History of Wicca
Encyclopedia
The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan
religion of Wicca
and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. Wicca originated in the early twentieth century, when it first developed amongst several secretive coven
s in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical Witch-Cult
in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray
. It was subsequently popularised in the 1950s by a number of figures, namely Gerald Gardner
, who had been initiated into the Craft - as Wicca is often known - by the New Forest coven
in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition
, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses' Doreen Valiente
, Patricia Crowther
and Eleanor Bone
into other parts of the British Isles, and also into several other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, various new figures arose in Britain who popularised their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek
and Alex Sanders
, and organisations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association
. It was also during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734
and Dianic Wicca
in the ensuing decades, and where organisations such as the Covenant of the Goddess
were formed.
From the 1970s onward, books began to be published by such figures as Paul Huson
, Scott Cunningham
, and Stewart
and Janet Farrar
which encouraged self-initiation into the Craft, leading to a significant boost in the number of adherents and the development of new traditions. With the rising popularity of Wicca, it was used as a partial basis to various witchcraft
-based American films and television shows, further increasing its profile, particularly amongst younger people, in the 1990s.
Since the early 1990s, various historians have published studies and research into the history of Wicca, including the American Aidan Kelly
and the Britons Ronald Hutton
and Philip Heselton
.
, and committed acts of diabolism that included the cannibalism
of children and desecration of the Eucharist
. Most scholars since have agreed that these were the victims of isolated incidents of hysteria in remote, peasant communities, and that there was no religion being practiced by these witches.
However this was not the only view; one, which originated with Karl Ernst Jarcke
in 1828, and which was expanded upon (most notably) by Jules Michelet
in the 1860s and Margaret Murray
in the early 20th century, known as the Witch-cult hypothesis
, claimed that the witches had been members of a pan-European pagan religion which had pre-dated Christianity and had been persecuted by the Christian Church as a rival religion.
Many Wiccans, particularly those of the early decades, believed that their religion was a continuation of this pagan Witch-Cult. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that some Wiccans began to see the idea of the Witch-Cult as a creation myth rather than as historical fact. For instance, the Wiccan Jenny Gibbons stated that:
, a retired English civil servant who had spent most of his life in the far east, published Witchcraft Today
in which he made the claim to have encountered several members of the Witch-Cult. At the same time he propagated his religion to new adherents, largely through the Bricket Wood coven
(which is described further below). Gardner claimed that he had been initiated into a practising coven of the cult in September 1939, a group that has become known as the New Forest coven
.
Gardner claimed that this group had met in the New Forest
in southern England
, and that he had met some of their members initially through the occultic Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship
. He mentioned two of their members, a local worthy called "Old Dorothy
", in whose house he claimed to have been initiated, and "Dafo
", who became a friend of his and would remain so for many years.
religions, which derived from the work of the Swiss lawyer Johann Jakob Bachofen
, was popular in Gardner's day, both among academics (e.g., Erich Neumann
, Margaret Murray
) and amateurs (e.g. Robert Graves
). Later scholars (e.g. Carl Jung
and Marija Gimbutas
) continued research in this area, and later still Joseph Campbell
, Ashley Montagu
and others became admirers of Gimbutas' theories of matriarchies in ancient Europe. Matriarchal interpretations of the archaeological record and the criticism of such work continue to be matters of academic debate. Some academics carry on research in this area (such as the 2003 World Congress on Matriarchal Studies). Critics argue that such matriarchal societies never actually existed and are an invention of researchers such as Margaret Murray
. This is disputed by documentaries such as Blossoms of Fire (about contemporary Zapotec society).
The idea of a supreme Mother Goddess
was common in Victorian and Edwardian
literature: the concept of a Horned God
— especially related to the gods Pan
or Faunus — was less common, but still significant.Both of these ideas were widely accepted in academic literature and the popular press at the time.
undertook important research into the identity of "Old Dorothy", whose surname was Clutterbuck. She refuted the claims of those who had suggested that Dorothy had been the product of Gardner's imagination. More recently, it has been doubted (notably by Ronald Hutton
) whether the historical Dorothy Clutterbuck, who was outwardly an observant Christian and a pillar of the local community, really was involved in occultic activities. In this view, Gardner used her name as a joke and/or as a subterfuge in order to conceal the identity of Dafo or some other individual. Such doubts have been vigorously contested by other researchers (notably Philip Heselton
).
Valiente assumed that Clutterbuck was the same individual as Dafo. More recently, it has become clear that they were different people. Dafo seems to have been a teacher of music and elocution named Edith Woodford-Grimes, and there have been persistent suggestions that she and Gardner were lovers.
The work of Philip Heselton
has gone a considerable way towards illuminating the composition and activities of the New Forest Coven, and several plausible candidates for its membership aside from Dorothy and Dafo emerge from his work.
occultism (even co-founder Doreen Valiente
admitted seeing influence from Aleister Crowley
), and there is very little in the ritual that cannot be shown to have come from earlier extant sources. The religion's spiritual content, however, is inspired by older Pagan faiths (for example, in the veneration of historical pagan deities), with Buddhist and Hindu
influences (e.g. in the Wiccan doctrine of reincarnation
).
It has been posited by authors such as Aidan Kelly
and Francis X. King
that Gardner himself created the religion that he claimed to have discovered, rewriting the rituals of an older witchcraft tradition according to his own whim, and incorporating elements from the thesis of Dr. Margaret Murray
, sources such as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
by Charles Godfrey Leland
and the practices of ceremonial magic
.
The original material in the rituals brought to light by Gardner is not cohesive, and mostly takes the form of substitutions or expansions within unoriginal material. Roger Dearnaley, in An Annotated Chronology and Bibliography of the Early Gardnerian Craft, describes it as a "patchwork". One element that is apparently distinctive is the use of ritual scourging and binding as a method of attaining an ecstatic trance for magical working. Hutton argues strongly that this practice in Wicca does not reflect sado-masochistic sexuality (he refers in this connection to Gardner's own collection of very mild, quasi-pornographic
material, which showed no traces of such interests), but is simply a practical method of work alternative to drugs or other more strenuous methods.
Heselton, writing in Wiccan Roots and later in Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration, argues that Gardner was not the author of the Wiccan rituals but received them in good faith from an unknown source. (Doreen Valiente
makes this claim regarding the "basic skeleton of the rituals," as Margot Adler
puts it in Drawing Down the Moon.) He notes that all the Crowley material that is found in the Wiccan rituals can be found in a single book, The Equinox vol 3 no. 1 or Blue Equinox (1919). Gardner is not known to have owned or had access to a copy of this book, although he met with Crowley towards the end of the latter’s life. Gardner admitted that "the rituals he received from Old Dorothy's coven were very fragmentary, and in order to make them workable, he had to supplement them with other material."
, have argued that Valiente and Heselton's evidence points to an early 20th century revival predating Gardner (by the New Forest Coven, perhaps), rather than an intact old Pagan religion. The argument points to historical claims of Gardner's that agree with scholarship of a certain time period and contradict later scholarship. Bonewits writes, "Somewhere between 1920 and 1925 in England some folklorists appear to have gotten together with some Golden Dawn Rosicrucians and a few supposed Fam-Trads to produce the first modern covens in England; grabbing eclectically from any source they could find in order to try and reconstruct the shards of their Pagan past."
; this order performed rituals in the New Forest in the early 1920s and its pagan section honoured a moon goddess and a horned god, and believed in ritual nakedness. One of Ronald Hutton
's informants reports that Gardner was familiar with this order at least by the 1950s. A major difficulty with identifying this group with the New Forest coven is that it does not appear to have met in the New Forest between 1934 and 1945. Gardner records a working by the coven in the New Forest in 1940 against the projected Nazi invasion.
George Pickingill
, who lived in the Essex
village of Canewdon
. This claim is not widely accepted, although it does focus attention on the well documented and widespread "cunning folk" and their contribution to the history of British witchcraft.
Gardner, claiming to be fearful that the Witch-Cult religion would die out, began to propagate it through forming the Bricket Wood coven
in Hertfordshire
in circa 1946. He acted as the High Priest for the coven, and Dafo
, who had also been a member of the New Forest coven, acted as High Priestess. However she became concerned that Gardner's attempts to gain publicity would lead to a public backlash against her, and so she left his coven in 1952, albeit remaining his friend.
In 1953 Gardner initiated a young woman, Doreen Valiente
, into the craft, and she soon went on to become the High Priestess of his Bricket Wood coven. Around the same time, Gardner invented the Book of Shadows
, a workbook of rituals, although he claimed it was of ancient origins. Valiente helped Gardner rewrite the Book, cutting out what she saw as "Crowleyanity
", and writing sections such as the Charge of the Goddess
in poetic verse. Valiente and Gardner later fell out, however, when she got fed up with his constant attempts to gain publicity and when he tried to impose the Wiccan Laws
upon the coven, something which he claimed were used by the Witch-Cult, but which Valiente believed he had simply made up. She, and several other members of the coven, left, and founded their own. However, the Bricket Wood coven continued, with members that included Jack Bracelin, Dayonis, Frederic Lamond and Lois Bourne
.
Gardner also propagated his witchcraft tradition, which had begun to be referred to as "Gardnerian
", outside of his Bricket Wood coven; he initiated Patricia Crowther
and Monique Wilson, both of whom went on to propagate Gardnerian Witchcraft through their own covens. Various other initiates began to spread the craft around Britain, for instance Charles Clark
took the religion to England's northern neighbour, Scotland
.
Gardner referred to members of his craft as "the Wica", although he called the religion itself "Witchcraft", and never used the term "Wicca" in the sense as it is now known.
Meanwhile Gardner tried to get more publicity for his religion; he gave interviews to several newspapers, some of which were positive, although others turned very negative, one even declaring "Witches Devil-Worship in London!". He also published a second non-fiction book on the subject, The Meaning of Witchcraft
, in 1959, as well as running the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft on the Isle of Man
up until his death in 1964.
, Charles Cardell
, Raymond Howard
, Rolla Nordic
and, most importantly, Robert Cochrane
. They claimed to have been initiated into the cult by their ancestors, and described themselves as following "Hereditary" or "Traditional" forms of Witchcraft, whereas Gardner, some said, was propagating a modern, and invalid form. Their beliefs and practices however, were similar to those of Gardner, and some of their modern followers describe their faith as being a form of Wicca
, whereas others insist it is different and call it "Traditional Witchcraft".
The terms "Wicca" and "Wiccen" were first used by Charles Cardell, not to refer purely to Gardnerians, but to refer to all followers of the Witch-Cult religion. In his notebooks he used the term "Wicca" to refer to the religion, and he called it the "Craft of the Wiccens" in a 1958 article in Light magazine.
Initially there was an attempt to reconcile and unite all of these traditions claiming to be Witch-Cult remnants, for instance the Witchcraft Research Association
, which was founded in 1964 by Sybil Leek. After Leek emigrated to the United States, Doreen Valiente took over presidency, and began publication of a magazine, Pentagram. However both the magazine and the organisation collapsed amongst infighting by the various traditions, with Cochrane consistently insulting, and even calling for a "Night of the Long Knives
", against Gardnerians.
. However, in the 1960s, it also began to spread much further abroad, most notably in the English-speaking nations of Australia
and the United States
.
In Australia, Wicca "found a receptive social environment because of the long-standing presence and familiarity of Aboriginal culture with its 'pagan' (i.e. 'non-Christian') beliefs and practices".
Gardnerian Wicca came to the United States through an Englishman who had recently emigrated to the USA, named Raymond Buckland
, and his wife, Rosemary. Raymond, working for British Airways
, regularly returned to England, and he began to correspond with Gardner. In 1963, both Bucklands were initiated into the Gardnerian craft by Monique Wilson in a ceremony in Britain. The couple returned to America where they founded the Long Island coven in New York state, basing their practice upon the Gardnerian Book of Shadows
. The coven was later taken over by a couple known only as Theos and Phoenix, who enlarged the Book of Shadows, adding further degrees of initiation which were required before members could found their own covens. Interest outstripped the ability of the mostly British-based covens to train and propagate members; the beliefs of the religion spread faster by the printed word or word of mouth than the initiatory system was prepared to handle.
Also in the 1960s, non-Gardnerian forms of Witchcraft (which are sometimes viewed as Wicca, or sometimes as "Traditional Witchcraft") made their way to the USA. The American Joseph Bearwalker Wilson
corresponded with the English Robert Cochrane prior to Cochrane's ritual suicide in 1966, and from this he founded the 1734 Tradition
. Sybil Leek
too, an English witch from the New Forest
, emigrated to California
, where she continued to practice her craft, and teach others. In 1968 Gavin
and Yvonne Frost
established the Church and School of Wicca
; which in 1972 became the first Federally recognised Wiccan church
.
It would be in the 2000s that Wicca would begin to gain a foothold in other nations; for instance, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti
began to publicise it in India
, and it also has a number of adherents in South Africa
.
emerged, appearing in various newspapers. He claimed to be a hereditary witch, having been initiated into the craft by his grandmother. Later researchers, such as Ronald Hutton
, have shown that he actually had been initiated into a Gardnerian coven, although Hutton notes that Sanders' grandmother was in fact "skilled in cunning craft". Sanders had previously practised as a spiritualist
healer.
His reputation in the tabloids increased when he married the much younger Maxine Sanders
in a handfasting
ceremony, and subsequently the duo began to refer to themselves as the "King and Queen of the Witches", at one point claiming to have the allegiance of 1,623 witches, and 127 northern covens. His tradition, which was later coined as "Alexandrian
" by Stewart Farrar
, an initiate of Sanders, incorporated aspects from ceremonial magic
and the Qabalah, as well as Judeo-Christian iconography. Sanders justified this by claiming that his version of Wicca and Christianity
were both forces for good, battling against the forces of darkness which were practiced by Satanists
and black magic
ians.
Several Gardnerians, including Patricia Crowther and Ray Bone
, tried to denounce Sanders as a charlatan, but he simply responded by accusing them of being the charlatans, and as being practitioners of black magic
who abused their initiates.
In 1973, Alex and Maxine separated, but both continued to practice the craft. One of the key reasons for their separation was that neither would compromise on Alex's bisexuality
. After the divorce, Alex focused on formulating Wicca so that it could be followed by homosexual men, who had been partially prevented from involvement previously because of the religions' focus on gender polarity. He also initiated a number of people from continental Europe, who then spread the faith there. In 1979, Sanders issued an apology for his "past hurts" and "many public stupidities" and tried to encorouge co-operation between Gardnerians and Alexandrians. He died in 1988.
.
The first of these was Algard Wicca, founded in 1972 by Mary Nesnick, who had been initiated into both of the aforementioned traditions. Algard attempted to fuse the two together, thereby trying to prevent the arguments that were going on between the two.
The following year, in 1973, Raymond Buckland
, who had brought the Gardnerian craft to the USA originally, ceased to practice it, and formed a new tradition, known as Seax-Wica
. Seax used the structure of traditional Gardnerian covens, but used the iconography of Anglo-Saxon paganism, so the God and the Goddess were represented not as the traditional Horned God
and Mother Goddess
, but as Woden
and Freya
. Seax was virtually unique amongst Wicca at the time as it did not work on an initiatory basis of covens; Buckland deliberately published all its rites and rituals in a book, The Tree, so that anyone could practice them.
, who had no connection to any Gardnerian or Alexandrian covens, mixed Wiccan practices with feminist politics, forming Dianic Witchcraft (although now it is better known as "Dianic Wicca"). She began this with a coven in Los Angeles
, that she named the Susan B. Anthony
Coven Number One.
Dianic Wicca focused almost exclusively upon the Goddess
, and largely, and in some covens completely, ignoring the Horned God
. Most covens were women-only, and some were designed specifically for lesbian
s. Like Seax-Wica, which developed around the same time, the rituals of Dianic Wicca were published by its creator so that any woman could practice it, without having the need of a specific initiation into a lineage. Indeed, Budapest believed that it was every woman's right to be able to practice the religion, and she referred to it as being "women's spirituality".
Dianic Wicca was criticised by many Gardnerians at the time for having an almost monotheistic
view of theology, in contrast with Wicca's traditional duotheism. One Gardnerian even declared "spare us Jahweh in drag!" in response to the focus on the one Goddess.
One Gardnerian, who went under the craft name of Starhawk
, started practising Dianic Wicca, and tried to reconcile the two, writing the 1979 book The Spiral Dance
on the subject. The tradition she founded became known as Reclaiming
, and mixed Wicca with other forms of Neopaganism
such as Feri, along with strong principles of environmental protection.
, in an act of spite against the recently deceased Gardner, published the Gardnerian Book of Shadows
.
In 1970, Paul Huson
published Mastering Witchcraft
a book purportedly based upon non-Wiccan traditional British witchcraft, and the first do-it-yourself manual for the would-be witch, which became one of the basic instruction books for a large number of covens. In 1971 "Lady Sheba" (Jessie Wicker Bell, self-styled "Queen of the American Witches") published what she claimed was her family's centuries-old grimoire
, but was in fact substantially plagiarised from the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, and included poetry by Doreen Valiente
that is still under copyright.
Following this, several prominent Wiccans decided that it would be better to simply reveal the Wiccan mysteries to the public in their true form. Most prominent among these were Stewart
and Janet Farrar
, two Alexandrian initiates. Stewart, prior to his marriage, had already published information on Wiccan rituals (with Sanders' blessing), in his 1971 book What Witches Do
. Together they published further works on the subjects, such as 1981's Eight Sabbats for Witches and 1984's The Witches' Way. They were joined by their friend, Doreen Valiente, who also published information on the subject of pagan Witchcraft in general.
From these published writings, (some of which, such as Valiente's 1973 book An ABC of Witchcraft, contained a self-initiation ritual), many other practitioners began to follow the Witchcraft religion, working either as solitary Witches or in non-lineaged covens. Valiente herself considered all of these such people to be "Witches", as she reserved the term "Wiccan" to refer solely to Gardnerians, however most of these new followers used the term "Wiccan" to describe themselves. As such, in the United States, it became the norm to refer to any Neopagan witchcraft as "Wicca", and so Gardnerians, Alexandrians and Algards, wishing to emphasise their lineage that stretched back to Gardner, began referring to themselves as followers of "British Traditional Wicca
".
movement, and many Wiccans took on New Age beliefs and practices. Wicca was also taken up by popular entertainment; in 1996, the American film The Craft
was released about four witches who are corrupted by their power. The same year the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch appeared, which was followed the following year by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then, the year after that, the series Charmed
and the film Practical Magic
. Whilst these were heavily criticised by many Wiccans (Margot Adler
called The Craft "the worst movie ever made!"), they did encourage many teenagers and young adults to investigate more about the religion. Most covens and Neopagan groups refused to allow under 18s into their ranks, and so many teenagers turned to books to find out more. In turn, several books were published to cater for them, including Silver Ravenwolf
's Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation and Scott Cunningham
's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. This helped to bring about the Teen Wicca movement, and it has been suggested that the reason why so many young adults are attracted to the faith can "be attributed to the fact that it tackles issues that teenagers are interested in — in a way that other religions do not."
The popularity of Wicca amongst teens has also brought problems; in 2001, a 12 year old American schoolgirl named Tempest Smith
committed suicide after being bullied for her faith.
However the rise of this teenage-focused, New Age, pop-culture Wicca has been highly criticised by traditionalists, many of whom refuse to accept it as Wicca, instead using terms like "wicca-lite". The historians Brooks Alexander and Jeffrey Russell commented that "pop-culture witchcraft is sufficiently vague in structure and content to qualify more as a 'lifestyle' than a 'religion'."
The rise of the internet
also had an effect on Wicca. Previously, solitary Wiccans around the world had little way of communicating amongst one another, however, the internet allowed them to do so. Websites such as Witchvox.com were set up. Historian Brooks Alexander commented that this was a form of "minority empowerment".
Groups were formed to represent the Wiccan community, such as the Covenant of the Goddess
, which was founded in 1975. Wiccans began to appear on various British television documentaries, including The Heaven & Earth Show and Desperately Seeking Something
.
In the USA, the court case of Dettmer v. Landon
in 1986 established that Wicca was a religion, and therefore should be treated as such under the eyes of the law.
The first Wiccan Wedding to be legally recognised in the UK (by the Registrars of Scotland
) was performed in 2004.
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
religion of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. Wicca originated in the early twentieth century, when it first developed amongst several secretive coven
Coven
A coven or covan is a name used to describe a gathering of witches or in some cases vampires. Due to the word's association with witches, a gathering of Wiccans, followers of the witchcraft-based neopagan religion of Wicca, is also described as a coven....
s in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical Witch-Cult
Witch-cult hypothesis
The Witch-cult is the term for a hypothetical pre-Christian, pagan religion of Europe that survived into at least the early modern period. As late as the 19th and early 20th centuries, some scholars had postulated that European witchcraft was part of a Satanic plot to overthrow Christianity; most...
in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
. It was subsequently popularised in the 1950s by a number of figures, namely Gerald Gardner
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, who had been initiated into the Craft - as Wicca is often known - by the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses' Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, Patricia Crowther
Patricia Crowther (Wiccan)
Patricia Crowther is considered influential in the early promotion of the Wicca religion. She was born in Sheffield as Patricia Dawson....
and Eleanor Bone
Eleanor Bone
Eleanor "Ray" Bone was an influential figure in the neopagan religion of Wicca. She claimed to have been initiated in 1941 by a couple of hereditary witches in Cumbria. She later met and became friends with Gerald Gardner, and was initiated into Wicca, becoming the High Priestess in one of his...
into other parts of the British Isles, and also into several other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, various new figures arose in Britain who popularised their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek
Sybil Leek
Sybil Leek was an English witch, astrologer, psychic, and occult author. She wrote more than sixty books on occult and esoteric subjects...
and Alex Sanders
Alex Sanders (Wiccan)
Alex Sanders , born Orrell Alexander Carter, was an English occultist and High Priest in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, responsible for founding the tradition of Alexandrian Wicca during the 1960s. He was a figure who often appeared in tabloid newspapers...
, and organisations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association
Witchcraft Research Association
The Witchcraft Research Association was a British organisation formed in 1964 in an attempt to unite and study the various claims that had emerged of surviving remnants of the Witch-Cult, such as those of Gerald Gardner, Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek, Charles Cardell and Raymond Howard.It had been...
. It was also during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734
1734 Tradition
The 1734 Tradition is a tradition of Traditional Witchcraft founded by the American Joseph Wilson, who developed it between 1964 and 1972 and founded the tradition in late 1973 and early 1974. It was largely based upon the teachings which he received from an English Traditional Witch namedRobert...
and Dianic Wicca
Dianic Wicca
Dianic Witchcraft and Dianic Feminist Witchcraft, is a tradition, or denomination, of the Neopagan religion of Wicca. It was founded by Zsuzsanna Budapest in the United States in the 1970s, and is notable for its focus on the worship of the Goddess, and on feminism...
in the ensuing decades, and where organisations such as the Covenant of the Goddess
Covenant of the Goddess
The Covenant of the Goddess is a cross-traditional Wiccan group of solitary Wiccan practitioners and over one hundred affiliated covens . It was founded in 1975 in order to increase co-operation among Witches and to secure for Witches and covens the legal protection enjoyed by members of other...
were formed.
From the 1970s onward, books began to be published by such figures as Paul Huson
Paul Huson
Paul Huson is a British-born author and artist currently living in the United States. In addition to writing several books about occultism and witchcraft he has worked extensively in the film and television industries.-Family:...
, Scott Cunningham
Scott Cunningham
Scott Douglas Cunningham was a U.S. writer. Cunningham is the author of several books on Wicca and various other alternative religious subjects....
, and Stewart
Stewart Farrar
Frank Stewart Farrar , who always went by the name of Stewart Farrar, was an English screenwriter, novelist and prominent figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, which he devoted much of his later life to propagating with the aid of his seventh wife, Janet Farrar, and then his friend Gavin Bone...
and Janet Farrar
Janet Farrar
Janet Farrar is a British teacher and author of books on Wicca and Neopaganism. Along with her two husbands, Stewart Farrar and Gavin Bone, Farrar has published "some of the most influential books on modern Witchcraft to date." According to George Knowles, "some seventy five percent of Wiccans...
which encouraged self-initiation into the Craft, leading to a significant boost in the number of adherents and the development of new traditions. With the rising popularity of Wicca, it was used as a partial basis to various witchcraft
Witchcraft
Witchcraft, in historical, anthropological, religious, and mythological contexts, is the alleged use of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft...
-based American films and television shows, further increasing its profile, particularly amongst younger people, in the 1990s.
Since the early 1990s, various historians have published studies and research into the history of Wicca, including the American Aidan Kelly
Aidan Kelly
Aidan Kelly is an American academic, poet and influential figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Having developed his own branch of the faith, the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn, during the 1960s, he was also initiated into other traditions, including Gardnerianism and Feri, in...
and the Britons Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
and Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton is a retired British Conservation Officer, a Wiccan initiate, and a writer on the subjects of Wicca, Paganism and Earth mysteries...
.
Origins
In the 16th and 17th centuries, something known as the witch hunt took place across Europe and the American colonies, during which somewhere between 40,000 and 100,000 people were killed. These people had been accused of being witches, who, according to their persecutors, worshipped the DevilDevil
The Devil is believed in many religions and cultures to be a powerful, supernatural entity that is the personification of evil and the enemy of God and humankind. The nature of the role varies greatly...
, and committed acts of diabolism that included the cannibalism
Cannibalism
Cannibalism is the act or practice of humans eating the flesh of other human beings. It is also called anthropophagy...
of children and desecration of the Eucharist
Eucharist
The Eucharist , also called Holy Communion, the Sacrament of the Altar, the Blessed Sacrament, the Lord's Supper, and other names, is a Christian sacrament or ordinance...
. Most scholars since have agreed that these were the victims of isolated incidents of hysteria in remote, peasant communities, and that there was no religion being practiced by these witches.
However this was not the only view; one, which originated with Karl Ernst Jarcke
Karl Ernst Jarcke
Karl Ernst Jarcke was a German publisher and professor of criminal law, who took a conservative stance towards revolutionary movements in the early nineteenth century....
in 1828, and which was expanded upon (most notably) by Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet
Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...
in the 1860s and Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
in the early 20th century, known as the Witch-cult hypothesis
Witch-cult hypothesis
The Witch-cult is the term for a hypothetical pre-Christian, pagan religion of Europe that survived into at least the early modern period. As late as the 19th and early 20th centuries, some scholars had postulated that European witchcraft was part of a Satanic plot to overthrow Christianity; most...
, claimed that the witches had been members of a pan-European pagan religion which had pre-dated Christianity and had been persecuted by the Christian Church as a rival religion.
Many Wiccans, particularly those of the early decades, believed that their religion was a continuation of this pagan Witch-Cult. It was only in the 1980s and 1990s that some Wiccans began to see the idea of the Witch-Cult as a creation myth rather than as historical fact. For instance, the Wiccan Jenny Gibbons stated that:
The New Forest coven
In 1954, Gerald GardnerGerald Gardner
Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...
, a retired English civil servant who had spent most of his life in the far east, published Witchcraft Today
Witchcraft Today
In the book Gardner also repeats the claim, which had originated with Matilda Joslyn Gage, that 9 million victims were killed in the European witch-hunts." Current scholarly estimates of the number of people executed for witchcraft during this time period vary between about 40,000 and 100,000.The...
in which he made the claim to have encountered several members of the Witch-Cult. At the same time he propagated his religion to new adherents, largely through the Bricket Wood coven
Bricket Wood coven
The Bricket Wood coven, or Hertfordshire coven was a coven of Gardnerian Witches founded in the 1940s by Gerald Gardner. It was notable for being the first coven in the Gardnerian line, though having its supposed origins in the pre-Gardnerian New Forest coven...
(which is described further below). Gardner claimed that he had been initiated into a practising coven of the cult in September 1939, a group that has become known as the New Forest coven
New Forest coven
The New Forest coven were a group of Neopagan witches or Wiccans who allegedly met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the 1930s and 1940s...
.
Gardner claimed that this group had met in the New Forest
New Forest
The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire....
in southern England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
, and that he had met some of their members initially through the occultic Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship
Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship
The Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship was a Rosicrucian group founded by George Alexander Sullivan in about 1924. It may have existed under the name Order of Twelve from 1911–1914 and again from 1920. The ROCF operated first from the Liverpool area of England and then after the mid-1930s from...
. He mentioned two of their members, a local worthy called "Old Dorothy
Dorothy Clutterbuck
Dorothy Clutterbuck , was a wealthy Englishwoman who was named by Gerald Gardner as a leading member of the New Forest coven, a group of pagan Witches into which Gardner claimed to have been initiated in 1939...
", in whose house he claimed to have been initiated, and "Dafo
Dafo
Edith Rose Woodford-Grimes was an English Wiccan who achieved notoriety as one of the faith's earliest known adherents. She had been a member of the New Forest coven which met during the late 1930s and early 1940s, and through this became a friend and working partner of Gerald Gardner, who would...
", who became a friend of his and would remain so for many years.
An ancient witch-cult?
The idea of primitive matriarchalMatriarchy
A matriarchy is a society in which females, especially mothers, have the central roles of political leadership and moral authority. It is also sometimes called a gynocratic or gynocentric society....
religions, which derived from the work of the Swiss lawyer Johann Jakob Bachofen
Johann Jakob Bachofen
Johann Jakob Bachofen was a Swiss antiquarian, jurist and anthropologist, professor for Roman law at the University of Basel from 1841 to 1845....
, was popular in Gardner's day, both among academics (e.g., Erich Neumann
Erich Neumann (psychologist)
Erich Neumann , was a psychologist, writer, and one of Carl Jung's most gifted students.-Career:Neumann was born in Berlin. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Berlin in 1927. He later moved to Tel Aviv. For many years, he regularly returned to Zürich, Switzerland to give lectures at the...
, Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
) and amateurs (e.g. Robert Graves
Robert Graves
Robert von Ranke Graves 24 July 1895 – 7 December 1985 was an English poet, translator and novelist. During his long life he produced more than 140 works...
). Later scholars (e.g. Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
and Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas
Marija Gimbutas , was a Lithuanian-American archeologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old Europe", a term she introduced. Her works published between 1946 and 1971 introduced new views by combining traditional spadework with linguistics and mythological...
) continued research in this area, and later still Joseph Campbell
Joseph Campbell
Joseph John Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience...
, Ashley Montagu
Ashley Montagu
Montague Francis Ashley Montagu was a British-American anthropologist and humanist, of Jewish ancestry, who popularized topics such as race and gender and their relation to politics and development...
and others became admirers of Gimbutas' theories of matriarchies in ancient Europe. Matriarchal interpretations of the archaeological record and the criticism of such work continue to be matters of academic debate. Some academics carry on research in this area (such as the 2003 World Congress on Matriarchal Studies). Critics argue that such matriarchal societies never actually existed and are an invention of researchers such as Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
. This is disputed by documentaries such as Blossoms of Fire (about contemporary Zapotec society).
The idea of a supreme Mother Goddess
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
was common in Victorian and Edwardian
Edwardian period
The Edwardian era or Edwardian period in the United Kingdom is the period covering the reign of King Edward VII, 1901 to 1910.The death of Queen Victoria in January 1901 and the succession of her son Edward marked the end of the Victorian era...
literature: the concept of a Horned God
Horned God
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in some European pagan religions. He is often given various names and epithets, and represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the female Triple Goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is...
— especially related to the gods Pan
Pan (mythology)
Pan , in Greek religion and mythology, is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature, of mountain wilds, hunting and rustic music, as well as the companion of the nymphs. His name originates within the Greek language, from the word paein , meaning "to pasture." He has the hindquarters, legs,...
or Faunus — was less common, but still significant.Both of these ideas were widely accepted in academic literature and the popular press at the time.
In search of the New Forest Coven
Doreen ValienteDoreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
undertook important research into the identity of "Old Dorothy", whose surname was Clutterbuck. She refuted the claims of those who had suggested that Dorothy had been the product of Gardner's imagination. More recently, it has been doubted (notably by Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
) whether the historical Dorothy Clutterbuck, who was outwardly an observant Christian and a pillar of the local community, really was involved in occultic activities. In this view, Gardner used her name as a joke and/or as a subterfuge in order to conceal the identity of Dafo or some other individual. Such doubts have been vigorously contested by other researchers (notably Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton is a retired British Conservation Officer, a Wiccan initiate, and a writer on the subjects of Wicca, Paganism and Earth mysteries...
).
Valiente assumed that Clutterbuck was the same individual as Dafo. More recently, it has become clear that they were different people. Dafo seems to have been a teacher of music and elocution named Edith Woodford-Grimes, and there have been persistent suggestions that she and Gardner were lovers.
The work of Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton
Philip Heselton is a retired British Conservation Officer, a Wiccan initiate, and a writer on the subjects of Wicca, Paganism and Earth mysteries...
has gone a considerable way towards illuminating the composition and activities of the New Forest Coven, and several plausible candidates for its membership aside from Dorothy and Dafo emerge from his work.
Sources for Wicca
The ritual format of Wicca shows the undeniable influence of late Victorian eraVictorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
occultism (even co-founder Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
admitted seeing influence from Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
), and there is very little in the ritual that cannot be shown to have come from earlier extant sources. The religion's spiritual content, however, is inspired by older Pagan faiths (for example, in the veneration of historical pagan deities), with Buddhist and Hindu
Hindu
Hindu refers to an identity associated with the philosophical, religious and cultural systems that are indigenous to the Indian subcontinent. As used in the Constitution of India, the word "Hindu" is also attributed to all persons professing any Indian religion...
influences (e.g. in the Wiccan doctrine of reincarnation
Reincarnation
Reincarnation best describes the concept where the soul or spirit, after the death of the body, is believed to return to live in a new human body, or, in some traditions, either as a human being, animal or plant...
).
It has been posited by authors such as Aidan Kelly
Aidan Kelly
Aidan Kelly is an American academic, poet and influential figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Having developed his own branch of the faith, the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn, during the 1960s, he was also initiated into other traditions, including Gardnerianism and Feri, in...
and Francis X. King
Francis X. King
Francis X. King was a British occult writer and editor who wrote about tarot, divination, witchcraft, magic, sex magic, tantra, and holistic medicine.-Partial bibliography:* Techniques of High Magic with Stephen Skinner...
that Gardner himself created the religion that he claimed to have discovered, rewriting the rituals of an older witchcraft tradition according to his own whim, and incorporating elements from the thesis of Dr. Margaret Murray
Margaret Murray
Margaret Alice Murray was a prominent British Egyptologist and anthropologist. Primarily known for her work in Egyptology, which was "the core of her academic career," she is also known for her propagation of the Witch-cult hypothesis, the theory that the witch trials in the Early Modern period of...
, sources such as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches is a book composed by the American folklorist Charles Leland that was published in 1899. It contains what he believed was the religious text of a group of pagan witches in Tuscany, Italy that documented their beliefs and rituals, although various historians and...
by Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland
Charles Godfrey Leland was an American humorist and folklorist, born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was educated at Princeton University and in Europe....
and the practices of ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic, also referred to as high magic and as learned magic, is a broad term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic. It is named as such because the works included are characterized by...
.
The original material in the rituals brought to light by Gardner is not cohesive, and mostly takes the form of substitutions or expansions within unoriginal material. Roger Dearnaley, in An Annotated Chronology and Bibliography of the Early Gardnerian Craft, describes it as a "patchwork". One element that is apparently distinctive is the use of ritual scourging and binding as a method of attaining an ecstatic trance for magical working. Hutton argues strongly that this practice in Wicca does not reflect sado-masochistic sexuality (he refers in this connection to Gardner's own collection of very mild, quasi-pornographic
Pornography
Pornography or porn is the explicit portrayal of sexual subject matter for the purposes of sexual arousal and erotic satisfaction.Pornography may use any of a variety of media, ranging from books, magazines, postcards, photos, sculpture, drawing, painting, animation, sound recording, film, video,...
material, which showed no traces of such interests), but is simply a practical method of work alternative to drugs or other more strenuous methods.
Heselton, writing in Wiccan Roots and later in Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration, argues that Gardner was not the author of the Wiccan rituals but received them in good faith from an unknown source. (Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
makes this claim regarding the "basic skeleton of the rituals," as Margot Adler
Margot Adler
Margot Adler is an author, journalist, lecturer, Wiccan priestess and radio journalist and correspondent for National Public Radio .- Early life :Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Adler grew up mostly in New York City...
puts it in Drawing Down the Moon.) He notes that all the Crowley material that is found in the Wiccan rituals can be found in a single book, The Equinox vol 3 no. 1 or Blue Equinox (1919). Gardner is not known to have owned or had access to a copy of this book, although he met with Crowley towards the end of the latter’s life. Gardner admitted that "the rituals he received from Old Dorothy's coven were very fragmentary, and in order to make them workable, he had to supplement them with other material."
Early 20th century revival
Some, such as Isaac BonewitsIsaac Bonewits
Phillip Emmons Isaac Bonewits was an influential American Druid who published a number of books on the subject of Neopaganism and magic. He was also a liturgist, singer and songwriter, and founded the Druidic organisation Ár nDraíocht Féin, as well as the Neopagan civil rights group, the Aquarian...
, have argued that Valiente and Heselton's evidence points to an early 20th century revival predating Gardner (by the New Forest Coven, perhaps), rather than an intact old Pagan religion. The argument points to historical claims of Gardner's that agree with scholarship of a certain time period and contradict later scholarship. Bonewits writes, "Somewhere between 1920 and 1925 in England some folklorists appear to have gotten together with some Golden Dawn Rosicrucians and a few supposed Fam-Trads to produce the first modern covens in England; grabbing eclectically from any source they could find in order to try and reconstruct the shards of their Pagan past."
Order of Woodcraft Chivalry
It has been proposed, originally in the Druidic journal Aisling that Gardner's New Forest coven was the pagan section of the Order of Woodcraft ChivalryOrder of Woodcraft Chivalry
The Order of Woodcraft Chivalry is a Scouting-like movement operating in the United Kingdom, which was founded in 1916 by Ernest Westlake. Like Scouting, it was inspired by Ernest Seton's Seton Indians, and Seton was its honourary Grand Chieftain...
; this order performed rituals in the New Forest in the early 1920s and its pagan section honoured a moon goddess and a horned god, and believed in ritual nakedness. One of Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
's informants reports that Gardner was familiar with this order at least by the 1950s. A major difficulty with identifying this group with the New Forest coven is that it does not appear to have met in the New Forest between 1934 and 1945. Gardner records a working by the coven in the New Forest in 1940 against the projected Nazi invasion.
George Pickingill's coven
A theory advanced by Bill Liddell is that the New Forest coven derived from a set of covens created by the nineteenth century cunning manCunning folk
The cunning folk in Britain were professional or semi-professional practitioners of magic active from the Medieval period through to the early twentieth century. As cunning folk, they practised folk magic – also known as "low magic" – although often combined with elements of "high" or ceremonial...
George Pickingill
George Pickingill
George Pickingill was an Englishman, believed a cunning man and farm labourer who lived and worked in the Essex village of Canewdon...
, who lived in the Essex
Essex
Essex is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England, and one of the home counties. It is located to the northeast of Greater London. It borders with Cambridgeshire and Suffolk to the north, Hertfordshire to the west, Kent to the South and London to the south west...
village of Canewdon
Canewdon
Canewdon is a village in north Rochford District of Essex in England, approximately 4 miles northeast of the town of Rochford. Canewdon is situated on one of the highest hills of the Essex coastline from which St. Nicholas church affords wide views of the Crouch estuary. Canewdon parish extends...
. This claim is not widely accepted, although it does focus attention on the well documented and widespread "cunning folk" and their contribution to the history of British witchcraft.
Gardnerian Wicca and the Bricket Wood coven (1946-1963)
Bricket Wood coven
The Bricket Wood coven, or Hertfordshire coven was a coven of Gardnerian Witches founded in the 1940s by Gerald Gardner. It was notable for being the first coven in the Gardnerian line, though having its supposed origins in the pre-Gardnerian New Forest coven...
in Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
in circa 1946. He acted as the High Priest for the coven, and Dafo
Dafo
Edith Rose Woodford-Grimes was an English Wiccan who achieved notoriety as one of the faith's earliest known adherents. She had been a member of the New Forest coven which met during the late 1930s and early 1940s, and through this became a friend and working partner of Gerald Gardner, who would...
, who had also been a member of the New Forest coven, acted as High Priestess. However she became concerned that Gardner's attempts to gain publicity would lead to a public backlash against her, and so she left his coven in 1952, albeit remaining his friend.
In 1953 Gardner initiated a young woman, Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
, into the craft, and she soon went on to become the High Priestess of his Bricket Wood coven. Around the same time, Gardner invented the Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
, a workbook of rituals, although he claimed it was of ancient origins. Valiente helped Gardner rewrite the Book, cutting out what she saw as "Crowleyanity
Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley , born Edward Alexander Crowley, and also known as both Frater Perdurabo and The Great Beast, was an influential English occultist, astrologer, mystic and ceremonial magician, responsible for founding the religious philosophy of Thelema. He was also successful in various other...
", and writing sections such as the Charge of the Goddess
Charge of the Goddess
The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers...
in poetic verse. Valiente and Gardner later fell out, however, when she got fed up with his constant attempts to gain publicity and when he tried to impose the Wiccan Laws
Wiccan Laws
The Wiccan Laws, also called the Craft Laws, the Old Laws, the Ardanes or simply The Laws are the traditional laws of Wicca from the Book of Shadows...
upon the coven, something which he claimed were used by the Witch-Cult, but which Valiente believed he had simply made up. She, and several other members of the coven, left, and founded their own. However, the Bricket Wood coven continued, with members that included Jack Bracelin, Dayonis, Frederic Lamond and Lois Bourne
Lois Bourne
Lois Bourne is an influential figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, having been involved in it from the early 1960s, and has written a number of books on the subject...
.
Gardner also propagated his witchcraft tradition, which had begun to be referred to as "Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian Witchcraft, is a mystery cult tradition or denomination in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner , a British civil servant and scholar of magic...
", outside of his Bricket Wood coven; he initiated Patricia Crowther
Patricia Crowther (Wiccan)
Patricia Crowther is considered influential in the early promotion of the Wicca religion. She was born in Sheffield as Patricia Dawson....
and Monique Wilson, both of whom went on to propagate Gardnerian Witchcraft through their own covens. Various other initiates began to spread the craft around Britain, for instance Charles Clark
Charles Clark
Charles Clark may refer to:* Charles Clark , Governor of Mississippi during the American Civil War* Charles Clark , British publisher and expert on copyright...
took the religion to England's northern neighbour, Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
.
Gardner referred to members of his craft as "the Wica", although he called the religion itself "Witchcraft", and never used the term "Wicca" in the sense as it is now known.
Meanwhile Gardner tried to get more publicity for his religion; he gave interviews to several newspapers, some of which were positive, although others turned very negative, one even declaring "Witches Devil-Worship in London!". He also published a second non-fiction book on the subject, The Meaning of Witchcraft
The Meaning of Witchcraft
The Meaning of Witchcraft is a non-fiction book written by Gerald Gardner, the, known to many in the modern sense as the "Father of Wicca", based around his experiences with the religion of Wicca and the New Forest Coven...
, in 1959, as well as running the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft on the Isle of Man
Isle of Man
The Isle of Man , otherwise known simply as Mann , is a self-governing British Crown Dependency, located in the Irish Sea between the islands of Great Britain and Ireland, within the British Isles. The head of state is Queen Elizabeth II, who holds the title of Lord of Mann. The Lord of Mann is...
up until his death in 1964.
Hereditary Witchcraft (1950s)
Gardner was not the only person claiming to be a member of a surviving remnant of the Witch-Cult, several others also emerged in the 1950s making this claim. They included Sybil LeekSybil Leek
Sybil Leek was an English witch, astrologer, psychic, and occult author. She wrote more than sixty books on occult and esoteric subjects...
, Charles Cardell
Charles Cardell
Charles Cardell was an English Wiccan who propagated his own tradition of the Craft, which was distinct from that of Gerald Gardner. Cardell's tradition of Wicca was based around a form of the Horned God known as Atho, and worked with a coven that met in the grounds of his estate in Surrey. His...
, Raymond Howard
Raymond Howard
Raymond Howard was an English Witch and an early figure in the history of the neopagan religion of Wicca. Howard propagated the tradition focused around the Horned God known as Atho, which had originated with Charles Cardell....
, Rolla Nordic
Rolla Nordic
Rolla Nordic was a Witch and designer of tarot cards. She had several books published, including Tarot Shows the Path in 1961, and she also appeared on several television shows....
and, most importantly, Robert Cochrane
Roy Bowers
Robert Cochrane , who was born as Roy Bowers, was an English Neopagan witch who founded the tradition known as Cochrane's Craft, which is seen by some to be a form of Wicca but is sometimes considered distinct from it due to Cochrane's opposition to both Gerald Gardner and Gardnerian Wicca.Born...
. They claimed to have been initiated into the cult by their ancestors, and described themselves as following "Hereditary" or "Traditional" forms of Witchcraft, whereas Gardner, some said, was propagating a modern, and invalid form. Their beliefs and practices however, were similar to those of Gardner, and some of their modern followers describe their faith as being a form of Wicca
Wicca
Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...
, whereas others insist it is different and call it "Traditional Witchcraft".
The terms "Wicca" and "Wiccen" were first used by Charles Cardell, not to refer purely to Gardnerians, but to refer to all followers of the Witch-Cult religion. In his notebooks he used the term "Wicca" to refer to the religion, and he called it the "Craft of the Wiccens" in a 1958 article in Light magazine.
Initially there was an attempt to reconcile and unite all of these traditions claiming to be Witch-Cult remnants, for instance the Witchcraft Research Association
Witchcraft Research Association
The Witchcraft Research Association was a British organisation formed in 1964 in an attempt to unite and study the various claims that had emerged of surviving remnants of the Witch-Cult, such as those of Gerald Gardner, Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek, Charles Cardell and Raymond Howard.It had been...
, which was founded in 1964 by Sybil Leek. After Leek emigrated to the United States, Doreen Valiente took over presidency, and began publication of a magazine, Pentagram. However both the magazine and the organisation collapsed amongst infighting by the various traditions, with Cochrane consistently insulting, and even calling for a "Night of the Long Knives
Night of the Long Knives
The Night of the Long Knives , sometimes called "Operation Hummingbird " or in Germany the "Röhm-Putsch," was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany between June 30 and July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders...
", against Gardnerians.
Wicca across the world (1960s)
Within a few years of Gardner's propagation of the craft, Wicca had spread from England into neighbouring Scotland and IrelandIreland
Ireland is an island to the northwest of continental Europe. It is the third-largest island in Europe and the twentieth-largest island on Earth...
. However, in the 1960s, it also began to spread much further abroad, most notably in the English-speaking nations of Australia
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
.
In Australia, Wicca "found a receptive social environment because of the long-standing presence and familiarity of Aboriginal culture with its 'pagan' (i.e. 'non-Christian') beliefs and practices".
Gardnerian Wicca came to the United States through an Englishman who had recently emigrated to the USA, named Raymond Buckland
Raymond Buckland
Raymond Buckland , whose craft name is Robat, is an English American writer on the subject of Wicca and the occult, and a significant figure in the history of Wicca, of which he is a High Priest in both the Gardnerian and Seax traditions.According to his written works, primarily Witchcraft from the...
, and his wife, Rosemary. Raymond, working for British Airways
British Airways
British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...
, regularly returned to England, and he began to correspond with Gardner. In 1963, both Bucklands were initiated into the Gardnerian craft by Monique Wilson in a ceremony in Britain. The couple returned to America where they founded the Long Island coven in New York state, basing their practice upon the Gardnerian Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
. The coven was later taken over by a couple known only as Theos and Phoenix, who enlarged the Book of Shadows, adding further degrees of initiation which were required before members could found their own covens. Interest outstripped the ability of the mostly British-based covens to train and propagate members; the beliefs of the religion spread faster by the printed word or word of mouth than the initiatory system was prepared to handle.
Also in the 1960s, non-Gardnerian forms of Witchcraft (which are sometimes viewed as Wicca, or sometimes as "Traditional Witchcraft") made their way to the USA. The American Joseph Bearwalker Wilson
Joseph Bearwalker Wilson
Joseph Bearwalker Wilson was a shaman and witch, founder of the 1734 Tradition of witchcraft, toteg Tribe, Metista, and a founding member of the Covenant of the Goddess....
corresponded with the English Robert Cochrane prior to Cochrane's ritual suicide in 1966, and from this he founded the 1734 Tradition
1734 Tradition
The 1734 Tradition is a tradition of Traditional Witchcraft founded by the American Joseph Wilson, who developed it between 1964 and 1972 and founded the tradition in late 1973 and early 1974. It was largely based upon the teachings which he received from an English Traditional Witch namedRobert...
. Sybil Leek
Sybil Leek
Sybil Leek was an English witch, astrologer, psychic, and occult author. She wrote more than sixty books on occult and esoteric subjects...
too, an English witch from the New Forest
New Forest
The New Forest is an area of southern England which includes the largest remaining tracts of unenclosed pasture land, heathland and forest in the heavily-populated south east of England. It covers south-west Hampshire and extends into south-east Wiltshire....
, emigrated to California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where she continued to practice her craft, and teach others. In 1968 Gavin
Gavin Frost
Gavin Frost , B.Sc., PhD, D.D., born in Aldridge, Staffordshire, England, is an occult author, a Wiccan Priest, a doctor of Physics and Mathematics, and a prominent member of the American Wiccan community...
and Yvonne Frost
Yvonne Frost
Yvonne Frost is a Wiccan author, lecturer, and practitioner from Los Angeles. Together with her husband Gavin Frost, she founded the Church and School of Wicca in 1968. She has co-written many books with him, and appeared on the Phil Donahue Show, PM Magazine, and Tom Snyder's Tomorrow Show...
established the Church and School of Wicca
Church and School of Wicca
The Church and School of Wicca was founded by Gavin Frost and Yvonne Frost in 1968. It was the first federally recognized Church of the religion known as Wicca in the United States. It is well known for its correspondence courses on the Frosts' unique interpretation of Wicca...
; which in 1972 became the first Federally recognised Wiccan church
Wiccan church
Wiccan churches are a type of organization found within some groups of Wicca, particularly in North America. While in Europe Wicca is most often organized into independent covens, in the United States some covens choose to combine to form a "church". Churches are often formed from hive covens...
.
It would be in the 2000s that Wicca would begin to gain a foothold in other nations; for instance, Ipsita Roy Chakraverti
Ipsita Roy Chakraverti
Ipsita Roy Chakraverti is a Wiccan priestess based in India. Born into an elite family in India with a diplomat for a father and royalty for mother, Chakraverti spent her early years in Canada and the US where her father was stationed...
began to publicise it in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
, and it also has a number of adherents in South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
.
Alexandrian Wicca (1963-1973)
In the 1960s, an Englishman called Alex SandersAlex Sanders (Wiccan)
Alex Sanders , born Orrell Alexander Carter, was an English occultist and High Priest in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, responsible for founding the tradition of Alexandrian Wicca during the 1960s. He was a figure who often appeared in tabloid newspapers...
emerged, appearing in various newspapers. He claimed to be a hereditary witch, having been initiated into the craft by his grandmother. Later researchers, such as Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton
Ronald Hutton is an English historian who specializes in the study of Early Modern Britain, British folklore, pre-Christian religion and contemporary Paganism. A reader in the subject at the University of Bristol, Hutton has published fourteen books and has appeared on British television and radio...
, have shown that he actually had been initiated into a Gardnerian coven, although Hutton notes that Sanders' grandmother was in fact "skilled in cunning craft". Sanders had previously practised as a spiritualist
Spiritualism
Spiritualism is a belief system or religion, postulating the belief that spirits of the dead residing in the spirit world have both the ability and the inclination to communicate with the living...
healer.
His reputation in the tabloids increased when he married the much younger Maxine Sanders
Maxine Sanders
Maxine Sanders is a prominent member of the Wiccan faith and a co-founder with her late husband, Alex Sanders, of Alexandrian Wicca....
in a handfasting
Handfasting
Handfasting is a traditional European ceremony of betrothal or wedding. It usually involved the tying or binding of the right hands of the bride and groom with a cord or ribbon for the duration of the wedding ceremony.-Etymology:...
ceremony, and subsequently the duo began to refer to themselves as the "King and Queen of the Witches", at one point claiming to have the allegiance of 1,623 witches, and 127 northern covens. His tradition, which was later coined as "Alexandrian
Alexandrian Wicca
Alexandrian Wicca is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s...
" by Stewart Farrar
Stewart Farrar
Frank Stewart Farrar , who always went by the name of Stewart Farrar, was an English screenwriter, novelist and prominent figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, which he devoted much of his later life to propagating with the aid of his seventh wife, Janet Farrar, and then his friend Gavin Bone...
, an initiate of Sanders, incorporated aspects from ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic
Ceremonial magic, also referred to as high magic and as learned magic, is a broad term used in the context of Hermeticism or Western esotericism to encompass a wide variety of long, elaborate, and complex rituals of magic. It is named as such because the works included are characterized by...
and the Qabalah, as well as Judeo-Christian iconography. Sanders justified this by claiming that his version of Wicca and Christianity
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
were both forces for good, battling against the forces of darkness which were practiced by Satanists
Satanism
Satanism is a group of religions that is composed of a diverse number of ideological and philosophical beliefs and social phenomena. Their shared feature include symbolic association with, admiration for the character of, and even veneration of Satan or similar rebellious, promethean, and...
and black magic
Black magic
Black magic is the type of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers or is used with the intention to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its...
ians.
Several Gardnerians, including Patricia Crowther and Ray Bone
Eleanor Bone
Eleanor "Ray" Bone was an influential figure in the neopagan religion of Wicca. She claimed to have been initiated in 1941 by a couple of hereditary witches in Cumbria. She later met and became friends with Gerald Gardner, and was initiated into Wicca, becoming the High Priestess in one of his...
, tried to denounce Sanders as a charlatan, but he simply responded by accusing them of being the charlatans, and as being practitioners of black magic
Black magic
Black magic is the type of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers or is used with the intention to kill, steal, injure, cause misfortune or destruction, or for personal gain without regard to harmful consequences. As a term, "black magic" is normally used by those that do not approve of its...
who abused their initiates.
In 1973, Alex and Maxine separated, but both continued to practice the craft. One of the key reasons for their separation was that neither would compromise on Alex's bisexuality
Bisexuality
Bisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
. After the divorce, Alex focused on formulating Wicca so that it could be followed by homosexual men, who had been partially prevented from involvement previously because of the religions' focus on gender polarity. He also initiated a number of people from continental Europe, who then spread the faith there. In 1979, Sanders issued an apology for his "past hurts" and "many public stupidities" and tried to encorouge co-operation between Gardnerians and Alexandrians. He died in 1988.
Algard and Seax (1972-1974)
In the United States, several forms of Wicca formed in the 1970s, based upon the Gardnerian and Alexandrian traditions, but with certain differences. These traditions were actually formed by those who had previously been initiated into Gardnerian or Alexandrian crafts, and so can still be traced to Gardner, and thereby are often considered to be forms of British Traditional WiccaBritish Traditional Wicca
British Traditional Wicca is a term used to describe some Wiccan traditions which have their origins in the New Forest region of England...
.
The first of these was Algard Wicca, founded in 1972 by Mary Nesnick, who had been initiated into both of the aforementioned traditions. Algard attempted to fuse the two together, thereby trying to prevent the arguments that were going on between the two.
The following year, in 1973, Raymond Buckland
Raymond Buckland
Raymond Buckland , whose craft name is Robat, is an English American writer on the subject of Wicca and the occult, and a significant figure in the history of Wicca, of which he is a High Priest in both the Gardnerian and Seax traditions.According to his written works, primarily Witchcraft from the...
, who had brought the Gardnerian craft to the USA originally, ceased to practice it, and formed a new tradition, known as Seax-Wica
Seax-Wica
Seax-Wica is a tradition, or denomination, of the neopagan religion of Wicca which is largely inspired by the iconography of the historical Anglo-Saxon paganism, though, unlike Theodism, it is not a reconstruction of the early mediaeval religion itself....
. Seax used the structure of traditional Gardnerian covens, but used the iconography of Anglo-Saxon paganism, so the God and the Goddess were represented not as the traditional Horned God
Horned God
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in some European pagan religions. He is often given various names and epithets, and represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the female Triple Goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is...
and Mother Goddess
Mother goddess
Mother goddess is a term used to refer to a goddess who represents motherhood, fertility, creation or embodies the bounty of the Earth. When equated with the Earth or the natural world such goddesses are sometimes referred to as Mother Earth or as the Earth Mother.Many different goddesses have...
, but as Woden
Woden
Woden or Wodan is a major deity of Anglo-Saxon and Continental Germanic polytheism. Together with his Norse counterpart Odin, Woden represents a development of the Proto-Germanic god *Wōdanaz....
and Freya
Freya
In Norse mythology, Freyja is a goddess associated with love, beauty, fertility, gold, seiðr, war, and death. Freyja is the owner of the necklace Brísingamen, rides a chariot driven by two cats, owns the boar Hildisvíni, possesses a cloak of falcon feathers, and, by her husband Óðr, is the mother...
. Seax was virtually unique amongst Wicca at the time as it did not work on an initiatory basis of covens; Buckland deliberately published all its rites and rituals in a book, The Tree, so that anyone could practice them.
Dianic Wicca and the feminist movement (1971-1979)
In 1971, a Hungarian-American named Zsuzsanna BudapestZsuzsanna Budapest
Zsuzsanna Emese Mokcsay is an American author of Hungarian origin who writes on feminist spirituality and Dianic Wicca under the pen name and religious name Zsuzsanna Budapest or Z. Budapest. She is the High Priestess and the founding mother of the Susan B. Anthony Coven #1, the first feminist,...
, who had no connection to any Gardnerian or Alexandrian covens, mixed Wiccan practices with feminist politics, forming Dianic Witchcraft (although now it is better known as "Dianic Wicca"). She began this with a coven in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, that she named the Susan B. Anthony
Susan B. Anthony
Susan Brownell Anthony was a prominent American civil rights leader who played a pivotal role in the 19th century women's rights movement to introduce women's suffrage into the United States. She was co-founder of the first Women's Temperance Movement with Elizabeth Cady Stanton as President...
Coven Number One.
Dianic Wicca focused almost exclusively upon the Goddess
Goddess
A goddess is a female deity. In some cultures goddesses are associated with Earth, motherhood, love, and the household. In other cultures, goddesses also rule over war, death, and destruction as well as healing....
, and largely, and in some covens completely, ignoring the Horned God
Horned God
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in some European pagan religions. He is often given various names and epithets, and represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the other part being the female Triple Goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is...
. Most covens were women-only, and some were designed specifically for lesbian
Lesbian
Lesbian is a term most widely used in the English language to describe sexual and romantic desire between females. The word may be used as a noun, to refer to women who identify themselves or who are characterized by others as having the primary attribute of female homosexuality, or as an...
s. Like Seax-Wica, which developed around the same time, the rituals of Dianic Wicca were published by its creator so that any woman could practice it, without having the need of a specific initiation into a lineage. Indeed, Budapest believed that it was every woman's right to be able to practice the religion, and she referred to it as being "women's spirituality".
Dianic Wicca was criticised by many Gardnerians at the time for having an almost monotheistic
Monotheism
Monotheism is the belief in the existence of one and only one god. Monotheism is characteristic of the Baha'i Faith, Christianity, Druzism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, Samaritanism, Sikhism and Zoroastrianism.While they profess the existence of only one deity, monotheistic religions may still...
view of theology, in contrast with Wicca's traditional duotheism. One Gardnerian even declared "spare us Jahweh in drag!" in response to the focus on the one Goddess.
One Gardnerian, who went under the craft name of Starhawk
Starhawk
Starhawk is an American writer and activist. She is well known as a theorist of Paganism, and is one of the foremost popular voices of ecofeminism. She is a columnist for Beliefnet.com and On Faith, the Newsweek/Washington Post online forum on religion...
, started practising Dianic Wicca, and tried to reconcile the two, writing the 1979 book The Spiral Dance
The Spiral Dance
The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess is a best-selling book about Neopagan belief and practice written by Starhawk. It was first published in 1979, with a second edition in 1989 and a third edition in 1999...
on the subject. The tradition she founded became known as Reclaiming
Reclaiming (neopaganism)
Reclaiming is an international community of women and men working to combine earth-based spirituality and political activism. Its predecessor organization, the Reclaiming Collective, was founded in 1979 by two Neopagan women of Jewish descent, Starhawk and Diane Baker, in order to explore and...
, and mixed Wicca with other forms of Neopaganism
Neopaganism
Neopaganism is an umbrella term used to identify a wide variety of modern religious movements, particularly those influenced by or claiming to be derived from the various pagan beliefs of pre-modern Europe...
such as Feri, along with strong principles of environmental protection.
Solitaries and the "Wicca or Witchcraft" debate (1972-)
In traditional Gardnerian and Alexandrian craft, initiates took an oath of secrecy never to reveal the rituals of it to outsiders. Despite this, both Gardner and Sanders sought publicity, and allowed reporters to witness their practices. Initiates such as Valiente and Buckland had been annoyed at this, the first commenting that "by speaking to the press, Gardner was compromising the security of the group and the sincerity of his own teachings". However, the key rituals of the Gardnerians (which were the basis for most of the Alexandrian ones) were made public in the 1960s when Charles CardellCharles Cardell
Charles Cardell was an English Wiccan who propagated his own tradition of the Craft, which was distinct from that of Gerald Gardner. Cardell's tradition of Wicca was based around a form of the Horned God known as Atho, and worked with a coven that met in the grounds of his estate in Surrey. His...
, in an act of spite against the recently deceased Gardner, published the Gardnerian Book of Shadows
Book of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious texts and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Originating within the Gardnerian tradition of the Craft, the first Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s...
.
In 1970, Paul Huson
Paul Huson
Paul Huson is a British-born author and artist currently living in the United States. In addition to writing several books about occultism and witchcraft he has worked extensively in the film and television industries.-Family:...
published Mastering Witchcraft
Mastering Witchcraft
Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks and Covens is a book written by Paul Huson and published in 1970 by G.P. Putnams- the first mainstream publisher to produce a do-it-yourself manual for the would-be witch or warlock....
a book purportedly based upon non-Wiccan traditional British witchcraft, and the first do-it-yourself manual for the would-be witch, which became one of the basic instruction books for a large number of covens. In 1971 "Lady Sheba" (Jessie Wicker Bell, self-styled "Queen of the American Witches") published what she claimed was her family's centuries-old grimoire
Grimoire
A grimoire is a textbook of magic. Such books typically include instructions on how to create magical objects like talismans and amulets, how to perform magical spells, charms and divination and also how to summon or invoke supernatural entities such as angels, spirits, and demons...
, but was in fact substantially plagiarised from the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, and included poetry by Doreen Valiente
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...
that is still under copyright.
Following this, several prominent Wiccans decided that it would be better to simply reveal the Wiccan mysteries to the public in their true form. Most prominent among these were Stewart
Stewart Farrar
Frank Stewart Farrar , who always went by the name of Stewart Farrar, was an English screenwriter, novelist and prominent figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, which he devoted much of his later life to propagating with the aid of his seventh wife, Janet Farrar, and then his friend Gavin Bone...
and Janet Farrar
Janet Farrar
Janet Farrar is a British teacher and author of books on Wicca and Neopaganism. Along with her two husbands, Stewart Farrar and Gavin Bone, Farrar has published "some of the most influential books on modern Witchcraft to date." According to George Knowles, "some seventy five percent of Wiccans...
, two Alexandrian initiates. Stewart, prior to his marriage, had already published information on Wiccan rituals (with Sanders' blessing), in his 1971 book What Witches Do
What Witches Do
What Witches Do is a book by Stewart Farrar, and is an eye-witness account of Wiccan practices, namely that of the Alexandrian coven run by Alex Sanders and his wife Maxine Sanders.-Description:Farrar was a practicing witch and a member of an active coven...
. Together they published further works on the subjects, such as 1981's Eight Sabbats for Witches and 1984's The Witches' Way. They were joined by their friend, Doreen Valiente, who also published information on the subject of pagan Witchcraft in general.
From these published writings, (some of which, such as Valiente's 1973 book An ABC of Witchcraft, contained a self-initiation ritual), many other practitioners began to follow the Witchcraft religion, working either as solitary Witches or in non-lineaged covens. Valiente herself considered all of these such people to be "Witches", as she reserved the term "Wiccan" to refer solely to Gardnerians, however most of these new followers used the term "Wiccan" to describe themselves. As such, in the United States, it became the norm to refer to any Neopagan witchcraft as "Wicca", and so Gardnerians, Alexandrians and Algards, wishing to emphasise their lineage that stretched back to Gardner, began referring to themselves as followers of "British Traditional Wicca
British Traditional Wicca
British Traditional Wicca is a term used to describe some Wiccan traditions which have their origins in the New Forest region of England...
".
Pop-culture Wicca (1996-)
In the 1990s and 2000s, Wicca began to become engrained in popular culture. Aspects of Wicca were incorporated into the New AgeNew Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
movement, and many Wiccans took on New Age beliefs and practices. Wicca was also taken up by popular entertainment; in 1996, the American film The Craft
The Craft (film)
The Craft is a 1996 American supernatural teen horror film directed by Andrew Fleming and starring Robin Tunney, Rachel True, Fairuza Balk and Neve Campbell. The film's plot centers on a group of four teenage girls who pursue witchcraft and use it for their own gain...
was released about four witches who are corrupted by their power. The same year the television series Sabrina the Teenage Witch appeared, which was followed the following year by Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and then, the year after that, the series Charmed
Charmed
Charmed is an American television series that originally aired from October 7, 1998, until May 21, 2006, on the now defunct The WB Television Network. The series was created in 1998 by writer Constance M...
and the film Practical Magic
Practical Magic
Practical Magic is a 1998 American fantasy film directed by Griffin Dunne and starring Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman as witches who carry on a family legacy of witchcraft and tragedy. The film is based on a book of the same name by Alice Hoffman...
. Whilst these were heavily criticised by many Wiccans (Margot Adler
Margot Adler
Margot Adler is an author, journalist, lecturer, Wiccan priestess and radio journalist and correspondent for National Public Radio .- Early life :Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Adler grew up mostly in New York City...
called The Craft "the worst movie ever made!"), they did encourage many teenagers and young adults to investigate more about the religion. Most covens and Neopagan groups refused to allow under 18s into their ranks, and so many teenagers turned to books to find out more. In turn, several books were published to cater for them, including Silver Ravenwolf
Silver RavenWolf
Silver RavenWolf , born Jenine E. Trayer, is an American author and lecturer who focuses on Neopaganism. She is married and has four children. She currently resides in Dillsburg, Pennsylvania.- Biography :...
's Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation and Scott Cunningham
Scott Cunningham
Scott Douglas Cunningham was a U.S. writer. Cunningham is the author of several books on Wicca and various other alternative religious subjects....
's Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. This helped to bring about the Teen Wicca movement, and it has been suggested that the reason why so many young adults are attracted to the faith can "be attributed to the fact that it tackles issues that teenagers are interested in — in a way that other religions do not."
The popularity of Wicca amongst teens has also brought problems; in 2001, a 12 year old American schoolgirl named Tempest Smith
Tempest Smith
Tempest Kayne Smith was a 12-year-old girl from Lincoln Park, Michigan, USA who committed suicide by hanging on February 20, 2001. Based on the contents of her diary, the cause of the suicide was assumed to be bullying by her classmates at Lincoln Park Middle School...
committed suicide after being bullied for her faith.
However the rise of this teenage-focused, New Age, pop-culture Wicca has been highly criticised by traditionalists, many of whom refuse to accept it as Wicca, instead using terms like "wicca-lite". The historians Brooks Alexander and Jeffrey Russell commented that "pop-culture witchcraft is sufficiently vague in structure and content to qualify more as a 'lifestyle' than a 'religion'."
The rise of the internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
also had an effect on Wicca. Previously, solitary Wiccans around the world had little way of communicating amongst one another, however, the internet allowed them to do so. Websites such as Witchvox.com were set up. Historian Brooks Alexander commented that this was a form of "minority empowerment".
Gaining Recognition
For a long time, Wicca was seen as being simply a minor sect, or cult. However, with the rise of solitary practitioners describing themselves as Wiccans, the faith went from becoming simply a mystery cult to becoming a public religion.Groups were formed to represent the Wiccan community, such as the Covenant of the Goddess
Covenant of the Goddess
The Covenant of the Goddess is a cross-traditional Wiccan group of solitary Wiccan practitioners and over one hundred affiliated covens . It was founded in 1975 in order to increase co-operation among Witches and to secure for Witches and covens the legal protection enjoyed by members of other...
, which was founded in 1975. Wiccans began to appear on various British television documentaries, including The Heaven & Earth Show and Desperately Seeking Something
Desperately Seeking Something
Desperately Seeking Something is a British television series first broadcast on 6 November 1995, presented by travel writer and presenter Pete McCarthy. In it, McCarthy looked at various spiritual practices from across the globe, and meeting their practitioners. It ran for three series...
.
In the USA, the court case of Dettmer v. Landon
Dettmer v. Landon
Dettmer v. Landon, 799 F.2d 929 , is a court case in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that although Wicca was a religion, it was not a violation of the First Amendment to deny a prisoner access to ritual objects.-Facts:The plaintiff, Herbert Daniel Dettmer, was a...
in 1986 established that Wicca was a religion, and therefore should be treated as such under the eyes of the law.
The first Wiccan Wedding to be legally recognised in the UK (by the Registrars of Scotland
General Register Office for Scotland
The General Register Office for Scotland was a non-ministerial directorate of the Scottish Government that administered the registration of births, deaths, marriages, divorces and adoptions in Scotland. It was also responsible for the statutes relating to the formalities of marriage and conduct...
) was performed in 2004.