Witchcraft Museum

August 14, 2000

Source: The Times-Picayune

n August 14, 2000, The Times-Picayune published an article on "Monte Plaisance, a self-proclaimed witch and High Priest of Wicca who runs a coven in Houma, where he plans to open a museum that he says will contain one of the rarest collections of witchcraft and pagan artifacts in the country. He has been displaying some of the artifacts in his occult shop in Houma one weekend a month." Some, such as the Rev. Velvet Rieth, High Priestess at Covenant of the Pentacle Wiccan Church in New Orleans,are worried about the museum and the way it could portray witchcraft. "I hope that it's placed carefully and given the kind of credence and respect due to the hundreds of thousands of people who were harmed or murdered during the Inquisition [in Europe]," she said. Plaisance has said that he would like for the museum to be an educational place. "This is really something that's not just interesting to witches and those who practice witchcraft," he said. "It takes an anthropological point of view ... how (witchcraft) began from religions evolving."