The Creation of “Traditional Witchcraft”

Since the early 1990s, increasing numbers of occultists have come to identify as practitioners of “Traditional Witchcraft”, “Traditional Craft”, or “Old Craft”. This article maps out this milieu, outlining the existence of both its modern Pagan and Luciferian components and in doing so demonstrating...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Aries
Main Author: White, Ethan Doyle (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
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Published: Brill 2018
In: Aries
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Occultism / Belief in witches / Satanism / Neopaganism
IxTheo Classification:AG Religious life; material religion
AZ New religious movements
Further subjects:B Traditional Witchcraft Witchcraft Wicca Luciferianism Paganism folk magic legitimacy occultism
Online Access: Volltext (Verlag)
Description
Summary:Since the early 1990s, increasing numbers of occultists have come to identify as practitioners of “Traditional Witchcraft”, “Traditional Craft”, or “Old Craft”. This article maps out this milieu, outlining the existence of both its modern Pagan and Luciferian components and in doing so demonstrating that the term lacks precision for etic scholarly purposes. It follows this by exploring what purpose this term actually serves, examining both its historical development and its contemporary usages to illustrate how it represents a form of rhetorical self-identification adopted by occultists seeking to retain the label of “Witchcraft” while evading associations with “Wicca” and at the same time functioning as a legitimation strategy by foregrounding the inheritance of “tradition”.
ISSN:1570-0593
Contains:In: Aries
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1163/15700593-01802002