics. Still, I prefer to just enjoy it as a story, and not as a historical document, so it was a somewhat amusing product of the 19th century. The narration of the audio version was kind of strange. The poetry had a booming reverb applied to it, I suppose to make it seem larger and more momentous. I'm not sure if that works for other people, but for me, it was painfully obvious what was going on, and I didn't much appreciate it.
The audio quality was also somewhat less than the normal audible standard, being a bit grainier than usual. Aug 17, Davin Raincloud rated it liked it. I don't see this book being very popular with many pagans. It's revered by 'some' witches, who find inspiration in it's poetic tale. Too many pagans these days are too literal to enjoy what I consider a piece of art.
Leland understood it to be an authentic document [5] of the "Old Religion" of the witches, but explains that he did not know if the text came from written or oral sources. Leland's translation and editing was completed in early and submitted to David Nutt for publication. Two years passed, until Leland wrote requesting the return of the manuscript in order to submit it to a different publishing house.
This request spurred Nutt to accept the book, and it was published in July in a small print run. After the eleven-year search, Leland writes that he was unsurprised by the contents of the Vangelo. It was largely what he was expecting, with the exception that he did not predict passages in "prose-poetry". They adored forbidden deities and practised forbidden deeds, inspired as much by rebellion against Society as by their own passions.
Leland's final draft was a slim volume. He organised the material to be included into fifteen chapters, and added a brief preface and an appendix. The published version also included footnotes and, in many places, the original Italian that Leland had translated. Most of the content of Leland's Aradia is made up of spells , blessings, and rituals, but the text also contains stories and myths which suggest influences from both the ancient Roman religion and Roman Catholicism. Major characters in the myths include the Roman goddess Diana , a sun god called Lucifer , the Biblical Cain as a lunar figure , and the messianic Aradia.
The witchcraft of "The Gospel of the Witches" is both a method for casting spells and an anti-hierarchical "counter-religion" to the Catholic church. Entire chapters of Aradia are devoted to rituals and magic spells. These include enchantments to win love Chapter VI , a conjuration to perform when finding a stone with a hole or a round stone in order to turn it into an amulet for Diana's favour Chapter IV , and the consecration of a ritual feast for Diana, Aradia, and Cain Chapter II. The narrative material makes up less of the text, and is composed of short stories and legends about the birth of the witchcraft religion and the actions of their gods.
Leland summarises the mythic material in the book in its appendix, writing "Diana is Queen of the Witches; an associate of Herodias Aradia in her relations to sorcery; that she bore a child to her brother the Sun here Lucifer ; that as a moon-goddess she is in some relation to Cain, who dwells as prisoner in the moon, and that the witches of old were people oppressed by feudal lands, the former revenging themselves in every way, and holding orgies to Diana which the Church represented as being the worship of Satan ".
After giving birth to Lucifer, Diana seduces him while in the form of a cat, eventually giving birth to Aradia, their daughter. Diana demonstrates the power of her witchcraft by creating "the heavens, the stars and the rain", becoming "Queen of the Witches". Chapter I presents the original witches as slaves that escaped from their masters, beginning new lives as "thieves and evil folk".
Book Review: Aradia
Diana sends her daughter Aradia to them to teach these former serfs witchcraft, the power of which they can use to "destroy the evil race of oppressors ". Aradia's students thus became the first witches, who would then continue the worship of Diana. Leland was struck by this cosmogony: Aradia is composed of fifteen chapters, the first ten of which are presented as being Leland's translation of the Vangelo manuscript given to him by Maddalena.
This section, while predominantly made up of spells and rituals, is also the source of most of the myths and folktales contained in the text. At the end of Chapter I is the text in which Aradia gives instructions to her followers on how to practice witchcraft. The first ten chapters are not entirely a direct translation of the Vangelo ; Leland offers his own commentary and notes on a number of passages, and Chapter VII is Leland's incorporation of other Italian folklore material.
Medievalist Robert Mathiesen contends that the Vangelo manuscript actually represents even less of Aradia , arguing that only Chapters I, II, and the first half of Chapter IV match Leland's description of the manuscript's contents, and suggests that the other material came from different texts collected by Leland through Maddalena. The remaining five chapters are clearly identified in the text as representing other material Leland believed to be relevant to the Vangelo , acquired during his research into Italian witchcraft, and especially while working on his Etruscan Roman Remains and Legends of Florence.
The themes in these additional chapters vary in some details from the first ten, and Leland included them partly to "[confirm] the fact that the worship of Diana existed for a long time contemporary with Christianity ". Leland explains its inclusion by a note that Diana, as portrayed in Aradia , is worshipped by outlaws, and Laverna was the Roman goddess of thievery. In several places Leland provides the Italian he was translating.
According to Mario Pazzaglini, author of the translation, the Italian contains misspellings, missing words, and grammatical errors, and is in a standardised Italian rather than the local dialect one might expect. There is no cohesive narrative even in the sections that Leland attributes to the Vangelo.
Aradia: Gospel of the Witches
This lack of cohesion, or "inconsistency", is an argument for the text's authenticity, according to religious scholar Chas S. Clifton , since the text shows no signs of being "massaged Cavagnari, , in which the author, in the form of a novel, vividly depicts the manners, habits of thought, and especially the nature of witchcraft, and the many superstitions current among the peasants in Lombardy. Unfortunately, notwithstanding his extensive knowledge of the subject, it never seems to have once occurred to the narrator that these traditions were anything but noxious nonsense or abominably un-Christian folly.
That there exists in them marvellous relics of ancient mythology and valuable folklore, which is the very cor cordium of history, is as uncared for by him as it would be by a common Zoccolone or tramping Franciscan. One would think it might have been suspected by a man who knew that a witch really endeavoured to kill seven people as a ceremony or rite, in order to get the secret of endless wealth, that such a sorceress must have had a store of wondrous legends; but of all this there is no trace, and it is very evident that nothing could be further from his mind than that there was anything interesting from a higher or more genial point of view in it all.
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His book, in fine, belongs to the very great number of those written on ghosts and superstition since the latter has fallen into discredit, in which the authors indulge in much satirical and very safe but cheap ridicule of what to them is merely vulgar and false. Like Sir Charles Coldstream, they have peeped into the crater of Vesuvius after it had ceased to "erupt," and found "nothing in it. I have done what little it is really very little I could, to disinter something from the dead volcano of Italian sorcery.
If this be the manner in which Italian witchcraft is treated by the most intelligent writer who has depicted it, it will not be deemed remarkable that there are few indeed who will care whether there is a veritable Gospel of Witches, apparently of extreme antiquity, embodying the belief in a strange counter-religion which has held its own from pre-historic time to the present day.
I should, however, in justice to those who do care to explore dark and bewildering paths, explain clearly that witch-lore is hidden with most scrupulous care from all save a very few in Italy, just as it is among the Chippeway Medas or the Black Voodoo. In the novel to the life of I Settimani an aspirant is represented as living with a witch and acquiring or picking up with pain, scrap by scrap, her spells and incantations, giving years to it. So my friend the late M. Dragomanoff told me how a certain man in Hungary, having learned that he had collected many spells which were indeed subsequently published in folklore journals , stole into the scholar's room and surreptitiously copied them, so that the next year when Dragomanoff returned, he found the thief in full practice as a blooming magician.
Truly he had not got many incantations, only a dozen or so, but a very little will go a great way in the business, and I venture to say there is perhaps hardly a single witch in Italy who knows as many as I have published, mine having been assiduously collected from many, far and wide. Everything of the kind which is written is, moreover, often destroyed with scrupulous care by priests or penitents, or the vast number who have a superstitious fear of even being in the same house with such documents, so that I regard the rescue of the Vangelo as something which is to say the least remarkable.