Coven of the Catta
The Coven of the Catta is a coven of witches who perform Wiccan rituals founded by Frederick Santee in 1967. Its members originally lived around central Pennsylvania, but now are more widespread.
Formation
The Coven of the Catta was created in 1967 by Dr. Frederick Santee after he and his fellow coven members were initiated into the New Forest Wicca lineage by Sybil Leek, a form of Gardnerian Wicca. Dr. Santee became the coven's high priest and his head nurse, and close confidant, Edna "Janie" Kishbaugh Williams, was the high priestess. They took the names Lord Merlin and Lady Phoebe.
Their first temple was established in the basement of Santee's house in Wapwallopen, Pennsylvania. It was later moved to the large cinder block library he constructed on his property.
Name
Dr. Santee and Lady Phoebe loved cats and gave their coven the name Coven of the Catta out of respect to their many feline companions.
Practices
From 1969 until Santee's death in 1980, the coven was extremely active and attracted the interest of members of the local community. Both Santee and Williams wrote regular columns for the local newspaper and also published their own newsletter called "The Cat's Tale."
Their rituals and rites involved traditional witchcraft and focused mostly on natural magic and various forms of ritual magic as practiced by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Medieval Solomonic traditions.
Post-Santee activities
After the death of their leader in 1980, the coven continued to operate much as it had before under the stewardship of Lady Phoebe. An initiate, Gary Lee Hoke, also known as Lord Shawnus, was elected High Priest in 1981 and led their worship services for nine years before separating from the coven to focus on his own spiritual growth.
Lady Phoebe took over leadership of the coven along with Lady Alsace until Phoebe's passing in 2005, when the activities of the coven began to slow down significantly and many of the initiates had moved away or joined other covens.
The Coven of the Catta still has a handful of initiates who are active as of 2022, although they do not meet as regularly as they did during the height of the coven's popularity in the 1970s and 1980s.