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Patricia Crowther (1927 -)

Written and compiled by George Knowles.  

One of the last remaining High Priestesses initiated by "Gerald B. Gardner".  Since her initiation by Gardner in 1960, Patricia Crowley has worked steadfastly to promote the Old Religion through her books, media interviews, and lecture appearances.  She is considered by many to be Gardner’s spiritual heir, and has formed many flourishing covens throughout the United Kingdom.

Patricia Crowther was born Patricia Dawson on the 27 October 1927, in Sheffield, England.  The Dawson’s lived next door to palmist “Madame Melba”, who predicted that Patricia would later develop great clairvoyancy powers and follow in the foot steps of her great-grand mother, who had been a herbalist, clairvoyant, and fortuneteller.  From an early age Patricia often identified herself with fairies and the craft, dressing up as a fairy for fancy-dress parties and playing the role in school activities.  At an early birthday party she was presented with a gold snake bangle, symbolic of wisdom, life, and death.

Patricia was keenly interested in acting, singing and dancing, and as she progressed through school, she performed in pantomimes as Robin Hood, and was chosen to be the leading lady in a special revue, which featured a tableau entitled “The Legend of the Moon Goddess”.  After leaving school she took up a career in Cabaret and toured all over the United Kingdom, singing and dancing, and acting on stage.

While performing at one venue in her late twenties, Patricia went to see a hypnotist who regressed her back to previous lives, including one as a witch called “Polly”.  The year was approximately 1670 and Polly was an old crone of about 66 years old.  She lived in a little hut with a cat, a frog, a goat and hen, and worked spells for the local people most of whom she held in contempt.  During the regression, Polly recited a number of spells in rhyme with instructions on how to use them.  Patricia at the time had no knowledge of any such spells, which experts later determined to be authentic.  After her experience with the hypnotist, Patricia had a number of clairvoyant visions from another past life, one in which she served as a priestess of a Goddess who had great power.  She identified much more strongly with this spiritual priestess than she did with the old crone.

In 1954 while playing at a theater in Birmingham, Patricia went to see a fortuneteller who predicted that she would meet her future husband, two years later over water, and his name would be Arnold.  Patricia thought no more of it, but two years later in 1956 she accepted a summer job to appear in a show on the Isle of White.  While on a flight crossing the Solent (a channel between the coast of Hampshire, England and the Isle of White) she met a stage magician and ventriloquist called “Arnold Crowther”.  He was appearing in the same show as she and soon romance blossomed between them.  Discovering her interest in witchcraft, Crowther offered to introduce her to “Gerald B. Gardner”, a personal friend since 1939.  Gardner incidentally had predicted some years earlier, that Crowther would eventually meet “a fair haired women who would initiate him into the craft”.

After several meetings with him, Gardner initiated Patricia into the craft on the 6^th of June 1960.  The ceremony took place in his private temple on the top floor of the barn at his home in Castletown on the Isle of Man.  During the initiation rite, Patricia had a profound and powerful trance experience.  She saw herself being reborn and initiated as a priestess of a Moon Goddess, whose initiation rite consisted of a line of howling naked women who passed her gauntlet-style through their spread legs.  Gardner explained it, that she, while in trance, had reverted back to a past life and relived an ancient initiation.  After the rite, Patricia in turn initiated Arnold Crowther, fulfilling the predication Gardner had made years earlier.  Gardner then presented them with a gift of ritual tools and jewelry, including a coral necklace for Patricia.

Later that year on the 8^th November 1960, Arnold Crowther and Patricia Dawson were married in a private handfasting ceremony officiated by Gerald Gardner.  The ceremony was performed skyclad (nude) inside a circle strewn with flowers were they danced, sang and jumped the broom in accordance with tradition.  The following day they were remarried in a civil ceremony, which was publicized in the national tabloids.  After the wedding the Crowthers returned to Sheffield were they established their home.  Both took their second-degree initiation on the 11^th October 1961, and on the 27^th her birthday, Patricia became high priestess.

The media ever looking for interviews often turned to the Crowthers for comments, as minor celebrities connected with the entertainment world, they quickly became known as authoritative spokespersons for the craft.  By December 1961 they had started to build their own coven in Sheffield, while continuing their instruction in the craft with Gardner.  Patricia had also started a correspondence with an old woman called Jean in Inverness, she had seen Patricia giving an interview on television and had written to her.  She told Patricia that she thought her worthy of inheriting secret knowledge, and over the course of two years via correspondence, taught Patricia the secrets of an old inner tradition.

The Crowthers were a popular couple and media exposure generated more and more requests for interviews and speaking engagements.  Together they authored two books, “The Witches Speak” (1965 and 1976) and “The Secrets of Ancient Witchcraft” (1974).  In 1971, for BBC Radio Sheffield, they produced “A spell of Witchcraft”, the first Radio series in Britain on Witchcraft.  While performing numerous craft services for those who would ask for help, including spell casting and exorcising ghosts and spirits, they also wrote seasonal rituals and introduced new music and poetry into the craft.

After the death of her husband on the 1^st May 1974, Patricia Crowther unstintingly continued to work for the betterment of the craft.  She is a frequent guest on radio talk shows, appears regularly on television, and gives lectures up and down the country.  She works hard at dispelling the many misconceptions surrounding the Craft and the Old Religion, and with her cool self-assurance and sense of humour, she is unhesitant when answering religious bigots and critics.  In 1978 she represented the United Kingdom at an international conference on the occult, held in Barcelona.

After her 70^th birthday while meditating in a circle, Patricia received clairaudient guidance that she should call herself a “Grand-Mother of the Craft of the Wise”.  She emphasizes that the craft concerns the evolution of the soul, and that it’s inner teachings should be transmitted orally.  “I am sure that the Craft/Paganism will have a big part to play in the centuries to come,” she say’s.  “We must not forget that in the new age, the ruler of Aquarius is none other than the Star Goddess, whose white hand even now beckons the Children of the Earth, to become Children of the Stars”.   

Patricia’s non-fiction books include Witchcraft in Yorkshire (1973), her autobiography Witch Blood (1974), Lid off the Cauldron (1981, 1985, 1989, 1992,1998), The Zodiac Experience (1992, 1995), and One Witches World (1998).  She also wrote a novel Witches were for Hanging (1992) that was reprinted in 1999.  In addition to books, she has written numerous articles for such periodicals as Prediction, Gnostica, New Dimensions, Zodiac, and The Lamp of Thoth.  As well as writing poetry, she has designed three of the tarot cards (The Sun, Karma, and The World.) used for the Tarot of the Old Path (1990).

Sources

  The Encyclopedia of Witches &Witchcraft  - by Rosemary Ellen Guiley.

Plus many websites to many to mention.

First published on the 20th July 2001, 14:35:50 © George Knowles

Best wishes and Blessed Be