Episode 82 - Melissa Seims - The Coven of Atho

My guest for this episode is author and magical practitioner Melissa Seims, who joined me talk about her new book Here be Magick: The People and Practices of the Coven of Atho, which tells an unusual story set in the early post-war years of the UK, a period that was an interesting time in the history of witchcraft in the country as changes in legislation had allowed people to explore their interest in the occult more freely. Some began searching for evidence of pagan traditions that had survived into modern times and this would ultimately lead to the emergence of 'Wicca' in 1954, a movement championed by a retired civil servant named Gerald Gardner.

Here be Magick however focuses on the lives of Charles Cardell, the son of an internationally famous Victorian stage magician and Ray Howard, an unusual character who claimed to have been bequeathed a mysterious artefact called the ‘Head of Atho’ a striking wooden altarpiece featuring an array of occult symbols and purported be thousands of years old.

The idea of the coven itself has a somewhat confusing origin but seems to have been born out of the relationship between Cardell and Howard, which started well but ended acrimoniously with accusations of witchcraft and a messy High Court libel case.

In the interview I talk with Melissa about how her own interest in magic and witchcraft began, and then we move on to discuss how she progressed from first writing about the Coven in a 2007 article onto researching and writing about the people and events who together make up the story of the Coven of Atho in much more detail.

For more of Melissa's writing and to get a copy of Here be Magick, go to https://www.thewica.co.uk/.

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