Raymond Buckland founded The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick in 1966. After visiting the late Gerald Gardner and his collection on the Isle of Man, Raymond was inspired to start a collection of his own. While working for British Airways, he was able to acquire many of the artifacts in this collection from all around the world. He initially displayed his museum on a few shelves in the basement of his Long Island, N.Y. home. However, over time, Raymond’s witchcraft collection rapidly grew to well over 500 artifacts. This was the first museum of its kind in the United States with an anthropological approach to the world of folklore and the supernatural.
The museum was in existence in this New York location from 1966 to 1973. During that time, it was featured in numerous magazine and newspaper articles and was the subject of a television documentary. The New York Times, New York Post, Newsday, Look Magazine, Cosmopolitan, Esquire, Scholastic Voice, and many more, including foreign magazines, had featured articles about the museum. Raymond was also interviewed on a large number of radio stations and both national and international television. The Metropolitan Museum of Art requested and featured some of the pieces in one of its special exhibits.
In 1973, Raymond Buckland moved to New Hampshire where he opened the museum from 1973 to 1976, and then in Virginia from 1977 to 1979. Unfortunately, because of a rigorous writing and lecture schedule, he then had to place the museum collection into storage, where it remained for a number of years.
The museum collection was briefly reestablished in New Orleans in 1999 where it passed through multiple hands before being curated by Rev. Velvet Reith.
In 2015, the artifacts were turned over to the Temple of Sacrifice, a coven based in Columbus, Ohio, founded by Raymond Buckland and Kat Tigner. Toni Rotonda, APS of T.O.S., is the museum collections current owner. The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick is currently being displayed in Cleveland, Ohio, under the directorship of Steven Intermill.