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[The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) 161-164] ISSN 1528-0268 (Print) doi: 10.1558/pome.v14i1.161 ISSN 1743-1735 (Online) Michael G. Lloyd, Bull of Heaven: The Mythic Life of Eddie Buczynski and the Rise of the New York Pagan (Hubardston, Mass.: Asphodel Press, 2012), 703 pp., $60 (cloth), $44 (paper), $9.99 (ebook). Edmund “Eddie” Buczynski (1947–1989), a young New Yorker born to mixed Italian and Polish parentage, would grow to become one of the most important and influential figures in the New York City Pagan scene of the 1970s. After being introduced to the Craft through Gerald Gard­ ner’s seminal Witchcraft Today (Rider, 1954), he was initiated into the New Haven coven of Gwen Thompson before breaking from her to found his own Welsh-themed tradition of Wicca, the Traditionalist Gwyddoniaid, in 1972. Openly and unashamedly gay, he entered into a relationship with the infamous Herman Slater, and together they co-managed The Warlock Shop in Brooklyn Heights, a hub of occult activity in the city during that decade. Subsequently initiated into the Gardnerian tradition in 1973, he founded two covens before leaving Wicca to follow the path of Isis as the head of the New York Temple of the Church of the Eternal Source, a Kemetic Pagan group founded in 1970. His relationship with the CES was similarly short­lived; he left in 1975, briefly returning to Gardnerianism following the collapse of his relationship with Slater. Falling in love with a young New Orleanian named Bennie Geraci, Buczynski composed his own Pagan marriage ceremony before founding the Knossos Grove coven in 1977 as a vehicle for gay and bisexual men to explore their own spiritualities. Thus began the Minoan Brotherhood, a tradition of Pagan Witchcraft that drew from the Gardnerian structure and liturgy but focused on the celebration of life through homoeroti- cism within a theological framework borrowed in part from the Minoan culture of Bronze Age Crete. The tradition soon expanded with a coun- terpart, The Minoan Sisterhood, founded as a homoerotic vehicle for Pagan women. After the breakup of his relationship with Geraci, Buc- zynski proceeding to enter academia, devoting his time to the archaeo- logical study of Minoan Crete, first at Hunter College (part of the City University of New York) and then at Bryn Mawr College, Pennsylva- nia. His increasing commitment to the discipline came at the cost of his involvement with Paganism, and in the spring of 1981, he stepped down as the head of the Knossos Grove coven. As the HIV/AIDS virus swept across the country’s gay community in the 1980s, Buczynski himself was infected, and ultimately died of complications arising from the disease. Buczynski might not have been one of the colossal titans in the world of contemporary Pagan Witchcraft, but nevertheless it would have been a great shame had his name and story been lost as those who knew him © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2012.Unit 3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffield S3 8AF.. 162 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) grew old and passed on. Thankfully Michael G. Lloyd, an American chemical engineer and co-founder of the Between The Worlds Men’s Gathering (a spiritual retreat for “men who love men”) has taken up the job of researching and writing this first biography of Buczynski, thus preserving his fascinating story for future generations. Himself a proud- and-out gay man, Lloyd wears his socio-political beliefs on his sleeve; the text is littered with (at times distracting) barbed swipes against homophobic groups and individuals. Coming from a background in the Queer Pagan scene, it is of little surprise that Lloyd is sympathetic to his subject, but he nevertheless maintains a balanced approach. For instance, Lloyd is not afraid to cast a critical eye on Buczynski’s clearly erroneous claim that the Traditionalist Gwyddoniaid had its origins in the Palaeolithic era (158–160). Like other recent biographical accounts of Crafters by Philip Heselton and John of Monmouth, Lloyd steers clear from the realms of hagiography. Bull of Heaven is eloquently and engagingly written, offering not simply a biography of Buczynski but a history of the New York Pagan and esoteric movements within which he was immersed. In Lloyd’s own words, Buczynski’s life is therefore “used as a lens through which to examine the history of the occult community of this period” (vi). While certainly necessary to include some discussion of the wider context in which Buczysnki moved, greater space in many chapters is devoted to the world around the famous Witch than to his life itself. An argument could certainly be put forward that the book might have worked better had it been divided into two distinct tomes; one a biography of Buczyn- ski himself, and the other a history of American Paganism. Neverthe- less, the additional information is fascinating for anyone with an interest in Pagan history, and shines new light not only on Buczynski, but on figures like Herman Slater and Leo Martello, whose lives have also been sorely under-documented until now. Lloyd’s research appears to have been thorough and far-reaching, making extensive use of a wide range of first­hand sources. Not only has he gained access to many of the Pagan publications of the era, but he has also corresponded with hundreds of figures who were on the scene at the time, painting a well-rounded picture of the life and times of his subject. I admit to finding few faults with Lloyd’s framework, although I am somewhat critical of his decision to use the word “Wica”—with the single c—to refer to Gardnerianism as a tradition. Although this usage has gained some limited currency in the Pagan community, it is at odds with Gardner’s original meaning of “Wica,” which he used in reference to the Pagan Witchcraft community. In another instance, Lloyd incor- rectly claims that the moniker awarded to Aleister Crowley was “the © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2012 Book Reviews 163 wickedest man in England” (3). Crowley, of course, was dubbed “the wickedest man in the world.” When discussing the feud that erupted between Slater and Church of Wicca­founders Gavin and Yvonne Frost, Lloyd notably neglects to allow the Frosts space to explain their position on the issue, leaving a rather one sided picture of the argument. Such minor problems, it should be stressed, do little to damage the overall quality of Lloyd’s work. Lloyd has supplemented his biography with forty-nine images, almost all of which have never been published before. Helping the reader to envision Buczynski’s life and times, their inclusion must be commended. Problematically, they are all in black-and-white and are typically small and grainy in quality. Lloyd’s text is also accompanied by a short fore- word by the noted Pagan journalist Margot Adler, author of the pio- neering study of American Paganism, Drawing Down the Moon (Viking Press, 1979). In this introduction, she discusses her brief involvement with Buczynski and his Traditionalist Gwyddoniaid before expressing her admiration for the ritual liturgy that he composed. The work’s dis- cussion of the wider movement will of course invite comparisons with Adler’s magnum opus, as well as with Chas S. Clifton’s Her Hidden Chil- dren (AltaMira, 2006), and also perhaps with Stuart Timmons’ The Trouble with Harry Hay (Alyson, 1990), a biography of the founder of the Radical Faeries. Those familiar with these older texts will still undoubtedly find much new information in Lloyd’s work, and it is hoped that the publica- tion of this biography will help raise awareness of this much-neglected yet crucially important area of American Pagan history. Although the work itself is generally scholarly in content, it has not been produced through an academic publishing house. Instead it is pub- lished through Asphodel Press, a Pagan author cooperative organized by the Massachusetts­based First Kingdom Church of Asphodel. In turn, they have had it printed by Lulu, an on-demand publisher that caters largely to those wishing to self-publish. This method of publication has meant that Lloyd’s work has been able to be produced and marketed to the small, specific community who would be interested in it, but the quality of the printed tome appears to have suffered as a result. The text contains several typos, and although employing a footnote-based referencing system, confusingly contains its “ibid.” references within the main body of the text. Irrespective, Bull of Heaven is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of American Paganism and/or Gay Liberation, representing what I can only characterise as the finest inde- pendent Pagan studies scholarship to have been produced in the United States to date. It would be wonderful to see more biographies of com- parable quality appear in ensuing years that chronicle the lives of other © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2012 164 The Pomegranate 14.1 (2012) significant figures of American Paganism such as Isaac Bonewits, Victor Anderson, or Zsuzsanna Budapest. I hope that Lloyd’s excellent tome augurs what is to come. Ethan Doyle White University College London © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2012.

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