Witchcraft’s Hall of Fame

This article was published in Mastermind 05,  February 2019. Purchase all issues here. 

The witches of today stand on the shoulders of rebellious women who defied social expectations and embraced life on the fringe. Their lives were often difficult, but always magical. 

Name: Patricia Crowther

Born: October 14, 1927 

Place: United Kingdom 

Profession: Wiccan High Priestess

Patricia Crowther was destined for a life of witchcraft. Her grandmother was a clairvoyant and a fortune teller. Her childhood neighbor, a palm reader, predicted she would develop clairvoyance powers, too. In 1960, she was initiated into the craft as a High Priestess, thus commencing a life dedicated to Wicca. In interviews, writings, and on A Spell of Witchcraft, the BBC radio show she presented with her husband, Crowther debunked the notion that witches are the devil’s servants. To her, witchcraft was a balm for puritanical oppression, a practice rooted in history and integrity. She outlined her beliefs in many books, including the 1981 witchcraft handbook, Lid Off the Cauldron. Crowther lived in Sheffield, in the United Kingdom, where she has formed and supported many covens. (Editor’s note: Patricia Crowther died in September 2025, aged 97)

Name: Rosaleen Norton

Birth: October 2, 1917 

Place: New Zealand 

Profession: Artist

Born during a thunderstorm, in a city at the bottom of the world – Dunedin, New Zealand – Rosaleen Norton would claim she was a witch from birth. She grew up in Australia, where she was expelled from her Christian school for her demon drawings. Perhaps taking it as an omen, Norton studied art, and her work, which depicted séances, scenes of black magic and demons with serpents for penises, scandalized the country. Police removed her art from galleries on the grounds of obscenity, and a book of her work was banned in the U.S. and some Australian states. Norton openly declared herself a witch at a time when it was illegal, and developed her own practice dedicated to the god Pan. She came to be known as “The Witch of Kings Cross,” in reference to the Sydney suburb where she resided and where, now, a plaque commemorates her life.

Name: Marjorie Cameron

Birth: April 23, 1922 

Place: United States 

Profession: Artist 

Jack Parsons had but finished a set of rituals to attract an elemental lover when Marjorie Cameron entered his life in 1946. Parsons was sure she was the woman he had invoked. They began a passionate romance, though Cameron had no interest in her partner’s occult beliefs at first. After an illness, she turned to tarot cards for answers, and when her husband was fatally wounded in a building explosion in 1952, Cameron embraced witchcraft, performing blood rituals to communicate with her beloved. She and several other practitioners formed a commune, The Children, in which they held sex magic rituals. Although her mental stability deteriorated, she soon recovered, embarking on successful careers in acting and art, and embracing Eastern spiritualities. On her death-bed, in 1995, Cameron took the Thelemic last rites, and her ashes were scattered in the Mojave Desert.