WAradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Godfrey Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and folklorists have disputed the existence of such a group. In the 20th century, the book was very influential in the development of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca.
WCircle Of Three is a series of young adult paperback novels by Michael Thomas Ford under the pseudonym Isobel Bird. It follows the lives of three teenage girls from different social cliques, who come together over a mutual interest in witchcraft. It was published between February 5, 2001 and March 19, 2002.
WThe Meaning of Witchcraft is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner. Gardner, known to many in the modern sense as the "Father of Wicca", based the book around his experiences with the religion of Wicca and the New Forest Coven. It was first published in 1959, only after the British Parliament repealed the Witchcraft Act of 1735, and proved to be Gardner's final book. The Wicca religion as expounded by Gardner was focused on a goddess, identified with the night sky and with wild nature, and a horned god who represented the fertilizing powers of the natural world. It was organized into covens, through which members were initiated through three ascending degrees of competence and authority and which were governed by a high priestess, supported by a high priest. More historical context to the pagan practice of Wicca can be found in the book Wicca: History, Belief, and Community in Modern Pagan Witchcraft That book discusses Wiccan life, covering how and why people convert to Wicca; its denominations; its sociological demographics; its political beliefs, particularly in terms of environmentalist issues; the impact of anti-Wiccan persecution; the transmission of Wiccan and Pagan culture; and the history of academic analysis of Wicca.
WThe Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess is a book about Neopagan beliefs and practices written by Starhawk. It was first published in 1979, with a second edition in 1989 and a third edition in 1999. It has become a classic book on Wicca, modern witchcraft, spiritual feminism, the Goddess movement, and ecofeminism. The book has been translated into German and Danish.
WWhat Witches Do is a book by Stewart Farrar, and is an eye-witness account of Wiccan practices, namely that of the Alexandrian coven run by Alex Sanders and his wife Maxine Sanders.
WThe White Goddess: a Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth is a book-length essay on the nature of poetic myth-making by author and poet Robert Graves. First published in 1948, the book is based on earlier articles published in Wales magazine; corrected, revised and enlarged editions appeared in 1948, 1952 and 1961. The White Goddess represents an approach to the study of mythology from a decidedly creative and idiosyncratic perspective. Graves proposes the existence of a European deity, the "White Goddess of Birth, Love and Death", much similar to the Mother Goddess, inspired and represented by the phases of the Moon, who lies behind the faces of the diverse goddesses of various European and pagan mythologies.
WWitchcraft Today is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner. Published in 1954, Witchcraft Today recounts Gardner's thoughts on the history and the practices of the witch-cult, and his claim to have met practising witches in 1930s England. It also deals with his theory that the Knights Templar had practised the religion, and that the belief in faeries in ancient, mediaeval and early modern Europe is due to a secretive pygmy race that lived alongside other communities. Witchcraft Today is one of the foundational texts for the religion of Wicca, along with Gardner's second book on the subject, 1959's The Meaning of Witchcraft.