Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia
book by Lynne Hume
Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia is an anthropological study of the Wiccan and wider Pagan community in Australia. It was written by the Australian anthropologist Lynne Hume and first published in 1997 by Melbourne University Press.
Hume first encountered the Pagan movement in Canada, before beginning to explore Pagan groups in her native Australia.
Background
Academic fieldwork into Paganism
Prior to Magliocco's work, multiple American researchers working in the field of Pagan studies had separately published investigations of the Pagan community in both the United States and the United Kingdom. The first of these had been the practising Wiccan, journalist and political activist Margot Adler in her Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers, and Other Pagans in America Today, which was first published by Viking Press in 1979. A second study was produced by the anthropologist Tanya M. Luhrmann in her Persuasions of the Witches' Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England (1989), in which she focused on both a Wiccan coven and several ceremonial magic orders that were then operating in London. This was followed by the sociologist Loretta Orion's Never Again the Burning Times: Paganism Revisited (1995), which focused on Pagan communities on the American East Coast and Midwest.
Hume and her research
Lynne Hume had been born and raised into the Christian faith but maintained an interest in non-Christian beliefs and societies, becoming a religious pluralist and leading her to study the discipline of anthropology. Hume was introduced to the Pagan movement while in Canada during the early 1990s. Attending a Unitarian church in Calgary, it was here that a group of Wiccans had been invited to give a talk on their magico-religious practices during a Sunday morning service.
“Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia” enters the record as book by Lynne Hume. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Witchcraft, Paganism and Australia can confirm, complicate or overturn.
Why this record matters
“Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Witchcraft, Paganism and Australia provides the most credible route into that argument.
Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q8027898. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1997, 1979, 1989 and 1995.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.
- Identifying works and editions
- Tracing reception history
- Finding collection records
The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia primary sources, Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia archive and Witchcraft research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia”?
- Where is authorship, date or provenance documented?
- How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Witchcraft and Paganism in Australia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.