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Neopagan witchcraft
Patricia Crowther (born 14 October 1927) who also goes by the craft name Thelema, is a British occultist considered influential in the early promotion of the Wiccan religion[1] and she is the mother of the witch or wiccan runes.[2]
Crowther was born in Sheffield in 1927, then as Patricia Dawson. She was initiated into Witchcraft by fellow well-known Wiccan Gerald Gardner.[citation needed] Her handfasting to husband Arnold Crowther (1909–1974)[3] took place in 1960.[4]
Along with like Doreen Valiente, Lois Bourne, and Eleanor Bone, Crowther is considered[5] to be one of the "early mothers" of modern Wicca. Patricia and her then-husband, Arnold Crowther, founded the Sheffield Coven in 1961, of which they were High Priestess and High Priest.[3] Crowther has promoted Witchcraft through a number of book publications, contributions to occult magazines and journals, and through a number of interviews with local and national newspapers. She has also appeared several times on television.
In 1971, both Patricia and her then-husband Arnold wrote and presented A Spell of Witchcraft, a radio programme produced and broadcast by BBC Radio Sheffield in six 20-minute parts. The radio programme, the first of its kind in relation to modern Witchcraft as a religion, explored the history and folklore of Witchcraft and presented elements of a local coven's activities and practices within the community.[6]
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