The Pagan and occult community is full of interesting people; writers, teachers, artists, community leaders, activists and more. Some of these folks are part of our history and some are making our history even today.

Aleister Crowley - Aleister Crowley was born Edward Alexander Crowley on October 12, 1875 in Warwickshire, England. He was trained in ceremonial magick through the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn where he took the magical name "Frater Perdurabo" (Brother I shall endure to the end) and traveled the world exploring spiritual practices everywhere he went. He explored Hindu and Buddhist practices in India and spent some time in Mexico as well where he was initiated into Freemasonry. In 1904, he traveled to Egypt on his honeymoon (his wife was Rose Edith Kelly) and there he claimed he was spoken to by an incorporeal spirit named Aiwass who dictated to him what he would later publish as The Book of the Law which would serve as the basis for Thelema his own magico-religious spiritual practice.

Austin Osman Spare - Born December 30, 1886, died May 15, 1956, Austin Osman Spare was a British artist and an occultist. His work has heavily influenced chaos magick. He practice automatic drawing and automatic writing and developed Spare's technique of creating sigils. His artistic works were surrealist and art nouveau, grotesque and heavily symbolic.

Colin Wilson - Colin Henry Wilson, was born on June 26, 1931 in Leicester, England and died on December 5, 2013 after contracting pneumonia following a stroke that he suffered as a complication from spinal surgery. He was a philosopher, critic and novelist who wrote on the subjects of crime, and the occult. His philosophy he called "new existentialism" or "phenomenological existentialism" which he detailed in his 1966 book Introduction to the New Existentialism and updated in 1983 as The New Existentialism

D.J. Conway - Deanna Conway, a prolific New Age and Occult author who wrote under the name D.J. Conway was born in Oregon in 1939. She began writing New Age non-fiction in the 1990s and released over 35 fiction and nonfiction titles and short stories and was involved in the creation of three tarot decks during her career. D.J. Conway died on February 1, 2019.

Donald Michael Kraig - Donald Micheal Kraig was born on March 28, 1951 and succumbed to pancreatic cancer on March 17, 2014. He was a ceremonial magician, occultist, writer, musician and teacher.

Isaac Bonewits - Isaac Bonewits (Born October 1, 1949 in Royal Oak, MI, Died August 12th, 2010 in Pomona, NY) was an influential member of the America Pagan community and the co-founder (with Shenain Bell) and Archdruid Emeritus of Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship and the Aquarian Anti-Defamation League, which was devoted to protecting the interests of members of minority religions. One of the elders of the Pagan community, he has been a spokesman for the community with journalists and law enforcement. He was the first person to graduate from a Western educational institution with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Magic and Thaumaturgy which he did through UC Berkeley's individual group study program in 1970.

John Michael Greer - John Micheal Greer is the current Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America and has held this position since 2002.

Judith Harrow - Judith Harrow, who was often called Judy, was born in the Bronx on March 3, 1945 and passed quietly in her sleep on March 20, 2014. She was a Wiccan Priestess, a counselor and a member of the Association for Humanistic Psychology, the American Counseling Association, and the National Advisory Board of the Consultation on Multifaith Education. She served as a chair for the Covenant of the Goddess and chair emerita for the Pastoral Care and Counseling department of Cherry Hill Seminary.

King Solomon - King Solomon, was one of the great figures from the Old Testament/Torah and is also mentioned in a similar light in the Islamic Q'ran.

Lois Bourne - Lois Bourne, who used the craft name Tanith was a member and for some time the High Priestess of the Bricket Wood coven in Hartfordshire, England, the first coven established by Gerald Gardner. Ms. Bourne was a gifted psychic, a nurse, an avid scholar and author who wrote several books on the subject of witchcraft and Wicca.

Margot Adler - Margot Adler was born on April 16, 1946 in Little Rock, Arkansas and died of cancer on June 28, 2014. She was a popular radio journalist who worked with National Public Radio since 1979, beginning as a freelance reporter and eventually becoming their New York correspondent. She contributed often to the shows Morning Edition and All Things Considered. She was also a Wiccan priestess, an author and a lecturer, an elder in the Covenant of the Goddess and a member of the Unitarian Universalist faith community.

Morning Glory Zell Ravenheart - Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart was born Diana Moore in Long Beach California on May 27, 1948 and died after a long battle with cancer on May 13, 2014. She left behind her a long legacy including several projects in partnership with her husband Oberon Zell-Ravenheart. She was a priestess of his Church of All Worlds and an editor for its journal The Green Egg. They founded the Research Association to study criptids, such as mermaids and unicorns.

Oberon Zell Ravenheart - Oberon Zell-Ravenheart, also known as Otter G'Zell, was born Timothy Zell in on November 30, 1942 in St Louis, Missouri and attended Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri and did his Graduate School at Washington University in St. Louis. He married his co-wife Morning Glory Zell-Ravenheart at the Gnostic Aquarian Festival in 1973 and they continue maintain a polyamourous family known as the Ravenhearts.

Phaedra Bonewits - Phaedra Heyman Bonewits was born in Chicago, IL in 1951 and graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago with a Bachelor of Fine arts in 1978 and began studying magic and Paganism in the 1980s and was a member of Panthea, the first intentionally Pagan congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. In the 90s, she owned an occult shop in Peoria, IL with her then husband and was on the continental board of trustees of the Covenant of Unitarian Universalist Pagans from 1999-2002.


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