As the 19th century began to wane the world of the occult took a strange turn. Long gone were the how-to grimoires of the prior century, replaced by scientific and historical treatises of the same subject material. Charles Leland, releasing his work "Aradia" in 1899, is no exception to this change. Leland here describes an occult and religious order of witches stemming from the ancient Roman tradition, still extant as he states, in the 19th century in Tuscany. Driven underground by christian oppression, it nonetheless thrived. Here we see, in Lelands seminole work, one of the first comprehensive mentions of the feminine aspect of the left hand path, and one of the first historical (or quasi-historical) texts referring to christianity not as the golden, shining liberator, but as a fallen ideology which supplanted the pagans which had been more virtuous and beautiful than them, extracting thus the ire of the christian priests and monks. 93 pages. Illustrated.