"The religion of Pagan Witchcraft, or Wicca, was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and is one of several Pagan religions. The figure at the forefront of Wicca's early development was the English occultist Gerald Gardner (1884–1964), the author of ""Witchcraft Today"" (1954) and ""The Meaning of Witchcraft"" (1959) and the founder of a tradition known as Gardnerian Wicca. Gardnerian Wicca revolved around the veneration of both a Horned God and a Mother Goddess, the celebration of eight seasonally-based festivals in a Wheel of the Year and the practice of magical rituals in groups known"
"English occultist Gerald Gardner (1884-1964), the author of ""Witchcraft Today"" (1954) and ""The Meaning of Witchcraft"" (1959) and the founder of a tradition known as Gardnerian Wicca. Gardnerian Wicca revolved around the veneration of both a Horned God and a Mother Goddess, the celebration of eight seasonally-based festivals in a Wheel of the Year and the practice of magical rituals in groups known as covens. Gardnerianism was subsequently brought to the U.S. in the early 1960s by an English initiate, Raymond Buckland (1934-2017), and his then-wife Rosemary, who together founded a coven in Long Island. In the U.S., new variants"
"of Witchcraft and folk-magic. ""Inventing Witchcraft"" labels ""the Craft"" as a ""new religion"", founded by Gerald Gardner ""in 1947, give or take a year."" (p. 33-34) This theory obviously conflicts with Gardner's own claim to have been initiated in 1939 into one of England's last surviving witch covens. Kelly's book identifies the initiation of Gardner as ""the foundational myth"" of Modern Witchcraft. (p. 35) In support of his theory, Kelly explains that ""the paper trail stops in 1946. We have no serious historical evidence for the existence of any Gardnerian coven before then."" (p. 32) Academic writers on religion have"
"of the 20th century and is one of several Pagan religions. The figure at the forefront of Wicca's early development was the English occultist Gerald Gardner (1884–1964), the author of ""Witchcraft Today"" (1954) and ""The Meaning of Witchcraft"" (1959) and the founder of a tradition known as Gardnerian Wicca. Gardnerian Wicca revolved around the veneration of both a Horned God and a Mother Goddess, the celebration of eight seasonally-based festivals in a Wheel of the Year and the practice of magical rituals in groups known as covens. Gardnerianism was subsequently brought to the U.S. in the early 1960s by an"
"New Forest coven The New Forest coven were an alleged group of witches who met around the area of the New Forest in southern England during the early 20th century. According to his own claims, in September 1939, a British occultist named Gerald Gardner was initiated into the coven and subsequently used its beliefs and practices as a basis from which he formed the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. Gardner described some of his experiences with the coven in his published books ""Witchcraft Today"" (1954) and ""The Meaning of Witchcraft"" (1959) although on the whole revealed little about it, saying he"
"Wicca Wicca (), also termed Pagan Witchcraft, is a contemporary Pagan new religious movement. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices. Wicca has no central authority figure. Its traditional core beliefs, principles and practices were originally outlined in the 1940s and 1950s by Gardner and Doreen Valiente, both in published books as well as in secret written and"
"circle and took the usual oaths of secrecy which bound me not to reveal any secrets of the cult. But, as it is a dying cult, I thought it was a pity that all the knowledge should be lost, so in the end I was permitted to write, as fiction, something of what a witch believes in the novel High Magic's Aid. After the witchcraft laws were repealed in 1951, and replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act, Gerald Gardner went public, publishing his first non-fiction book about Witchcraft, ""Witchcraft Today"", in 1954. Gardner continued, as the text often iterates, to"
"he could have been familiar with this Hindu term. Skyclad (Neopaganism) In Wicca and Paganism/Neo-paganism, the term skyclad is used to refer to ritual nudity. Some Wiccan groups, or Traditions, perform some or all of their rituals skyclad. Whilst nudity and the practice of witchcraft have long been associated in the visual arts, this contemporary ritual nudity is typically attributed to either the influence of Gerald Gardner or to a passage from ""Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches"", and as such is mainly attributed to the Gardnerian and Aradian covens. Gardner's ""Witchcraft Today"" was published in 1954. The book"
"1959's ""The Meaning of Witchcraft"". Gerald Gardner in the Foreword to Witchcraft Today: Whilst by the time of writing, Gardner had been initiated into the religion, and had formed his own coven, he did not state this in the book, instead he ""posed as a disinterested anthropologist"". The introduction to the book was written by Margaret Murray, who had widely supported the witch-cult hypothesis in the 1920s and 1930s through her books ""The Witch-Cult in Western Europe"" and ""The God of the Witches"". In her introduction, she stated that: In the book Gardner also repeats the claim, which had originated"
"down near the New Forest in Hampshire, Gardner joined an occult group through which he claimed to have encountered the New Forest coven into which he was initiated in 1939. Believing the coven to be a survival of the pre-Christian Witch-Cult, he decided to revive the faith, supplementing the coven's rituals with ideas borrowed from ceremonial magic and the writings of Crowley to form the Gardnerian tradition of Wicca. Moving to London in 1945, following the repeal of the Witchcraft Act of 1736 Gardner became intent on propagating Wicca, attracting media attention and writing ""Witchcraft Today"" (1954) and ""The Meaning"
"Skyclad (Neopaganism) In Wicca and Paganism/Neo-paganism, the term skyclad is used to refer to ritual nudity. Some Wiccan groups, or Traditions, perform some or all of their rituals skyclad. Whilst nudity and the practice of witchcraft have long been associated in the visual arts, this contemporary ritual nudity is typically attributed to either the influence of Gerald Gardner or to a passage from ""Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches"", and as such is mainly attributed to the Gardnerian and Aradian covens. Gardner's ""Witchcraft Today"" was published in 1954. The book claimed to report on the contemporary practice of Pagan"
"""Witchcraft Today"" (1954) and ""The Meaning of Witchcraft"" (1959) and the founder of a tradition known as Gardnerian Wicca. Gardnerian Wicca revolved around the veneration of both a Horned God and a Mother Goddess, the celebration of eight seasonally-based festivals in a Wheel of the Year and the practice of magical rituals in groups known as covens. Gardnerianism was subsequently brought to the U.S. in the early 1960s by an English initiate, Raymond Buckland (1934–), and his then-wife Rosemary, who together founded a coven on Long Island. In the U.S., new variants of Wicca developed, including Dianic Wicca, a tradition"
"elements from Freemasonry, the Occult, and Theosophy, which came together in the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, where Gardner met Aleister Crowley, whose influence became the basis for Wiccan magical practices. Gerald Gardner was initiated into the O.T.O. by Aleister Crowley and subsequently went on to found the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Various scholars on early Wiccan history, such as Ronald Hutton, Philip Heselton, and Leo Ruickbie concur that witchcraft's early rituals, as devised by Gardner, contained much from Crowley's writings such as the Gnostic Mass. The third degree initiation ceremony in Gardnerian Wicca (including the Great Rite) is"
"was the only member of the Folklore Society to ""wholeheartedly"" accept Murray's witch-cult hypothesis. The duo knew each other, with Murray writing the foreword to Gardner's 1954 book ""Witchcraft Today"", although in that foreword she did not explicitly specify whether she believed Gardner's claim that he had discovered a survival of her witch-cult. In 2005, Noble suggested that ""Murray's name might be all but forgotten today if it were not for Gerald Gardner"". Murray's witch-cult theories were likely also a core influence on the non-Gardnerian Wiccan traditions that were established in Britain and Australia between 1930 and 1970 by the"
"by occultists like Gerald Gardner (1884–1964) who used them as a historical basis in his creation of the contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca. The definitive rejection of Murray's Witch-Cult theories among academia occurred during the 1970s, when her ideas were attacked by two British historians, Keith Thomas and Norman Cohn, who highlighted her methodological flaws. At the same time, a variety of scholars across Europe and North America – such as Alan Macfarlane, Erik Midelfort, William Monter, Robert Muchembled, Gerhard Schormann, Bente Alver and Bengt Ankarloo – began to publish in-depth studies of the archival records from the witch trials,"
"claimed they had found remnants of the surviving Witch Cult. The first of these was Gerald Gardner, who claimed to have discovered a coven of such witches - the New Forest Coven, in 1939. Gardner said that he was concerned that the religion would die out, and so initiated more members into it through his Bricket Wood coven. The tradition that he started became Gardnerian Wicca. The New Forest witch Sybil Leek made a similar claim, stating that she followed the religion as many of her family had previously done, and a similar claim came from the Australian artist Rosaleen"
"1938, also on Catherine Chalk’s land, they built Christchurch Garden Theatre, which called itself “The First Rosicrucian Theater in England.” It presented Sullivan’s mystically-themed plays during June–September 1938. Gerald Gardner (1884-1964), the reviver of British witchcraft (“Wicca”), claimed to have been initiated into traditional witchcraft through contacts he made at the rosicrucian theatre, though there is some debate about this. Gerald Gardner’s biography by Jack Bracelin (although said by Frederic Lamond to have been written by Idries Shah) mentions the group. Although the group named itself after the Rosicrucian tradition, and although its rituals had a Masonic flavour to them,"
"now known as Wicca, which revolved around the worship of a Horned God and Goddess, the celebration of festivals known as ""Sabbats"", and the practice of ritual magic. He also went on to write several books about the historical Witch-Cult, ""Witchcraft Today"" (1954) and ""The Meaning of Witchcraft"" (1959), and in these books, Gardner used the phrase ""the burning times"" in reference to the European and North American witch trials. In the early 20th century, a number of individuals and groups emerged in Europe, primarily Britain, and subsequently the United States as well, claiming to be the surviving remnants of"
"and Satanists. The athame is also mentioned in the writings of Gerald Gardner in the 1950s, who claimed to have been initiated into a surviving tradition of Witchcraft, the New Forest Coven. The athame was their most important ritual tool, with many uses, but was not to be used for actual physical cutting. There has been speculation that Gardner's interest and expertise in antique swords and knives, and in particular the kris knives of Malaysia and Indonesia, may have contributed to the tool's central importance in modern Wicca. On the other hand, the athame stands as one of the four"
"the warlock class. 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, and in many pagan practices. One famous Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The Book of Shadows is also used by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrianism and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how"
"Gardnerian Wicca. Cochrane’s Craft, which is also known as Cochranianism, is a tradition of traditional witchcraft founded in 1951 by the English Witch Robert Cochrane, who himself claimed to have been taught it by some of his elderly family members, a claim that is disputed by some historians such as Ronald Hutton and Leo Ruickbie. Cochranianism revolved around the veneration of the Horned God and the Mother Goddess, alongside seven polytheistic deities which are viewed as children of the God and Goddess. Cochranian Witchcraft has several features that separate it from other traditions such as Gardnerian Wicca, such as its"
"who were used to the gentler, romantic paganism of Gerald Gardner and were especially quick to reject any relationship between witchcraft and Satanism. In 1985 Classical historian Georg Luck, in his ""Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds"", theorised that the origins of the Witch-cult may have appeared in late antiquity as a faith primarily designed to worship the Horned God, stemming from the merging of Cernunnos, a horned god of the Celts, with the Greco-Roman Pan/Faunus, a combination of gods which he posits created a new deity, around which the remaining pagans, those refusing"
"Algard Wicca Algard Wicca is a tradition, or denomination, in the Neo-Pagan religion of Wicca. It was founded in the United States in 1972 by Mary Nesnick, an initiate of both Gardnerian and Alexandrian Wicca, in an attempt to fuse the two traditions. Because of this fusion, it is categorised under the heading of British Traditional Wicca, with its initiates being able to trace their lineage back to Gerald Gardner, the founder of modern-day Wicca. One of the spiritual seekers who approached Nesnick in the early 1970s was Eddie Buczynski, but she turned him down for initiation because he was"
"with Gerald Gardner (the ""Father of Wicca"") in the mid-20th century. Gardner was a retired British civil servant and amateur anthropologist, with a broad familiarity in paganism and occultism. He claimed to have been initiated into a witches' coven in New Forest, Hampshire, in the late 1930s. Intent on perpetuating this craft, Gardner founded the Bricket Wood coven with his wife Donna in the 1940s, after buying the Naturist Fiveacres Country Club. Much of the coven's early membership was drawn from the club's members and its meetings were held within the club grounds. Many notable figures of early Wicca were"
"""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. Gardner referred to members of his tradition as ""the Wica"", although he called the religion itself ""Witchcraft"", and never used the term ""Wicca"" in the sense as it is now known. The ritual format of Wicca shows the influence of late Victorian era occultism (even co-founder Doreen Valiente admitted seeing influence from Aleister Crowley), and there is very little"
"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, and in many pagan practices. One famous Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The Book of Shadows is also used by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrianism and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how to begin following"
"religious witchcraft in England, which had supposedly survived as an underground religion for centuries. Ritual nudity was included as a regular part of Wiccan practice, but in modern day is mainly done by Alexandrian, Georgian, and Blue Star Wiccans. The ""Charge of the Goddess"", a part of Gardnerian ritual liturgy, does instruct Wiccans to practice ritual in the nude. Gardner spent several years in India, and may have picked up the concept from the Digambara Jains, a religious sect in which the monks may not wear clothing. The origins of this instruction have been traced to Charles Godfrey Leland's 1899"
"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"
"sold at the price of 15 shillings. It was reprinted in August 1956. In his biography of Gardner, the researcher Philip Heselton noted that the contents of ""Witchcraft Today"" were essentially a summation of what Gardner had read about witchcraft and other related subjects over a number of years. He remarked that Gardner had probably intended to provide a history of the Witch-Cult from the Stone Age to the present which made reference to related religious movements, such as those of the druids, Knights Templar and ancient Egyptians. Summing the book up, he described it as ""a record of Gardner's"
"left home. From Ozone Park, he moved to Manhattan, where a counter-cultural community had built up around the Greenwich Village and the Lower East Side that contained an array of gay people, hippies, occultists and others adopting bohemian lifestyles. Without money, he resorted to working as a rent boy, and made use of both marijuana and LSD. Although he briefly returned to Catholicism, in 1971 he read a copy of ""Witchcraft Today"" (1954), a book authored by Englishman Gerald Gardner, the founder of Gardnerian Wicca, and it reignited his interest in Pagan religion. In the autumn, he tracked down Leo"
"form of duotheistic universalism. Since Gardner's death in 1964, the Wicca that he claimed he was initiated into has attracted many initiates, becoming the largest of the various witchcraft traditions in the Western world, and has influenced other Neopagan and occult movements. Wiccan literature has been described as aiding the empowerment of young women through its lively portrayal of female protagonists. Part of the recent growth in Neo-Pagan religions has been attributed to the strong media presence of fictional works such as the Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Harry Potter series with their depictions of witchcraft. Widespread accessibility to related"
"Ernest Mason, Susie Mason, Rosamund Sabine and Katherine Oldmeadow. Gerald Gardner believed that the New Forest coven was a survival of the Witch-Cult, a pre-Christian pagan religion that worshipped a Horned God and a Triple Goddess and which had been persecuted during the witch trials of the Early Modern period. The existence of the Witch-Cult had been put forward by various writers in the nineteenth century, such as Jules Michelet and Charles Leland, but had risen to prominence in the early twentieth century when it was promoted in two of the works of Egyptologist Dr Margaret Murray: ""The Witch-Cult in"
"including Dafo, Doreen Valiente, Jack Bracelin, Fred Lamond, Dayonis, Eleanor Bone and Lois Bourne. The coven is still active today, though it maintains secrecy and its history is only known up until the 1970s. Gardner founded the coven around 1946 after moving to the area from the New Forest with his wife Donna. In the New Forest, Gardner claimed to have been initiated into the New Forest coven, where he learned the mysteries and practices of the witchcraft religion. Gardner, fearing that the ""Old Religion"", as he called it, would die out, decided to form a new coven near to"