Book Discussion Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches - Charles Godfrey Leland (1899)

[Lucid]

Search online if the title is unfamiliar to you as I only know of it in passing. I have found it on sites such as the Internet Archive in the .pdf format as well as the site Sacred Texts as Hypertext but will refrain from posting the links in accordance to the rules.

I am confused on how to approach the topic since I know so little about it yet am interested in reading and understanding it as a story.
That is just the thing however, am I to see Aradia as a Witch Messiah? Or a Historical Practitioner of Dianic Magic?
The origins of the myth are guarded in obscurity and mystery; So among scholars it is assumed that Leland himself came up with the story, but I believe this may hold some truth not as an exact historic record of the past but as another oracular tale that may have been lost if it had not been recorded.

 

[Ben Gruagach]

There is a lot of scholarly controversy around whether the mythology presented in Leland's "Aradia" is genuine, existing at all (or not!) prior to Leland's book. Along with that is the big question of whether Italian or any other witch group at that time or before had or used any sort of "bible" for their practices. We do have all sorts of clear proof that practitioners kept their own grimoires or magical journals but these were unique items that were specific to the practitioner who wrote it. No two books were the identical because they were individual notebooks or journals rather than some sort of "bible."

Leland got his material for "Aradia" from a witch he had befriended in Italy who he referred to as Maddalena. She was subsequently identified as a woman named Margherita Taluti. Maddalena was clearly a practitioner and provided what are undoubtedly genuine bits of spells, folklore and mythology to Leland for use in his books. However, it does appear that she (or Leland) conveniently produced the whole Diana and her daughter Aradia material along with the whole "bible" claim. It's likely that Leland assumed there had to be a "witches' bible" and repeatedly asked Maddalena about it so to oblige she provided something that would believably pass as one.

According to the 2010 edition of "Aradia" published by the Witches' Almanac, originally Leland's "Aradia" was mostly ignored and forgotten until UK author Theda Kenyon talked about it in her 1929 book "Witches Still Live" which was popular at that time in the UK. Gerald Gardner read Kenyon's book (as did Doreen Valiente), which prompted them to find and read copies of Leland's "Aradia", and as was his habit Gardner absorbed it into his material which he then later presented to the world as "the British witch cult" which we now call Wicca.

One of the key ritual bits of text in Wicca, "The Charge of the Goddess," includes parts clearly borrowed from Leland's "Aradia".

I expect if it weren't for Gerald Gardner and modern Wicca, Leland's "Aradia" would have stayed forgotten and largely ignored by the modern witch community.

Post automatically merged: Dec 10, 2025

Lucid, you are also right that "Aradia", particularly the goddess with that name, is basically a witch messiah goddess. The book "Aradia" is filled with statements that She has come to lead the downtrodden in a movement against their oppressors. Many witches today seek out the goddess Aradia specifically for assistance in seeking justice or retribution, or at least as an empowering goddess who champions the marginalized.