{"id":495,"date":"2017-02-10T21:01:57","date_gmt":"2017-02-11T01:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/poisonersapothecary\/?p=495"},"modified":"2017-02-10T21:01:57","modified_gmt":"2017-02-11T01:01:57","slug":"nigel-pennick-recognizing-contribution-traditional-witchcraft-studies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/poisonersapothecary\/2017\/02\/10\/nigel-pennick-recognizing-contribution-traditional-witchcraft-studies\/","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Pennick, Recognizing His Contribution to Traditional Witchcraft Studies"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><head><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><meta http-equiv=\"content-type\" content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\"><\/head><body><p><strong><em>A Typical Academic Occultist, Pennick has varying areas of expertise<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>British writer Nigel Campbell Pennick was born in Guilford, Surrey, England in 1946.\u00a0 Over the years as an artist and illustrator, he has worked in many mediums in addition to the medium of writing.\u00a0 growing up in England surrounded by its magical history provided Pennick with first hand insight into the folkloric practices of Great Britain.\u00a0 As an author, he has published over 50 titles in English and German; many of them written about magic, Pagan Religion, and traditional witchcraft practices.\u00a0 <em>Some of his most influential and unique works are Pagan Magic of the Northern Tradition, Natural Magic, The Eldritch World, Operative Witchcraft, and Secrets of East Anglican Magic.\u00a0<\/em> These are just a few of his titles that would be of interest to the student of traditional witchcraft practices.\u00a0 Pennick has also co-written with many others on similar topics.<\/p>\n<p>The Institute of Geomantic Research and most notably, the Library of the European Tradition, which published new research in the fields of geomancy and folklore.\u00a0 The library contains rare archival material from the 19th and 20th centuries.\u00a0 It provides a great resource for others continuing research in the field of folklore.\u00a0 Pennick was also one of the first to influence the idea of <em>traditional witchcraft<\/em> as non-wiccan, pre-modern presenting it as the first time as the \u201cNameless Art.\u201d\u00a0 In this context he refers to the traditional folk practices existing throughout Great Britain, forming an oral tradition, which differentiates from the initiatory traditions of <em>British Traditional Witchcraft<\/em> as presented by Gerald Gardner.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_498\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-498\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-498\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/713\/2017\/02\/pennick.jpg\" alt=\"Natural Magic by Nigel Pennick. Photo by Coby Michael.\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-498\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Natural Magic by Nigel Pennick. Photo by Coby Michael.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><em><strong>Pennick grew up surrounded by the influences of Enlglish folk magic<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Growing up in England, Pennick experienced first hand the prominence of folklore and magical thinking in Great Britain.\u00a0 With the repeal of the anti-witchcraft law in 1951, people could be more open about their practices.\u00a0 Christianization came later to parts of northern Europe and the United Kingdom, which allowed traditions based on Pagan practices to continue much longer.\u00a0 Later, Pennick was able to travel to other parts of northern and central Europe in an effort to gather information from other societies that were predominantly Anglo-Saxon.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, his work doesn\u2019t get the recognition that it deserves.\u00a0 He is not a mainstream writer producing work for a large publishing company.\u00a0 He is one of those\u00a0authors that you\u00a0don\u2019t come across until you done some in depth reading.\u00a0 You will begin to notice\u00a0how often his works are cited in the reference pages of many other\u00a0publications written by other authors.\u00a0 His writing\u00a0set the precedent for the conversation about modern traditional witchcraft practices based on the historical practices of\u00a0their European ancestors.\u00a0 Pennick focuses mainly on the historical practices indigenous to Pagan Europe.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_499\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-499\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-499\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/713\/2017\/02\/pennick-3.jpg\" alt=\"Excerpt from Natural Magic, Photo by Coby Michael.\" width=\"600\" height=\"450\"><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-499\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Excerpt from Natural Magic, Photo by Coby Michael.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong><em>Natural Magic, A Practical Guide<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>This book, published in 2001, is already over fifteen years old.\u00a0 It is a well rounded introduction to the practice of \u201clow\u201d magic, working with the subtle forces of the natural world, the elements and the celestial bodies.\u00a0 This is a slim, but grand introductory book that presents the usual categories of basic magical practice, however his discussions are based on pre-modern practices and historical traditions presented without the bias of Wiccan religion or neo-paganism.\u00a0 This book is a great starting point for beginning one\u2019s magical practice or foray into magical studies.\u00a0 The unassuming title and back cover make it sound like just another 101 book, but the information presented is not based on any particular theology, allowing the student to begin practicing without feeling obligated to dedicate oneself to a particular deity.<\/p>\n<p>You can find many of Pennick\u2019s titles for sale: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/s\/?ie=UTF8&amp;keywords=pennick+nigel&amp;tag=mh0b-20&amp;index=stripbooks&amp;hvadid=3482615380&amp;hvqmt=b&amp;hvbmt=bb&amp;hvdev=c&amp;ref=pd_sl_4ari9l5zbe_b\" class=\" decorated-link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">Here<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Typical Academic Occultist, Pennick has varying areas of expertise British writer Nigel Campbell Pennick was born in Guilford, Surrey, England in 1946.\u00a0 Over the years as an artist and illustrator, he has worked in many mediums in addition to the medium of writing.\u00a0 growing up in England surrounded by its magical history provided Pennick [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2804,"featured_media":498,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,71,74,9],"tags":[66,87,96,10,25],"class_list":["post-495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-magic-and-witchcraft-in-history","category-paganism","category-recommended-reading","category-traditionalwitchcraft","tag-academic-occultism","tag-historical-witchcraft","tag-natural-magic","tag-traditional-witchcraft","tag-witchcraft"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Nigel Pennick, Recognizing His Contribution to Traditional Witchcraft Studies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Nigel Pennick has written multiple books and essays based on his personal research into the Pagan practices of pre-modern Europe.\" 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