Edain mccoy biography channel

On March 21 author and teacher Edain McCoy passed away at 61 due to complications from the flu. I did not know McCoy well, nor was I particularly inspired by any of her works, but I was saddened to hear of her passing. I met her in August of 2018 and I found her to be soft-spoken, kind, and an exceptionally nice person. She was someone after meeting that I legitimately wanted to share space with again.

Since the start of the Pagan revival in the 1950’s authors have had an outsize influence in Paganism. Much of that is due to the decentralized nature of our community. With no popes (and woe to anyone who wishes for such standing) or all-encompassing organizations, authors have become something of a touchstone for many of us. (This is beginning to change with the rise of social media, but that’s a post for another day.) A Witch in Pennsylvania and a Druid in Iowa are just not going to share a teacher or a group, but they can share the words of a writer published by a large press such as Llewellyn or Samuel Weiser. And even though those two individuals don’t necessarily share a tradition, they do share ideas and beliefs, and both were just as likely to enjoy McCoy’s Sabbats: A Witch’s Approach to Living the Old Ways first published in 2001.

For many of us Edain McCoy was one of those writers. She was especially prolific in the 1990’s, and for many of us in Generation X, she was an early gateway into the worlds of Witchcraft and Celtic magick. McCoy never quite reached the heights of a Silver Ravenwolf or Raymond Buckland, but she had a presence in both local Witch shops and the big-box-bookstores such as Barnes and Noble and Borders. McCoy was not the first Witchcraft writer I picked up in the 90’s, but she must have been one of the first ten. Her books had reach, even if they weren’t the favorites of most of the people I knew back then.

I feel like many of the writers (and publishers) who were working in the 90’s (

Four prominent authors have passed in the past month: D. J. (Deanna) Conway, Raven Grimassi (aka Gary Charles Erbe), Edain McCoy and Ralph Metzner. We lost D. J. Conway in early February, and Raven Grimassi and Edain McCoy and Ralph Metzner in March. What links these four prolific authors is the fact that their books, focused on slightly different paths in modern paganism, were all well loved and popular during a time when the pagan community was passionately devoted to reading and supporting its authors.

There were some books about the nascent witchcraft movement in the 1960s and 1970s (like those by Hans Holzer, Colin Wilson, Marian Weinstein, Doreen Valiente, Leo Martello and Sybil Leek, among others), but American paganism didn’t really start to take off in a systemic way until the late 1970s. Prior to that, many seekers read books by British authors, or books on folklore or archeology. Two prominent books first drew many who were interested in the pagan worldview: 1979’s Drawing Down the Moon (journalist Margot Adler’s famous survey of pagan religious traditions and organizations), and 1979’s The Spiral Dance (Starhawk’s primer on goddess worship and basic pagan witchcraft rituals) catalyzed a rush of interest in goddess worship and feminist witchcraft. Then came books by Raymond Buckland and Scott Cunningham in the 1980s, and soon enough Llewellyn Publishing was putting out books in droves, feeding a hunger for information  on witchcraft, Wicca, paganism and its many related paths, like druidry, heathenism, and faery.

If you discovered Wicca or neo-paganism in the 1990s, as many people did, then you came to the path at a time when books were still the valorous monarchs of our learning. There were technopagans, but the internet was in its infancy, and the first pagan website to really gain a following was The Witches’ Voice founded in 1997. Before that, people w

Edain McCoy, 61, has crossed the Veil. She entered the Summerlands on March 21, 2019 as 12:35PM after her physical body succumbed to complications from Influenza. Her passing was announced privately first then across social media.

McCoy self-initiated as a witch in 1981 and soon after actively participated in the Pagan and Witchcraft communities after a formal initiation into a San Antonio coven. McCoy described herself as a “Witch, Author, Dancer, Tanguera, Reiki Master, Dog Lover, Friend, Pacifist, Craft Student, Craft Teacher, Editor, Historian, Traveler, Grad Student at Butler University, and interested in almost EVERYTHING!”

McCoy worked in many fields from educational testing to substitute teaching to being a licensed stock broker and financial advisor. But it would be magic, writing and research that held her heart. An alumna of University of Texas with a degree in history, she completed her Master of fine Arts degree in 2012. And she was lauded for that work. McCoy was affiliated with various professional organizations including the Authors Guild and the American Translators Association. She is listed in the reference guides Contemporary Authors, Who’s Who Among American Women, and Who’s Who In America.

While McCoy was first interested in occult and metaphysical topics as a teenager, she continued her studies over her lifetime. In 2006, she was awarded a Certificate in Paranormal Investigation. She investigated haunted sites in Argentina. Two years later in 2008, McCoy became a Reiki Master of the Usui-Rand lineage. Her study also included magickal paths from Celtic magick to Appalachian folk magick to Curanderismo.

But it was primarily in Witchcraft and Paganism that she focused her writing and cultivated her skills as a teacher. First published in the early 1990’s, McCoy authored some two dozen books. Her first book, “Lady of the Night: A Handboo