Gardner's Wicca

[David19]

I heard and read on a few sites and in some books that Gardner never intended to have wicca as a religion, does anyone know if this is true, and if it is, who made it into one. Also, according to www.whywiccanssuck.com, you're not supposed to say you practice wicca and are suposed to say witchcraft is evil or something, is this true, as i'm not sure, although the author does seem to know a lot (i think they're a Gardnerian wiccan), if it is, what made people start saying they practiced and also, why did Gardner publish books, if you weren't meant to say (also, why are those 'old laws' published?).

Thanks.

[Ben Gruagach]

I'm not sure where whoever said that Gardner never intended for Wicca to be a religion is getting their stuff. If you read Gardner's books it comes across loud and clear that he was definitely promoting a Pagan religion. (Whether it was an intact pre-Christian religion or not is another question which we still don't have a definitive answer for of course.)

If Gardner wasn't promoting Wicca as a religion you'd think he would have left out all religious references, like the whole Goddess and God thing, or alternatively would have presented it within the mainstream Christian context rather than a Pagan one which was pretty heretical at that time.

That bit about Wiccans denying being Wiccans comes from the "laws" which Gardner introduced to his coven back in the 1950s. They're sometimes called "The Ardanes." You can see them in the public domain version of Gardner's Book of Shadows (http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gbos/index.htm) where they are listed as "The Old Laws." They're also included in "The Grimoire of Lady Sheba" which you can buy at many occult bookstores and through websites like Amazon.

There is a lot of doubt whether the "laws" Gardner presented are actually old. They were certainly written to try and look that way. The bit about denying you are Wiccan is in there and is supposedly how the old witches were taught to answer questions in order to stay safe during the witch hunt days.

[Dawa Lhamo]

I heard and read on a few sites and in some books that Gardner never intended to have wicca as a religion, does anyone know if this is true, and if it is, who made it into one. Also, according to www.whywiccanssuck.com, you're not supposed to say you practice wicca and are suposed to say witchcraft is evil or something, is this true, as i'm not sure, although the author does seem to know a lot (i think they're a Gardnerian wiccan), if it is, what made people start saying they practiced and also, why did Gardner publish books, if you weren't meant to say (also, why are those 'old laws' published?).

Thanks.About the Old Laws. Well, according to Doreen Valiente, neither she nor the other coven members had seen these Old Laws until there was a dispute. Some were upset that Gardner had been talking to the press, and so Doreen and others started to draft up some rules. To which Gardner said that there were *already* rules, and produced the Old Laws. I am of the opinion that those laws were possibly written by Gardner to re-assert his authority over the coven. The bit about an old HPS "gracefully" standing aside for a younger seems clearly to be a dig at Valiente. At the very least, if Gardner didn't write them from scratch, he "improved" upon them.

I believe in Wicca: For the Rest of Us, this is discussed with regard to the Old Laws. http://wicca.timerift.net/laws/old_laws.html

Like anything, we should take the Old Laws and seriously consider them and if/how we want to apply them. Because certainly we don't face the same kinds of dangers from being open about it... Many Wiccans I know don't place much stock if any in them...

I honestly think that Gardner *did* intend on spreading Wicca. Why initiate so many people into it? Why write books? His actions, to me, seem like those of a man who very much wanted Wicca to survive him...

Of course, it depends on how you define "religion", whether or not Gardner wanted Wicca to be a religion or not. More strict definitions, especially ones that exclude folk religions, exclude Eastern religions, etc... then I think the answer is no. But in my estimation, what Gardner was practicing WAS already a religion (according to most modern academic definitions). I don't think he intended it to be congregational, necessarily, but congregationism is just one of many forms of religious practice. As BenG said, why all the religious jargon, then?

Tashi delek!
Dawa Lhamo

[shuvanilu]

David 19: It is my understanding that Gardner did indeed intend to start a religion. Ben and Dawa Lhamo make good points. As for the Old Laws, here they are:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/pag/gbos/gbos38.htm

Now this is the PUBLIC Gardnerian BOS, I am certainly no expert, but it seems to me that the laws were put in place for safety reasons. Keep in mind, this was written right after witchcraft was re-legalised in Great Britain, right? Initiated Garderians would know more of course, but this is my understanding.

---shuvanilu_vb_

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

My High priest (who has his thirds for Gardnerian and Alexandrian) tells me that Gardner was quite shocked that the religion he invented took off as much as it did.
Of course, the way some things have turned out probably have him spinning in his grave. People on the coast of Tunisia stop, cock their heads, and say 'Hey, what's that high-pitched whining noise?"
The Old Laws were written more or less to put Valiente and her splinter group in their places. Valiente was concerned with the way Gardner was popularizing the cult, so she and a group of others drew up 'Thirteen proposed Rules of the Craft'. When presented with them, gardner told her that there were already Laws, and shortly therafter 'The Old Laws' came on the scene. Valiente was infuriated, as these new Laws were obviously designed to put her in her place, not to mention the fact that they had blatantly obvious inaccuracies (An if you go to the pyre, etc) that assumed Wiccans had been systematically burned at the stake in England.

[Dawa Lhamo]

My High priest (who has his thirds for Gardnerian and Alexandrian) tells me that Gardner was quite shocked that the religion he invented took off as much as it did. Shocked and dismayed, or shocked and pleasantly surprised?

[David19]

Thanks for all the replies, guys, i have something else, i know that the Gardnerian Book of Shadow's is available on the internet, but how come, aren't Gardnerian's supposed to take oaths of secrecy (or is the published Book of Shadow's a fake or one put out to fool people, by Gardnerian wiccans, sounds conspiracy theory, i know :)!).

Also, in the Gardnerian Book of Shadow's, would there be a lot of different things in it now than the published work or would Gardnerian wiccans be using the same material (or would saying brake your oaths).

Thanks.

[shuvanilu]

Let me again preface this with "this is only my understanding of it". I'm not Gardnerian. I *think* from what I've studied, that there is more to the coven GBOS than there is to the published GBOS. What the extra stuff is, I have no clue. And I'd guess that Gardnerians would in fact be breaking their oaths if they told you what the differences were. I'm curious too, but I guess I'll never know_witchball ----shuvanilu

[Jenett]

This was sort of touched on in your other thread, a little while ago (http://mysticwicks.com/showthread.php?t=122360).

But as said there, the BOS (in whatever tradition) isn't the whole tradition. Many trads have a lot of material you learn only through experience or oral teaching. The BOS is a way to remind you of specific things (wording, etc.) but there's also a lot of it that's not written down.

Think of it like a cookbook with the ingredients written down, but minimal instructions: it doesn't give you a picture at every step of what "rolling boil" looks like, or "golden brown" or what a particular tool looks like. That's stuff you won't forget once you've seen it a couple of times.

I'm not Gardnerian (or BTW, for that matter) but in our trad, stuff that isn't written down much includes things like the visualisations used for energy work. (So someone's BOS might have the text we use for the circle cast, but it may not have the energy visualisation) You can say the words without the visualisation, but if you do something different with the energy, you may well get a different circle from the trad version.

[Ben Gruagach]

The document that you tend to find on the web listed as Gardner's Book of Shadows came to public light a few ways.

- Lady Sheba published her own Gardnerian-descended Book of Shadows back in 1972 as "The Grimoire of Lady Sheba." There are definitely lots of additions and a few changes when compared with other Books of Shadows, but I think this book more than anything else is what opened the floodgates for previously unpublished material to come out. A lot of people were furious with Lady Sheba for doing what she did but once it was out there it's awfully hard to pull it all back in and make it disappear again.

- Janet and Stewart Farrar, with the assistance of Doreen Valiente (who inherited the original manuscript of Gardner's Book of Shadows that she had used with Gardner back when she was his high priestess) published large sections (although I don't think they published everything) in their books, particularly the ones commonly available now in one volume as "A Witches' Bible." You can find a short explanation of the material as well as copies of it on Janet Farrar's website at http://www.wicca.utvinternet.com/ (click on the Book of Shadows link in their menu at the left side of the screen.) The first editions of the relevant books came out in the early 1980s.

- Aidan Kelly did an in-depth study comparing versions of Gardner's Book of Shadows with an older version which he had called "Ye Bok of Ye Art Magickal" -- Kelly's work circulated in private as photocopies, and an edited down (and apparently not as good) version was published by Llewellyn in 1991. I suspect it wouldn't be too hard to put together a workable copy of the Book of Shadows based on what Kelly provided.

[Carla O'Harris]

The Book of Shadows available publically is only an approximation, and therefore not completely reliable.

As far as the Laws are concerned, it's also very possible that Gardner when challenged simply unearthed older documents from his larger collection of notes, and presented them afresh.

The "pyres" reference in my opinion is spurious as an argument against them. It's only nationalists who claim that British Witchcraft, Inc. must have been Officially and Only British TM from its very inception have any problem with Continental forms that are present. It should be obvious that a witchcraft tradition anywhere is not going to follow strict nationalism, because witches are marginal people who are going to exchange with other marginals, especially with migrations and persecutions and so forth.

I don't trust texts Kelly makes available. He's unreliable, and a sloppy scholar, not to mention, apparently, an oathbreaker.

[Ben Gruagach]

The Book of Shadows available publically is only an approximation, and therefore not completely reliable.
...

I don't trust texts Kelly makes available. He's unreliable, and a sloppy scholar, not to mention, apparently, an oathbreaker.

So, you're saying that the three sources of Wiccan Books of Shadows I mentioned were all independently lies? I find it a bit hard to believe that Lady Sheba would present a fake one, especially knowing how its publication was received by the Wiccan community. Perhaps you can explain why Wiccans who know what's fake and what's real would even bother worrying about a fake Book that is published?

I also have a hard time accepting that Doreen Valiente and the Farrars would lie about what they published as extracts from the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.

Aidan Kelly's work was the last of those three I mentioned to be published too -- so putting the blame all on him for making the contents public (fake or not) seems just a little misplaced. And the material he published wasn't really any worse than what either Lady Sheba, Doreen Valiente, or the Farrars published. Are you saying they are all oathbreakers?

[Carla O'Harris]

I'm saying that the public editions are not accurate. They may be approximations, but they are not entirely accurate, and therefore no final conclusions can be made about them.

[Elderbush]

I fail to see your point. Conclusions, final or otherwise, can and have been made about them and the Gardnerians. That is something that you cannot control.

[Carla O'Harris]

Well, yes, you're right ; anyone is welcome to make any idiotic conclusions they like. Your point? I can't control people's illogic.

[Elderbush]

I would make it more general than that. You can't control people. Also you can't stop them from thinking.

[Ben Gruagach]

The genie is also out of the bottle regarding large portions of Gardner's Book of Shadows. You might not like it but there's no way you can stuff that genie back in the bottle.

Here's one way to think of it that might comfort the hard-liners. A person can read all the required textbooks used in medical school, but that doesn't mean they will have the education they would have were they to actually attend class and learn from their flesh-and-blood teachers.

Even if 100% of the Gardnerian rituals and teachings were committed to paper and publicly available without any errors or misrepresentations, it still takes formal initiation and training in an authorized Gardnerian coven for a person to become a Gardnerian. Reading and even doing the rituals on your own will never make you Gardnerian without that authorized training and initiation.

However of course we must also keep in mind that Gardnerians are just one denomination of many among Wiccans, and Wiccans do not have exclusive ownership of the term witchcraft either -- there are lots of witches who are not Wiccans, and lots of Wiccans who are not Gardnerians.

[raven grimassi]

- Lady Sheba published her own Gardnerian-descended Book of Shadows back in 1972 as "The Grimoire of Lady Sheba." There are definitely lots of additions and a few changes when compared with other Books of Shadows, but I think this book more than anything else is what opened the floodgates for previously unpublished material to come out. A lot of people were furious with Lady Sheba for doing what she did but once it was out there it's awfully hard to pull it all back in and make it disappear again.

According to Doreen Valiente, Lady Sheba's book was a copy of what Doreen herself had compiled as well as personally written. Doreen told me that one day she picked up a copy of Lady Sheba's book and upon reading it was astonished to find her own material!

[Ben Gruagach]

According to Doreen Valiente, Lady Sheba's book was a copy of what Doreen herself had compiled as well as personally written. Doreen told me that one day she picked up a copy of Lady Sheba's book and upon reading it was astonished to find her own material!

I believe the reason Doreen expressed surprise was because Lady Sheba claimed her Book of Shadows was from a pre-Gardnerian witchcraft tradition. Sort of like Alex Sanders claimed that his Book of Shadows was given to him by his grandmother back when he was initiated when he was seven years old -- which would have been in 1932 and of course before Gardner said he was initiated.

The fact that material that Doreen had herself written was present in both Lady Sheba's Book of Shadows and also in Alex Sanders' Book of Shadows indicated that they both had to have been copied from a Gardnerian Book of Shadows.

[Carla O'Harris]

The Lady Sheba / Valiente connection to me indicates that they both had similar versions of the BOS, but it does not indicate that it is the earliest BOS, nor matching BAM, nor any pre-BAM materials or notebooks. It's interesting but nonconclusive. The changes that Gardner may have introduced pre-1953 and later so as to not violate his oaths to New Forest may be reflected here.

I think the cat is partially out of the bag, maybe even mostly out of the bag, but not fully out of the bag, and that is significant, because the small differences and changes can make a big difference. But I think you're right that no matter how much the cat is out of the bag that the context of the oral teachings, etc., does make a big difference.

[raven grimassi]

The Lady Sheba / Valiente connection to me indicates that they both had similar versions of the BOS, but it does not indicate that it is the earliest BOS, nor matching BAM, nor any pre-BAM materials or notebooks. It's interesting but nonconclusive. The changes that Gardner may have introduced pre-1953 and later so as to not violate his oaths to New Forest may be reflected here.

There are indeed many possibilities, and we need to remember that Doreen often drew from pre-established material, and embellished it. One example is the Charge of the Goddess, which is clearly based upon text in Leland's Aradia. I believe that what we are seeing in Gardnerian material is not invention, it is instead evolution and expansion.

[Ben Gruagach]

There are indeed many possibilities, and we need to remember that Doreen often drew from pre-established material, and embellished it. One example is the Charge of the Goddess, which is clearly based upon text in Leland's Aradia. I believe that what we are seeing in Gardnerian material is not invention, it is instead evolution and expansion.

Gardner was a prolific "borrower" -- it was because so many of Gardner's borrowed bits were too obvious (particularly when they were clearly from Aleister Crowley's work) that Doreen confronted him on it and was then told to rewrite the Book of Shadows to fix it. So she did.

The fact that things Doreen herself wrote (whether as completely original material or as compilations of other things, such as "The Charge of the Goddess" which drew from both "Aradia" and also "The Golden Ass") appear in other Books of Shadows such as Alex Sanders' and Lady Sheba's are pretty convincing evidence that those books had to have descended from the Valiente rewrite of Gardner's Book of Shadows. It also pretty much demolishes the claims that Lady Sheba's and Alex Sanders' books were somehow pre-Gardnerian.

[raven grimassi]

The fact that things Doreen herself wrote (whether as completely original material or as compilations of other things, such as "The Charge of the Goddess" which drew from both "Aradia" and also "The Golden Ass") appear in other Books of Shadows such as Alex Sanders' and Lady Sheba's are pretty convincing evidence that those books had to have descended from the Valiente rewrite of Gardner's Book of Shadows.

It does seem clear that the presence of something we know Doreen wrote (when it appears verbatim) indicates it was copied after Gardner's earlier Book of Shadows. The problem is that it does not disprove the existence of an original key source, and I think this is part of Carla's argument. There may be a lineaged tradition here that has not been exposed in published books and articles. I just do not feel this topic is as black & white as folks wish.

Gardner was a prolific "borrower" -- it was because so many of Gardner's borrowed bits were too obvious (particularly when they were clearly from Aleister Crowley's work)

But Crowley and his teacher Alan Bennett were both reportedly once involved in Witchcraft before Gardner, and if so then what Gardner borrowed from Crowley could actually be lineaged Witchcraft material as copied, rewritten, or embellished by Crowley. In this light I do not feel that the presence of text from Crowley's writings automatically equates to something outside of a Witchcraft tradition. Given Doreen's statement that Gardner asked Crowley to see what he had so that he could compare materials, it seems not so unreasonable to consider that Gardner is patching with older Craft material/concepts/teachings.

I think there is a big difference between reconstruction and fabrication or invention. Reconstruction assumes the existence of something that previously existed, and this seems the simplest explanation when we look at Gardner and Valiente in the history of Wicca/Witchcraft.

[Ben Gruagach]

The claim that Crowley was involved with a witch coven is pretty tenous. Crowley wrote voluminously and also kept very detailed diaries of his activies (which confirmed that Gerald Gardner did meet Crowley, for instance.) Crowley likely had met other people who called themselves witches, such as "Mrs. North" who was another one who was involved in various occult groups in the UK occult community. But Crowley as a student within a coven is highly unlikely.

If there were pre-Gardnerian magickal workbooks which were clearly Wiccan which Gardner drew from, they have yet to come to light. All the Gardnerian borrowings which have been identified so far have come from sources with Gardner himself is known to have had access to. That's just too coincidental if Gardner wasn't the one who put it all together -- you'd think that he'd have been unaware of the sources he had copied from this purported previous Wiccan grimoire, and very unlikely to have had the very source materials in his own collection as was the case with the vast majority of the known sources.

So far all the supposed pre-Gardnerian Wiccan Books of Shadows (whether they call it a Book of Shadows or something else) have proven to be post-Gardnerian in origin. Of course there could be clearly Wiccan pre-Gardnerian Books of Shadows out there -- but until they are discovered they are just groundless speculation.

Regarding the idea that things like the Key of Solomon and other source materials Gardner drew from were actually contemporary borrowings from some earlier source which the pre-Gardner Wiccans also borrowed from -- interesting speculation, but again without any proof it's just speculation. We could also speculate that Gardner was handed the Book of Shadows by an alien from another planet, but without proof to back it up the speculation is just as groundless. One speculation is as good as any other. They need proof!

[raven grimassi]

If there were pre-Gardnerian magickal workbooks which were clearly Wiccan which Gardner drew from, they have yet to come to light. All the Gardnerian borrowings which have been identified so far have come from sources with Gardner himself is known to have had access to. That's just too coincidental if Gardner wasn't the one who put it all together -- you'd think that he'd have been unaware of the sources he had copied from this purported previous Wiccan grimoire, and very unlikely to have had the very source materials in his own collection as was the case with the vast majority of the known sources.

My opinion is that the various elements within Gardnerian Wicca of Pagan-rooted theology, ritual practice, and magical components are too connected, integrated, and complex to have been the work of one man, or even several cohorts. The concepts strongly suggest a pre-existing source from an evolved system, probably largely oral but likely with some written text as well. I don't think the idea is Gardner's and Valiente's, but the unique expression of that idea does appear to be.


Regarding the idea that things like the Key of Solomon and other source materials Gardner drew from were actually contemporary borrowings from some earlier source which the pre-Gardner Wiccans also borrowed from -- interesting speculation, but again without any proof it's just speculation.

It is interesting to note historically that parts of the Key of Solomon were copied into the private book of an Italian Witch named Laura Malipero in the 17th century. It also seems clear that the Gardnerian Charge of the Goddess contains elements of Italian Witchcraft as depicted by Charles Leland in the 19th century. In fact there are few things in the structure of Gardnerian Wicca that do not exist earlier in southern European Paganism and/or Witchcraft. I think the influence of Italian Witchcraft on Gardnerian Wicca is greatly underrated and vastly unexplored.

We could also speculate that Gardner was handed the Book of Shadows by an alien from another planet, but without proof to back it up the speculation is just as groundless. One speculation is as good as any other. They need proof!

Oh shucks, that was my next straw to grasp! ;)

[Ben Gruagach]

My opinion is that the various elements within Gardnerian Wicca of Pagan-rooted theology, ritual practice, and magical components are too connected, integrated, and complex to have been the work of one man, or even several cohorts. The concepts strongly suggest a pre-existing source from an evolved system, probably largely oral but likely with some written text as well. I don't think the idea is Gardner's and Valiente's, but the unique expression of that idea does appear to be.

I understand the desire for this to be proven true. Unfortunately we've got to work against the fact that the majority of Gardner's Book of Shadows has been identified as coming from contemporary sources rather than an authentic intact Pagan religion. All these things are apparently the stuff Gardner added to "flesh out" the fragmentary stuff he was taught. And what we do know about pre-Christian Pagan religions such as those practiced by the Celts, the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, etc. does not support the claim that there was a religion like Wicca (regardless what it might have been called.)

The claim keeps being brought up that the existence of the fragmentary material Gardner was taught by his Wiccan initiators proves there is an intact Pagan religion which became Gardner's Wicca. It sounds very nice -- but I have yet to see anyone actually identify what the fragmentary material is. It's really difficult to verify (and prove once and for all the ancient lineage of Wicca) if we don't know what it is we are supposed to be verifying. If this material hasn't been identified publicly because of oaths of secrecy then we're at an impasse -- those who refuse to identify the fragmentary material should not be surprised if the historians and scholars won't just take their word for it that it is genuinely ancient.

One of my own conclusions from reading Philip Heselton's books "Wiccan Roots" and "Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration" is that Gardner himself likely wasn't the mastermind who put together the material that he passed on as Wicca. He seems to have fancied himself a scholar, but in practice was too much of a dilettante who would quickly move on to other topics when the work got too hard. He didn't get very high in the Masonic degree structure, nor did he go very far with the O.T.O., despite getting that charter from Crowley to administer the first three degrees (in a system with a lot more than just three degrees!) Gardner does seem to have read a lot but when it comes to writing his books required a lot of outside help to get to the point where they could be published. I'm not sure that he could have pulled off putting together Wicca on his own. But he did have lots of assistance, and I suspect that it came together precisely because he had so much help.

Personally I think that a lot of the real push behind it probably came from "Mother Sabine," Eleanor Carnsew, who Heselton discusses in "Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration." She was a Golden Dawn initiate and therefore had at least some of the research and discipline necessary for practical occultism drilled into her. Gardner also had lots of resources at his disposal through his connection with the Witchcraft Museum -- not just the artifacts and documents it housed, but also the people who would have been connected to it. I could easily imagine Gardner asking people to write up bits for him which he then just copied into his own Book of Shadows and would present to his coven as "traditional." We know he did make these sorts of lies in other situations -- Fred Lamond mentions in "Fifty Years of Wicca" how aghast he was when Gardner presented a coven member, Dayonis, to the press as being from a long-established witchcraft family in the UK when this an outright fabrication.

I don't think that Gardner single-handedly (or even with Doreen Valiente's help) put together Wicca. But that still doesn't mean it has to be an intact Pagan religion. There are other options such as other people helping Gardner put it together, or someone before Gardner doing just that!

It is interesting to note historically that parts of the Key of Solomon were copied into the private book of an Italian Witch named Laura Malipero in the 17th century. It also seems clear that the Gardnerian Charge of the Goddess contains elements of Italian Witchcraft as depicted by Charles Leland in the 19th century. In fact there are few things in the structure of Gardnerian Wicca that do not exist earlier in southern European Paganism and/or Witchcraft. I think the influence of Italian Witchcraft on Gardnerian Wicca is greatly underrated and vastly unexplored.

There are actually lots of examples of confessed witches and cunning-folk using ceremonial magick grimoires such as the Key of Solomon or Agrippa's works. Owen Davies talks about that in his book "Cunning-folk."

It's a mistake in logic though to assume that this verifies that similarities in Wiccan practice and ceremonial magick somehow both come from a common ancestor. What we do have proof for is that pre-Gardnerian witches and cunning-folk used ceremonial magick manuals. Logically it makes more sense to conclude that witches and cunning-folk therefore derived some of their practices (which were later to appear in Wicca) from those very ceremonial magick handbooks.

The fact that those witches and cunning-folk had copies of those grimoires, and would copy bits from them into their own workbooks, indicates that they could both read and write, correct? If the witches had this same material independent from the ceremonial magickians, wouldn't they have written it down in their own grimoires that would be contemporary with the ceremonial magick ones? Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any witch grimoires that are either contemporary with the ceremonial magick ones, nor are there witch grimoires that predate the ceremonial magick ones. But we do know of them coming after the ceremonial magick ones! The evidence points to the ceremonial magick ones coming first and the witches copying from them the useful bits.

Sure, the ceremonial magick grimoires drew from older Pagan practices and theories. However, the introduction of witches' grimoires seems to have developed after the appearance of ceremonial magick grimoires. We can't honestly say then that the witches' grimoires came first.

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

I think that the greatest argument against is, by far, the fact that with witch-hunters of the witch hysteria found absolutely nothing that corresponds with Gardner's Wicca (and much less modern Wicca). They took such meticulous records that a religion so obviously non-Christian would have stood out like a sore thumb. Obviously the evidence given under torture is more than suspect, byt the self-confessed witches never mentioned anything of the sort, either.
I am under the impression that Gardner 'reworked' (translate as 'wrote') large portions of the BAM, and once Valiente came along, let her make them more paganish and less Crowley. One of the Charges in the early sections of the the BoS found on Sacred Texts has little resemblance to what later came to be known as 'The Charge'. It has sections like 'Pale or purple, veiled or voluptous', 'Let your innermost self be wrapped in *I forget what comes after*', 'I am the fire that burns in the heart of every man and the core of every star', 'keep pure your highest ideal, strive ever toward it. Let naught stop you or turn you aside'. A lot of these have been mysteriously dropped (I se eno reason why 'Keep pure your highest ideal..." has gone missing) and I suspect it's because Valiente thought they were too obviously drawn from Crowley and did not fit with what she conceived Wicca to be. What Valiente and Gardner worked on became the Book of Shadows. The BAM came before.
As to the BAM itself, I doubt many people here on Mysticwicks have had the chance to go through it. All I can get from people at the WCC is that 'it's a dog's breakfast' (presumably meaning it's very disorganized) and that the cover is green.
Apparently Aidan Kelley is selling CDs of the original, unabridged, Crafting The Art of Magic, or at least, that's what my local High Priest says. I myself am very Interested in that, because Llewellyn is supposed to have edited it heavily before they published it (any ideas as to WHY that would happen?)

[David19]

I'm not sure but do you think there was ever a connection with Judaism, since i've read that Gardner was a member of the Golden Dawn and used Aliester Crowley's works (and weren't they based on the Jewish Kabbalah, which is ironic since i've heard Crowley was very anti-Semitic), also something i was reading about Cochrane, was he said that in his tradition (1734 tradition, non-wiccan), there was a connection to Judaism, i was just wondering if (since Cochrane said he met a different coven to the one Gardner met) if 'traditional' witches, did have a Judaism connection, also Raven Grimassi mentions an Italian witch was copying the Key of Solomon (a Jewish grimoire, i think, not pagan).

Anyway, just thought i'd ask, it might sound crazy :).

[Ben Gruagach]

Silverfire Darkmoon -- thanks for mentioning Aidan Kelly, as it prompted me to try and find out if there were better versions of his "Crafting the Art of Magic" available. In searching I found this group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Aidan_Kelly It's a small Yahoo group where Kelly participates and people discuss his work and related topics.

And according to a recent post Kelly made there, a revised version of "Crafting the Art of Magic" is in the works with corrections and additions, and new material related to some of the criticisms of his previous work particularly from Don Frew. Kelly said that there are two publishers who have approached him about doing this revised version so it looks like it's just a matter of time before we see this in print again.

David19 -- there are indeed all sorts of things of Jewish origin in occultism in English-speaking cultures, even in Wicca (Gardnerian and non-Gardnerian) and also in Cochrane's witchcraft denomination. Hermetic philosophy, which is extremely popular among European and English occultists, has a large basis in the Jewish Qabala although of course there are other (including Christian) overtones that have been mixed in. Most of the classical grimoires were based on Hermeticism or at least Qabala. And many of those grimoires are believed to have been written by learned members of the Catholic church (as people training to be priests in those days tended to be the ones who had the most access to doing occult research...)

And just like you see anti-Semitism within some Christians, despite the fact that Christianity was based on Judaism, there is also sometimes anti-Semitism among those who practice Hermetic or even Qabala based occultism even though there is a huge debt to Jewish philosophy.

[Ben Gruagach]

Oops -- the message on that Yahoo group I linked about Aidan Kelly having a revised version of "Crafting the Art of Magic" is not exactly recent. He posted that message in 2003.

I've attempted to send an email directly to Aidan through that site to check into whether it is possible to obtain a more complete version of his book than the version Llewellyn published back in the 1990s. (I have that one already.)

I'll post here if I hear anything back.

[raven grimassi]

Hey Ben, is this a duel? ;)


I understand the desire for this to be proven true.

And I understand the desire or need some people have for this not to be proven true. But for me it is more about raising the alternative speculations/theories so as to balance the rush to judgment we often see in the academic community as well as within the Neo-Pagan community.

All these things are apparently the stuff Gardner added to "flesh out" the fragmentary stuff he was taught. And what we do know about pre-Christian Pagan religions such as those practiced by the Celts, the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, etc. does not support the claim that there was a religion like Wicca (regardless what it might have been called.)

Yes, but what we do not know about secret societies would fill a library. Witchcraft was never mainstream and has always been a subculture.


The claim keeps being brought up that the existence of the fragmentary material Gardner was taught by his Wiccan initiators proves there is an intact Pagan religion which became Gardner's Wicca. It sounds very nice -- but I have yet to see anyone actually identify what the fragmentary material is. It's really difficult to verify (and prove once and for all the ancient lineage of Wicca) if we don't know what it is we are supposed to be verifying.

Right, but a lack of evidence does not equate to non-existent, and so I think it is important that both sides of the debate be heard. That is all it is.

If this material hasn't been identified publicly because of oaths of secrecy then we're at an impasse -- those who refuse to identify the fragmentary material should not be surprised if the historians and scholars won't just take their word for it that it is genuinely ancient.

The people I know who claim to be pre-Gardnerian hereditary Witches do not care, they prefer the disbelief. I am sure this has been true of Witches for many generations.

It's a mistake in logic though to assume that this verifies that similarities in Wiccan practice and ceremonial magick somehow both come from a common ancestor.

I respectfully disagree that such a theory is a "mistake in logic." To me it is as much "evidence" as any other tid bit or fact used by those who denounce the survival theory. The strength in these mistakes of logic is that they are abundant even though they are dismissed as anomalies by the academic community.

Logically it makes more sense to conclude that witches and cunning-folk therefore derived some of their practices (which were later to appear in Wicca) from those very ceremonial magick handbooks.

Except for the fact that ancient Greek and Roman writings depict Witches using wands, daggers, ritual circles, invocations, lunar magic, symbols, and so forth. I do not know of any ceremonial magick handbooks old enough to predate this and that would have been available to Witches at this time.

The fact that those witches and cunning-folk had copies of those grimoires, and would copy bits from them into their own workbooks, indicates that they could both read and write, correct? If the witches had this same material independent from the ceremonial magickians, wouldn't they have written it down in their own grimoires that would be contemporary with the ceremonial magick ones? Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any witch grimoires that are either contemporary with the ceremonial magick ones, nor are there witch grimoires that predate the ceremonial magick ones.

Two things readily come to my mind. One is the reference by Horace (first century bce) that Witches read from a book that can charm the moon down from the heavens. The other is that the 17th century Witchcraft trial of Laura Malipero does produce her book to which ceremonial magic has been added. Her own material is described as crude (in comparison to the Key of Solomon material).

[*Rasenna*]

I think that the greatest argument against is, by far, the fact that with witch-hunters of the witch hysteria found absolutely nothing that corresponds with Gardner's Wicca (and much less modern Wicca).

Not so. The 17th century witch hunter Francesco Guazzo (Compendium Maleficarum) remarks that witches perform their ceremonies in circles drawn upon the ground with beech wands, work with spirits of earth, air, fire and water, worship a mated King and Queen of the Sabbath, and possess a black book that contains their rituals. Sound familiar?

To top it off, look at historian Gustav Henningsen’s statement in his article The Ladies from the Outside:

“This is the reason for Sicily presumably having retained a particularly archaic form of witch-belief, almost identical with the ‘witch cult’ that Margaret Murray attempted to demonstrate on the evidence of north and mid-European material.”

They took such meticulous records that a religion so obviously non-Christian would have stood out like a sore thumb.

It’s not the records, it’s the questions asked. How were the Inquisitors to get information on pagan witchcraft when the questions were all about devil worship, how long was the devil’s penis, and how many times did intercourse take place. How is that going to reveal anything of pagan religion!?

byt the self-confessed witches never mentioned anything of the sort, either.

Not so. Witchcraft trial transcripts in many European countries contain the mention of things easily identified in modern Wiccan practice (including various goddess names that the accused stated were worshipped).

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

Not so. The 17th century witch hunter Francesco Guazzo (Compendium Maleficarum) remarks that witches perform their ceremonies in circles drawn upon the ground with beech wands, work with spirits of earth, air, fire and water, worship a mated King and Queen of the Sabbath, and possess a black book that contains their rituals. Sound familiar?
To anyone who has even barely scratched the surface of ceremonial magic, yes. King and Queen of the Sabbath? Can I have a source for that? The only reference to a 'Queen of the Sabbat' is, I think, from Isobel Gowdie. I may be wrong. Please clarify. 'King of the Sabbath' is new to me. Where did you get the term?
"This is the reason for Sicily presumably having retained a particularly archaic form of witch-belief, almost identical with the ‘witch cult’ that Margaret Murray attempted to demonstrate on the evidence of north and mid-European material.”
I can state with certainty that anything with strong resemblances to Murray's Witch-Cult is suspect, as she was never given credit in academic circles to begin with.
It’s not the records, it’s the questions asked. How were the Inquisitors to get information on pagan witchcraft when the questions were all about devil worship, how long was the devil’s penis, and how many times did intercourse take place. How is that going to reveal anything of pagan religion!?

Juding by the questions you raise here, you're referencing one of the French trials that involved posessed nuns (Loudun and Father Grandier, or that abominable affair with father Louis Gaufridi). You also evade my question - if there WERE any evidence of pagan religion, it would have been duly noted and recorded. In a world where even the most secret ceremonies of the Masons were published soon after they were written, I doubt anything pagan would have survived. When so many people were arrested and searched on charges of witchcraft, you can bet that they would have found any books, magical implements, and the like. The most often-found magical items were boxes of powder and ointment, which were usually found to be harmless. In all the time I have been studying this subject, I've found nothing involving books or other objects that would be ancestors of modern pagan magical tools.
Not so. Witchcraft trial transcripts in many European countries contain the mention of things easily identified in modern Wiccan practice (including various goddess names that the accused stated were worshipped).
And these goddess names would be? Yes, we've all read 'Canon Episcopi', but that definitely is not what we're looking for here, and 'Aradia' is doubtful at best. Not to mention, many 'things easily identified in modern Wiccan practice' would be DRAWN from witch-trials, because Margaret Murray was one of Gardner's prime sources when he was concocting Wicca to begin with, and Murray drew extensively (and extremely selectively) from witch trial records, mostly from Scotland, Ireland, and France.

[David19]

I don't think that any pagan religion could have survived to the present day, as i think a complete religion would be noticed, by at least a few people, and even if it survived in the countryside and other rural areas, i doubt it would have survived for long, since most people in rural areas could hardly write or read, so i doubt that it could be passed on, also there's the matter of telling people, even if they only told family, considered that people are human, i doubt that everyone could resist the temptation of getting some kind of reward for turning in 'witches', not only that but i really doubt that 'pagan' families never fell out so if a family member got really angry, all they'd had to do would be to go to Witch hunter, tell them what they knew, and then the family is dead.

Maybe witchcraft and 'paganism' did survive in certain families but i think they'd be mixed with Christianity, like maybe Christian's that used charms, spells, etc or using Christian magic and 'pagan' magic but i don't think it would be a completly pagan religion.

Also something i thought of, it might sound crazy, but i think when Gardner said the coven worshipped a Goddess and a God, people always assumed it was 'pagan' gods, but what if it was a goddess and the Christian god, you never know. Maybe Gardner got people thinking it was a completly 'pagan' religion, to keep his oaths.

[raven grimassi]

I think Rasenna is referring to various sources. For example, Pierre de Lancre, a French witchfinder, wrote a description of the Basque Witches' sabbat in his Tableau de l'inconstance des mauvais anges, published in 1612. Lancre states that a goat figure is seated on a throne and seated to his right is "the Queen of the Sabbat" and Witches come forward, kneeling, to present children before them. A similar account appears in the Basque Witch trial of Maria Miguel, in 1595, who confessed to attending a sabbat where two figures sat on thrones. One figure was a man with a goat's head and the other was a female figure, which Maria commented was his spouse.

As to goddess figures, according to professor Eva Pocs (Between the Living and the Dead, Central European University Press, 1999) there are 36 documented cases in which a "fate goddess" appears in Hungarian Witchcraft spanning 3 centuries of witch trials. We find that in Italy, the worship of the goddess Diana periodically appears in trial transcripts dating from 1390-1647. According to historian Carlo Ginzburg (Ecstasies) in Germany the goddess Diana appears in witch trials and is called Unholde, or die selige Frawn (the beautiful woman). Other female deities show up in German Witch trials transcripts as well, such as Fraw Berthe and Fraw Helt. From an Italian source, Ginzburg also supplies a drawing that appeared on a proclamation from the Inquisitor Camillo Campeggi (1564) which depicts the "goddess of night" approaching a Witch.

[Carla O'Harris]

Ben says,

I understand the desire for this to be proven true. Unfortunately we've got to work against the fact that the majority of Gardner's Book of Shadows has been identified as coming from contemporary sources rather than an authentic intact Pagan religion. All these things are apparently the stuff Gardner added to "flesh out" the fragmentary stuff he was taught. And what we do know about pre-Christian Pagan religions such as those practiced by the Celts, the Romans, the Greeks, the Egyptians, etc. does not support the claim that there was a religion like Wicca (regardless what it might have been called.)


I'm sorry, Ben, I don't mean to be snippy here, but you're just plain wrong, and you're aping Hutton, who is way wrong. Actually the ancient practice of all these pagans has everything in common with many elements of Wicca. So I'm not going to stand by and listen to an assertion which is plainly wrong and not challenge it. I have heard this kind of stuff for a long time, and it's bad education for newer pagans because it simply isn't true.

Key word above : "apparently". Everything is based on "apparently". We aren't desperately clutching at straws in this regard. What we're facing is those who are already convinced that Gardner pieced it all together, and their conclusions are way premature. Everything is consistent with Gardner receiving an authentic initiation and then trying to backcheck sources that seemed resonant. Everything. It is very likely that occult and witchcraft circles were intertwining for some time, maybe forever, and so a published text from one source really doesn't mean much in this regard. As far as Solomon's Key goes, this text had been intertwined in all kinds of witchy things for ages, and the likelihood is that much of it comes from indigenous folk sources. In fact there is evidence that key portions of it derive from witches' practice and not vice-versa. All of this material was being exchanged for centuries. There is no reason to assume this intertwining did not continue into the near-present.

Ultimately, we're arguing over liturgy, while Hutton's Crew presents this as if the entire religion were at stake. Even if it could be proven 100% that either Gardner or Dafo or someone from Dafo's circle created an entirely new liturgy, it would not affect the authenticity of the religion one tiny little bit, because they would have been fitting the new liturgy into the old religious structure, which consisted of invocations to the goddess, drawing the circle, doing magical work, dancing, and feasting. Could Gardner or one of his predecessors found a particular Crowley poem highly evocative of what they had already been doing? Certainly. Could they have used it to replace an already existing invocation/poem because it was felt to be more beautiful? Certainly. Changes in liturgy don't make for an entirely new religion, unless you plan on accusing Catholicism of claiming a false lineage and heritage post-Vatican-II.

But the fact is that while the religion would still be authentic if a new liturgy had been composed, even that is uncertain, because the provenance of the occult materials to hand are not entirely certain either. This is true for two reasons : 1) the intertwining of witchcraft and occult for a long time, often through the medium of mason-like organizations, 2) the very real possibility that Crowley may have been involved with witches or may have worked closely with someone who did.

What the Huttonites have done is declare that prior to the Gardnerian Liturgy (authentic or not) was only a vague "folk magic", that was "Christian" in most cases. Hogwash. There were people in various stages of para-Christianity who utilized folk magic that in some cases had a Christian veneer, but where did this folk magic come from in the first place? Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, it came from paganism. And it was an accomodation by the Church because they had no choice but to accomodate it in their first years even though they didn't like it. When the Church became more powerful, it set out to eradicate as much of the paganism as it could, first through the witchcraft trials, and then through the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

The Alternative to the Hutton Thesis is that underlying the Gardnerian Liturgy was an authentic Pre-Gardnerian Structure, a skeleton that may have been fleshed out with a renewed liturgy. This skeleton is not vague "folk magic". It is a real, intact heritage of fairy-faith stretching back further than anyone can remember and before any records exist. Hutton is of course ignorant of fairy-tradition, or purposely ignores it because it of course calls into question his entire setup. Again, we are not talking a vague Christian folk magic akin to the false image of cunning men we've been given in the past couple decades. We are discussing invocations of female deity, where deity is conceived as ruled by female as well as male, accompanied by magical work, dancing, and offerings of cakes and ale. The association of witches and fairies goes way back, and while not all cunning folk were associated with the fairies, there has always been a significant number who have been, end of story. In other words, it has been established. Perhaps in Britain by the time Gardner came around the fairy-faith had diminished somewhat in its connection with cunning-folk, but since witchcraft is an international underground tradition anyway that does not follow political boundaries, the entire point is irrelevant.

As far as Gardner's Liturgy and Skeletal structure showing nothing in common with what the Inquisitors found about witchcraft, I suggest you go back and re-read your history. Dancing, feasting, Queen of the Fairies, and yes, accompanied by the usual blood libel and slander reserved for enemies, but underneath is a startlingly clear structure.

Even Church people from the 1600's recognized that the cult resembled ancient Dionysian rituals. One even compared it to the ancient Mysteries.

So far from people like myself reaching at straws, I see people with little faith assuming the worst about Gardner and his predecessors, as much as accusing them of being liars and frauds, when I think the evidence still shows a probability of taking them at their word being the best course.

Cheers.

[Greyharp]

a lack of evidence does not equate to non-existent

No Raven, a lack of evidence doesn't prove something didn't exist, but it certainly makes it extremely difficult to prove it did. This has got nothing to do with a

desire or need some people have for this not to be proven true

it's just simple commonsense.

[Greyharp]

So I'm not going to stand by and listen to an assertion which is plainly wrong and not challenge it. I have heard this kind of stuff for a long time, and it's bad education for newer pagans because it simply isn't true.

Which is ironic Carla because that is exactly my belief about your viewpoint. :)

The Alternative to the Hutton Thesis is that underlying the Gardnerian Liturgy was an authentic Pre-Gardnerian Structure, a skeleton that may have been fleshed out with a renewed liturgy. This skeleton is not vague "folk magic". It is a real, intact heritage of fairy-faith stretching back further than anyone can remember and before any records exist. Hutton is of course ignorant of fairy-tradition, or purposely ignores it because it of course calls into question his entire setup. Again, we are not talking a vague Christian folk magic akin to the false image of cunning men we've been given in the past couple decades. We are discussing invocations of female deity, where deity is conceived as ruled by female as well as male, accompanied by magical work, dancing, and offerings of cakes and ale. The association of witches and fairies goes way back, and while not all cunning folk were associated with the fairies, there has always been a significant number who have been, end of story. In other words, it has been established. Perhaps in Britain by the time Gardner came around the fairy-faith had diminished somewhat in its connection with cunning-folk, but since witchcraft is an international underground tradition anyway that does not follow political boundaries, the entire point is irrelevant.

Hmmmm, obviously we haven't been reading the same history books. Or maybe I have my Mind-Made-Up-Blinkers on, which is the usual accusation leveled at people like myself who disagree with the ancient religion theory, or maybe I just don't find the evidence at all convincing. I stand by my previous post until more convincing evidence is forthcoming.

[*Rasenna*]

King and Queen of the Sabbath? Can I have a source for that? The only reference to a 'Queen of the Sabbat' is, I think, from Isobel Gowdie. I may be wrong. Please clarify. 'King of the Sabbath' is new to me. Where did you get the term?

One example appears in the book 'Early Modern European Witchcraft' edited by Bengt Ankarloo and Gustav Henningsen (Oxford University Press, 1993). Henningsen refers to the witches' sabbath and an account from 1588 that refers to two chairs that were present at the sabbath:

"On one of them sat a red young man and on the other a beautiful woman; they called her Queen, and the man was the King."

The text goes on to refer to a woman who was present at the Sabbath:

"So she took an oath to worship them, the King as God and the Queen as Our Lady..."

The examples that Raven gave in this thread are also good examples.

I can state with certainty that anything with strong resemblances to Murray's Witch-Cult is suspect, as she was never given credit in academic circles to begin with.

I suggest you take it up with historian Gustav Henningsen.

You also evade my question - if there WERE any evidence of pagan religion, it would have been duly noted and recorded.

You flatter yourself if you think I'm avoiding anything you questioned. Point of fact is that I did address your question about a lack of evidence of pagan religion. As I stated, the Inquisitors weren't looking for a pagan witchcraft religion and virtually ignored or dismissed any testimonies that suggested it. But as historian Ruth Martin points out, there were elements of non-Christian magic in witchcraft as late as the 17th century (The Inquisition in Venice from 1550 -1650).

[Carla O'Harris]

Hmmmm, obviously we haven't been reading the same history books. Or maybe I have my Mind-Made-Up-Blinkers on, which is the usual accusation leveled at people like myself who disagree with the ancient religion theory, or maybe I just don't find the evidence at all convincing. I stand by my previous post until more convincing evidence is forthcoming.

Again, I don't mean to be snippy, but if you haven't encountered evidence for the widespread fairy cult in Europe, your reading list is not very broad. As for its connection with witchcraft, a good place to begin would be with Eva Pocs.

In short, the evidence is so glaring that anyone who isn't convinced at this point is either a) completely ignorant, or b) completely pigheaded. I don't see why I should have to bother proving anything to the pigheaded.

[Carla O'Harris]

The fact that those witches and cunning-folk had copies of those grimoires, and would copy bits from them into their own workbooks, indicates that they could both read and write, correct? If the witches had this same material independent from the ceremonial magickians, wouldn't they have written it down in their own grimoires that would be contemporary with the ceremonial magick ones? Unfortunately, there don't seem to be any witch grimoires that are either contemporary with the ceremonial magick ones, nor are there witch grimoires that predate the ceremonial magick ones. But we do know of them coming after the ceremonial magick ones! The evidence points to the ceremonial magick ones coming first and the witches copying from them the useful bits.

Sure, the ceremonial magick grimoires drew from older Pagan practices and theories. However, the introduction of witches' grimoires seems to have developed after the appearance of ceremonial magick grimoires. We can't honestly say then that the witches' grimoires came first.


Actually, this is not true. There is evidence of certain practices in Key of Solomon preexisting amongst witches, so it is possible to assert that ceremonial magick borrowed from witches. But the reality is that these things were often intertwined with borrowings going back probably to antiquity.

[Carla O'Harris]

I'm not sure but do you think there was ever a connection with Judaism, since i've read that Gardner was a member of the Golden Dawn and used Aliester Crowley's works (and weren't they based on the Jewish Kabbalah, which is ironic since i've heard Crowley was very anti-Semitic), also something i was reading about Cochrane, was he said that in his tradition (1734 tradition, non-wiccan), there was a connection to Judaism, i was just wondering if (since Cochrane said he met a different coven to the one Gardner met) if 'traditional' witches, did have a Judaism connection, also Raven Grimassi mentions an Italian witch was copying the Key of Solomon (a Jewish grimoire, i think, not pagan).

Anyway, just thought i'd ask, it might sound crazy :).


In short, yes, it is very possible for a Jewish connection, especially in certain times and places very likely, especially in the South of France/North of Spain around the time of the Cathars. But one has to be careful about terminology here. When one enters into the path of mysticism, it does not follow the same rigid nationalistic/religious boundaries as other phenomena. There is often much borrowing passed back and forth between mystics. Much Kabbala is from NeoPlatonic, Hermetic, and Gnostic sources in antiquity. In medieval times there was an underground Gnostic current that communicated with like minds from other traditions, and much material got passed back and forth. Kabbala likely reflects the Jewish side of this exchange, and in the 1400's, Pico della Mirandola attempted to integrate much of the Kabbala into the Christian/NeoPlatonic milieu of which he was a part. From here (if not before) it entered into general magical practice, although in some ways may merely have helped to revive already existing practices or give them a new more acceptable cover under which to practice.

Key of Solomon is not a Jewish grimoire.

[Carla O'Harris]

The claim keeps being brought up that the existence of the fragmentary material Gardner was taught by his Wiccan initiators proves there is an intact Pagan religion which became Gardner's Wicca. It sounds very nice -- but I have yet to see anyone actually identify what the fragmentary material is. It's really difficult to verify (and prove once and for all the ancient lineage of Wicca) if we don't know what it is we are supposed to be verifying.

Actually, Gardner makes this structure very clear, if one actually bothers to read him. An invocation to the deities, the drawing of the circle, magical work, dancing, and feasting, along with a Mystery Religion myth of the goddess.

Whomever initiated liturgical changes, and whether they happened in the 1800's or the 1910's or 1920's (and it's fairly clear that the liturgy as we have it today as such would not have predated Waterloo), simply filled the new liturgical material into this preexisting structure.

[Carla O'Harris]

I can state with certainty that anything with strong resemblances to Murray's Witch-Cult is suspect, as she was never given credit in academic circles to begin with.

You can state with certainty, eh?

So let me get this straight : anything which confirms her theory must be false, while anything that negates her theory must be true. You've got dogmatic circular logic going here. When multiple historians who have studied all of this in much greater depth, examining trial records and so forth, declare that there is at least a core of validity to Murray's thesis, do you feel all these historians are suspect?

And I suppose that only those who are "given credit in academic circles" are to be believed? Apparently only a degree from a university gives one the right to reason ; which is tantamount to elites telling the non-elite to "shut up". Well, there's no reason to shut up. Margaret Murray was a well-respected academic in her studies of Egyptian and Mediterranean religion, and she applied this broad viewpoint to examining the trial records. Almost every broad critique of her -- by Cohn and Rose, who everyone else either apes, or apes the ones who aped them -- has been torn to shreds, and what that means is that essentially she remains unrebutted, with the slander of scholarly fakelore standing against her. But such slanderous, scholarly fakelore is nothing unusual for academia ; anything else exposes a certain naivete or even hero-worship of academia. We shouldn't revile scholars, but academia has no monopoly on scholars. Often independent scholars are just as good or even surpass academic scholars, and academia goes through trends and politics just as the rest of the world does. There are agendas which shape which theories are accepted. Oftentimes theories which are not liked but difficult to rebut are never rebutted at all but merely subjected to slander. This was the case with Murray substantially until Cohn and Rose's critique, but as I have stated, these critiques have been dissolved into nothingness.

[Carla O'Harris]

I don't think that any pagan religion could have survived to the present day, as i think a complete religion would be noticed, by at least a few people, and even if it survived in the countryside and other rural areas, i doubt it would have survived for long, since most people in rural areas could hardly write or read, so i doubt that it could be passed on, also there's the matter of telling people, even if they only told family, considered that people are human, i doubt that everyone could resist the temptation of getting some kind of reward for turning in 'witches', not only that but i really doubt that 'pagan' families never fell out so if a family member got really angry, all they'd had to do would be to go to Witch hunter, tell them what they knew, and then the family is dead.

Maybe witchcraft and 'paganism' did survive in certain families but i think they'd be mixed with Christianity, like maybe Christian's that used charms, spells, etc or using Christian magic and 'pagan' magic but i don't think it would be a completly pagan religion.

Also something i thought of, it might sound crazy, but i think when Gardner said the coven worshipped a Goddess and a God, people always assumed it was 'pagan' gods, but what if it was a goddess and the Christian god, you never know. Maybe Gardner got people thinking it was a completly 'pagan' religion, to keep his oaths.

Actually a good study for understanding how a religion can persist underground under persecuted circumstances is the Morano Jews of Spain and Mexico. Although Isaac Bonewitz claims this example as reasons why witchcraft would not have survived, he obviously didn't do his homework and study carefully just how much Moranos were able to preserve. The parallels are fascinating, and one would expect witches to have preserved similar amounts and variants.

And how do you regulate what goes on in private houses, barns, and groves out in the middle of nowhere? It's absolutely ridiculous to suggest that these things can't go on. How would you know what the people on your own neighborhood block are doing inside their houses? It might be probable that they are like everyone else, but there is a likelihood that many living in the town or city in which you live are doing all kinds of things no one will ever know about.

Consider how long the Mystery religions were able to keep their Secrets relatively intact. True, there were hints, and various leaks, and so forth, but the fact of the matter is that this quite legit cult was able to observe such profound secrecy for over a thousand years that modern scholars are only able to give us skeletal glances at the material. These skeletal glances are very important, but the originals had to be much, much richer. And again, this is with a legit above-ground mystery cult. What to say of underground and persecuted cults!! And if only skeletal glances survived from the Eleusinian mysteries, at least those skeletal glances were not subjected to twisted, slanderous propaganda. You can imagine that if you subjected them to twisted, slanderous propaganda that what came out the other end might appear quite bizarre, although it would still afford you a few peeks. That is exactly what I would argue we find in the witch trial materials : occasional skeletal glances at a genuine mystery cult refracted through highly slanderous, twisted propaganda, and spread as part of a psyops operation to a) scare the general populace, some of whom had reverence for some of these activities, b) ferret out the minority of those who were part of either the outer or inner circle of these cult(s), while c) allowing for persecution and prosecution on a much broader scale, taking in all kinds of folks. The result in such an inquisition is predictable : a considerable minority of cases would involve the accused, while the majority would consist of those taken in in the McCarthyite whirlwind. In the meantime, the counterintelligence propaganda encourages neighbors to rat on each other, making for a near lawless situation where innuendo, guilt by association, and village resentments draw people in who were completely innocent on all counts. But you can't let the law enforcement realities of such campaigns blind you to the genuine core at the heart of it : to say that there was no witchcraft at the heart of the witchcraft trials is the heart of absurdity. There was indeed witchcraft, and much of it very akin to what we find in Wicca today.

[Carla O'Harris]

Hi Raven,

You said,

Yes, but what we do not know about secret societies would fill a library. Witchcraft was never mainstream and has always been a subculture....The people I know who claim to be pre-Gardnerian hereditary Witches do not care, they prefer the disbelief. I am sure this has been true of Witches for many generations.

These are excellent points. I wonder about the preference for disbelief. One wonders whether in some circles such disbelief has been encouraged for this very reason of putting up a smokescreen. It can be an excellent way of ferreting out the serious from the nonserious.

[Greyharp]

Again, I don't mean to be snippy, but if you haven't encountered evidence for the widespread fairy cult in Europe, your reading list is not very broad.

Or.....I simply think it is a load of crap, even after, or perhaps in light of what I have read.

As for its connection with witchcraft, a good place to begin would be with Eva Pocs.

Well I must admit Carla that I hadn't read any of Pocs work, so I did some research on the net. All I found was one book by her on Amazon "Between the Living & the Dead: A Perspective on Witches & Seers in the Early Modern Age", which no one has bothered to review even after six years; some obsure (and for me unreadable) Hungarian references (I assume she is an expert on Hungarian folklore); and funnily enough, several mentions of her name by yourself here on Mysticwicks.

It was while reading one of your posts in a thread where you mentioned Pocs, that you said something quite interesting:

I do think Hutton engages in intellectual bullying and intimidation, because instead of acting with largesse as a scholar ought to, when dealing with opponents, I have seen him invoke an obscure scholarly debate, unavailable to the general public, or out of print, etc., and then without describing the details of the debate, imply that the matter is already settled with those who "matter" and those who have "really" studied it, and essentially engages in ridicule to imply that anyone who questions otherwise had better do their homework. I think that is scholastic bullying.

And what I found interesting about that was, it was exactly the sort of behaviour I have felt you were guilty of. I've said it before, I am astounded at how large some of your posts are, as if throwing thousands of words at a thread makes your opinion more valid than anothers. And I feel you tend throw obscure references at your "opponents", such as the Pocs reference, as if that very obscurity "proves" your case. And then finally there is the simple tactic of resorting to verbal bullying, such as the final part of your reply to my post:

In short, the evidence is so glaring that anyone who isn't convinced at this point is either a) completely ignorant, or b) completely pigheaded. I don't see why I should have to bother proving anything to the pigheaded.

Not a lot of "largesse" shown there I don't think. In fact it really smacks of the use of "ridicule to imply that anyone who questions otherwise had better do their homework". And I have to admit, in my opinion "I think that is scholastic bullying".

Dave

[David19]

In short, yes, it is very possible for a Jewish connection, especially in certain times and places very likely, especially in the South of France/North of Spain around the time of the Cathars. But one has to be careful about terminology here. When one enters into the path of mysticism, it does not follow the same rigid nationalistic/religious boundaries as other phenomena. There is often much borrowing passed back and forth between mystics. Much Kabbala is from NeoPlatonic, Hermetic, and Gnostic sources in antiquity. In medieval times there was an underground Gnostic current that communicated with like minds from other traditions, and much material got passed back and forth. Kabbala likely reflects the Jewish side of this exchange, and in the 1400's, Pico della Mirandola attempted to integrate much of the Kabbala into the Christian/NeoPlatonic milieu of which he was a part. From here (if not before) it entered into general magical practice, although in some ways may merely have helped to revive already existing practices or give them a new more acceptable cover under which to practice.

Key of Solomon is not a Jewish grimoire.

Thanks, i didn't know much about how various mystical and magical orders and religions interacted, but are you sure that the Key of Solomon isn't Jewish, as Solomon was a Jewish king, who i think received a ring from Yahweh that was able to control demons

[David19]

I think maybe a religion could have survived (just look at Judaism, it survived and is one of the oldest still in existance despite persecution from Christian's and 'pagan's' as well e.g. Romans, various others, etc). but i don't think it would be the same as what was practiced a thousand years ago (Judaism is similar to how it was done, but animal sacrifice isn't really done anymore, unless you consider kosher meat).

So maybe Gardner did find part of 'pagan' religion, and added bits on (like from ceremonial magic, free masons, folklore, etc) to make Wicca more complete, but i don't think, if he did, discover something, it suddenly proves that there was a wiccan religion as wicca is modern, there's no religion who called itself wicca in history, some of the practices may be similar, but the religion, itself, i think is modern.

Also, i doubt the 'predeccessors'(sp) of wicca would have believed that 'all gods are one god' (which does seem to be a large part of some wiccans belief, not other wiccans).

Also, does anyone here think Robert Cochrane discovered something, as no one seems to look into or talk about him.

[raven grimassi]

Well I must admit Carla that I hadn't read any of Pocs work, so I did some research on the net. All I found was one book by her on Amazon "Between the Living & the Dead: A Perspective on Witches & Seers in the Early Modern Age", which no one has bothered to review even after six years; some obsure (and for me unreadable) Hungarian references (I assume she is an expert on Hungarian folklore); and funnily enough, several mentions of her name by yourself here on Mysticwicks.

Eva Pocs is hardly obscure in the academic community. Professor Sabina Magliocco referred to Pocs as "A serious scholar -- one of the best European folklorists writing today about magic and the supernatural." Unfortunately the majority of her work is not in English.

And what I found interesting about that was, it was exactly the sort of behaviour I have felt you were guilty of. I've said it before, I am astounded at how large some of your posts are, as if throwing thousands of words at a thread makes your opinion more valid than anothers.

Carla is providing references to back up her statements, which I find refreshing. How odd it is that people who hold the survivalist theory are criticized for providing evidence as well as for not dismissing things that lack evidence. This wall does seem to smack of people who do not want to consider alternative views.

Not a lot of "largesse" shown there I don't think. In fact it really smacks of the use of "ridicule to imply that anyone who questions otherwise had better do their homework".

Having an informed opinion is just simple commonsense, is it not!?.

[shuvanilu]

Having an informed opinion is just simple commonsense, is it not!?.[/QUOTE]

Actually, i agree with Greyharp here. It's one thing to post your opinion, and to show why you believe something. That's all fine. Everyone is entitled to their own views. It's quite another to simply be rude. In her post she basically said that anyone who didn't agree with her beliefs on the subject was pigheaded and ignorant.

[shuvanilu]

David 19:

Here is a link to The Key of Solomon, among others that I think you would find interesting. Yes, these Grimiors have Judaic systems and godnames in them, so they could be thought of as "jewish grimoirs"...*in a sense*. They are primarily used by Ceremonial Magicians. (But yes...many neo-pagan systems have been influenced by the KOS) Ceremonial Magick definitely has Judeo-Christian elements in it. However, these grimoirs were not written in ancient or biblical times *most likely*. So, it would certainly not be thought of as a purely Jewish magick system (with a capital J). But definitely a grimoir with jewish elements.---shuvanilu

[Dawa Lhamo]

I'm just loving this conversation. As with most such conversations, where sources are cited and people are passionate. ^_^

Admittedly, I waffle back and forth on the issue. ^_^ But it occurs to me that the record of witch trials itself presents a problem. ^_^ Someone said, well of course Gardner's Wicca is similar to what's revealed in the witch trials, because that's where he got it (indirectly through Murray). The biggest problem then, simply, is that the witch trial record was available to Gardner. Which means that we can't derive causation solely from correlation. Thus the explanations (whether the record itself was Gardner's source or whether they both have a similar source) are just two probabilities... And without further evidence, one seems just as likely as the other.

Ah, but it certainly inspires one to do further research. ^_^

So, thank you, all of you. ^_^

Tashi delek!
Dawa Lhamo

[shuvanilu]

Oops! Sorry David 19, here's that link:


http://www.sacred-texts.com/grim/index.htm

[Greyharp]

Eva Pocs is hardly obscure in the academic community...Unfortunately the majority of her work is not in English.

Yes Raven and therefore obscure to the majority of this world's population who don't speak Hungarian or are "in the academic community".

Having an informed opinion is just simple commonsense, is it not!?.

Having an informed opinion is good. Commonsense though, says that other people may have differing opinions, even after reading the same materials (although obviously not Pocs' works in my case :) ). Commonsense also realises that others are entitled to their opinions, which Shuvanilu expressed better than I obviously did:

It's one thing to post your opinion, and to show why you believe something. That's all fine. Everyone is entitled to their own views. It's quite another to simply be rude. In her post she basically said that anyone who didn't agree with her beliefs on the subject was pigheaded and ignorant.

Is there an academic term for the belief that I'm right and if you don't agree you're pigheaded and ignorant?

[Silverfire Darkmoon]

Actually, this is not true. There is evidence of certain practices in Key of Solomon preexisting amongst witches, so it is possible to assert that ceremonial magick borrowed from witches. But the reality is that these things were often intertwined with borrowings going back probably to antiquity.
What borrowings? I'm rather keen on the KoS and Lemegeton, so any interesting similarities that pop up would be fun to track down. I'm guessing that by 'preexisting' you mean 'practices that existed among witches and were then borrowed by the author(s) of the KoS'. It's plain and obvious that Gardner was Rather Fond of the KoS as the style of magic in 'High Magic's Aid' is almost entirely taken from it, with a good amount of Agrippa's planetary sigils. Wordings may or may not be the same as in the Mathers edition, one moment and I'll go check.
Okay, there are very slight variations in wording, but the characters are almost exactly the same when given. Of course, in the preface, Gardner states outright that he got the rituals from the KoS. ('High Magic's Aid' is the Gondolphin House edition, KoS is the Wesier edition)
I've heard that 'Goetia' is more or less translatable to 'witchcraft', although it's also said to mean 'howling'. It must be said that 'Ars Goetia' is substantially different than the Greater Key, and from the rest of the lemegeton, as well as pretty much every other grimoire I've read. I've also seen it said that 'Ars Goetia' is older than the rest of the Lemegeton, but I have no idea about the veracity of that.
Of course, any debates on origins of most grimoires is redundant, as we often have no idea exactly how old they are.
As for Murray - exactly why she is considered a credible source will forever be beyond me. The way she manipulated evidence to make it seem like there were always thirteen members in a coven, for instance - in spite of the fact that 'coven' was used in approximately ONE trial, which does not exactly make for sweeping evidence that thirteen-member covens were organized across Europe and were even to be found in New England, yet that is what she postulates.
Similarly, the religion of the witches as described by Murray is so profoundly dissimilar to Gardner's Wicca that I wonder why she is cited as often as she is. Murray's witches worshipped one (1) god, named Janus or Dianus, who was often in the form of a goat, toad, cat, or black man. Murray *does* state that the god also appeared in the form of a woman, and was usually called the Queen of Elfame, but there is far more testimony as to the man, goat, or other animal forms taken. They also practiced child sacrifice and ate human corpses, neither of which are, to my knowledge, part of Wiccan rituals. Curiously, the deity worshipped is given in her quotations as Satan, Sathan, or Lucifer, and not 'Dianus' or 'Janus'. I suspect Murray was heavily influenced by Frazer, and that is why she stresses that the dancing was for fertility and invents the 'Greater Sabbats' idea, as accused witches often said they met on *Christian* holidays.
Of course, she also states that Gilles de Rais and Jeanne d'Arc were members of her pagan religion, as were many of the crowned heads of England, not to mention Thomas a Beckett (because archbishops will leap at the chance to be ritual sacrifices in pagan ceremonies). Such ideas clearly contribute to the lucidity of her theory.
I do not understand why some people have a deep *need* for Wicca to be an ancient religion in spite of all proof to the contrary.
David19 brings up a good point - the Christians made a damn good try to eliminate the Jews and (happily) failed; so why then were they so successful with European paganism?
And I hesitate to resort to this, but Carla, you really seem to be the pig-headed one here, and have been in the past.

[Snapdragon]

Having a bit of experience with conversations like this, I read the first couple pages of posts, then skipped to the last bit. The progession was from originating question to "neener neener dofus," a sequence familiar to me. What we are seeing here is the inescapable question of Authority--who, what, or whether to invoke and bow down to it.

My suggestion to any and all who choose to continue chewing on this cud, is to take time out to read "The Charge of the Goddess," and especially take to heart the passage about being naked in your rites, as a sign that you are free.

Nakedness is next to godliness--or, at least, all Authorities should be seen wearing no clothes. BB, y'all.

[shuvanilu]

Nakedness is next to godliness--or, at least, all Authorities should be seen wearing no clothes. BB, y'all.

:bug: Wha'?

[Greyharp]

Wha'?

I second the motion

[Snapdragon]

Sorry that wasn't clear. Here's a more plodding version of my previous comment: Arguments about ancient scrolls, the declarations of well-known authors and other figures associated with the Craft, and the like, all boil down to arguments about authority. The argument goes round and round as to who should be believed and followed, or what should be read and believed and followed.

I say: question authority, and why you care so much. Wicca is--of all the spiritual paths I know--the religion of the free. The Charge of the Goddess, written by Doreen Valiente, speaks of worshippers being naked during their rites as a sign that they are free. Well, are we? Free, I mean. If we are free, then what need have we of authority? Of course Wicca is a "made up" religion--just like all the others! The questions that matter have nothing to do with authority, but everything to do with integrity. Live with integrity--that is the only "authority" that ever matters.

Hope that seems a bit more clear. BB.

[Greyharp]

I was thinking about this whole issue of sources and who can you trust. For many of us in our search for the "truth" of Gardner's religion, who don't have access to huge libraries of obscure texts, we are left with the decision of which authors do you trust? Are their sources reliable and are they true to the context of them? Which got me to thinking about the use of the term "Huttonites" earlier in this thread, and it's implication of trusting academics blindly.

Arguments have been put forward that just because an author has university degrees and is an accepted part of academia, an expert in their field, doesn't mean they are more reliable than an author who is basically a self-taught amateur (and I am in no way referring to the natural intelligence of the individual here, just educational qualifications).

Certainly I have to make this choice of who to trust, as I live in an isolated rural area in an isolated state, and I simply don't have the funds to purchase every book that is part of the hundreds of references in another book. So I came up with this analogy, which I am aware is a poor comparison and no doubt quite flawed, but probably does a good job of explaining my mindset.

If you were sick and needed an operation, you would go to see a qualified surgeon. You certainly wouldn't go to some bloke's house who'd spent years reading medical texts and proclaimed himself a doctor. Doctors and Surgeons have gone through years of formalised training, their work has been scrutinised, critcised and tested, till they have earned the respect and acceptance of their peers. (And yes, I am aware that there are dodgy Doctors out there). In the academic world, the "expert in their field" has gone through a similar process. I wouldn't go to a Doctor who had been badmouthed by the majority of their peers, just as I am wary of trusting the scholarship of an academic who doesn't have the respect and approval of the majority of their peers.

That is not to say that an amateur scholar cannot come up with incredible and erudite work, or that the rejected academic is necessarily wrong in their findings. But as I said, not being in the position to check most of a writer's sources, I have to choose who to trust and I tend to trust the "expert" who has the wide acceptance of their peers; be very suspect of the academic who is slammed by their peers; and keep an open mind about the works of amateur scholars. And to this I must add a pinch of "what feels right to me". :) Thus I form an opinion, it may be wrong, but it's mine. The wonderful thing is though, knowledge is fluid, it's not set in concrete and we are always learning new things. New research and revelations can change our beliefs and understanding.

Dave

[Greyharp]

Thanks Snapdragon, that was a lot clearer. :)

I too believe that all religions were started by people at some stage, and it doesn't matter if that was fifty years ago or fifty thousand years ago. As long as it makes you a better person and draws you closer to Deity.

Dave

[Ben Gruagach]

Thanks for that little wakeup call, Snapdragon.

I agree that Wicca (and any religion, really) can be deeply meaningful for those who find it speaks to their hearts. Whether a particular religion is meaningful or not has nothing to do with how old the religion is, or whether any of the historical claims made about the religion are true, or accepted, or written down in books somewhere.

There is a place for history and debate about history. Attempts to clarify where we come from help immensely in explaining why we are where we are now, and can provide a hint of the direction we might go in the future. People who forget the past, as they say, are often doomed to repeat the old mistakes.

Speculations, theories, and claims about the past are certainly entertaining. The most impressive statements, though, are the ones which are actually supported by the evidence, and more importantly, can convince the skeptical yet open-minded. Some people will never be convinced no matter what.

Personally, I did believe that Wicca was an intact ancient religion back when I first got involved in the 1980s. Back then, that was the accepted history of our community. During the 1990s seeds of doubt started to come out (I saw it mostly through Pagan magazines such as "Green Egg" and through BBS networks like PODSNet) and then when Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon" came out in 1999 it became really hard to hold on to the old version of events. The more evidence is uncovered the less and less likely it seems that the old version of history could be true.

It would be great to see it proved otherwise. Raven Grimassi and Philip Heselton are two who are making a valiant effort. I respect their work and frequently recommend others read it although I don't agree with their conclusions. I'd love to be convinced but unfortunately too many things must be taken on faith, with too many leaps of logic, for me to feel comfortable or to actually be convinced. And to refer back to another post in this thread, I'm sorry to say that sometimes the arguments fail because they are logically faulty -- the theories are certainly interesting, but the logic has to hold from a logic point of view!

It's really too bad that some feel the need to resort to ad hominem attacks, as though name calling invalidates a person's arguments.

For those who are interested, there is a good explanation with clear examples of common logical fallacies at this website (http://www.logicalfallacies.info/). Anyone who is exploring history would benefit from being able to spot when an argument is not logical. It helps separate the supported claims from the ones that are merely speculation.

[shuvanilu]

Sorry that wasn't clear. Here's a more plodding version of my previous comment: Arguments about ancient scrolls, the declarations of well-known authors and other figures associated with the Craft, and the like, all boil down to arguments about authority. The argument goes round and round as to who should be believed and followed, or what should be read and believed and followed.

I say: question authority, and why you care so much. Wicca is--of all the spiritual paths I know--the religion of the free. The Charge of the Goddess, written by Doreen Valiente, speaks of worshippers being naked during their rites as a sign that they are free. Well, are we? Free, I mean. If we are free, then what need have we of authority? Of course Wicca is a "made up" religion--just like all the others! The questions that matter have nothing to do with authority, but everything to do with integrity. Live with integrity--that is the only "authority" that ever matters.

Hope that seems a bit more clear. BB.


EXCELLENT post!!!---shuvanilu

[shuvanilu]

Whether a particular religion is meaningful or not has nothing to do with how old the religion is, or whether any of the historical claims made about the religion are true, or accepted, or written down in books somewhere.



And this, my dear, is the heart of the matter...and should in fact be the answer to many-a-question.:cheers: ---shuvanilu

[Carla O'Harris]

"Ad hominem attacks", eh? Who was engaging in those? I did say that those who refuse to look at the evidence and acknowledge it are pigheaded, and I referred to a specific set of facts, not my entire argument, and that referred to the fairy-faith. I stand by that statement, because I'd say the same thing about someone who fervently denied that there was "air" or "water" on the planet earth. "But wait, I can't see this "air" you're talking about ..." Anything else is of course debatable, and I don't presume to draw conclusions for people, and I certainly have no desire to intellectually bully anyone, but with something as well documented as the fairy tradition, it's also not my job to do others' homework for them.

I disagree with the postmodernist statement that "all religions are made up". I don't think that's true at all. I think there is an inspirational process that occurs which is distinctly different than pure invention, and it has to do with getting out of one's own head and making some sort of real contact with energies not completely controllable in the domestic sphere. I think it is incredibly trivializing of religion to say it is all "made up", especially to those religions with a long heritage and history, like, say, witchcraft. I'm not denigrating human creativity, nor suggesting that the inspirational process ended at some point in the past, but generally speaking, these processes have been involved in renewal and superimposition rather than bifurcatory breaks that invented something anew.

I absolutely agree that we should question authority. What some don't seem to realize is that Hutton, et al, are the new authority, and I swear the net is suffuse with little Hutton-droids aping their master who have never thought to question, except now they can add a little prestige on to their little clique because the master's "a scholar" and has footnotes. But Hutton in significant ways is nothing new. He adds on to the "authority" of Rose, Cohn, and the entire line of scholars who for the last thousand years have been denigrating our religion, dismissing it, calling it puffs of imagination, and so forth. Notice that Hutton seriously critiques anyone who tries to question the historicity of Christianity, however. That of course is granted a great and long history. I suggest that these people are the authorities. They are the very people we should be questioning. They've spent a great deal of time and resources building up a case that the whole thing has been made up, and their arguments have plausibility but nothing close to finality to them ; and, to mitigate the denigration implied in previous scholars' similar constructions, Kelly and Hutton tack on --- "but it's all ok, because all religions are made up, and it's still valid, etc." I consider this bullying. I consider it bullying because it is akin to granting precedence to the views of the genocidal after a genocide, when those genocided have been almost completely erased. Without understanding that weighting of the evidence, they proceed to wipe out any remaining authentic traces. That's bullying, and it's frightening. The same sort of thing has been done by historians with regards to the first eight hundred years of Christianity. For a long time, the "solid" "scholarly consensus" was that Christianity basically won, and there were no opponents, and this was based on the fact that the records were predominantly Christian, until enough people managed to bang on the doors of this consensus pointing out that the Christians themselves seriously warped and padded the record, with out and out censorship, destruction of alternative literature, editing of that which did survive, and oversaturation of their own propaganda. It was concluded that to get at the pagan substructure beneath the annihilatory and prematurely self-congratulatory Christian records, one would have to utilize a careful hermeneutic. It is precisely this kind of careful hermeneutic which scholars like Ginzburg and Henningsen have engaged in to validate a "core" of Murray's hypothesis, and their findings completely validate the long survival of the Canon cult into the 1600's and beyond into even the 1800's, which happen to dovetail nicely with the fairy-faith, which is no surprise as they are two sides of the same coin. But Hutton and others come along and either toss out and denigrate this hermeneutic altogether, or they actually lie -- and I mean deliberately lie and tell readers in their books that important scholars like Ginzburg 'didn't really mean what it looks like they meant'. This is wretchedly disgusting, dishonest polemic, and Hutton knows it -- he's been called on it, publically, but he continues to use his highbrow methods of slander by calling into question the reputation of anyone who has challenged him --- which is no surprise, because that is essentially the methodology he uses throughout "Triumph". Anyone seriously propose an alternative? He hardly answers or rebuts atall, but instead insinuates there was something less than ... 'credible' about them, or he engages in some kind of pseudo-psychoanalysis to 'explain' why these authors were so drawn to these rather peculiar theories. Interestingly, this same sort of reputation-mongering and pseudo-psychoanalysis is not applied towards the very scholars he does invoke --- no, no, they are treated as if they are unquestioned gods, and how dare the laity question or even want access to these materials! That, my friends, very much is the appeal to authority.

As far as scholars are concerned, consulting a "majority" of them has as much validity as consulting a "majority" of anyone to determine the truth. Majority-politics is always politics, never truth. Truth by committee? I don't think so. If anything, scholars are often more subject to the forces of conformity and ridicule than the rest of the population, not less so, although this is of course a generalization with important exceptions. The history of the obstinancy of experts is itself an important field, but has been demonstrated time and time again. This does not mean that any consensus of scholars is wrong simply because it is a consensus ; obviously, that would be absurd. But what it does mean is that any consensus of scholars is not necessarily right simply because it is a consensus, and in fact, given the track record, should be seriously crossexamined.

What has happened is that a fairly intuitive religion has been subjected to a severe scholarly examination, placed into court, and "inquired" of. (Yes, I am drawing allusions here.) They've called to the stand some impressive witnesses. The jury as such seems highly swayed so far, because the lawyers have constructed a fascinating and plausible story, as they always do, as they must do in order to make their case. But what you see happening now is people from that intuitive religion stepping up to the plate, girding up their loins, immersing themselves in the literature of the opponents and beyond, and beginning the process of crossexamining the nouveau consensus, and questioning whether it is "nouveau" at all.

And some, disappointed, play up the disappointed-trope so that it becomes an expectation in the argument. If the entire liturgy of Gardner cannot be proven to stretch back word for word to the Neolithic (even though there was no English in the Neolithic) or at least the Middle Ages, then damn, we've all been had, look what this raconteur did to us. If witchcraft were a beloved woman, her 'reputation' has been called into question, because she was seen out at night carousing with unknown individuals ; and some of her beloveds, shocked at this suggestion, jump the gun and assume the worst, without any faith in her whatsoever, without bothering to question Iago's motivations, nor whether his plausible story actually matches the record of her behavior. Some then assume she was always a whore, and I mean that with all of its JudaeoChristian vitriole and not its pagan independence, and furthermore, that everyone always has been. The fairy woman was not enchantment ; she was illusion ... but ... but ... that's ok, because everything is illusion, so feel free to revel in your illusions! I don't find that very comforting, nor do I find it very faithful.

I certainly don't want to bully anyone intellectually. Of course you are entitled to your own discretions, and it is vital you thoroughly assess the material and come to your own conclusions -- no one can make them for you. But it is very important to look critically at any scholastic consensus --- no matter how much evidence it seems to have garnered.

Witchcraft was a living religion ; why would anyone expect its liturgy to stay static? And it has always permeated the margins and been in touch with various sub-and-inter-national currents, so its living process of syncretization would have proceeded autonomously for a long time. Gardner wasn't presenting us with a fossil ; he was presenting us with something alive and pulsating --- and it wasn't a golem, it was a living being showing all the signs of life including adaptation and imperfection.

Some say Humpty Dumpty never existed at all. Others, a little more moderate, say Humpty Dumpty fell down at the latest in the 1100's, and ever since then, all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty Dumpty back together again, because all that was left was a theology-less dispersed "Christian folk magic", which admittedly, we do from time to time see signs of, although one must be very careful in assessing this, because in the larger perspective it is often anything but. Nevertheless, what Leland and Gardner have independently done is find the genital member that allows Osiris to come back to life, because it brings all the scattered pieces back together. And in that regard, their work did act as an "attractor", but restoring an existing pattern from its historical fragmentation, a fragmentation that was intentional on the parts of authorities attempting to eradicate it. Gardner and Leland didn't do this as a scholastic exercise in plagiarism or invention ; they revealed some of the last vital remnants, and they were conscious of this. Because of this, they made sure they "shored up" with all kinds of scholastic backup. It is such a shame that due to their relative thoroughness in this regard they are now called into question as having cooked the whole thing up from the books. No, no, there were nothing but scattered pieces, the opposition says, and they were all Christian. Gardner took these degraded fragments and created an entirely new recipe from scratch, based on his fanciful readings of eccentric scholars who were yearning for a paganism based on their reactionary flight from the ills of urbanism and industrialism, or so Hutton would tell us. But generally speaking, recipes tend to build upon previous recipes, not just a new amalgamation of random ingredients. Hutton would say, no, no, he got this recipe from these decadent scholars and poets, not any indigenous source. But Gardner as much tells us that there was a recipe lineage, in some cases written in an actual book. Raven Grimassi has demonstrated that such witch cookbooks have in fact been demonstrated to exist in written form, although there is no reason why in many cases they could not have passed in oral form as well.

I can see the point of those witches Raven invokes when he speaks of them happy with the disbelief ; in a sense, anyone who's going to dishonor the labors of those who have tried to pass on these cookbooks by slandering their reputation while requiring them to be paragons of perfection in order to be reliable --- let them eat the smoke of the smokescreen that is being raised. Those who are truly wise will know, and those cults who are truly serious will know how to winnow the wheat from the chaff.

[Carla O'Harris]

I say: question authority, and why you care so much. Wicca is--of all the spiritual paths I know--the religion of the free.

I'll tell you why I care. I care because thousands of witches struggled to keep alive a faith they found vital to their lives and their community, and they struggled against a tyrannical monster that was attempting to assimilate or annihilate them. I care because I value freedom, and so did they, and in many cases, they gave their blood so that this heritage of freedom might survive and continue to be passed down. I am not going to dishonor those patriots. I am not going to allow them to be erased, with the swish of the pen and the wax seal of some authority sitting at a desk somewhere, the modern equivalent of a monk telling me the libraries "do not confirm" my spiritual ancestors. My response? Maybe if you'd done a little less book burning, and a little less people burning, your libraries would reflect their lives more. But as it stands, they did succeed in passing on the most important aspects of their faith, their faith in freedom, and they did so under incredibly difficult circumstances, and even some of your records show it!! I care because truth matters, and it is very important to apply the proper hermeneutic to persecuted minorities rather than applying majoritarian logic that continues to erase their presence.

"Everything's made up" is a part of the new consensus, it seems. I don't know of any precedence for this. I know the Gnostics encouraged human creativity in coming up with new myths to explain spiritual truths, but I don't know that anyone suggested that those spiritual truths were "made up". I do not think the Gnostics were spiritual postmodernists saying "anything goes". I think they were encouraging a penetration within the spirit of creativity that animates stories in order to perceive the real spiritual truths and spiritual entities behind these --- that is a very different thing from declaring that history itself is such a story, and very different from declaring that it's all "made up". And while Gnostics may have had a certain sophistication in this regard, I doubt that many of the religious on the ground would have accepted anything close to "it's all made up". The woman who had seen the Fairy Woman with her own eyes at the well teaching her how to use herbs which allowed her to heal people might look at you like you're crazy. The people dependent on particular gods to help the crops grow certainly didn't consider them "made up", and I really doubt anyone calling on Wodan or Thor in the midst of battle would entertain any thoughts that it was all "made up". The "makers up" claim we don't have a history, but actually, I think the history of the "made up" has a very short history indeed. Or is religion safer if we just turn the entire thing into a literary exercise? And if your faith is but a literary exercise, then no wonder you can't imagine anyone dying for it, or struggling really hard to keep it alive : why not just switch literary genres?

[David19]

I just came up with this idea now, so it probably has nothing that useful in it, but everyone seems to think it was an intact 'pagan' religion, what if, the coven that Gardner was initated into, if he was at all, had Christian witches in it, i know people say that it goes against their belief, but their are Appalachian witches (http://www.conjurefolk.com/apfolkmag.html)and Ozark witches (http://www.conjurefolk.com/ozark.html), i know they're American (i think) but is it so hard to believe that they had English equivalents, maybe Gardner only added 'pagan' themes to keep his oaths to the coven, if there was one.

I'd thought i'd throw this in, just to see what others thought, since a lot of people have never considered (or don't seem to) that Gardner may have found a Christian witch coven, (or at least witches who combined both Christian magic with 'pagan' magic, since, someone on this board, said that it was alleged that there was a Golden Dawn member of the coven, called Mother Sambine(sp) or something).

Anyway, what do you think?

[Carla O'Harris]

I don't think we need to grasp at straws like that. I think your mind is alive and fully exploring the possibilities, but I think there are nearer possibilities to hand. Witches and fairies have been associated since the 1100's, and there are clear signs of the fairy faith having survived into the recent present, and that represents the survival of an authentic pagan, nonChristian tradition, with the invocation of female deity, magic, sabbats, trance, healing, and so forth.

[raven grimassi]

The more evidence is uncovered the less and less likely it seems that the old version of history could be true.

Ben, what a fascinating phenomena this is, because for me the more that comes to light the more proof I see in the argument for the Old Religion of the Craft. But unlike many others I am not fixed on Gardner nor Britain as the "be all and end all" of the survival debate. Personally I see Gardner as one man with his unique experience. I see Britain as simply one of many regions of Europe.

If Gardner did not base his writings upon a lineaged tradition then it only proves that he was not in contact with one. It does not prove that none existed, it only proves he did not find one. Why this all rests upon the lies of one single man in one single area of Europe is something I am missing.

In any case, while it is all a merry chase, complete with such interesting characters as Valiente and Crowley, in the end if it was all bogus it is not a reflection on the existence of the Craft, it is only a reflection on the people involved in the scam. But perhaps this is yet another mistake in my logic. ;)


I'd love to be convinced but unfortunately too many things must be taken on faith, with too many leaps of logic, for me to feel comfortable or to actually be convinced.

My experience has been different. The more I explore the data collected by anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, and folklorists, the more I am convinced of the existence of a tradition(s) that pre-dates Gardnerian Wicca.

It's really too bad that some feel the need to resort to ad hominem attacks, as though name calling invalidates a person's arguments.

Indeed, Ben, and thanks for helping to return this thread to an exchange of ideas and perspectives.

[Greyharp]

Carla, you are incredible, so much passion, so many words (1,990 in the first post alone). If I wasn't happily married I would be in love. How I envy your talent (and I truly am not being sarcastic here). I go outside to muck out the goats, come back in and you have pumped out 2,000+ words in the blink of an eye. I wish I could do the same when I spend several days putting together a 2,000 word essay for my studies. You take my breath away, ending your post with this magnificent curse, almost Biblical (haaawwwk spit!) in magnitude and feeling:

let them eat the smoke of the smokescreen that is being raised. Those who are truly wise will know, and those cults who are truly serious will know how to winnow the wheat from the chaff.
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