Witchcraft Museum May Have Home in New Orleans

ByABC News
August 4, 2000, 1:01 PM

N E W   O R L E A N S, Aug. 4 -- Crystal balls, broomsticks, black mirrors,torture devices, trident wands and pentagrams its not Halloween, an occult shop in the French Quarter or a scene from the movie The Craft.

This is the Buckland collection of witchcraft and magic. Itcontains about 500 artifacts tracing the history of witchcraft fromthe caveman era to the present and may soon be opened as a museumin New Orleans.

Raymond Buckland, author and recognized expert on witchcraft,began collecting artifacts in the mid-1900s in England, where hewas part of a coven headed by Gerald Gardner one of the firstpublished authorities on witchcraft.

Artifacts in Storage in Ohio

Buckland came to the United States in 1962 and has since writtenseveral books on the religion and related subjects.

His collection was open in New York about 20 years ago as theBuckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick. It was closed and theartifacts put in storage in Ohio when he began traveling to lectureand promote his books.

Many witches were still afraid to go public at that time, andthere really wasnt anyone to keep the museum going when I startedtraveling, said Buckland in a recent interview at a festival inNew Orleans to raise funds for the reopening of the museum.

Buckland sold his collection to Monte Plaisance, who callshimself the high priest of the Wiccan Church of Thessally in Houma.

Plaisance plans to open the Buckland collection in New Orleansunder Bucklands name when enough money is raised to purchase afacility. He said the museum may clear up common misconceptionsabout witchcraft.

The negativity we get stems from misconceptions, like that weworship the devil, said Plaisance, whose fascination withwitchcraft began at 13 following a near-death experience involvinga bicycle accident.

Trapped in a Physical Body

Most Wiccans [another name for witches] believe inreincarnation and that we are truly spiritual beings trapped in aphysical body, he said. My experience as a teenager matchedall the descriptions of what we believe happens to someone in theearly stages of the reincarnation process.