The Meaning of Witchcraft
E741580
The Meaning of Witchcraft is a seminal 1959 book by Gerald Gardner that outlines the beliefs, practices, and history of modern Wicca and helped popularize contemporary witchcraft.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Meaning of Witchcraft canonical | 3 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T8504059 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Meaning of Witchcraft Context triple: [Gerald Gardner, notableWork, The Meaning of Witchcraft]
-
A.
Witchcraft Today
Witchcraft Today is a 1954 book by Gerald Gardner that popularized modern Wicca by presenting it as a surviving pre-Christian pagan religion.
-
B.
The Passionate Witch
The Passionate Witch is a 1941 comic fantasy novel by Thorne Smith (completed posthumously by Norman H. Matson) about a mischievous witch whose romantic entanglements with a mortal man inspired the classic film "I Married a Witch."
-
C.
Witches Abroad
Witches Abroad is a comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett in the Discworld series, following the Lancre witches as they travel abroad to thwart a manipulative fairy godmother and disrupt predestined stories.
-
D.
A General Theory of Magic
A General Theory of Magic is a foundational anthropological work by Marcel Mauss that analyzes the social and cultural functions of magical beliefs and practices.
-
E.
De crimine magiae
De crimine magiae is a late 17th-century legal-philosophical treatise by Christian Thomasius that critically examines and challenges the prosecution of witchcraft and magic under contemporary criminal law.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Meaning of Witchcraft Target entity description: The Meaning of Witchcraft is a seminal 1959 book by Gerald Gardner that outlines the beliefs, practices, and history of modern Wicca and helped popularize contemporary witchcraft.
-
A.
Witchcraft Today
Witchcraft Today is a 1954 book by Gerald Gardner that popularized modern Wicca by presenting it as a surviving pre-Christian pagan religion.
-
B.
The Passionate Witch
The Passionate Witch is a 1941 comic fantasy novel by Thorne Smith (completed posthumously by Norman H. Matson) about a mischievous witch whose romantic entanglements with a mortal man inspired the classic film "I Married a Witch."
-
C.
Witches Abroad
Witches Abroad is a comic fantasy novel by Terry Pratchett in the Discworld series, following the Lancre witches as they travel abroad to thwart a manipulative fairy godmother and disrupt predestined stories.
-
D.
A General Theory of Magic
A General Theory of Magic is a foundational anthropological work by Marcel Mauss that analyzes the social and cultural functions of magical beliefs and practices.
-
E.
De crimine magiae
De crimine magiae is a late 17th-century legal-philosophical treatise by Christian Thomasius that critically examines and challenges the prosecution of witchcraft and magic under contemporary criminal law.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (32)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf | book ⓘ |
| associatedWith |
Gardnerian Wicca
ⓘ
linked to:
Wicca
|
| author | Gerald Gardner ⓘ |
| contributedTo | academic and popular interest in Wicca ⓘ |
| countryOfOrigin | United Kingdom ⓘ |
| describes |
beliefs of Wicca
ⓘ
history of modern witchcraft ⓘ practices of Wicca ⓘ |
| documents |
Gardner’s views on the survival of witch-cults
ⓘ
ritual and magical practices of Wicca ⓘ |
| era | mid-20th century occult revival ⓘ |
| followsWorkOf | Witchcraft Today ⓘ |
| genre |
esotericism
ⓘ
occult ⓘ religion ⓘ witchcraft studies ⓘ |
| hasAuthor | Gerald Gardner ⓘ |
| hasForm | prose ⓘ |
| hasPerspective | pro-witchcraft ⓘ |
| influenced |
contemporary witchcraft movements
ⓘ
popularization of Wicca ⓘ |
| language | English ⓘ |
| mainSubject |
Wicca
ⓘ
modern witchcraft ⓘ paganism ⓘ |
| mediaType | print ⓘ |
| notableFor |
early public exposition of Wicca
ⓘ
systematizing Gardner’s Wiccan teachings ⓘ |
| publicationYear | 1959 ⓘ |
| targetAudience |
general readership interested in occultism
ⓘ
students of modern paganism ⓘ |
| timePeriodDescribed | 20th-century witchcraft ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Meaning of Witchcraft Description of subject: The Meaning of Witchcraft is a seminal 1959 book by Gerald Gardner that outlines the beliefs, practices, and history of modern Wicca and helped popularize contemporary witchcraft.
Referenced by (3)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.