The Evolution of Stregheria Into a Neopagan Religion

Pagan religions have been around since ancient times. We see evidence of paganism from the Egyptians, to the Greeks, and the Romans. But what does “Paganism” mean? It is defined as a (non-Christian or pre-Christian) religion other than one of the main world religions. Though, that was not always its definition. According to, historian, Vincent Bridges (2004), the Romans thought “a pagan was literally a “country bumpkin” or rural person… Their worship was not that of the civic priesthood…, but that of 'the Old Time Religion,' the ancient preliterate nature worship surviving as folk, and therefore distinctly rural, tradition with both ecstatic and shamanic elements.

” However, some of these religions were forgotten or pushed into secrecy due to the growing popularity of Christianity. In recent years, these religions have been making a comeback by those who wished to reclaim them. “Neopagan” refers to any modern religion that draw for pagan religions. Nevertheless, many members of these religions call themselves “pagans”. The term, neopagan, is used to distinguish the difference between the newer versions of these religions from the originals because many aspects of these religions are lost.

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Therefore, many of the leaders of the neopagan movement have had to borrow and replace what is missing from other pagan religions. One of these neopagan religions is Stregheria (Italian American Witchcraft). According to the literature, scholars are in an agreement that Italian Americans who view themselves as streghe or witches that grew up with families who preserved certain traditions from the ancient or old-world version of Stregheria and that through this “folklore reclamation”, led to Stregheria and its rebirth in the modern era of the neopagan movement.

Stregheria is just one of the variations of “Neopagan Witchcraft to have emerged in the United States during the late 20th century” (Magliocco 2005a, 55). Though, Francesca Ciancimino Howell, an independent scholar, calls it by a different word. Howell (2008) states that “Stregoneria is the historical tradition which extends throughout Italy of long-held and taught folk practices such as healing, increasing fertility, of protection in various forms, etc. (It frequently exhibits syncretism with Christianity, calling upon local saints to aid in rituals that hold a great deal of similarity to Pagan spellcraft.)” (9). The reason behind this because Stregoneria is the modern term for the word, witch, and it is related to the religion in Italy while Stregheria is practiced in North America. I will be focusing on Stregheria in this essay.

According to the Anthropologist, Sabina Magliocco (2005a), “Like other forms of revival Witchcraft, Stregheria has based on the premise that witchcraft was an ancient pre-Christian religion based on the natural cycle of the seasons and the worship of a goddess, that survived in the folklore of European peasants” (55). Even the structure of Stregheria is akin to other neopagan religions, including Wicca. Some of these similarities include, “members worship in small groups led by a priestess and priest; the divine is perceived as having both feminine and masculine aspects; worship is centered on ecstatic union with the deities; magic is a fundamental part of worship; and meetings take place on full moons, solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter days -- the days that fall roughly between each solstice and equinox” (55). However, “Wicca refers only to British traditional Craft as presented by Gerald B. Gardner and his followers” (56).

One of the most important sources toward the development of Stregheria is Aradia, or The Gospel of the Witches (1889), written by amateur folklorist Charles G. Leland. The Gospel of the Witches “is a collection of spells, rhymes and legends which Leland claimed to have collected from a Florentine fortune-teller whom he called “Maddalena”” (Magliocco 2005a, 56). In addition:

“According to Leland, Maddalena belonged to a family of witches who practiced a form of pagan religion centered on the worship of the moon goddess Diana and her consort, Lucifer. Lucifer, whose name means “bearer of light,” is not the conventional Christian devil in this narrative, but both the brother and lover of Diana. Together, they have a daughter, Aradia, who descends to earth to teach the peasants to resist the tyranny of their oppressors through sorcery. Through Aradia, Diana instructs the witches to gather in the woods when the moon is full and hold a witches’ supper of moon-shaped cakes made of meal, salt, and honey. There, they feast, sing, and, as a sign that they are free from the restrictions of social class, dance naked in the worship of Diana” (Magliocco 2005a, 56).

Leland’s book also contains a number of spells to request Diana’s help or to remove evil magic such as the evil eye. According to Magliocco (2005a), “these spells emphasize a clientelistic relationship between Diana and her followers: the deity is threatened if she does not help fulfill the supplicant’s prayers” (56). Magliocco also states that is maybe be “shocking to contemporary Pagans” because of their preference for a more equal relationship with their deities, this is not the case for 19th-century Italian peasants (56). Magliocco (2005a) and the historian Rudolph J. Vecoli (1977), reported that statues of saints or other patrons would be brought out to perform miracles (i.e. bring rain during the dry season), but if no miracles were found, the statues would be punished.

“Because nothing quite like it has ever been documented by Italian ethnologists, it was widely believed to be a fake. Leland was suspected of having invented it himself, and some even supposed that Maddalena was another of Leland’s fabrications. Those who were willing to accept her existence believed that she had concocted material to satisfy her patron’s peculiar interests and tastes, as Leland never hid the fact that he paid her for information” (58)

Despite the controversies, The Gospel of the Witches is still considered to be “one of the most important texts of the witchcraft revival movement” (Magliocco 2005a, 58). The significance of “its contributions to modern Neopagan Witchcraft include specific practices (full moon meetings, the goddess name of Aradia; the practice of naked worship, adopted by Gardnerian and other British Traditional Craft; and the Charge of the Goddess, later rewritten by Doreen Valiente), as well as the concept of witchcraft as a form of peasant resistance and cultural critique” (58). As stated by Magliocco (2005ba):

“For Italian American Neopagans, the most important contribution of Leland’s Aradia is its location of an ancient goddess-worshipping religion in the heart of Italy. Its inclusion of a number of items of folklore drawn directly from the Italian tradition – for example, spells against the evil eye, the blessing of the flour before making bread, and children’s rhymes – allowed Italian Americans who read it to interpret their own family traditions as part of an ancient pagan religion, a form of goddess worship and a tactic of resistance against the church and state oppression. As Neopagan Witchcraft diffused throughout North America during the 1960s and 70s, Italian Americans began to reclaim and rework Leland’s material” (58-59).

There have been quite a few authors who claim to practice Stregheria. According to Magliocco (2005a), “one of the first authors to openly identify as an Italian American Witch was Leo Louis Martello. A first-generation Sicilian American, he wrote several esoteric books…in which he recounted how he was initiated into a family tradition of witchcraft upon reaching puberty and sworn to secrecy by means of a blood oath” (59). In addition, “while the secret nature of his family magical practice made it impossible for him to reveal all its characteristics, he described it as a remnant of Sicily’s cult of Demeter and Persephone, preserved under the guise of Marian worship in the Catholic Church” (59). To explain further, Martello is stating that Streghe uses the image of the Virgin Mary in order to hide their practice of worshiping the goddess. It is even noted by Carole M. Cusack, a historian on religion, that “Christianity kept alive the flame of the Goddess through the Virgin Mary” (346).

“Martello’s work influenced a number of other Italian American spiritual practitioners, among them Lori Bruno, who grew up in a New York Italian neighborhood in the 1940s and 50s. Bruno believes she is descended from relatives of apostate monk Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake for heresy in 1600 and counts among her ancestors a healer executed in Catania for lancing the swellings of patients afflicted with bubonic plague. Bruno’s mother and grandmother practiced midwifery, herbal healing, the removal of the evil eye, the cutting away of illness using a special knife, and divination. As in many Italian families, healing prayers and techniques were secret and transmitted only to other family members. When Lori came of age, she inherited the tradition from her mother and grandmother” (Magliocco 2005a, 60).

Eventually, “Martello and Bruno co-founded the earliest known Italian American coven in the United States: the Trinacrian Rose coven of New York City” (Magliocco 2005a, 60). Furthermore, this a coven that is open to outsiders as well as Italian Americans as long as you have a connection to Stregheria (60).

Another key figure and “the creator of what today is called Stregheria is Raven Grimassi” (Magliocco 2005a, 60). Grimassi’s mother “belonged to a family whose members practiced a number of magical traditions, including the removal of the evil eye, the making of medicinal liqueurs and oils, and divination. She was also a teller of tales and legends, some of which she passed on to her son” (60-61).