Coven Coven A coven usually refers to a group or gathering of witches. The word "coven" remained largely unused in English until 1921 when Margaret Murray promoted the idea, now discredited, that all witches across Europe met in groups of thirteen which they called "covens". In Wicca and other similar forms of modern neopagan witchcraft, such as Stregheria and Feri, a coven is a gathering or community of witches, much like a in Christian parlance. It is composed of a group of believers who gather together for ceremonies of worship such as Drawing Down the Moon, or celebrating the Sabbats. The
A Community of Witches of the Witch's Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary England" (1989), in which she focused on both a Wiccan coven and several ceremonial magic orders that were then operating in London. The next academic book to be published based upon fieldwork undertaken in the U.S. Pagan community was "Living Witchcraft: A Contemporary American Coven", published by Praeger in 1994. "Living Witchcraft" had been co-written by three academics, the sociologist Allen Scarboro, psychologist Nancy Campbell and literary critic Shirley Stave, herself a Wiccan practitioner. It was based upon their fieldwork undertaken in the Ravenwood coven of Atlanta, Georgia, over several months across