Aradia

Aradia in Xavier Institute

Aradia
Real Name: Jennifer Meaus

Powers:
Control of legima - universal earth energy.

Bio:
Dr. Jennifer Meaus was a professor of Religious Studies at the University of Miami when she and her boyfriend and research partner, Dr. Xavier Rose, found a 12,000-year-old text buried beneath the Antarctic ice. Before she could translate it, Xavier was killed and the book was stolen. While searching for her killer, Jennifer was pulled into a paranormal research group called K.I.P. She was given the codename Aradia and, though she still has a digital scan of the book that she is determined to translate, is using her powers to aid K.I.P. in their investigative studies.

Aradia in Neo-Paganism

Aradia has become an important figure in Wicca as well as some other forms of Neo-Paganism.

Some Wiccan traditions use the name "Aradia" as one of the names of the Great Goddess, Moon Goddess or "Queen of the Witches". Portions of Leland's text influenced the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, especially the Charge of the Goddess. Alex Sanders invoked Aradia as a Moon Goddess in the 1960s. Janet and Stewart Farrar used the name in their Eight Sabbats for Witches and The Witches Way. Aradia was invoked in spellcraft in Z. Budapest's The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries. An entire website, the Goddess Aradia and Related Subjects, is devoted to Aradia as a Wiccan goddess and a powerful spirit in Italian folklore.

Aradia is a very important figure in Stregheria (some adherents of which prefer not to be categorized as "Neo-Pagan") as practiced in the USA. Raven Grimassi, who has written a number of books on Stregheria, describes Aradia as being both the name of an ancient goddess, and being "the name taken" by Aradia di Toscano, whom he portrays as the founder of a revivalist religion of Italian witchcraft in the fourteenth century. Grimassi claims that Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a "distorted Christianized version" of the story of Aradia.

Neo-Pagan narratives of the life of Aradia include Raven Grimassi, The Book of the Holy Strega (1981); Aidan Kelly, The Gospel of Diana (1993); Myth Woodling, Secret Story of Aradia, (2001)