Our Authors

Paul Harry Barron

A healer and Wiccan High Priest, both Harry's work and spiritual lives are focused around healing and the natural world. Having studied in both London and Shanghai, he is currently practising Chinese medine and Acupuncture from his practice in Mid-Wales. He is a keen linguist, who has studied numerous languages and continues to do so, including French, Welsh and Esperanto. His translations of an old French MSS feature in The Veritable Key of Solomon by Stephen Skinner and David Rankine; as well as the book A Collection of Magical Secrets edited by the same authors. He has also contributed essays to both Hekate:Keys to the Crossroads, Horns of Power and From a Drop of Water. Harry collaborated with David Rankine on The Book of Gold, both as translator and commentator, published by Avalonia in the Spring of 2010.

John Canard

English Root magician John Canard believes that life is best lived as a magical experience that never ends. He had a misspent youth in the Cambridgeshire fens, then he met the woman of his dreams, whom he still believes to be only part human and with her moved to Somerset to live the wild life. They live on a small farm where John spends his time tending a menagerie of animals and growing organic produce. He has always enjoyed writing. His first book Defences Against the Witches' Craft was published by Avalonia in 2008. He previously also contributed essays to both Horns of Power (2008) and Hekate Keys to the Crossroads (2006) as well as a number of folklore magazines and journals over the years - including more recently to From a Drop of Water edited by Kim Huggens. He is currently working on a number of other projects related to traditional magick, witchcraft and root cunning.

Sorita d'Este

Sorita describes herself as a student of life's little mysteries, who has an avid love and passion for the mysteries and magic of the ancient world, and their continued manifestation in the modern world. For the last 20 years she has been dedicating herself and her work to the quest for knowledge and understanding of magic, mysticism and religion. As a writer and researcher she has contributed numerous articles and papers to magazines, journals and anthologies on subjects ranging from folklore and mythology, through to witchcraft, palmistry, sacred landscape, angels and the magical papyri. As a teacher she facilitated dozens of workshops throughout the UK and Europe on mysticism, ceremony and magic, as well as mentoring many hundreds of students on correspondence courses she taught and developed. As a Priestess she has facilitated lodges and covens in a number of Western Esoteric Traditions, having started her own formal training in her late teens within the Alexandrian tradition of the Craft; she has also facilitated many dozens of public ceremonies standing by her personal vision that knowledge can only become wisdom through understanding gained through experience. She was a founder member of Lapis Companions and the StarStone Network. Her books include Isles of the Many Gods, Visions of the Cailleach, Hekate Liminal Rites and Practical Planetary Magick. She continues to be actively involved in research into the mysteries, as well as her own arcane experiments; most of these are conducted somewhere in the Brecon Beacons (Wales, UK), where she now lives with her husband David Rankine and their young son. You can find out more about Sorita and her work by visiting her website www.sorita.co.uk

Thea Faye

Thea Faye is an initiate of the Mysteries and has studied many different branches of magick over the years. The question of what are witches and wizards is one which has intrigued her all her life, inspiring her to embark on a quest to determine what differences, if any, there are between the two traditions. Thea lives with her husband and their three small children, 5 cats, an aviary of birds otherwise known as CatTV and a rabbit called Bunny. Wizardry for the Uninitiated is her first book and explores the beliefs and practices of the concealed practices of modern Wizards. She has also contributed articles to esoteric community magazines in the UK, including ‘White Dragon’. She also contributed to ‘Howlings’ by Scarlet Imprint and Horns of Power the anthology exploring different manifestations of the Horned God produced by Avalonia in 2008. Her work is often challenging, pushing the boundaries of the unquestioned norm.

Katie Gerrard

Author Katie Gerrard Katie Gerrard is a writer, researcher and workshop facilitator with a passion for the magic of the Runes and Seidr. She has been studying the different forms of Norse magic and working with the Norse Gods since discovering them in the 1990s, when she was at university in West Wales. Katie is the author of Odin's Gateways (2009) which is a highly practical and erudite text on working with the runes. She previously contributed an essay about her experiences working with Seidr entitled "The Seer" to the anthology Priestesses, Pythonesses & Sibyls - and is currently working on her second book which explores this subject which is very close to her heart in more detail. Katie has been a regular speaker at national pagan and magical events in the UK for many years. Her work on the runes spans understanding, divination, voice work, and runic magic, and she is currently teaching courses on this subject from Treadwells Bookshop in Central London. You can find out more about her work, by visiting the book's website - Go to - - Odin's Gateways

Kim Huggens

Kim is currently undertaking PhD research in the Ancient History department of Cardiff University, looking at the malefic erotic magic of the Late Antique period. She is a Tarot reader of more than 16 years experience, and co-creator of Sol Invictus: The God Tarot, with Nic Phillips (Schiffer Books, 2007). She has a homestudy Tarot book forthcoming with Llewellyn (Spring 2010) and also writes articles and papers for various anthologies and journals. Previous work has appeared in Horns of Power, The Mithras Reader vol. 2, Priestesses, Pythonesses & Sibyls and Both Sides of Heaven. She is a Vodou practitioner and Hounsi Lave Tet with Sosyete Gade Nou Leve, and a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis. In her spare time she creates group ritual, runs Tarot workshops and classes, writes short fiction and roleplays. Kim is the editor of From a Drop of Water (Avalonia, 2009); and forthcoming anthology 'Vs.' (Avalonia, Summer 2010).

August Hunt

August Hunt has a lifelong passion for the Arthurian myths and has been studying them since his youth, which is also when his passion for writing first emerged. His first short stories appeared in his high school newspaper in the 1970’s, and since then he has received scholarships and literary prizes ...for his fictional work, and has written numerous magazine articles, books, novels and screenplays. Drawing on his considerable knowledge of folklore, Celtic myth, onomastics and Dark Age history, August Hunt is providing new and challenging material which illuminates many of the previously shadowy areas of the Arthurian tradition, including his own theory on the historical identity of King Arthur, discussed in his work Shadows in the Mist: The Life and Death of King Arthur. In his first book for Avalonia, entitled 'The Secrets of Avalon' August weaves a tapestry of the Celtic Gods and the Arthurian tales which heralds a new chapter in the interpretation of the deeds and existence of the greatest heroes of British legend – King Arthur and Merlin. See The Secrets of Avalon for more information.

Frederic Lamond

Frederic Lamond graduated in Economics and Political Science from the Universities of Cambridge (England) and Chicago (USA) and went on to work in the computer industry for 43 years. At age 23 (1954) he had a mystical experience of the Goddess of Life and Love which led him to seek out Gerald Gardner’s witch movement (now called Wicca) into which he was initiated in February 1957, quite possibly making him the longest continuously practising Wiccan in the world today. He gives regular lectures at conferences and festivals in Europe and around the world on his experiences and views, drawing from his wide scope of knowledge, experience and understanding of the modern Pagan movement. His other published works include: ‘Fifty Years of Wicca’ and ‘Religion without Beliefs’. The Divine Struggle is a unique channelled text which was previously published as a private edition, in 2007 Avalonia made this rare work available again as a revised second edition. It should be of interest not just to all Wiccans, but also to those interested in psychic and channelled messages from the Divine.