by Don Lewis
THOMAS MORTON
Thomas Morton was the first prominent European Pagan in North America. Morton was a lawyer, a writer, a prominent royalist, and a devotee of classical Paganism. Morton was also, not surprisingly, a fierce and outspoken opponent of Purtitanism.
Thomas Morton was born in Devonshire around 1578. Morton immigrated to the New World in 1618. By 1624 Morton was a leader of the Mount Wollaston colony, in what is now Massachusetts. By 1626 Morton had fallen out with Wollaston and taken over the colony, which he renamed Merrymount.
Morton’s Merrymount was run as a multicultural settlement with both European and Native American residents, featured Pagan rites dedicated to classical Deities including Venus and Bacchus, and notably an annual May Day celebration. Morton encouraged intermarriage between the Europeans and Native Americans, as well as cultural assimilation.
The Puritan settlers were deeply upset by the goings on at Merrymount, which they regarded as expressly Pagan, and their condemnations accuse Morton of worshipping a number of classical Deities and of promoting drinking and sexual license.
In June of 1628 Puritan forces under Miles Standish attacked and captured Merrymount, chopped down it’s Maypole, and arrested Morton on the charge of selling guns to Native Americans. Morton was marooned on the Isles of Shoals, off New Hampshire, until he could be deported back to England. Meanwhile the Puritans renamed Merrymount as “Mount Dagan”, ultimately burning it to the ground the following year. The area that was once Merrymount is today Quincy, Massachusetts.
Deported to England, Morton began a lawsuit against the Massachusetts Bay Company, and garnered considerable support. The Massachusetts Bay Company held the charter for the Massachusetts Bay colony. In 1635 Morton won his lawsuit and the colony’s charter was revoked.
Morton would go on to rebuke the New England Puritans in his threebook series New English Canaan in which he compared the behavior of the Puritans to the biblical slaughter of the Canaanites.
With the beginning of the English Civil War in 1642, Morton returned to New England as the agent of the Governor of Maine, Sir Ferdinando Gorges, his longtime friend and patron. After foolishly traveling to Plymouth, Morton was arrested and imprisoned by Puritan forces. After some time Morton was released due to his advancing age and failing health, and fled to Maine where Gorges’ supporters gave him shelter. Morton died in Maine in 1647 at the age of 71.
MARGARET A. MURRAY
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent Egyptologist, Anthropologist, Folklorist, and campaigner for Women’s Rights.
Margaret Murray was born in Calcutta, India, on July 13, 1863. For most of her professional career Murray was known as an Egyptologist of high repute. She accompanied leading Egyptologist Sir William Flinders Petrie on several archeological expeditions in Egypt in the late 1800s, and was first Curator of the Egyptian Collection at the Manchester Museum in the University of Manchester, England.
As an Egyptologist Murray is most famous for the unwrapping and autopsy of the “Two Brothers” in 1908, the first interdisciplinary unwrapping of an Egyptian Mummy, which revolutionized how such things were done thereafter.
Margaret Murray published a number of books during her lifetime, the last two of which – The Genesis of Religion and her autobiography My First Hundred Years – were published when she was 100 years old.
Most of Murray’s books dealt with Egyptian or Classical archeology. However it was her three books on Witchcraft that revolutionized modern Paganism. In The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921), God of the Witches (1933), and The Divine King in England (1954) Murray popularized the idea that the Witches persecuted during Europe’s Witch Hunts were the survivors of ancient Pagan religion.
Together with the work of Charles Leland and Dion Fortune, Murray’s books popularized the idea of Witchcraft as the Old Religion, and led to the foundation of many modern covens and groups dedicated to this idea.
Margaret Murray died on November 13, 1963, at the age of one hundred years.
RT. REV. STEPHANIE NEAL
Rt. Rev. Stephanie Neal is a Correllian Arch Priestess and Elder, Head of Sacred Sea Temple, and the current First Elder of the Correllian Tradition.
Lady Stephanie is the Founder and Head of Sacred Sea Temple, established in 2006 AD.
Lady Stephanie became an initiated Correllian Priestess in 2004 AD.
She went on to be initiated as a High Priestess in 2007 AD.
Lady Stephanie was acclaimed as an Elder of the the Correllian Tradition in 2011 AD. In 2012 AD, Lady Stephanie was acclaimed First Elder of the Tradition.
In 2011 AD Lady Stephanie was made Co-Head of the Order of World Walkers under Her Eminence the Arch Priestess Lady Krystel. In 2012 AD Lady Stephanie was declared sole Head of the Order.
Lady Stephanie is also the Head of the Correllian Order of Shamans.
Lady Stephanie began her spiritual training in 1962 AD under two Root Women in Hawaii. She became an initiated Sea Priestess in 1968 AD at the age of 18.
She has taught Spiritual Counseling since 1978 AD.
In the Fellowship of Isis Lady Stephanie holds the rank of Magi.
Lady Stephanie's career has been varied and distinguished, and has included serving a Teacher, an Outreach Director, and school Principal.
Before coming to Correllianism Lady Stephanie served as the Associate Pastor of two mainstream churches, and also taught in and served as a head of a mainstream Prison Ministry.
Lady Stephanie has also worked as a Designer, Artist, and Spiritual Counselor. In the mid ‘80s Lady Stephanie was entered into the “Who's Who of American Business Women”. In the early ‘90s She was named “Teacher of the Year”.
NOSTRADAMUS
Michelle de Nostre Dame, better known as Nostradamus, is the most famous prophet of modern times. Nostradamus made his famous prophecies using a number of techniques including water-scrying and Horary Astrology.
Nostradamus was born in Provence in1503, to a wealthy Catholic family of Jewish ancestry. He grew up to be an astrologer and medical doctor an expected combination in that era.
After losing his young wife and children to the plague in 1534 Nostradamus made plague his specialty and had unusual success in its treatment. For many years he worked as an itinerant doctor, traveling wherever he was needed.
In 1547 Nostradamus married his second wife, Anne Ponsart and settled in Salon.
Beginning in 1550 Nostradamus published an annual Almanac, which included his psychic for the coming year. This proved to be immensely popular, and in 1555 he published the first part of his famous Prophecies.
The success of the Prophecies brought Nostradamus to the attention of the French royal house, and in 1556 he was summoned to Paris to meet King Henri II and Queen Marie de Medicis: the Queen asked Nostradamus to make predictions for the royal house and the royal children. Nostradamus famously and correctly predicted that three of the royal sons would become Kings.
After this Nostradamus received royal patronage from the House of Valois. When King Henri II died in 1559 in circumstances which seemed to confirm Nostradamus prediction with uncanny accuracy, the prophet's reputation was set. The Dowager Queen Marie de Medicis appointed him Physician in Ordinary in 1564, a high honor.
Nostradamus died in 1566, and the definitive edition of his Prophecies was published posthumously in 1568, by his widow and his student Chavigny.
Nostradamus' prophecies are decidedly obscure, but have been held to predict a wide range of events including the English civil war and French revolution, Napoleon and Hitler. Indeed, in WWII both the British and German propaganda departments had special subsections dedicated to interpreting and if need be manufacturing Nostradamus prophecies of their eventual victory.
GEORGE PICKINGILL
George Pickingill was a prominent English Witch born in 1816 at Hockley, Essex.
Pickingill came from a family of farm workers with a long history in the area. The Pickingill family claimed to be descended from “Julia, the Witch of Branden.” This woman supposedly lived at the time of the Norman conquest of England (1066 AD). The legend states that a Saxon Lord called Hereford the Wake retained Julia to work magic for him against the invading Normans. She failed and died during the fighting –but her descendants were said to form a line of Hereditary Witches.
During his lifetime Pickingill established a network of Temples spread throughout Essex, Hampshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk, and Sussex. These were termed the “Nine Covens.
The Nine Covens were made up of both female and male initiates, but were strongly matriarchal and were led by their Priestesses who could only be drawn from Hereditary lines.
Pickingill’s own coven was known as the “Seven Witches of Canewdon.”
Since Pickingill came from a Tradition which could only be passed from woman to man, or from man to woman, all of his immediate initiates were female, and all of their immediate initiates male.
Two initiates who are said to have come through the Nine Covens would have a far reaching impact on the future of the religion: Aleister Crowley and Dorothy Clutterbuck.
Crowley would later become the leading exponent of Ceremonial Magic, and his works are often considered seminal to modern English Wicca. Crowley did not remain long in Wicca, though he maintained a long association with several prominent Wiccans: supposedly he resented the power of the High Priestesses.
Dorothy Clutterbuck on the other hand is best known as the High Priestess who initiated the great Wiccan reformer Gerald Gardner. It is interesting to note that Gardner and his followers felt that the materials which Clutterbuck gave them were fragmentary.
Pickingill had wide-ranging connections in the Masonic and Ceremonial movements, both of which were of great importance during the latter years of his life. Pickingill is said to have been involved in the founding of the Rosicrucian Society of England and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.
Pickingill lived to be 93 years old, dying in 1909.
PLUTARCH
Plutarch was born in the city of Chaeronea around 46 AD. A leading philosopher of his time, Plutarch’s ideas are still very important in modern Pagan religion today.
Plutarch was educated at Athens, then the intellectual center of GreccoRoman civilization, and traveled widely throughout Egypt and Italy. Plutarch lectured in Rome, and also served as a Priest at the Temple of Delphi, the principle Oracle of the Greek world. But eventually returned to settle in Chaeronea, where he had been born.
Plutarch wrote many books on a variety of subjects, but is best known for Parallel Lives, a book of biographies paralleling the lives of famous Greeks and Romans. Plutarch also wrote a number of works on religion and philosophy, including volumes on the nature of Oracles, and the worship of Isis and Osiris.
For the modern Witch Plutarch’s most important work is De Superstitione, in which he discusses the differences between superstition and true religious feeling. Plutarch defined superstition as being beliefs based on fear of Deity and religion as being beliefs based upon love of Deity.
Plutarch died around 120 AD.
PYTHAGORAS
Pythagoras was a Greek philosopher and mathematician best known for formulating the Pythagorean Theorem. Among the earliest and greatest Greek philosophers, Pythagoras made many important contributions to philosophy and religious teaching in the late Sixth Century BC.
Known as the “Father of Numbers’ Pythagoras pioneered the metaphysical art of Numerology and believed that everything could be defined by Number and predicted and measured through rhythmic cycles.
Pythagoras was born around 580 BC, on the island of Samos, off the coast of Asia Minor. He was the son of Mnesarchus, a merchant of Tyrian origin who had trading interests throughout the Mediterranean world, and Parthenis, a Samian noblewoman.
Before Pythagoras’ birth the lady Parthenis consulted the Oracle of Delphi. The Oracle, or Pythia, predicted that Parthenis’ unborn child would be “of great beauty, great wisdom, and would be of great service to humankind.” Parthenis was so moved by this unexpectedly grand prophecy that she change her own name to Pythais in honor of the Pythia, and when her son was born she named him “Pythagoras” or “The Pythia has Spoken”.
Young Pythagoras was given an excellent education and is studied under several well-known philosophers of the time including Pherekydes, Thales, and Anaximander. These three teachers are particularly noted for their teaching about the nature and immortality of the Soul, and the relationship between Spirit and Matter. Anaximander is also the first recorded proponent of the idea of physical evolution, though he believed that humans descended from an aquatic ancestor.
Pythagoras is also said to have studied under Aristoclea, a Priestess and Oracle of Delphi who is the first female Greek philosopher recorded. Because of his experiences under Aristoclea’s tutelage Pythagoras and later Pythagoreans would always treat women as being equal to men –a rarity in ancient Greece.
Mnesarchus is also said to have arranged for his son to study with the Chaldean priests of his native Tyre, who were famous for their metaphysical teachings, especially dealing with Astrology. The young Pythagoras is also said to have traveled to Marseilles at one point where he met and studied with Celtic Druids.
Around 538 BC Pythagoras traveled to Egypt, which was at the time allied with Polycrates of Samos. Here he studied at the great Temple of An, or Heliopolis, an ancient center of Egyptian religious teaching. Later he studied at the Temple of Wast, or Thebes, where he was initiated as an Egyptian Priest.
In 525 BC Egypt was invaded and conquered by Cambyses II of Persia. This ended Egypt’s last native dynasty, Dynasty XXVI. Pythagoras is said to have now gone to Persia, as a prisoner of war according to some sources, and ended up studying under Persia’s Magi Priesthood.
Pythagoras eventually returned to his native Samos where he founded his first school of philosophy, called the Hemicycle. Pythagoras did not remain in Samos long however, because the island was torn with political unrest. Instead he moved on to Croton, in Southern Italy, where he settled in 520 BC and opened his famous School of Crotona.
The students at Crotona were divided between casual students or Akousmatikoi (Those who Listen) and full-time students of Mathematikoi (Those who Study). Both grades of students were open to men and women on an equal basis.
It was at Crotona that Pythagoreanism developed and synthesized the knowledge of the many systems that Pythagoras had studied as a young man. The Pythagoreans taught that the Soul was immortal and lived many lifetimes, practiced past-life regression, and placed great importance on the relationship between Spirit and Matter which they understood as Apieron (The Formless) and Pieron (The Form).
Above all the Pythagoreans used Numerology to study the nature of existence through numeric symbolism and mathematics. The Pythagoreans also encouraged vegetarianism, pacifism, and restraint in all things. As their symbol the Pythagoreans took the Pentagram, an ancient symbol long used in Egypt to symbolize magic and the spirit world, which they are said to have marked on their palms as a sign of recognition.
The Pythagoreans understood the Pentagram also in light of Anaximander’s teachings that the universe was composed of Four Elements (Air, Fire, Water, and Earth) plus a Fifth Element: Spirit. The Pythagoreans transformed the Pentagram, creating a new form of the ancient symbol, drawn with a single line to represent the unity of all things.
Pythagoras is said to have lived to around the age of one hundred, and to have died peacefully in his sleep. Pythagoras was succeeded as head of the Pythagorean School by his wife Theano.
RASPUTIN
Russian mystic Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was arguably the most politically influential psychic of the twentieth century, in that he briefly (and more or less officially) dominated the government of one of the great nations of his time.
Born in 1869 AD, Rasputin was a Starets, or wandering mystic, who rose from humble beginnings to become the confidant of Russian Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna, wife of Tsar Nicholas II. Many witnesses at the time insisted that Rasputin was a highly gifted psychic and spiritual healer, though his peasant origins and unorthodox theology (which supposedly encouraged extravagant sexual activities) earned him many enemies.
Rasputin is perhaps most famous as a psychic for divining that the hemophiliac Tsarevich Alexei, who was believed to be dying at the time, would recover if his doctors were sent away and medical treatment stopped –an improbable prediction that proved correct.
At the time it was not understood that the aspirin that the Tsarevich was being given to treat his pain was an anti-coagulant that was actually making his hemorrhaging worse. A number of other similarly striking predictions and healings are also attributed to Rasputin, many involving members of the Russian aristocracy.
Rasputin also strongly opposed Russian involvement in WWI, believing it would lead to disaster –though one didn’t have to be psychic to see that. Rasputin was assassinated on 29 December, 1916, by a cabal or aristocrats who supposedly resented a peasant having so much influence over the imperial government –though recent theories suggest that Rasputin’s anti-war stance may have actually been the motivating factor, and that the assassination may have been backed by or even assisted by the British government in order to keep Russia in the war.
Rasputin famously predicted that if he died peacefully the Romanov dynasty would survive for a thousand years, but if he died by violence the dynasty would fall and the Tsar’s immediate family would be dead within twelve months –which is exactly what happened.
ALEX SANDERS
Alex Sanders was born Alexander Carter, on June 6, 1926. Alex Sanders was son of entertainer Harold Carter who subsequently changed his family’s name to Sanders.
Sanders’ grandmother Mary Bibby was a Witch, who supposedly initiated the boy into Witchcraft at the age of seven when he caught her at ritual. Though many have questioned the veracity of this claim, Maxine Sanders affirms that Mary Bibby did in fact practice a form of Witchcraft and that psychic and magical practices were common occurrences at her home.
Sanders was a gifted psychic and spiritual healer. From his grandmother Sanders learned how to scry using ink-in-water and crystal gazing techniques. Sanders also practiced spiritual healing by laying on of hands and other methods. For a time Sanders practiced spiritual healing through the Spiritualist Church, using the name Paul Dallas.
Whatever Sanders may have learned from his grandmother, he augmented his knowledge of Witchcraft with Gardnerian ideas after studying with and being initiated into a Gardnerian coven in 1963, and these strongly influenced the Alexandrian Tradition that he founded. By 1965 Sanders claimed to lead 100 Alexandrian covens, who gave him the title “King of the Witches” as head of their Tradition.
In 1965 Sanders was handfasted to Maxine Morris Sanders, whom he legally married in 1968. Maxine was Sanders’ second wife. Alex and Maxine had two children, Maya born in 1968, and Victor born in 1972. Although they formally separated in 1973, Alex and Maxine’s relationship would continue until his death in 1988.
Among Sanders most famous initiates were Stewart and Janet Farrar, both initiated in 1970, who would do a great deal to popularize Alexandrian Witchcraft.
Like Gardner, Sanders avidly courted publicity and was anything but secretive about his Witchcraft. Sanders was featured in dozens of newspaper articles, and in the film “Legend of the Witches” (1969). Sanders wrote no books of his own, but was featured in King of the Witches (1969) by June Johns and What Witches Do (1971) by Stewart Farrar.
Alex Sanders died on May Eve of 1988.
SILVER RAVENWOLF
One of the most popular of all Pagan authors, as well as one of the most controversial, Silver RavenWolf has authored seventeen books on Witchcraft and magic.
Born September 11, 1956, as Jenine Trayer, Lady Silver was first known in the Pagan community as SilverRaven the artist and Lady RavenWolf the High Priestess, later merging these two names to become Silver RavenWolf.
It was as an artist that Lady Silver first became famous, later founding the Wiccan/Pagan Press Alliance as a forum for Pagan publishers and editors to share resources and experiences, and finally rising to prominence as an author. Lady Silver has also been an activist in Wiccan antidiscrimination issues.
The unprecedented popularity of Lady Silver’s books was due to their accessibility and straightforward manner. Unfortunately the very popularity Lady Silver achieved, led to a backlash against her works in some quarters.
Lady Silver trained as a Priestess of the Serpent Stone Family, achieving her Third Degree initiation through them. Later Lady Silver founded the Black Forest Tradition, with covens throughout the US and Canada. Lady Silver is also a practitioner of Pow Wow, a form of German folk Witchcraft.
Lady Silver currently resides in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania. She is married and has four children.
Lady Silver has also written several novels.
Some of Silver RavenWolf’s many books include: To Ride a Silver Broomstick (2002): TeenWitch! (2003): HedgeWitch (2008)