Ellen Cannon Reed


Ellen Cannon Reed was the most widely known priestess of the Isian Tradition of Witchcraft. She lived in Southern California and wrote widely.
She was also the founder of the Internet Relay Chat Channel #witchcraft on Undernet.org network.
She was married to Christopher Reed, with whom she did not have any children.
Ellen and her husband Chris ran an annual Pagan gathering called "Pacific Circle" every summer for over 20 years at the Bandido Group Campground, Angeles National Forest in the hills high above Los Angeles; later it was moved to Gold Creek Ranch in Sunland, California. They hosted a monthly gathering called "Moontalks" for many years.
Reed was the co-creator of "The Witches Tarot", a widely used tarot deck combining Wiccan elements with traditional Qabalistic symbols and imagery, for which the artwork was done by Martin Cannon. She is also the author of several other books.
Her companion book for The Witches Tarot includes meditations and methods of working with the deck, as well as a new way of reading Tarot, and a complete description of The Witches Tarot deck. Both the deck and the book are noteworthy for being the first to combine the Qabalistic symbolism and elements drawn from Wicca, in a way that speaks to Pagans.
She had begun work on a companion volume to Pagansong, but it unfortunately remained incomplete at the time of her death. She died on October 7, 2003 from leukemia.