“Cecil Hugh Williamson (1909-1999) is, I believe, one of the great unsung heroes of the twilight world of folklore and witchcraft. He is probably best known for founding the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Boscastle, North Cornwall, which he ran up until midnight on All Hallows Eve 1996; three years before his passing over in to the spirit world. Unbeknown to many however, this was just part of a colourful and magical career that spanned most of the 20th century. This included working in a Rhodesian tobacco plantation, the pre-war film industry, the British secret services and, most importantly, devoting his life to the study of traditional witchcraft”.

Steve Patterson

In 1996, whilst helping the then new owner Graham King in refurbishments to the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, Steve happened upon a handwritten manuscript entitled simply ‘Witchcraft’ and containing an intriguing pot-pourri of esoterica from the hand of the Museum’s founder; Cecil Williamson.

It is this manuscript which provides the basis for Steve’s book which includes a full annotated transcript of the ‘Witchcraft’ manuscript, a history of Cecil Williamson and the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic, a treatise on Cecil Williamson’s vision of traditional Witchcraft – the practices and the philosophy of the wayside witches, an account of his meetings with Aleister Crowley and Gerald Gardner……….

In The Canticles of Lilith we meet a power that adorns herself in absence, whose true persuasion consist in the cult of reverence and self-deification where this terrible, amoral force finds its apotheosis as the stellar and cosmic root of movement in itself and from this the shadow of all things visible and tangible. Raphael Patai pointed out the remarkable spiritual evolution of Lilith, how she went from being a malevolent storm goddess and a failure in the eyes of Adam, to the bride of Samael, the Queen of Zemargad and Sheba, this she-demon rising to be the consort and secret word at par with God in the Kabbalistic age.

The Canticles of Lilith is focused in following the Lilithian theme with a focus on her ‘atmosphere’ or ‘constellation’ where she is analysed as a vampiric spirit, a Satanic muse, the witch-mother and the very vibrant and erotic word of creation, the holy spirit herself. This wide web of Lilithian analysis gives way for her cosmic dimensions and her various manifestations astrologically, Luciferian, Satanic, as a spirit of illness and of the erotic…….