Most people remained ignorant of the black arts of Britain’s estimated 2,500 witches until Richard Cavendish wrote a bestselling book in 1967 that helped to popularise the occult for a modern generation.
Covens all over the UK and overseas had him to thank for a dispassionate and comprehensive disabusing of the traditional image of the pointed hat, bubbling cauldron and sinister intention. They began to track him down.
They found a charming, witty and mildly eccentric Oxford-educated son of a clergyman, who went on to become the unlikeliest authority on the occult in Britain. The paperback version of The Black Arts was translated into several languages, and is still essential reading for budding occultists, including the rapidly expanding legion of satanists in America.
In the