This paper presents exploratory notes from an ongoing research project which focuses on the history of occult and New Age Spirituality bookshops in Britain and aims to illuminate their function as hubs and arenas for the production and distribution of 'Rejected Knowledge' (Hanegraaff 2012) within these respective milieus during the period between the founding of John M. Watkins' esoteric bookshop in London in the mid-1890s and the rise of the Internet in the mid-1990s.
Essentially an exercise in micro-history, the presentation will center on a single individual – Wiccan High Priestess Doreen Valiente (1922-1999) – and her patronage of occult and New Age Spirituality (as well as general) booksellers between the late-1950s and mid-1980s, as reflected mainly by her notebooks, entrusted by the Doreen Valiente Foundation to Brighton's archival center – The Keep.
The data in Valiente's notebooks – which will be augmented by a few surviving letters to/from relevant booksellers – is unique in that it covers a substantial period, is available for research by non-initiates, and was produced by an initiate whose importance to the early development of Wicca and Contemporary Paganism has been highlighted by several scholars in the field (Hutton 1999; Heselton 2016; Crowley 2022).
The notebooks reveal what books and magazines Valiente sought and purchased, either for herself or for other Wiccans (Madge Worthington [1913-2005], for example), which booksellers she frequented or corresponded with to find them (in Brighton, where she lived, or in London, Leeds, Northampton, Cheltenham and Glastonbury). On occasion, we can even learn the topics of conversations and gossip she exchanged with or about the proprietors on all matters occult.
Tracing Valiente's footsteps through the forest of the British book trade can help us better understand the proliferation of new and alternative religions – and more specifically, Wicca – in western societies, as before the advent of the Internet these spiritual movements relied upon material networks of book production and distribution to communicate their message and gain adherents. Despite the increasing popularity of occult, new age and related forms of 'alternative spirituality' in western societies, especially since the 1960s, we still know relatively little about the history of the production and distribution – in the form of books and other publications – of rejected knowledge by these new religious movements. This presentation is but a step in trying to remedy the situation.
Works cited:
Crowley, Vivianne. "Doreen Valiente: Unmotherly Mother of Modern Witchcraft", in Amy Hale (ed.), Essays on Women in Western Esotericism: Beyond Seeresses and Sea Priestesses (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022), 173-199.
Hanegraaff, Wouter. Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012).
Heselton, Philip. Doreen Valiente: Witch (Doreen Valiente Foundation, 2016).
Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999).
This presentation seeks to extrapolate data and trends relating to the esoteric book trade in Britain during the latter half of the Twentieth Century via a close examination of the notebooks of Doreen Valiente. The data presented can shed light on esoteric bookselling in general as well as on the early development of Wicca more specifically, considering Valiente's important contributions to the religion during its first decades. The notebooks reveal what books Valiente sought and purchased, the bookshops she frequented in Brighton, London and Glastonbury, and even – on occasion – the topics of the conversations and gossip she exchanged with or about the proprietors. An analysis of this data – as well as supporting materials in the form of letters to/from relevant booksellers – can serve to illustrate the role of the esoteric bookshop in the production and distribution of 'Rejected Knowledge' within the occult – and more specifically, Wiccan – milieus during the period.