Displaying the tools and imagery of Witchcraft & Magick, while celebrating the First Amendment and the power of outsider art.
Raymond Buckland started The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick in 1966. After visiting the late Gerald Gardner and his collection on the Isle of Man, Raymond was inspired to start a collection of his own. While working for British Airways, he was able to acquire many of the artifacts in this collection from all around the world. He initially displayed his museum on a few shelves in the basement of his Long Island, N.Y. home. However, over time, Raymond’s witchcraft collection rapidly grew to well over 500 artifacts, ranging from Ancient Egyptian ushabtis to documented artifacts from the Salem Witch trials. This was the first museum of its kind in the United States with an anthropological approach to the world of folklore and the supernatural.
The museum was in existence for ten years in this New York location (1966-1976). During that time, it was featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles and was the subject of a television documentary. The New York Times, New York Post, Newsday, Look Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Scholastic Voice, and many more, including foreign magazines, had featured articles about the museum. Raymond was also interviewed on a large number of radio stations and both national and international television. The Metropolitan Museum of Art requested and featured some of the pieces in one of its special exhibits.
In 1976, Raymond Buckland moved to New Hampshire where he opened the museum from 1977 to 1980. Unfortunately, because of a rigorous writing and lecture schedule, he then had to place the museum collection into storage, where it remained for a number of years.
The museum collection was briefly reestablished in New Orleans in 1999 where it passed through multiple hands before being salvaged by Rev. Velvet Reith. A bit damaged and somewhat reduced collection, Velvet was instrumental in preventing the collection from degrading further and being lost.
In July of 2015, the museum collection was relocated to Ohio. Currently it is on display in the newly founded Buckland Gallery of Witchcraft & Magick, inside of A Separate Reality Records in Cleveland's historic Tremont neighborhood.
