Witches' Almanac 2016

I am pleased to announce that I'll be published later this year in the Witches' Almanac 2016.

Way back in the 1970s - like High School 70s for me - it was already my habit to comb every drug-store book-rack and paperback outlet I knew of. In the occult publishing boom of that time one could just never tell when something truly strange would appear. It was on such an afternoon expedition that I first saw The Witches' Almanac. Since I was buying everything that said 'witch' on it in those days (and one didn't go broke doing it) I snapped it up. 

Originally published in a chapbook,
"Old Farmers'" style

While it was in the form of a fairly standard almanac, with calendar pages, moon-phases and limited ephemeris, the 'filler' content was very different from the Old Farmer's Americana. There were spells, short lore articles, and actual Pagan material as well. The popularly-published item was obviously aimed at the new wave of Witches and Pagans.

I was in Ohio in those High School days, and the Almanac was produced by Elizabeth Pepper (of Rhode Island and Manhattan) from 1971 until 1979. Just after that I would find myself in Providence working on my Witchcraft initiations. An eleven-year hiatus was followed by the revival of the publication by the Peppers and a well-known Providence occultist "Theitic" (who happens to be an initatory cousin of mine through our Wiccan heritage.) Elizabeth passed from the mortal world in 2005, and the new generation has continued the publication. The same publishing house has produced several volumes important to modern witchcraft scholarship, especially Leland's "Dame Darrel" material and the full scholastic study of the origins of both the "long Rede and of a specific New England tradition of the craft in "The Rede of the Wiccae"

I am proud and pleased to have been asked to contribute to this venerable publication. I'll have two articles, one on the Sacred Fire, from Sacrifice to Summoning and the other on the Celtic Nine Elements and the Spirits. The Almanacs are dated from Spring to Spring, so the current issue runs into March of 2016. The 2016 - 2017 issue will be on sale sometime midsummer of this year. Watch this space.