Witchcraft was making a name for itself in the United States after covens of differing traditions had made their way from England and Eddie believed he’d found what he needed to be complete. When his dream of becoming a Jesuit priest was shattered by the Roman Catholic Church Eddie dropped out of high school and turned to the occult, Witchcraft in particular. Eddie grew up in Ozone Park, Queens, New York and then lived in New York City, specifically Greenwich Village, in the 60s and 70s during the volatile years of the Gay Liberation Movement. This is a biography about a man named Eddie Buczynski. And in so doing, it offers an intimate glimpse into the lives of GLBT men and women whose heretofore untold contributions helped to shape the face of modern Neo-Paganism.Īvailable in paperback at Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Bringing together the threads of disparate subcultures, social movements, spiritual paths and characters, Bull of Heaven weaves Buczynski's life into a tapestry that encompasses the history of the New Age and occult in New York City. This is the story of one man and his circle of friends who dreamed of changing the spiritual paradigm of society and who, despite their human frailties helped to widen the acceptance of alternative religions in the United States. Rejected by the Church because of his questioning mind and budding attraction to other young men, his feet were soon set on a different path - one that would lead from his childhood home in Ozone Park to the raucous streets of '60s Greenwich Village, through the burgeoning Neo-Pagan spiritual movement of the '70s, before finally depositing him into the academic realm of Classical & Near Eastern achaeology. The modern New Age and the Neo-Pagan movement in the United States coalesced from this chaos of diverse practices and beliefs.Īs a teenager, Eddie Buczynski had dreamed of becoming a Jesuit Priest. In the generation of young men and women who had grown up after World War II, there was a new-found sense of freedom that allowed people to not only question society's assumptions of the nature of God and spirit, but to experiment in order to find different ways of giving meaning to modern lives.

It was a time of ferment, rage and hope, when spiritual movements rose and fell in reaction to the perceived ills of a society that seemed on the brink of tearing itself apart.

Bull of Heaven by Michael G. Lloyd