Marian Green (born 1944) is a British author who has published about magic, witchcraft and the "Western Mysteries" since the early 1960s.[1]

She founded and continues to organise the Quest Conference held every year in the UK[2] and has edited the magazine Quest[3][4] since founding it in 1970.[1][5] She created the Green Circle, a network of pagans and occultists, in 1982.[2] She was previously a council member of the Pagan Federation and the editor of Pagan Dawn.

Born in London in 1944 but raised in a rural area, Green met other pagans after entering university at 29. As of 2002 she had worked in publishing for most of her career.[1]

Green rejects the idea, dominant in the period after the revival of pagan witchcraft by Gerald Gardner, that witchcraft needs to be coven-based and organised around formal initiations conferred by coven leaders.[1][6] She teaches that the old divinities can be encountered in the natural world, alone and without prescribed ritual forms.[7][8] She teaches visualisation as a means to self-transformation which will make effecting change possible: "By changing our point of view, by developing our own inner skills, each of us can learn to shape the world into the perfect planet everyone yearns for."[9][10]

Green runs residential and non-residential weekends and correspondence courses, under the aegis of The Invisible College, which she founded.[1][11] These activities are advertised in Quest.[12] She is also a frequent speaker at other venues in the UK and the Netherlands. She is the author of over twenty books.[13] Her manuals are widely used in the witchcraft community,[14] and she has been influential in the development of the solitary movement in English witchcraft.[15][16]

Select bibliography edit

  • Magic in Principle and Practice. Self-published, 1971. Quest, 2010. ISBN 9780902821033.
  • The Gentle Arts of Natural Magic: Magical Techniques to Help You Master the Crafts of the Wise. Thoth, 1987. Rev. ed. 1997. ISBN 9781870450430.
  • The Path Through the Labyrinth: The Quest for Initiation into the Western Mystery Tradition. Element, 1988. ISBN 9781852300340. Thoth, 1994. ISBN 9781870450157.
  • A Witch Alone: Thirteen Moons to Master Natural Magic. Thorsons/Aquarian, 1991, 2002. ISBN 9781855381124.
  • A Calendar of Festivals: Traditional Celebrations, Songs, Seasonal Recipes & Things to Make. Element, 1991. ISBN 9781852302047.
  • Everyday Magic: Bring the Power of Positive Magic into Your Life. Thorsons, 1995. ISBN 9781855384385.
  • Natural Witchcraft: The Timeless Arts and Crafts of the Country Witch. Thorsons, 2001. ISBN 9780007120215.
  • The Modern Magician's Handbook. Thoth, 2001. ISBN 9781870450430.
  • Practical Magic: A Book of Transformations, Spells & Mind Magic. Lorenz, 2001. ISBN 9780754807445.
  • The Book of Spells II: Over 40 Charms and Magic Spells to Increase Your Physical, Mental, and Spiritual Well-Being. Quarto/Barron's, 2001. ISBN 9780764154041.
  • Treasure of the Silver Web: A Tale of Questing for Secrets in a Land of Mists and Mysteries. New Leaf, 2012. ISBN 9781870450775.

References edit

  1. ^ a b c d e STR (2002). "Green, Marian (1949– )". In Rabinovitch, Shelley; Lewis, James R. (eds.). The Encyclopedia of Modern Witchcraft and Neo-Paganism. New York: Citadel. p. 120. ISBN 9780806524061.
  2. ^ a b Luhrmann, T. M. (1989). Persuasions of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard. p. 77. ISBN 9780674663237.; repr. London: Picador, 1994, ISBN 9780330329460.
  3. ^ The Cauldron 143, Feb. 2012, p. 56.
  4. ^ Sutcliffe, Steven (2002). Children of the New Age: A History of Spiritual Practices. Routledge. p. 28.[dead link][ISBN missing]
  5. ^ Hutton, Ronald (1999). The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. Oxford. p. 337. ISBN 9780198207443.
  6. ^ Harvey, Graham (1997). Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism. London: Hurst. pp. 50, 233. ISBN 9781850652717.
  7. ^ Hutton, pp. 337, 384.
  8. ^ Murphy-Hiscock, Arin (2006). The Way Of The Green Witch: Rituals, Spells, And Practices to Bring You Back to Nature. Avon, Massachusetts: Provenance. pp. 14–15. ISBN 9781593375003.
  9. ^ Pike, Sarah M. (2004). New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. Columbia contemporary American religion series. New York: Columbia. p. 37. ISBN 9780231124027. By changing our point of view, by developing our own inner skills.
  10. ^ Luhrmann, p. 169.
  11. ^ Green, Marian, Magic in Principle and Practice, Quest, 2010 (3rd edition), pp. 49-50.
  12. ^ Quest 169, March 2012, p. 22
  13. ^ "Books by Marian Green". Quest. Retrieved 16 July 2013.
  14. ^ Reid, Síân (1996). "As I Do Will, So Mote It Be: Magic as Metaphor in Neo-Pagan Witchcraft". In Lewis, James R. (ed.). Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press. p. 151. ISBN 9780585036502.
  15. ^ Hutton, p. 384.
  16. ^ Luhrmann, pp. 35, 36, 77.

External links edit