I just finished reading
Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches, written by Charles Godfrey Leland in 1899.
This one was a bit of a departure from my usual style, as I read the
PWYW PDF version (affiliate link) released by 5Realms Publishing on DriveThruRPG. For textual materials (as opposed to manga, comics, manhwa, etc.) I prefer to have a print copy, even when that costs more, but the version of the
Aradia I was looking for was a 1998 reprinting with additional contemporary commentary. Unfortunately, that particular edition is now out of print, and the copies that I found online go for about $120 USD, which was more than I was willing to pay. So, the PDF it was.
As far as the PDF itself goes...the best I can say of it is that it was adequate. I'm not sure if 5Realms Publishing is to be faulted for the recurring typos and occasional lack of indenting a new paragraph, or if they just used an old copy that had those errors in it, but while they were never so frequent as to make reading this a chore, they were irritating. Public domain documents are often shoddily reprinted by whoever's republishing them, and this was no exception, albeit not egregiously so.
As far as the contents of the book go, it purports to shine a light on a "witch religion" in Italy, one which Leland claims goes back to classical antiquity (i.e. to the Roman Empire or even earlier). Specifically, this religion holds that Diana, goddess of the moon, is in fact the creator of the universe, and her brother Lucifer, god of the sun, is also the father of her daughter, Aradia. Said daughter was later sent to Earth in mortal form to teach people who were oppressed and outcast the ways of witchcraft, calling on Diana to empower spells and charms so as to improve the quality of their own lives.
In terms of organization, the book struck me as fairly disorganized. It's a collection of spells, folktales, and Leland's own commentary. Much of what he notes is insightful (for instance, he takes great interest in how many of the invocations made to Diana actually end with the spellcaster
threatening the goddess into submission, despite also exalting her, which Leland says is indicative of the ancient roots of this particular religious tradition, since no such thing occurs in Christian prayers or Satanic diabolism). In the case of each such invocation, he reprints the Italian directly before giving an English translation.
As the Wikipedia page notes, the authenticity is the
Aradia is controversial, particularly since (I'm given to understand) several of Leland's other folklorist works have had instances of his taking liberties with the translation of the material. At the same time, this has apparently been a major source of inspiration for contemporary witchcraft religions (e.g. Wicca), albeit more so in spirit than in specifics.
