Edmund Buczynski (January 28, 1947 – March 16, 1989) was an American Wiccan and archaeologist who founded Three separate traditions of Witchcraft: Welsh Traditionalist Witchcraft (1972), New York Wica Trad (1975, simply called then The Wica), and The Minoan Brotherhood (1977).
Born to a working-class family in New York City, Buczynski eventually embraced his homosexuality, moved to Greenwich Village, and immersed himself in the local gay scene. His relationship with Herman Slater led the two men to open The Warlock Shop, an occult supply store, in 1972. Following ordinations into various covens, Buczynski founded the Minoan Brotherhood in 1977 as a Wiccan tradition for gay and bisexual men. Buczynski was diagnosed with HIV/AIDS in 1988, and died the following year.
Biography
Childhood: 1947–1964 Eddie Buczynski was born on January 28, 1947, in Brooklyn, New York to working class parents. His father Edmund, who Eddie was named after, was the eldest son of Polish parents, and had been raised in a Brooklyn tenement with four brothers and two sisters. Edmund Sr. enlisted in the Naval Armed Guard in 1943, he fought in the Second World War aboard two Liberty ships, the SS John Howard and the SS José Marti. Eddie's mother, Marie Mauro, was the granddaughter of southern Italian immigrants, and had grown up in a Brooklyn apartment. She began communicating with her future husband in 1944 as pen pals before meeting him when he returned home on leave.
They married against their parents' wishes on April 27, 1946. Edmund Jr., was born nine months later. At the outbreak of the Korean War, Edmund senior was called back to active duty with the Navy Reserves. After his permanent discharge in October 1951, he moved his wife and child from Brooklyn to the middle-class neighborhood of Ozone Park, Queens.
In 1952, Buczynski started at the Old School Elementary in Queens, where he made good grades and particularly enjoyed music, reading, drawing, and painting. In August 1954, his mother gave birth to his first brother, Frank, who he would remain fond of despite the seven-year age gap. Although his family was Roman Catholic, he took an early interest in the pre-Christian religions of Ancient Egypt and Classical Greece, which he read about in books. He began devising and performing his own rituals to the deities of those religions, sparking his lifelong interest in contemporary paganism. His interest in pagan religion only increased following his father's sudden death from a heart attack at age 31 in August 1958. His mother married Edward Nascato in 1961.
Eddie eventually decided that he wanted to become a Roman Catholic priest, following in the footsteps of his uncle, Father Michael. He received Catholic confirmation in early 1961, and in September of that year he began his studies at the Monsignor McClancy Memorial High School in East Elmhurst. Bullied for being effeminate and homosexual, Eddie disliked the school, and he was ultimately expelled for being overly critical of their religious instruction.
In September 1962, he enrolled at John Adams High School, but was again bullied. He became increasingly rebellious, took up smoking cigarettes and marijuana, and made several suicide attempts. Family life became increasingly strained following the birth of a half-brother, Tommy, in September 1962, and in March 1964, he quit highschool and left home.
Herman Slater and embracing Wicca: 1964–1972 From Ozone Park, he moved to Manhattan, where a counter-cultural community had built up around the Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side that contained an array of gay people, hippies, occultists and others adopting bohemian lifestyles. Without money, he resorted to working as a rent boy, and made use of both marijuana and LSD. Although he briefly returned to Catholicism, in 1971 he read a copy of Witchcraft Today (1954), a book authored by Englishman Gerald Gardner, the founder of Gardnerian Wicca, and it reignited his interest in pagan religion.Lloyd 2012. pp. 33–36, 62. In autumn of that year, he tracked down Leo Martello (1931–2000)– a prominent gay-rights activist and pagan witch, who practiced his own Italian-focused form of witchcraft, called Stregheria. Although Leo thought that Buczynski was too inexperienced in magic to begin practicing Stregheria, Leo befriended him and shared his contacts with him, and took him to visit Herman Slater (1935–1992)– a fellow New Yorker who was of Jewish heritage. Like Buczynski and Martello, Slater was gay, and a romantic relationship soon developed between Buczynski (who was attracted to bears) and the older man. Buczynski moved-in with Slater in an apartment in Brooklyn Heights in June 1972.
That year, the couple decided to open up an occult store, named The Warlock Shop, at 300 Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights, New York City. Alongside this venture, they also founded a company, called Earth Religion Supplies, Inc, which would later go into publishing. Officially opening on June 21, 1972, the back room of the shop would also be used for weekly lectures, and would be rented to various occult groups who wanted to assemble there.
Still eager to be initiated into a Wiccan coven, Buczsynki began contacting various covens, requesting initiation therein. The covens that he tried to join included the Gardnerian Wiccan coven in Louisville, Kentucky that was run by Fran and Gerry Fisher, and the Algard Wiccan coven that had been founded by Mary Nesnick; the former coven refused due to the long distance between them and Buczsynki, while the latter coven refused due to Buczynski's homosexuality. Buczsynki then approached Gwen Thompson (1928–1986)– the matriarch of the New England Covens of Traditionalist Witches (NECTW), asking for initiation, although he declined to inform her of his sexual orientation. Thompson took a liking to the young man, and welcomed him into her coven, where he proceeded to adopt the craft name of "Hermes". They developed a strong friendship, much to Slater's dismay, and Buczynski soon rose to a second degree position, adopting an adapted craft name of "Hermes Dionysos" and becoming High Priest of Thompson's coven. Thompson ultimately became attracted to the young man, and repeatedly asked him to have sex with her, to which he refused. Their friendship broke down, and he was expelled from her North Haven coven, within a few months of having joined it, later in 1972.
Welsh Traditionalist Witchcraft: 1972–1973
After having left Gwen Thompson's sect, Buczynski decided to form his own sect of Wicca in October 1972, which he named "Welsh Traditionalist Witchcraft" or "The Traditionalist Gwyddoniaid". Buczynski formed that sect out of the structure of Gardnerian Wicca, with the new sect's book of shadows being largely based upon that which he had obtained through his work with Gwen Thompson, accompanied by sections taken from the recently published Lady Sheba's The Book of Shadows. Onto that, Buczynski added influences by the Welsh mythology contained in texts like The Mabinogion and the Arthurian legends, which fascinated him, despite his lack of Welsh heritage. However, Buczynski had spuriously claimed that his sect actually dated back to the palaeolithic era, and was transmitted to him by a figure whose anonymity he had to protect. Later in 1972, Buczynski created an outer court, through which to teach interested persons who were not yet initiated.
Notably, Buczynski welcomed LGBT people and non-Caucasians into his sect, at a time when they were denied entry into most other Wiccan covens. Although taking an open attitude to spiritual seekers, Buczynski prevented the occult investigator, Hans Holzer, from entering the outer coven when the latter requested admission to undertake research for his book The Witchcraft Report. Like many people in the pagan and occult community, Buczynski was wary of Holzer's intentions and the sensationalist claims that he purported in his publications.
A number of teenagers who were interested in Wicca had begun hanging around at the Warlock Shop, and they too were initiated into The Traditionalist Gwyddoniaid, after gaining parental permission. Proceeding through the outer court of Buczynski's coven, they eventually hived off to form their own coven, called "The Children of Branwen", in December 1972, with prominent members including Robert Carey, Denny Sargent, and Karen and Eddie Chiecho. Buczynski initially attended some of the group's meetings, in order to instruct these students in witchcraft, but soon found his time preoccupied with his own primary coven, leaving the coven under the control of high priestess Kay Smith. She would subsequently go on to found a Welsh Traditionalist coven for adults, leaving the position of high priestess to Melda Tamarack.
Through their work at The Warlock Shop, Buczynski and Slater came to meet and befriend Judith and Thomas Kneital (also known by their craft names of Theos and Phoenix), who had recently taken control of the Long Island coven of gardnerians in New York after the former high priest and high priestess– Raymond Buckland and his wife Rosemary, had decided to divorce. In early 1973, the shop had financial difficulty, and the Kneitals personally lent several thousand dollars to Slater and Buczynski in order to help them out, which Buczynski promptly paid back. Their business quickly recovered, and they employed a young man from New Orleans named Robert Carey to work in the shop. Robert was a close personal friend of Candy Darling, and used to visit The Factory, where he was known as "Chanel 13". The increasing relationship between Slater and Buczynski and the Kneitals led to socializing between their two covens. Despite their differing class backgrounds (the Gardnerian Commack coven being largely middle class, and the Welsh Traditionalist Brooklyn Heights coven being largely working class and counter-cultural), they got on well. In February 1973, Buczynski requested initiation into the Gardnerican craft from the Kneitals, but they refused, being cautious of what uses he would put the Gardnerian liturgy to.
Still friends with Martello, Buczynski initiated him up to the third degree of his Welsh Traditionalist sect, and in return, he received third-degree initiation in Strega. At the same time, he was facing problems within his own sect, because one couple running their own Welsh outer coven, namely Claudia and Gerard Nero, had decided to abandon Buczynski's sect and receive initiation into Gardnerianism from the Kneitals; they had ultimately decided to do so after becoming increasingly sceptical of Buczynski's spurious claim of palaeolithic roots. They took their initiates, including Margot Adler, with them, much to Buczynski and Slater's annoyance, leading to a breakdown of the friendship that they had had with the Kneitals.Lloyd 2012. pp. 158–159, 162–165. Buczynski's sect nevertheless continued to grow and spread, and in January 1973, the sect joined the Council of Earth Religions (COER)– a pan-pagan umbrella organization that was founded in the previous year, for the purpose of working for the common defence of the movement. Buczynski's primary inner coven grew to such a size that it had to divide into two covens at Midsummer of 1973. Buczynski's high priestess– Kay Smith, decided to take lead of one of the covens, while Eddie remained in the other, being joined by a new ritual consort named Judith. By August 1973, there were two outer-court covens of the Welsh sect in New York City, and one each in Philadelphia and in Hopewell, Virginia.
Gardnerian Wicca: 1973–1974