The Meaning of “Wicca”/ A Study in Etymology, History, and Pagan Politics Ethan Doyle White

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[The Pomegranate 12.2 (2010) 185-207] doi: 10.1558/pome.v12i2.184

ISSN 1528-0268 (Print) ISSN 1743-1735 (Online)

The Meaning of “Wicca”: A Study in Etymology, History, and Pagan Politics Ethan Doyle White [email protected]

Abstract This essay provides the first comprehensive examination of how the term “Wicca”—used in reference to the modern religion of Pagan Witchcraft —has been utilised throughout the faith’s history. Examining its antecedents, including the Old English “wicca” and the early Gardnerian “Wica”, the author looks at the many definitions that the term has seen over the last seventy years, and comes to conclusions that provide a new interpretation of not only how the term has been used in the Pagan community of the past and the present, but also how it can most effectively be used in the future.

According to the online Oxford Dictionary, the word “Wicca” refers to “the religious cult of modern witchcraft, especially an initiatory tradition founded in England in the mid 20th century and claiming its origins in pre-Christian pagan religions.” A similar definition is offered by Rosemary Ellen Guiley in her encyclopaedia of witchcraft when she states that “Wicca” is the “alternate, and sometimes preferred, name for the religion of contemporary Witchcraft.”1 Whilst these are the general definitions of the term that I suspect would likely be agreed upon by the majority of Pagans, occultists, and indeed scholars of new religious movements around the world today, from both a historical and a contemporary perspective, they are massive oversimplifications of what is in fact an area of conjecture and fierce debate. The Pagan Witchcraft movement—and I here use Witchcraft, capitalized, to denote the modern religious phenomenon—is today the largest and most influential form of contemporary Paganism, with what is likely hundreds of thousands of followers around the world. As with any religion, there has been a great deal of disagreement and infighting over a wide range of issues within its ranks, and this is perhaps most evident 1. Rosemary Ellen Guiley, The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft & Wicca (third edition), (New York: Checkmark Books, 2008), 371. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010, Unit S3, Kelham House, 3 Lancaster Street, Sheffield S3 8AF

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regarding the issue of how the term “Wicca,” along with related terms such as “Wica” and “the Wicca,” can and should be used. In this study, I plan to examine the origins and etymology of the word, and the historical context in which it developed, in order to better understand how it has been used and by whom since the 1950s. Despite the large amount of work that has been undertaken by a number of academics and independent researchers into the history of the Pagan Witchcraft movement, no full examination of the development of the term “Wicca” has ever before been published. Nonetheless, two preliminary studies of the subject have already been made: the first of these was an examination of the usage of the term “Wicca” within the United States by Pagan scholar Chas S. Clifton, which was published in his 2006 book Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America.2 The second was made by Melissa Seims, a British Gardnerian who published her findings in a 2008 article entitled “Wica or Wicca? Politics and the Power of Words.” In this article, first published in one of Britain’s best known Craft magazines, The Cauldron, and later made available through her personal website, she identified the usage of the word “Wica” (spelt with one c and distinct from the contemporary word “Wicca”) within early Gardnerianism and also explored the use of the word “Wiccen” by another early Pagan Witch, Charles Cardell.3 Whilst Clifton and Seims’s works were pioneering, I take issue with some of their assumptions and conclusions, and in this article I attempt to go beyond such preliminary explorations of the subject by examining the evolution and development of the term throughout the twentieth century. The Anglo-Saxon “Wicca” Before I examine the origins of the word “Wicca” and the context in which it emerged in twentieth-century England, I believe it is necessary to turn back the clock ten centuries, to the Early Mediaeval period, when a word spelled “wicca” was utilized by the Anglo-Saxons, the speakers of Old English. Such a word, which was actually pronounced witch-a, referred to practitioners of sorcery, whilst their practices were themselves known as “wiccecraeft” or “wiccedom,”both of which would be the equivalents of the modern words “witchcraft” or “witchery.”4 This Anglo-Saxon sorcery was not a religion in itself, but a system of folk 2. Chas S. Clifton, Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America (Lanham, Maryland: AltaMira Press, 2006.), 88-91. 3. Melissa Seims, “Wica or Wicca? Politics and the Power of Words,” The Cauldron 129, August 2008, http://www.thewica.co.uk/wica_or_wicca.htm. 4. Bill Griffiths, Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic (Hockwold-cum-Wilton, Norfolk: Anglo-Saxon Books, 1996), 95. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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magical charms and spells that had been used by both Pagans and Christians, some of which have survived in written records for us today. What such evidence therefore makes clear is that the Old English term “wicca” and the Modern English term “Wicca”—separated by case distinction, by pronunciation, and by a millennium in between their usage—are fundamentally and indisputably two distinct words with very different meanings. Nonetheless, this does not rule out the possibility, and indeed the likelihood, that the modern term “Wicca” was influenced, or even based upon, the Early Mediaeval “wicca.” The fact that both related to forms of magical praxes, albeit ones that were radically different to one another, makes it seem likely that the modern term was heavily influenced by its historical counterpart. It comes as little surprise that modern Pagan Witches would choose to adopt a historical term such as “wicca,” for like almost all contemporary Pagan faiths, theirs is one that draws heavily (in terms of iconography and inspiration, if not actual belief and praxes), from the historical polytheistic peoples of history. Gerald Gardner and other early Pagan Witches firmly associated their Craft with the ancient British Pagans, believing there to be a direct connection between the two via the Witch Cult, and by re-adopting the term “wicca” in some form, they would have been cementing such a connection, at least in their own eyes. Gerald Gardner and “the Wica” Turning our attention to Britain in the first half of the twentieth century, we see the religion of Pagan Witchcraft beginning to emerge. From the 1930s through to the 1960s, there is evidence of a variety of different occult groups popping up around England, all describing themselves, or being described by others, as Witches, and following a form of magical Pagan religion. It was the “Father of Wicca,” Gerald Gardner, who provided the earliest account of such a group, making the claim (during the 1950s) that in the year 1939 he had been initiated into the New Forest coven. Although the definitive existence of this group has never been proved outright, the researcher Philip Heselton has put forward a compelling yet circumstantial case for its existence,5 and I am inclined to believe that it did exist in some form, although did not probably predate the 1930s. During the following decades, further covens apparently emerged in other parts of the country, including Cheshire, Cumbria, Norfolk, Slough, and the South Downs, all of which supposedly had origins independent from those of the New Forest coven or the Gardnerian tradition that it 5. Philip Heselton, Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival (Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann, 2000). © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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subsequently spawned, providing evidence for what could be termed a “multiple origins theory” for Pagan Witchcraft. Contrary to a claim that is often used in the Pagan and occult communities today, Gerald Gardner, the founder of Gardnerian Witchcraft and the public face of the movement during the late 1950s and early1960s, did not refer to his tradition of the Craft as “Wicca,” and there is in fact no recorded instance of him ever using the word. Instead, he referred to his faith as “the Craft of the Wise,” ”witchcraft,” and “the witch cult,” the latter of which was likely taken from the title of Egyptologist Margaret Murray’s seminal proto-Wiccan text The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921). Alongside these names for the Pagan Craft as a faith, there is ample evidence that Gardner referred to its adherents in a plural sense as “the Wica” (note the single c), stating in the tenth chapter of his book Witchcraft Today (1954) that They are the people who call themselves the Wica, the “wise people”, who practise the age-old rites.6

Similarly, in Gerald Gardner: Witch (1960), the biography written by Gardner’s friend, the Sufi mystic Idries Shah, the term “Wica” is also widely used in reference to the Pagan Witches as a collective entity, and from this evidence it seems clear that it was this definition that Gardner stuck to. Nonetheless, there is a singular piece of evidence implying that Gardner also referred to individual Pagan Witches themselves as each being a “Wica,”with Arnold Field, a reporter from the Manx newspaper The Daily Dispatch, stating that upon meeting Gardner in 1954, the elderly Witch “explained there are man and woman witches. Each is called a wica.”7 The reporter was not actually directly quoting Gardner here, and it is perfectly possible that he simply misunderstood what Gardner was telling him; he had, after all, also misspelled the word “Wica” by not capitalizing it. It is evident that Gardner used the term “Wica” with a very specific spelling to refer to the members of the Pagan Witchcraft religion (and not just his own tradition) as a group, and perhaps also individually, and believed that the word had been used by the faith’s members since the Early Mediaeval period (in his 1959 book The Meaning of Witchcraft he stated that “It is a curious fact that when the [Pagan] witches became English-speaking they adopted their Saxon name ‘Wica.’”)8 6. Gerald Gardner, Witchcraft Today (London: Rider, 1954), 102. 7. Arnold Field, “Yes I Am A Witch,” The Daily Dispatch (Isle of Man), 5 August 1954. 8. Gerald Gardner, The Meaning of Witchcraft (London: Aquarian, 1971 [1959]), 96. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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This quote implies that he must have therefore associated his “Wica” with the Old English “wicca,”and he certainly appeared to believe, albeit incorrectly, that the Craft religion dated back to at least this period. From his own personal accounts, it seems that he got this term “Wica” from the New Forest coven who had initiated him in September 1939. For example, in The Meaning of Witchcraft, he recounted that: I was half-initiated before the word “Wica” which they used hit me like a thunderbolt, and I knew where I was, and that the Old Religion still existed.9

In Gerald Gardner: Witch, he offered a similar account of his initiation, remarking that It was halfway through when the word Wica was first mentioned: “and I then knew that that which I had thought burnt out hundreds of years ago still survived.”10

The fact that Gardner chose to spell this as “Wica,”using a single c, should not be taken to mean that the coven necessarily spelt it the same way (that is if they ever wrote it down at all, or that it even existed). From his account, it seems that he had heard rather than read the word in the midst of his initiatory rite, and suffering from a poor grasp of spelling, punctuation, and grammar, something caused by the fact that he was self-educated and possibly also influenced by dyslexia; he would quite likely have simply spelt it phonetically as “Wica.” The possibility must therefore be noted that the New Forest coven could actually have used the spelling “wicca,” assimilated from reading about historical witchcraft and magic (Gardner stated that they “had carefully read many books on the subject” of the occult),11 although in what context we cannot be sure. Like almost everything about this enigmatic coven, we can only speculate based upon Gardner’s own writings, and these do not give us much to go on. The term “Wica” was subsequently adopted by many of the early Gardnerians who were initiated into his tradition, and who themselves left further written evidence of it. In 1963, Arnold Crowther, who was the high priest of a coven in Sheffield, sent a letter to Gardner in which he referred, presumably humorously, to “The Wica Detective Agency.”12 He also referred to Pagan Witchcraft as the “Craft of the Wica” in his 1965 book The Witches Speak, co-written with his wife, the high priestess 9. Gardner, Meaning of Witchcraft, 11 10. Jack Bracelin, Gerald Gardner: Witch (London: Octagon Press, 1960), 165. 11. Bracelin, Gerald Gardner: Witch, 164-65. 12. Letter from Arnold Crowther to Gardner. Owned by Richard and Tamara James of the Wiccan Church of Canada. Cited in Seims, “Wica or Wicca?”. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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Patricia Crowther.13 Similar uses can also be seen in the writings of other early Gardnerians like Raymond Buckland, Monique and Scotty Wilson, and in the oral use of it by Charles Clark.14 What is clearly illustrated by such evidence is that despite any claims to the contrary made by current Pagans, there is no evidence that the early Gardnerians made use of the term “Wicca” to refer to either their tradition or to Pagan Witchcraft in general, and that instead they used “Wica” to refer to the community of Pagan Witches. Charles Cardell and the “Wiccens” So if it was not Gerald Gardner or the early Gardnerians who developed the term “Wicca” to refer to the faith, then who was it? Gardnerian initiate and researcher Melissa Seims believed that the man responsible may well have been one of Gardner’s rivals in the Pagan Witchcraft movement of the 1950s, a psychologist and stage conjuror known as Charles Cardell. According to press reports, Cardell controlled his own coven from his estate in the village of Charlwood, Surrey, and also ran a company called Dumblecott Magick Productions, through which he sold potions as well as his own newsletter. He was active in the British esoteric movement, being involved with Spiritualism as well as Pagan Witchcraft, and was in contact with Gerald Gardner until they had a falling out in 1958, after which Cardell set about to thoroughly discredit him and his tradition, privately publishing much of the then-secret Gardnerian Book of Shadows following Gardner’s death in 1964. In 1958, Charles Cardell wrote an article for Light magazine, the published journal of the College of Psychic Science, which he titled “The Craft of the Wiccens,” and in which he invited all “Wiccens,” thereby referring to Pagan Witches, to get in contact with him.15 It therefore appears that Cardell was responsible for the propagation, and quite possibly the invention, of the term “Wiccen” (as opposed to the now more commonly used, but presumably almost phonetically identical, “Wiccan”) in reference to the followers of the Pagan Witchcraft movement as a whole, but whether he referred to the Pagan Craft itself as “Wicca” is another matter. Seims believed that this was a likelihood because of a piece of evidence that she unearthed in the archives of the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall. In a letter dated 23 February 1960, 13. Arnold Crowther and Patricia Crowther, The Witches Speak, (Douglas, Isle of Man: Athol Publications, 1965), 39. 14. Raymond Buckland, Witchcraft—the Religion, (Brentwood, New York: The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, 1966), 20; Seims, “Wica or Wicca?”. 15. Aidan A. Kelly, Inventing Witchcraft: A Case Study in the Creation of a New Religion, (Loughborough, Leicestershire: Thoth Publications, 2007), 87. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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Margaret Bruce, the owner of a mail-order business dealing in occult goods, consoled Gardner following Cardell’s increasingly hostile actions against him and included a short poem summarising the situation: We feel it is tragick That those who lack Magick. Should start a vendetta With those who know betta We who practice the Art Have no wish to take part Seems a pity the ‘Wicca’ Don’t realise this Quicca.16

Seims believed that this usage of “Wicca” was explicitly in reference to the Cardellian tradition, and that it therefore indicated “that this spelling, along with “Wiccen,” was used by Cardell.”17 I would, however, point out that this is not the only explanation, and it could be that Bruce was instead referring to “the Wicca” as a community of Pagan Witches (it would therefore be a misspelling of Gardner’s “the Wica”), and in this manner she would actually not be commenting solely on the bad behaviour of the Cardellians but on how the various traditions of Pagan Witchcraft were fighting amongst one another, something that she clearly disapproved of. Either way, the fact that this spelling only appears in a private letter and not in any published works of the period indicates that such terminology was apparently not widespread in the Craft at the time. Nonetheless, Seims also identified another piece of evidence that potentially indicated the Cardellian usage of “Wicca”: this was an advertisement published in Fate magazine in 1962, in which a Cardiff-based tradition known as “Wicca—Dianic and Aradian” was mentioned. Seims connected this to the Cardells for the reason that “Mary Cardell was originally from Wales and Diana is the main Goddess mentioned in the Atho material which appears to have originated with Cardell.”18 I would, however, challenge this as being too vague a connection between the Cardells and this advertisement, noting that many of the early Pagan Witchcraft groups would have naturally adopted the names Diana and Aradia for their deities, these being the two witch goddesses in Charles Leland’s alleged account of a Tuscan witchcraft religion, Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1899). This advertisement is, however, interesting in 16. Letter from Margaret Bruce to Gardner. Held in the Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle. Cited in Seims, “Wica or Wicca?”. 17. Seims, “Wica or Wicca?”. 18. Seims, “Wica or Wicca?”. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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that it appears to be the earliest known published reference to “Wicca” in the context of the Pagan Witchcraft religion, at least that which is known to the author. It is of note on a sideline here that Robert Cochrane, another of Gardner’s rivals who propagated a form of religious Witchcraft during the early sixties (whether it was Pagan or Luciferian-Gnostic in nature is a matter of disagreement amongst his current followers), referred to “the illusionary world of Ye Olde English Wiccen” in a 1964 article of his published in Pentagram, the newsletter of the Witchcraft Research Association.19 It appears here, however, that Cochrane was not making any claim to the term “Wiccen” for his own followers but was merely ridiculing those Witches, namely the Gardnerians but also perhaps the Cardellians, who used mock-archaic language in their rituals. He certainly knew of Cardell and disliked him and his tradition, and it may be for this reason that he was mockingly using their term.20 It is of further note that the following year, when the journalist Justine Glass published Witchcraft, The Sixth Sense—and Us, she made no mention of the Craft being referred to as “Wicca.” She had been aided in her research for the work by the likes of Cochrane, Doreen Valiente, and Patricia Crowther, and surely if any of them had been aware of it, then it would most likely have been included in Glass’s text. She had, however—on the very first page no less—made note of the fact that the word “witch” had originated in the Anglo-Saxon “wicca.”21 Glass was not the only writer on the subject of Pagan Witchcraft to highlight this. Gardner, in The Meaning of Witchcraft, mentioned the fact a total of five times, something that Melissa Seims believed was likely to be down to the influence of his high priestess Doreen Valiente, who aided him in the writing of the work, and who herself was very interested in the etymology of the word.22 Valiente also made note of it on the very first page of her Where Witchcraft Lives (1962), however, this book never achieved widespread distribution.23 This is of potential importance because it displays that the Old English “wicca” was a word that was already being used in most of the same published sources that discussed contemporary Pagan Witchcraft. It seems likely that many Witches would have had

19. Robert Cochrane, “The Craft Today,” Pentagram 2, November 1964. 20. Robert Cochrane, The Robert Cochrane Letters: An Insight into Modern Traditional Witchcraft, (Milverton, Somerset: Capall Bann, 2002), 127. 21. Justine Glass, Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense—and Us (London: Neville Spearman, 1965). 22. Seims, “Wica or Wicca?”. 23. Doreen Valiente, Where Witchcraft Lives, (The Centre for Pagan Studies, 2010 [1962]), 1. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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access to these books, which at the time were three of only four works to be published on the subject, and it would not have been a large step for some of them to adapt the Old English “wicca,”which they believed to be an ancient word for “witch,” into the Modern English “Wicca,” a term for their newly burgeoning faith. ”Wicca,” John Score, Gavin Frost, and the Alexandrians In the penultimate issue of the Pentagram newsletter, published in December 1965, a small column was included that examined Halloween and its connection to the Craft. Whilst the writer’s name was not included, it was presumably produced by Gerard Noel, Doreen Valiente, or one of the other figures involved in the production of the paper. What is important about this particular piece was that within it, “the Craft of the Wiccan” was mentioned, apparently referring to the entire Pagan Witchcraft religion, with this providing another early printed example of the term.24 Following the collapse of Pentagram, a group of British Gardnerians began publication of a newsletter devoted to the Pagan Craft in July 1968, which they titled The Wiccan. Edited by the Dorset-based high priest John Score, who had been initiated only the previous year by Madge Worthington, it provides us with good evidence that by this period in time, the term “Wiccan” was being used amongst the Gardnerian community, and that “Wicca” was quite presumably being used as well. Indeed, one Welshman, Gavin Frost, apparently came upon it around this time, for when he and his wife, Yvonne, moved to the United States soon after, they founded a teaching group known as the Church of Wicca in 1968, through which they propagated their own unusually monotheistic tradition.25 The term “Wicca” had arrived. Around the same time, “Wicca” was also certainly being used by adherents of a new tradition that had only just emerged in Britain, Alexandrianism, a Craft variant developed by the third degree Gardnerian initiate Alex Sanders, which he attempted to pass off as a hereditary form of Pagan Witchcraft. Melissa Seims noted that the word “Wicca” was used in King of the Witches: The World of Alex Sanders (1969), an overly positive biography written of Sanders by the journalist June Johns. Despite this, the only actual reference to “Wicca” found in the book is in the glossary, where it is described as an “ancient word for witchcraft.” It is clear then that here Johns is simply referring to the Old English word “wicca,”

24. “Hallowe’en,” Pentagram 5, December 1965, 19. 25. Guiley, Encyclopedia, 61. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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which due to its inclusion in a glossary has been capitalized.26 Following on from the success of King of the Witches, the publisher Peter Davies was interested in releasing another book on the subject of the Craft, and so Sanders approached another sympathetic journalist, Stewart Farrar, to write a work that would examine the particular beliefs and practices of the Alexandrian tradition. Farrar soon became an Alexandrian initiate and used what he had learned from this in the writing of What Witches Do: A Modern Coven Revealed, published in 1971. In this work, Farrar clearly used the term “Wicca” to refer to Pagan Witchcraft in its totality, referring to it as “the witches’ name for their Craft,” thereby implying that at this period Alex Sanders and his coven, which was the only group that Farrar was actually associated with, referred to their faith as “Wicca.” Following on from this, Farrar also stated that “Wicca is divided, sometimes bitterly, into more than one school of thought,” and that as such there were “four sects: Hereditary, Traditional, Gardnerian and Alexandrian.”27 This work, which was one of the earliest published texts to deal with the subject of modern Pagan Witchcraft, is therefore probably the earliest published example of the term “Wicca” being used in a book at all, and here it is clearly being used in reference to the Pagan Witchcraft religion as a whole. Further evidence of how “Wicca” was utilized amongst the early Alexandrians can be found in the various lectures that Sanders distributed amongst his initiates circa 1970, and which were collected together and published as The Alex Sanders Lectures in 1984. In the first of these lectures, entitled “The Wicca and the Horned God,” Sanders, or at least one of his disciples, refers incorrectly to “Wicca” as being the AngloSaxon word for “the craft of the Wise,” and also refers to “the Wicca” as the name of the Pagan Witchcraft religion, presumably in its entirety. In this sense it was likely a spelling confusion based upon the Gardnerian use of “the Wica” (which Sanders, being a Gardnerian third-degree initiate, would have almost certainly encountered) with “wicca,” the Old English word pertaining to witchcraft. However, in other parts of the lectures, the term “Wicca” is used without the appendage of “the” to refer to the religion, thereby fitting with its contemporary usage by Farrar.28 There is so much literature regarding Pagan Witchcraft, both published and unpublished, that dates from the 1960s and 1970s, that it would be a near-impossible task to collate and study it all to discover 26. June Johns, King of the Witches: The World of Alex Sanders, (London: Peter Davies, 1969).  27. Stewart Farrar, What Witches Do: A Modern Coven Revealed, (London: Peter Davies, 1971), 04-06. 28. Alex Sanders, The Alex Sanders Lectures. (New York: Magickal Childe Publishing, 1984).  © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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the oldest known written use of the word “Wicca” in reference to the modern Pagan religion. Despite this, it can be said for certain that at least by the latter part of the 1960s and early part of the 1970s, terms like “Wiccan,” ”Wicca,” and “the Wicca” were being used in reference to the Pagan Witchcraft religion as a whole amongst the Gardnerians, Frosts, and the early Alexandrians, and that they were gradually becoming more publicly identifiable. This trend for referring to the Pagan Witchcraft religion as “Wicca” had obvious advantages: the term “witchcraft” had always had negative connotations in the Western imagination, being associated with the malevolent usage of magic and Satanic rites. As a result of this, many of the early Pagan Witches had persecution by those who believed them to be evil and dangerous individuals, suffering from broken windows, arson attacks, or having their children taken into social care. By adopting “Wicca” over “Witchcraft” as the name of their faith, they automatically removed some (although by no means all) of the social stigma that would otherwise have been associated with them. “Wicca” and the Rise of Solitary Pagan Witchcraft One of the most significant trends to occur in the Craft during the 1970s was the publication of the first books that taught the reader how to set themselves up as a Pagan Witch and begin performing the accompanying rites, either within their own coven or as a solitary practitioner. The earliest of these, Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks & Covens (1970), had been written by Paul Huson, an Englishman living in the United States who had developed his own version of the Craft based largely upon what he had read in books.29 In Mastering Witchcraft, no mention was made of either the terms “Wica” or “Wicca,” and this could be taken as evidence that by this time the term “Wicca” was not well enough known to be made use of or simply that Huson himself did not know of it.30 One of the next books to be published in this genre, written by the Gardnerian high priest Raymond Buckland, who like Huson was an Englishman living in the United States, was The Tree: The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft (1974), in which he publicized his newly developed self-initiatory tradition of Seax-Wica, which took much of its iconography from Anglo-Saxon Paganism. In The Tree, Buckland used the Gardnerian spelling of “Wica” to refer to the name of the tradition (as opposed to using it in reference to its followers as Gardner had done), 29. Paul Kane, “Mastering Witchcraft,” The Cauldron 135, February 2010; personal communication with Paul Huson. 30. Paul Huson, Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks & Covens (New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970). © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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but at the same time referred to the texts within the Gardnerian Book of Shadows as “Wiccan liturgy” and declared that “the Wicca (Witchcraft) is a Mystery Religion.”31 This usage of “the Wicca” is identical to that which Alex Sanders had been using in his lectures just a few years previously in England, and is further evidence of the use of such a term amongst both Alexandrians and Gardnerians. The late 1960s and 1970s also saw the public emergence of a number of new Pagan Witchcraft traditions in the United States such as the 1734 Craft, the Feri tradition, and The New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn. Perhaps the most notable new tradition, however, was Dianic Witchcraft, a feminist, Goddess-orientated Craft variant developed by Zsuzsanna Budapest, a Hungarian immigrant who based it upon prior published books on Pagan Witchcraft along with her own personal politics. After founding a Dianic coven in Los Angeles, she went on to write her own work, The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries (1979), in which she included several of her earlier articles that had been published in various magazines. Although in most of these she referred to her religious path as “witchcraft,” in one of them, entitled “Herstory” and dating from February 1974, she wrote that “Thousands of wicca covens exist today,” indicating that she either knew of the term “Wicca” (but here had simply failed to capitalize it), or, perhaps less likely in this context, was referring to the original Anglo-Saxon word.32 Either way, it is clear that she chose to rarely make use of the term “Wicca,” preferring to reclaim “witchcraft” from its negative connotations for the Pagan feminist cause, just as an organization named WITCH—the Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, had done in the 1960s. This trend amongst early feminist Goddess-orientated Witches to avoid the term “Wicca” was continued by Starhawk, the founder of the Reclaiming tradition, who wrote the influential book The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (1979). In this work, she makes no mention of “Wicca,” perhaps because she was simply not aware of it, instead referring to her faith as “Witchcraft.”33 In later decades, however, she appears to have changed her position on this, authoring a book entitled The Beginner’s Guide to Wicca (2003). Whilst the Alexandrians and others had begun using “Wicca” in reference to the Pagan Witchcraft religion as a whole, it appears that 31. Raymond Buckland, The Tree: The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft (York Beach, Maine: Wesier, 1974), 2. 32. Zsuzsanna Budapest, The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries Volume I (revised edition), (Privately published, 1986 [1979]), 18. 33. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999 [1979]). © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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during the 1970s and 1980s, as a term it had become increasingly associated purely with Gardnerianism-Alexandrianism, the British traditions which emphasised an initiatory lineage and held to highly similar liturgies within their respective Books of Shadows. In North America, these began to be referred to as “British Traditional Wicca” in order to separate them from both American-based initiatory traditions like Feri and the increasing numbers of solitary practitioners. In turn, it appears that many Gardnerians and Alexandrians actually began to see “Wicca” as a term that applied purely to themselves, and not to other forms of Pagan Witchcraft, whilst some non-Gardnerian-Alexandrians began refusing to consider themselves to be classified as “Wiccan,” quite probably because of a wish to disassociate themselves from the Craft of Gardner or Sanders.34 The idea that “Wicca” should apply purely to Gardnerianism and to a lesser extent Alexandrianism (which at the time had a far smaller presence in North America) had implications for the politics of the Pagan community. Many of the early Gardnerians in America were accused of a snobbish attitude towards other Pagan Witches, denigrating non-Gardnerians and setting up their own system of paperwork to ensure that only those who had a correct initiatory lineage could work within a Gardnerian coven.35 By then adopting the idea that only they could be considered “Wiccan,” these Gardnerians would have been further securing what they perceived as their own unique and special position within the Pagan community. Meanwhile, 1981 saw the publication of Wicca: The Ancient Way, the first book to contain the word “Wicca” actually within the title. Written by three individuals going under the pseudonyms of JanusMithras, Nuit-Hilaria, and Mer-Amun, the book was published by the Canadian company Isis Urania and referred to “Wicca” as an initiatory path (thereby inferring that it referred purely to Gardnerianism and its associated traditions) whilst at the same time referred to the Craft which it was describing as “Traditional Witchcraft,” something that was in firm contrast to later usage of that particular term, which has been typically reserved for explicitly non-Gardnerian groups.36 Later in the decade, other books would be published containing “Wicca” in their titles, this time purporting a form of the Craft which anyone 34. Graham Harvey, Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism (London: C. Hurst & Co, 2007), 35. 35. Frederic Lamond, Fifty Years of Wicca (Sutton Mallet: Green Magic, 2004), 62-63; Ann Finnin, The Forge of Tubal Cain (Sunland, Calif.: Pendraig, 2008). 36. Janus-Mithras, Nuit-Hilaria and Mer-Amun, Wicca: The Ancient Way, (Toronto: Isis-Urania, 1981). © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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could follow, without the need for an initiation into a pre-existing tradition. Best known amongst these was Scott Cunningham’s Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner (1988), in which he clearly accepted the idea that the eclectic form of the Craft that he was propagating was a form of Wicca.37 This book proved to be probably the most influential text on the subject of Pagan Witchcraft published in the 1980s, selling tens of thousands of copies and being reprinted several times in future decades. It no doubt provided a huge boost to the idea of “Wicca” being a term that covered the entirety of the Pagan Witchcraft movement, something which would only be solidified with the publication in ensuing years of works like Gerina Dunwhich’s The Wicca Garden (1996), D.J. Conway’s Wicca: The Complete Craft (2001), Raymond Buckland’s Wicca for Life (2004) and Wicca for One (2004), Arin Murphy-Hiscock’s Solitary Wicca for Life (2005), and Ann-Marie Gallagher’s The Wicca Bible (2005), all of which propagated their own eclectic variants of the Pagan Craft designed for those who wished to initiate themselves. However, the biggest name in the “do-it-yourself” Pagan Craft book market after Cunningham was a controversial American author who went under the pseudonym of Silver RavenWolf. In her books, such as Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation (1998), she equated “Wicca” as being simply another word for Pagan “WitchCraft” (as she unusually chose to spell it), and in doing so again continued to be a heavy influence on how tens of thousands of readers, particularly those from younger generations, developed their terminology.38 This increasingly eclectic attitude to what could be defined under the umbrella term of “Wicca” soon spread from the United Kingdom and United States into other parts of the globe. In France, a minor Luciferian or demonological group emerged in the late 1980s and early 1990s calling itself “Le Wicca Française,”whilst in India, the Pagan Witch Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, who had been initiated into a highly New Age, feminist-influenced version of the Craft in Canada, set about propagating her own variation of the religion which she called “Wicca.”39 It also featured in fiction as well, with the American teen novel Book of Shadows (2001), written by Cate Tiernan, referring to a wide range of Pagan Craft traditions as “Wicca,” and in the United Kingdom that particular book and its sequels were actually published by Puffin under the title of the Wicca 37. Scott Cunningham, Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner, (St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1998). 38. Silver RavenWolf, Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation, (St. Paul, Minnesota: Llewellyn, 1998). 39. Lamond, Fifty Years; Ipsita Roy Chakraverti, Beloved Witch: An Autobiography (New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2000). © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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series.40 As this shows, by the 1990s, with the increasing popularity of eclectic forms of Pagan Witchcraft, particularly amongst the younger generation, the term “Wicca” began to be used increasingly as a term of selfdesignation by those with no training in Gardnerian or other related traditions. In turn it began to be picked up and utilized in popular television shows such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Charmed. Indeed, the very first episode of Charmed, screened on The WB network on 7 October 1998, was entitled ‘Something Wicca This Way Comes,” whilst the tenth episode of the first season, aired on 13 January 1999, was entitled ‘Wicca Envy.” Despite this use of the term “Wicca” in the episode titles, the witches featured in the series were clearly not Wiccans in any sense of the word, not having any religious or Pagan components to their particular magical practices. Although Charmed ran for a further seven seasons, “Wicca” would only be used once more in an episode title, that of the season seven finale, “Something Wicca This Way Goes…?,” which directly emulated the title of the series’ debut episode.41 The fact that the term had even been used at all in these episode titles is noteworthy for two reasons. First of all it provides evidence for the fact that “Wicca” was widely enough known in the United States to be used in popular culture. Secondly it showed that the term “Wicca” had been used in reference to a generic, fictional, and non-Pagan form of witchcraft, illustrating the extent to quite how generic the term itself had become in popular usage. In essence, many probably simply believed “Wicca” was an alternate word for witchcraft or magic. Wicca and Traditional Witchcraft However, whilst there were those Pagan Witches who began to openly embrace “Wicca” in reference to an increasingly large assortment of magico-religious groups in the latter decades of the twentieth century, at the same time there was a movement that took the very opposite approach, limiting what could be viewed as “Wiccan” and firmly disassociating themselves from such a term. Amongst those particularly vocal in their opposition to being labelled “Wiccan” were those Crafters who call themselves “Traditional Witches.” Within this umbrella term exist a variety of different magico-religious groups with a wide range of philosophical and theological approaches, ranging from Luciferian

40. Cate Tiernan, Book of Shadows (London: Puffin Books, 2002 [2001]). 41. Charmed, The Internet Movie Database, http://uk.imdb.com/title/ tt0158552/. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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and Gnostic through to Christian and Pagan. Whilst it would be fair to say that many of these figures, not being Pagan, could not be considered to be “Wiccan,”there are a great number of self-professed “Traditional Craft” groups who adhere to theological beliefs and magical praxes that are highly reminiscent of those belonging to Gardnerianism and other “Wiccan” groups. Indeed, mid-twentieth century groups like the Norfolk coven, the Horsa coven, the Clan of Tubal Cain, and even the New Forest coven have all been referred to as “Traditional Witches” in recent decades, despite the fact that members of some of them, such as Sybil Leek and Alastair Clay-Egerton, accepted the term “Wicca” in reference to their Pagan traditions, recognizing the similarities with groups like the Gardnerians and (incorrectly) believing that they had a common origin from the Witch-Cult. In a similar vein, Rhiannon Ryall, an Englishwoman who had lived for many years in Australia, published a 1993 book entitled West Country Wicca. In it, Ryall made the claim (which itself is highly unlikely and dismissed by historian Ronald Hutton) that there was a group of pre-Gardnerian practicing Pagan Witches scattered throughout several villages in England’s West Country when she was growing up there in the 1940s, and which, as the title of the book suggests, she called “Wicca.”42 On this topic, Clay-Egerton, who was involved with Luciferian as well as Pagan Witchcraft, publicly stated that Witches should “Let Wicca encompass all those of whatever path they follow, who truly see themselves as being Wicca,” also defining “Wicca, as the practice of modern witchcraft in its many forms has now become known.”43 Despite having an alleged pre-Gardnerian lineage (Clay-Egerton claimed to have been initiated in 1943 by a coven meeting at Alderley Edge in Cheshire), he openly referred to himself as a Wiccan in conversation.44 However, some of his followers have taken something of a revisionist stance against his attitude since his death, with one of the most prominent, Melusine Draco, stating that “He was most certainly not Wiccan, being a constant irritation to most of them.”45 Such an attitude, which I have personally found to be widespread amongst many professed Traditional Witches, and which is evident from several published works on the topic of the

42. Rhiannon Ryall, West Country Wicca: A Journal of the Old Religion (Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann, 1993); Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 302. 43. A.R. Clay-Egerton, Coven of the Scales: The Collected Writings of A.R. Clay-Egerton (London: Ignotus Press, 2002), 14, 47. 44. Steve Wilson, personal communication, 22 September 2010. 45. Melusine Draco, foreword to Coven of the Scales: The collected writings of A.R. Clay-Egerton, by A.R. Clay-Egerton, (Ignotus Press, 2002), 05. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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Traditional Craft, shows how powerfully the term “Wiccan” can actually divide people within the Pagan Witchcraft movement, and displays an “us and them” mentality between self-professed Traditional Witches and more Gardnerian-influenced forms of the religion.46 It is important here that we look at why it is that so many Traditional Witches have been so vehement in their rejection of “Wicca” as a defining term. Some of those who have done so, such as Shani Oates of the Clan of Tubal Cain and Trystyn M. Branwynn of the American-based Clan Bol, have argued against being labelled as such because their particular groups hold to Luciferian and Gnostic beliefs that differ fundamentally from those of Pagan Witchcraft.47 Other Traditional Witches have, however, rejected the term on what could be seen as more spurious grounds. One American Traditionalist informed me that his form of the Traditional Craft differed from “Wicca” because in his view, “Wicca” (by this meaning the Gardnerian-based traditions) was simply a form of Co-Masonry (an idea presumably obtained from the fact that CoMasonry was an early influence on Gardnerianism), something which I believe shows fundamental misunderstanding of the nature and history of Pagan Witchcraft. Similar sentiments regarding a supposed fundamental difference between “Traditional” and “Wiccan” (i.e. Gardnerianbased) forms of the Pagan Craft are regularly expressed in the literature on the topic: Tony Steele defines Traditionalism as the witchcraft of the ancestors, something he contrasts with modern witchcraft, whilst both Nigel G. Pearson and the writer going under the pseudonym of Gwyn define Traditionalism as being anything pre-Gardnerian.48 In effect, the Traditional Craft is usually defined as being specifically in contrast with Wicca (i.e. Gardnerian-based traditions). It seems evident that on the whole, a significant number, if not the majority of self-described “Traditional Witches” explicitly reserve the term “Wicca” for Gardnerian-based forms of Pagan Witchcraft, in some cases expanding this to include more recent forms of the Craft, such as Dianic. I believe that one of the key reasons for Traditionalists wishing to distance themselves from the Gardnerian-based mainstream was that they saw it as becoming too intertwined and influenced by the New Age movement, with its iconographical emphasis on white light, and 46. See for instance Gwyn, Light from the Shadows: A Mythos of Modern Traditional Witchcraft (Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann, 1999), 03; Tony Steele, The Rites & Rituals of Traditional Witchcraft (Milverton, Somerset: Capall Bann, 2001), 01; Nigel G. Pearson, Treading the Mill: Practical Craftworking in Modern Traditional Witchcraft (Milverton, Somerset: Capall Bann, 2007), 07-08. 47. Shani Oates and Trystyn M. Branwynn, personal communication. 48. Steele, Rites & Rituals, 01; Pearson, Treading the Mill, 07-08; Gwyn, Light, 03. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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its heavy use of eclecticism, something which they felt ran against the grain of the traditional European idea that witchcraft was associated with darkness. Doreen Valiente, who in her final published work had come to embrace a more “Traditional” and Cochranian-based form of the Craft than Gardnerianism, amply described this when she stated that the Traditional Craft would appear “disturbing” to many readers who were accustomed to “the rather airy-fairy view of ‘Wicca’ which has become prevalent today, with its merry ring-dances in the nude and its insistence on a bland attitude of optimism and love towards all.”49 A second reason is that by designating themselves as “Traditional” Witches, these practitioners are harking back to the idea that the contemporary Witchcraft movement has connections to historical and even prehistoric forms of witchcraft and Paganism. The Gardnerian movement had been effectively exposed as being twentieth-century in construction by the studies of Aidan Kelly and Ronald Hutton during the 1980s and 1990s, and it would be unsurprising that in order to continue maintaining the strongly held belief in a historical connection to old traditions, many Pagan Witches would begin referring to themselves as “Traditional Witches” rather than “Wiccans,” with the latter term’s specific association with Gardnerianism. Indeed, Hutton noted that he knew of three covens which had been founded in the 1980s, all claiming to be “Wiccan,” who in the 1990s switched to referring to themselves as “Traditional Witches.”50 Conclusion So far in this essay, I have endeavoured to display the evolution of the word “Wicca” and those words that are etymologically associated with it. The root behind all of these is undoubtedly the Old English “wicca,” a term that not only provided the basis for the Modern English term “witch” but which also provided many contemporary Pagans with an archaic word that in some manner connected them with their ancient polytheistic forebears. The earliest possible evidence of this Mediaeval term influencing the contemporary movement comes from 1939, when the New Forest coven were supposedly making use of a word that Gardner would go on to spell “Wica,” and which he used to refer to the Pagan Craft community as an entity. In the late 1950s, Gardner’s rival, Charles Cardell, had begun referring to Pagan Witches themselves

49. Doreen Valiente, Preface to Witchcraft: A Tradition Renewed, by Evan John Jones, (London: Hale, 1990), 07. 50. Hutton, Triumph, 385. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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as “Wiccens” and by the late 1960s and early 1970s the later Gardnerians, Alexandrians, and the Frosts were referring to Pagan Witchcraft as “Wicca” or “the Wicca.” Soon this terminology spread across the occult community in both Britain and the United States. During this decade, there was an explosion of new Pagan Craft traditions, particularly in the North America, many of whom, in an attempt to disassociate themselves from Gardnerianism-Alexandrianism, refused to define themselves as “Wiccan,” identifying it as a term that could only apply to those traditions themselves. Then, in the1980s, many of the new, solitary, eclectic Pagan Witches, who were publicizing their Craft through the publication of books, once more began using “Wicca” in its original all-inclusive usage and self-describing themselves as “Wiccans.” As I believe that this wealth of evidence displays, there are two alternative yet identifiable definitions of “Wicca” that have been used within both Pagan and academic circles for the last thirty years and which continue to be utilized. The first—and apparently older—definition uses the term in a broad, inclusive manner that covers most, if not all, forms of modern Pagan Witchcraft, particularly if they share sufficiently similar theological beliefs, dates of commemoration and magical praxes. The second uses the term to refer specifically to the tradition of Gardnerian Witchcraft, along with those which are heavily based upon it with little variation, namely Alexandrian and Algard Witchcraft. In North America these particular groups are sometimes collectively called “British Traditional Wicca” because of their shared origins and liturgies. The reasons why practitioners of Pagan Witchcraft might choose to adopt a certain definition are myriad, and will differ widely not only across continents but also likely amongst covens and amongst individuals. A sociological study into how Pagan Witches use their terminology would be invaluable here, although as this author is unaware of any such study, I can instead only provide some suggestions, based upon my own personal experience with the Pagan and occult communities. The most prominent reason that people choose to use one over the other, and to therefore consider themselves a “Wiccan,” ”Witch,” or “Traditional Witch” must likely be because that is what they have been taught to do, either by coven members, friends, or through books. How important that definition is to them is also something that most probably differs widely. For some practitioners, I believe that the word “Wiccan” is an intrinsic part of their identity, making them feel like they are a part of a community. In this manner it can also be used as a symbol of pride, or of self-designation, and can be a sign of personal defiance against a dominant community that is primarily of another faith. It might be avidly preferred over the term “Witch” with its negative connotations or could © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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be rejected by those practitioners who actively embrace being labelled so controversially. It has been noted by the likes of Graham Harvey that the first, more inclusive definition is more common in North America than in Britain, although I would contest that, from personal experience, the former definition is also becoming more popular in the Craft’s homeland, particularly amongst younger British Pagan Witches, many of whom have been influenced by American literature and media on the subject.51 Examining the published books on the topic, it would also appear that on both sides of the Atlantic, there are writers who are utilizing differing definitions, with British authors such as Stewart Farrar (1971), Anthony Kemp (1993), and Frederic Lamond (2004) adhering to the first definition, whilst others, like Vivianne Crowley (1996) and Michael Howard (2009), instead making use of the second.52 Similarly, in the United States, authors such as Scott Cunningham (1988), Silver RavenWolf (1998), Margot Adler (2006) and Aidan Kelly (2007) have used the former definition, but others, such as Starhawk (1989), Raven Grimassi (2000) and M. Macha NightMare (2001), have instead held to the latter.53 This shows us that it far too simplistic to simply state that one definition is typically British and the other is typically American. This then brings up the question of which of these two terms is the more widely used within the Wiccan and greater Pagan and occult communities today. Gaining any sort of statistics from these groups is notoriously difficult, however, but taking the idea that the first definition is the more popular in North America, which is itself the place where the Wiccan population is almost certainly largest, I would suspect that in the world today, there are more Pagans who use “Wicca” in the inclusive manner, to refer to the totality of Pagan Witchcraft. Nonetheless, this remains, I must stress, simply a suspicion, and is far from proven at this time. Following on with this line of thought, it is worth exploring which of these two definitions is in fact more widespread in the academic commu51. Harvey, Listening People, 35-36. 52. Anthony Kemp, Witchcraft and Paganism Today (London: Michael O’Mara Books, 1993); Vivianne Crowley, Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Millennium (London: HarperCollins, 1996); Michael Howard, Modern Wicca: A History from Gerald Gardner to the Present, (Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn, 2009), 01. 53. Cunningham, Wicca; RavenWolf, Teen Witch; Margot Adler, Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in America (London: Penguin, 2006 [1979], 10; Kelly, Inventing Witchcraft; Starhawk, Spiral Dance; Raven Grimassi, Italian Witchcraft: The Old Religion of Southern Europe (Woodbury, Minnesota: Llewellyn, 2000); M. Macha NightMare, Witchcraft and the Web: Weaving Pagan Traditions Online, (Toronto: ECW Press, 2002), 26-27. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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nity. This is something that is more easily uncovered via a simple examination of the published material by the leading figures in Pagan and esoteric studies. The American Margot Adler took the first definition in her study of Paganism in the United States, as did Aidan Kelly in his indepth study of the sources behind Gardnerian liturgy.54 Chas S. Clifton, in his further study of American Paganism, noted the existence of both definitions, but in general held to the former, for instance describing Starhawk as a “Wiccan.”55 Amongst British academics within this field, there appears to be a tendency to be more noncommittal to either definition. For instance, Graham Harvey, in his study of the Pagan movement, notes both definitions but does not subscribe to either, whilst the British historian Ronald Hutton, in his seminal study of Wiccan history, did not make his usage of the term at all clear.56 Although it therefore appears that the academic community, or at least those within the academic community who have published most widely on this topic, have primarily adopted the first definition, there is clearly still a level of disagreement and confusion on the matter. This inconsistency in usage within academia has sometimes led to issues arising even within the same publication. As a case in point, in The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture, an anthology edited by Helen E. Johnston and Peg Aloi and published by Ashgate in 2007, one contributor, the practicing American Witch Stephanie Martin, used “Wicca” to refer to the entirety of the Pagan Witchcraft movement, whilst the British occultist Julian Vayne instead utilized the alternate definition.57 I believe that for multiple reasons the adoption of the former definition is the more logical option for scholars to use when discussing the Pagan Witchcraft movement. However, that is not to say that any particular definition should, or indeed could, be implemented universally. Any attempt by the academic or wider scholarly community to try and impose a singular definition would without doubt be resented and ignored by a large number of Crafters. It would be better to argue simply that because there are multivocal approaches regarding the definition of “Wicca,” every writer should make it clear which definition they are uti54. Adler, Drawing Down; Kelly, Inventing Witchcraft. 55. Clifton, Her Hidden Children, 58. 56. Harvey, Listening People; Hutton, Triumph, 298-302. 57. Stephanie Martin, “Teen Witchcraft and Silver RavenWolf: The Internet and its impact on community opinion,” in The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture, ed. Hannah E. Johnston and Peg Aloi, (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), 130-132; Julian Vayne, “The Discovery of Witchcraft: An Exploration of the Changing Face Of Witchcraft Through Contemporary Interview and Personal Reflection,” in The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture, ed. Hannah E. Johnston and Peg Aloi, (Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007), 57. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010

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lizing, something that has been too often neglected in the past. Bibliography Adler, Margot. Drawing Down the Moon: Witches, Druids, Goddess-Worshippers and Other Pagans in America. London: Penguin, 2006 [1979]. Bracelin, Jack. Gerald Gardner: Witch. London: Octagon Press, 1960. Budapest, Zsuzsanna. The Holy Book of Women’s Mysteries Volume I (revised edition). Privately published, 1986 [1979]. Buckland, Raymond. The Tree: The Complete Book of Saxon Witchcraft. York Beach, Me.: Weiser, 1974 ———. Witchcraft—the Religion. Brentwood, N.Y.: The Buckland Museum of Witchcraft and Magick, 1966. Chakraverti, Ipsita Roy. Beloved Witch: An Autobiography. New Delhi: HarperCollins India, 2000. Clay-Egerton, A. R. Coven of the Scales: The Collected Writings of A.R. Clay-Egerton. London: Ignotus Press, 2002. Clifton, Chas S. Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America. Lanham, Md.,: AltaMira Press, 2006. Cochrane, Robert. “The Craft Today,” Pentagram 2, November 1964. ———. The Robert Cochrane Letters: An Insight into Modern Traditional Witchcraft. Milverton, Somerset: Capall Bann, 2002. Crowley, Vivianne. Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Millennium. London: HarperCollins, 1996 Crowther, Arnold, and Patricia Crowther. The Witches Speak. Douglas, Isle of Man: Athol Publications, 1965. Cunningham, Scott. Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1998. Farrar, Stewart. What Witches Do: A Modern Coven Revealed. London: Peter Davies, 1971. Field, Arnold. “Yes I Am A Witch.” The Daily Dispatch, 5 August 1954. Finnin, Ann. The Forge of Tubal Cain. Sunland, Calif.: Pendraig, 2008. Gardner, Gerald. The Meaning of Witchcraft. London: Aquarian Press, 1971 [1955]. ———. Witchcraft Today. London: Rider, 1954. Glass, Justine. Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense—and Us. London: Neville Spearman, 1965. Grimassi, Raven. Italian Witchcraft: The Old Religion of Southern Europe. Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn, 2000. Griffiths, Bill. Aspects of Anglo-Saxon Magic. Hockwold-cum-Wilton, Norfolk: AngloSaxon Books, 1996. Guiley, Rosemary. The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft & Wicca. New York: Checkmark Books, 2008. Gwyn. Light from the Shadows: A Mythos of Modern Traditional Witchcraft. Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann, 1999. Harvey, Graham., Listening People, Speaking Earth: Contemporary Paganism. London: C. Hurst & Co, 2007. Heselton, Philip. Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival. Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann, 2000. Howard, Michael. Modern Wicca: A History from Gerald Gardner to the Present. Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn, 2009. Huson, Paul. Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks & Covens. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1970. Hutton, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft. © Equinox Publishing Ltd 2010



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Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999. Janus-Mithras, Nuit-Hilaria, and Mer-Amun. Wicca: The Ancient Way. Toronto: IsisUrania, 1981. Johns, June. King of the Witches: The World of Alex Sanders. London: Peter Davies, 1969.  Kane, Paul. “Mastering Witchcraft.” The Cauldron 135, February 2010. Kelly, Aidan A. Inventing Witchcraft: A Case Study in the Creation of a New Religion. Loughborough, Leicestershire: Thoth Publications, 2007. Kemp, Anthony. Witchcraft and Paganism Today. London: Michael O’Mara Books, 1993. Lamond, Frederic. Fifty Years of Wicca. Sutton Mallet: Green Magic, 2004. Martin, Stephanie. “Teen Witchcraft and Silver RavenWolf: The Internet and Its Impact on Community Opinion.” In The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft in Contemporary Culture, edited by Hannah E. Johnston and Peg Aloi, 130-32. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007. NightMare, M. Macha. Witchcraft and the Web: Weaving Pagan Traditions Online. Toronto: ECW Press, 2002. Pearson, Nigel G. Treading the Mill: Practical Craftworking in Modern Traditional Witchcraft. Milverton, Somerset: Capall Bann, 2007. RavenWolf, Silver. Teen Witch: Wicca for a New Generation. St. Paul: Llewellyn, 1998. Ryall, Rhiannon. West Country Wicca: A Journal of the Old Religion. Chieveley, Berkshire: Capall Bann, 1993. Seims, Melissa. “Wica or Wicca? Politics and the Power of Words.” The Cauldron 129, August 2008. Starhawk, The Spiral Dance: A Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1999 [1979]. Steele, Tony. The Rites & Rituals of Traditional Witchcraft. Milverton, Somerset: Capall Bann, 2001. Tiernan, Cate, Book of Shadows. London: Puffin Books, 2002 [2001]. Valiente, Doreen. Preface to Witchcraft: A Tradition Renewed, by Evan John Jones. London: Hale, 1990. ———. Where Witchcraft Lives. The Centre for Pagan Studies, 2010 [1962]. Vayne, Julian. “The Discovery Of Witchcraft: An Exploration of the Changing Face of Witchcraft through Contemporary Interview and Personal Reflection.” In The New Generation Witches: Teenage Witchcraft In Contemporary Culture, edited by Hannah E. Johnston and Peg Aloi, 57-72. Aldershot, Hampshire: Ashgate, 2007.

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