Wicca: Encyclopedia II - Wicca - History of Wicca

Wicca - History of Wicca

Wicca - Origins

The history of Wicca is much debated. Gardner claimed that the religion was a survival of matriarchal Pagan religions of pre-historic Europe (see Völva), taught to him by a woman known as "Dafo" or "Old Dorothy" (identified by Doreen Valiente (1984) as Dorothy Clutterbuck, although modern researchers such as Philip Heselton have theorized that Dafo and Clutterbuck were two separate individuals). Others posit that he invented it himself, following the thesis of Dr. Margaret Murray and sources such as Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches by Charles Godfrey Leland, and the practices of Freemasonry and ceremonial magic. While Clutterbuck certainly existed, Ronald Hutton concluded that she is unlikely to have been involved in Gardner's Craft activities. Nonetheless, a widespread theory ^{[citation needed]} is that after Gardner retired from adventuring around the globe, he encountered Clutterbuck and her New Forest coven in the region. He was supposedly initiated into the New Forest coven in 1939, where he stayed for years until England's ban on witchcraft-related books was repealed. At this point, and later claiming to fear that the Craft would die out (Gardner, pp. 18-19), he worked on his book Witchcraft Today, releasing it in 1954. He followed it with The Meaning of Witchcraft in 1960. It is from these books that much of modern Wicca is derived.

While the ritual format of Wicca is undeniably styled after late Victorian era occultism (even co-founder Doreen Valiente admits seeing influence from Crowley), the spiritual content is inspired by older Pagan faiths, with Buddhist and Hindu influences. Whether any historical connection to Pagan religion exists, the aspiration to emulate Pagan religion as it was understood at the time certainly does.

Gardner probably had access to few, if any, traditional Pagan rites. The prevailing theory is that most of his rites were the result of an adaption of the works of Aleister Crowley. Gardner was chartered by Crowley to form an encampment of Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis in England, though he never did (Sutin, pp. 409-410). There is very little in the Wiccan rites that cannot be shown to have come from earlier extant sources. The original material is not cohesive and mostly takes the form of substitutions or expansions within unoriginal material. Roger Dearnaley, in An Annotated Chronology and Bibliography of the Early Gardnerian Craft, describes it as a patchwork.

Philip Heselton, writing in Wiccan Roots and later in Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration, argues that Gardner was not the author of the Wiccan rituals but received them in good faith from an unknown source. (Doreen Valiente makes this claim regarding the "basic skeleton of the rituals," as Margot Adler puts it in Drawing Down the Moon.) He notes that all the Crowley material that is found in the Wiccan rituals can be found in a single book, The Equinox vol 3 no. 1 or Blue Equinox. Gardner is not known to have owned or had access to a copy of this book.

Some, such as Isaac Bonewits, have argued that Valiente and Heselton's evidence points to an early 20th century revival predating Gardner, rather than an intact old Pagan religion. The argument points to historical claims of Gardner's that agree with scholarship of a certain time period and contradict later scholarship. Bonewits writes, Somewhere between 1920 and 1925 in England some folklorists appear to have gotten together with some Golden Dawn Rosicrucians and a few supposed Fam-Trads to produce the first modern covens in England; grabbing eclectically from any source they could find in order to try and reconstruct the shards of their Pagan past. Crowley published the aforementioned Blue Equinox in 1919.

Today, Gardner's role in Wicca's origin is controversial. Some criticize him for breaking the secrecy of Wicca, and that his explanation for his fear that the Craft would die out wasn't substantial.^{[citation needed]} Others hail him as the savior of the Craft, and argue that Wicca would still be unknown today had he not publicized it.^{[citation needed]}

The idea of primitive matriarchal religions, deriving ultimately from studies by Johann Jakob Bachofen, was popular in Gardner's day, both among academics (e.g., Erich Neumann, Margaret Murray) and amateurs such as Robert Graves. Later academics (e.g. Carl Jung and Marija Gimbutas) continued research in this area, and later still Joseph Campbell, Ashley Montagu and others became fans of Gimbutas' theories of matriarchies in Old Europe. Matriarchal interpretations of the archaeological record and the criticism of such work continue to be matters of academic debate. Some academics carry on research in this area (such as the 2003 World Congress on Matriarchal Studies). Critics argue that matriarchal societies never actually existed and are an invention of researchers such as Margaret Murray.

The idea of a supreme Mother Goddess was common in Victorian and Edwardian literature: the concept of a Horned God — especially related to the gods Pan or Faunus — was less common, but still significant (Hutton, pp. 33-51). Both of these ideas were widely accepted in academic literature and the popular press at the time (Hutton, pp. 151-170). Gardner used these concepts as his central theological doctrine and constructed Wicca around this core.

Wicca - Later developments

Wicca has developed in several directions since it was first publicised by Gerald Gardner. Gardnerian Wicca was an initiatory mystery religion, admission to which was limited to those who were initiated into a pre-existing coven. The Book of Shadows, the grimoire that contained the rituals, was kept secret and was only obtainable from a coven of proper lineage. Despite the fact that several versions of the Book of Shadows have now been publicly published, many traditions of Wicca still maintain strict secrecy regarding the book and certain other aspects of the religion.

Raymond Buckland introduced modern Wicca to America after moving to Long Island. Buckland continued writing the Book of Shadows. Further degrees of initiation were required before members could found their own covens. Interest outstripped the ability of the mostly British-based covens to train and propagate members; the beliefs of the religion spread faster by the printed word or word of mouth than the initiatory system was prepared to handle.

Other traditions appeared that gradually brought more attention and adherents to the extant Neopaganism movement.^{[citation needed]} Some claimed roots as ancient as Gardner's version, and were organised along similar lines.^{[citation needed]} Others were syncretistic, in that they imported aspects of Kabbalah, romanticised Celtic Pagan concepts, and ceremonial magic. In 1971 "Lady Sheba" published what she claimed was a version of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows, although the authenticity of this book has never been validated. Increasing awareness of Gardner's literary sources and the actual early history of the movement made creativity seem as valuable as Gardnerian tradition.

Another significant development was the creation by feminists of Dianic Wicca, or feminist Dianic Witchcraft. This is a specifically feminist faith that discarded Gardnerian-style hierarchy as irrelevant, amongst other aspects. Many Dianic Wiccans taught that witchcraft was every woman's right and heritage to claim.^{[citation needed]} This heritage might be best characterized by Monique Wittig words on the subject: "But remember. Make an effort to remember. Or, failing that, invent." This tradition was comparatively (and unusually for that time) open to solitary witches. Rituals were created for self-initiation to allow people to identify with and join the religion without first contacting an existing coven.^{[citation needed]} This contrasts with the Gardnerian belief that only a witch of opposite gender could initiate another witch.^{[citation needed]}

The publications of Raymond Buckland illustrate these changes. During the early 1970s, in books such as Witchcraft - Ancient and Modern and Witchcraft From the Inside, Buckland maintained the Gardnerian position that only initiates into a Gardnerian or other traditional coven were truly Wiccans. However, in 1974, Buckland broke with the Gardnerians and founded Seax-Wica, revealing its teachings and rituals in the book The Tree: The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft. This "tradition" made no claims to direct descent from ancient Saxons; all of its then-extant rituals were contained in that book, which allowed for self-initiation. In 1986 Buckland published Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft, a workbook that sought to train readers in magical and ritual techniques as well as instructing them in Wiccan teachings and rituals.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "History of Wicca", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki