Okay, folks. Here’s my entry for the History of Magic challenge. I looked at several different sites for this information but they all pretty much said the exact same thing so I’m going off what I found on Wikipedia. I also looked through a couple of his books I had for a quote and a bit more information. They’re on my shelf so I can’t link those but I did link his Wiki. Hope y’all like it.
Scott Cunningham Biography.
Scott Cunningham was born in Royal Oak, Michigan in June of 1956. His family moved to San Diego, California for his mother’s health, and aside from some time in Hawaii, he lived there all his life. Cunningham had one older brother, Greg, and a younger sister, Christine. Scott was openly homosexual for much of his life.
He learned about Wicca in high school from a childhood friend and started practicing Elemental magic. He studied at San Diego State University during which time he met the renowned author Raymond Buckland, and was roommates with author Donald Michael Kraig.
However, after two years in the creative writing program, he dropped out, having had more books published than many of his professors. In 1980 he began training under the witch and author Raven Grimassi. He became a first-degree initiate and stayed in that coven until 1982, when he left to follow a solitary path of Wicca.
Not much else is known about the man. He published his possibly most well-known book, Wicca A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner in 1988. In the introduction he mentions the celebrated author Sybil Leek and that he had other, well-known Wiccans looking over the copy of the book, so he had friends among the pagan community.
He believed that Wicca should be open to all. He wrote a follow-up book to Wicca A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner in 1993 in which he said … “This book has been written with a single premise: that Wicca is an open religion. All can come before the altar and worship the Goddess and God, whether alone or in the company of others; initiated or not. Wicca is available to all interested people.”
In 1990, while on a book tour in Massachusetts, he became suddenly ill and was diagnosed with cryptococcal meningitis, from which he eventually died in March of 1993 at the young age of thirty-six.
He is still one of the most well-known pagan author’s though, and a manuscript was found that was possibly written in the late 1970s to early 1980s that was published after his death called Cunningham’s Book of Shadows: The Path of An American Traditionalist.
There was even a movie, Never Say Macbeth from 2007 where the actors try to break the curse of saying the Scottish Play’s name in the theater using one of his books.
He was a bright flame in the pagan community that burned out too soon.
Sources:
Wikipedia: Scott Cunningham - Wikipedia
Wicca: A Guide to the Solitary Practitioner, introduction.
Living Wicca: A Further Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, introduction.
A shame to lose him so young.
