Did you know ... Raymond Buckland is considered to be the Father of American Wicca. He was the man responsible for bringing Wicca to the United States in 1964. He was also the founder of the Seax Tradition of Wicca and author of the very first American book on witchcraft, "Witchcraft from the Inside". By the time of his death in 2017 he had written over 60 books. In 1973 Buckland founded the first "Museum of Witchcraft and Magic" in the US. Which eventually grew to fill an entire house. A complete list of his works can be found here: https://raymondbuckland.com/id5.html Now you know ...

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July is National Indigenous History Month This is a beautiful time to celebration Indigenous Culture no matter where we are located across the globe. In America, The Truth about The Indigenous is heavy territory, but an important one. Here's an honest look: The historical truth - Population collapse: Estimates of the pre-contact Indigenous population of what's now the U.S. range widely, but by the late 1800s, disease, warfare, and displacement had reduced Native populations by somewhere between 80-95%. Most of that wasn't intentional biological warfare (though there are documented instances) — it was largely disease compounded by starvation, war, and the destruction of ways of life that let people survive and recover. - Broken treaties as policy, not accident: The U.S. government signed hundreds of treaties with tribal nations — and violated the vast majority of them, often as soon as the land in question became valuable (gold, farmland, resources). This wasn't occasional bad faith; it was close to the norm. - Forced removal: The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and events like the Trail of Tears forcibly relocated tens of thousands of people, with thousands dying along the way. This was official U.S. government policy, not rogue action. - Cultural erasure as explicit strategy: Starting in the late 1800s, the U.S. ran boarding schools with an openly stated goal — "kill the Indian, save the man." Children were forcibly removed from families, punished for speaking their languages, and often abused. This continued into the 1960s-70s in various forms. The last of these federally-run boarding schools didn't close until relatively recently, and a U.S. Department of Interior investigation only formally documented and acknowledged this history in 2022. In relation to this, the influence of the culture can be felt across the globe. North America - Smudging (burning sage, sweetgrass, cedar, or tobacco to cleanse a space or person) — widely practiced by many Plains and other Native nations, and now extremely common in mainstream "spiritual" spaces. This is one of the most appropriated practices out there — white sage specifically is also facing ecological strain from overharvesting for commercial sale. - Vision quests and sweat lodges — ceremonial practices for guidance, purification, and rites of passage, traditionally held by trained knowledge-keepers within specific nations (Lakota sweat lodges, for example, follow protocols that outsiders running "sweat lodge experiences" often don't honor). - Medicine wheel teachings — a framework mapping directions, elements, seasons, and life stages, used across many Plains nations, now popularized in wellness spaces (sometimes accurately, sometimes not). - HooDoo is a folk spiritual practice — not a religion in itself — developed by enslaved and free Black Americans, primarily in the U.S. South. It's distinct from religions like Vodou or Santería, though it shares roots with them. Hoodoo is often described as a practice people do alongside whatever religion they hold (historically, often Christianity), rather than a belief system with its own theology, deities, or church structure.