Tradition in Wiccan religion
Gardnerian Wicca
, or
Gardnerian witchcraft
, is a
tradition in the
neopagan
religion of
Wicca
, whose members can trace initiatory descent from
Gerald Gardner
.
[1]
The tradition is itself named after Gardner (1884?1964), a British civil servant and amateur scholar of
magic
. The term "Gardnerian" was probably coined by the founder of
Cochranian Witchcraft
,
Robert Cochrane
in the 1950s or 60s, who himself left that tradition to found his own.
[2]
: 122
Gardner claimed to have learned the beliefs and practices that would later become known as Gardnerian Wicca from the
New Forest coven
, who allegedly initiated him into their ranks in 1939.
[3]
For this reason, Gardnerian Wicca is usually considered
[
by whom?
]
to be the earliest created tradition of Wicca, from which most subsequent Wiccan traditions are derived.
From the supposed New Forest coven, Gardner formed his own
Bricket Wood coven
, and in turn initiated many Witches, including a series of High Priestesses, founding further covens and continuing the initiation of more Wiccans into the tradition.
[
citation needed
]
In the UK, Europe and most Commonwealth countries someone self-defined as Wiccan is usually understood
[
by whom?
]
to be claiming initiatory descent from Gardner, either through Gardnerian Wicca, or through a derived branch such as
Alexandrian Wicca
. Elsewhere, these original lineaged traditions are termed "
British Traditional Wicca
".
Beliefs and practices
[
edit
]
Covens and initiatory lines
[
edit
]
Gardnerian Wiccans organize into
covens
, that traditionally, though not always, are limited to thirteen members.
[4]
: 10
Covens are led by a High Priestess and the High Priest of her choice, and celebrate both a Goddess and a God.
[4]
: 11
Gardnerian Wicca and other forms of
British Traditional Wicca
operate as an initiatory
mystery cult
; membership is gained only through
initiation
by a Wiccan High Priestess or High Priest. Any valid line of initiatory descent can be traced all the way back to
Gerald Gardner
, and through him back to the
New Forest coven
.
[
citation needed
]
Rituals and coven practices are kept secret from non-initiates, and many Wiccans maintain secrecy regarding their membership in the religion. Whether any individual Wiccan chooses secrecy or openness often depends on their location, career, and life circumstances. In all cases, Gardnerian Wicca absolutely forbids any member to share the name, personal information, fact of membership, and so on without advanced individual consent of that member for that specific instance of sharing.
[
citation needed
]
In Gardnerian Wicca, there are three grades of initiation.
Ronald Hutton
suggests that "the outlines of the first two [initiation] rituals are very clearly
Masonic
."
[5]
Theology
[
edit
]
In Gardnerian Wicca, the two principal deities are the
Horned God
and the
Mother Goddess
. Gardnerians use specific names for the God and the Goddess in their rituals.
Doreen Valiente
, a Gardnerian High Priestess, revealed that there were more than one.
[2]
: 52?53
Ethics and morality
[
edit
]
The Gardnerian tradition teaches a core ethical guideline, often referred to as "The Rede" or "The
Wiccan Rede
". In the archaic language often retained in some Gardnerian lore, the Rede states, "An it harm none, do as thou wilt."
Witches [...] are inclined to the morality of the legendary Good King Pausol, "Do what you like so long as you harm no one". But they believe a certain law to be important, "You must not use magic for anything which will cause harm to anyone, and if, to prevent a greater wrong being done, you must discommode someone, you must do it only in a way which will abate the harm."
[4]
: 108
A second ethical guideline is often called the Law of Return, sometimes the
Rule of Three
. Like the Rede, this guideline teaches Gardnerians that whatever energy or intention one puts out into the world, whether magical or not, will return to that person
multiplied by three.
[
citation needed
]
This law is controversial, as discussed by John Coughlin, author of
The Pagan Resource Guide,
in an essay, "The Three-Fold Law."
[6]
The religion tends to be non-dogmatic, allowing each initiate to find for themselves what the ritual experience means by using the basic language of the shared ritual tradition, to be discovered through the Mysteries.
[7]
The tradition is often characterized as an
orthopraxy
(correct practice) rather than an
orthodoxy
(correct thinking), with adherents placing greater emphasis on a shared body of practices as opposed to faith.
[8]
History
[
edit
]
Gardner and the New Forest coven
[
edit
]
In the early 20th century,
Margaret Murray
promoted
the theory
that persecuted
witches
had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion, but this theory is now rejected by academia.
[9]
Nevertheless, it was an influence on some neo-pagans. On retirement from the British Colonial Service, Gerald Gardner moved to London but then before
World War II
moved to
Highcliffe
, east of
Bournemouth
and near the
New Forest
on the south coast of England. After attending a performance staged by the
Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship
, he reports meeting a group of people who had preserved their historic occult practices. They recognised him as being "one of them" and convinced him to be initiated. It was only halfway through the initiation, he says, that it dawned on him what kind of group it was, and that witchcraft was still being practised in England.
[10]
The group into which Gardner was initiated, known as the
New Forest coven
, was small and utterly secret as the
Witchcraft Act of 1735
made it illegal to claim to predict the future, conjure spirits, or cast spells; it likewise made an accusation of witchcraft a criminal offence. Gardner's enthusiasm for the coven led him to wish to document it, but both the witchcraft laws and the coven's secrecy forbade that, despite his excitement. After World War II, Gardner's High Priestess and coven leader relented sufficiently to allow a fictional treatment that did not expose them to prosecution, "High Magic's Aid":
[11]
Anyhow, I soon found myself in the circle and took the usual oaths of secrecy which bound me not to reveal any secrets of the cult. But, as it is a dying cult, I thought it was a pity that all the knowledge should be lost, so in the end I was permitted to write, as fiction, something of what a witch believes in the novel High Magic's Aid.
[10]
After the witchcraft laws were repealed in 1951, and replaced by the Fraudulent Mediums Act, Gerald Gardner went public, publishing his first non-fiction book, "Witchcraft Today", in 1954. Gardner continued, as the text often iterates, to respect his oaths and the wishes of his High Priestess in his writing.
[10]
Gardner said that the "Witchcraft" religion was dying out, and he pursued publicity and welcomed new initiates during the last years of his life. Gardner even courted the attentions of the tabloid press, to the consternation of some more conservative members of the tradition. In Gardner's own words, "Witchcraft doesn't pay for broken windows!"
[10]
Gardner knew many famous occultists. Ross Nichols was a friend and fellow Druid (until 1964 member of the
Ancient Order of Druids
[
need quotation to verify
]
, when he left to found his own Druidic
Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids
). Nichols edited Gardner's "Witchcraft Today" and is mentioned extensively in Gardner's "The Meaning of Witchcraft". Near the end of
Aleister Crowley
's life, Gardner met with him for the first time on 1 May 1947 and visited him twice more before Crowley's death that autumn; at some point, Crowley gave Gardner an
Ordo Templi Orientis
(OTO) charter and the 4th OTO degree?the lowest degree authorising use of the charter.
[12]
Doreen Valiente
, one of Gardner's priestesses, identified the woman who initiated Gardner as
Dorothy Clutterbuck
, referenced in "A Witches' Bible" by
Janet
and
Stewart Farrar
.
[13]
Valiente's identification was based on references Gardner made to a woman he called "Old Dorothy" whom Valiente remembered. Biographer
Philip Heselton
corrects Valiente, clarifying that Clutterbuck (Dorothy St. Quintin-Fordham, nee Clutterbuck), a Pagan-minded woman, owned the Mill House, where the New Forest coven performed Gardner's initiation ritual.
[14]
Scholar
Ronald Hutton
argues in his
Triumph of the Moon
that Gardner's tradition was largely the inspiration of members of the
Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship
and especially that of a woman known by the magical name of "
Dafo
".
[15]
Dr.
Leo Ruickbie
, in his
Witchcraft Out of the Shadows
, analysed the documented evidence and concluded that
Aleister Crowley
played a crucial role in inspiring Gardner to establish a new pagan religion.
[16]
Ruickbie, Hutton, and others further argue that much of what has been published of Gardnerian Wicca, as Gardner's practice came to be known, was written by Blake, Yeats,
Valiente
and
Crowley
and contains borrowings from other identifiable sources.
[15]
: 237
The witches Gardner was originally introduced to were originally referred to by him as "the Wica" and he would often use the term "
Witch Cult
" to describe the religion.
[
citation needed
]
Other terms used, included "Witchcraft" or "the Old Religion." Later publications standardised the spelling to "Wicca" and it came to be used as the term for the Craft, rather than its followers. "Gardnerian" was originally a pejorative term used by Gardner's contemporary Roy Bowers (also known as Robert Cochrane), a British
cunning man
,
[17]
who nonetheless was initiated into Gardnerian Wicca a couple of years following Gardner's death.
[18]
Reconstruction of the Wiccan rituals
[
edit
]
Gardner stated that the rituals of the existing group were fragmentary at best, and he set about fleshing them out, drawing on his library and knowledge as an
occultist
and amateur
folklorist
. Gardner borrowed and wove together appropriate material from other artists and occultists, most notably
Charles Godfrey Leland
's
Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
, the
Key of Solomon
as published by
S.L. MacGregor Mathers
,
Masonic
ritual, Crowley, and
Rudyard Kipling
.
Doreen Valiente
wrote much of the best-known poetry, including the much-quoted
Charge of the Goddess
.
[15]
: 247
Bricket Wood coven
[
edit
]
In 1948?1949, Gardner and
Dafo
were running a coven separate from the original New Forest coven at a
naturist club
near
Bricket Wood
to the north of London.
[15]
: 227
By 1952 Dafo's health had begun to decline, and she was increasingly wary of Gardner's publicity-seeking.
[2]
: 38, 66
In 1953 Gardner met
Doreen Valiente
who was to become his High Priestess in succession to Dafo. The question of publicity led to Doreen and others formulating thirteen proposed 'Rules for the Craft',
[19]
which included restrictions on contact with the press. Gardner responded with the sudden production of the
Wiccan Laws
which led to some of his members, including Valiente, leaving the coven.
[15]
: 249
Gardner reported that witches were taught that the power of the human body can be released, for use in a coven's circle, by various means, and released more easily without clothing. A simple method was dancing round the circle singing or chanting;
[10]
another method was the traditional "binding and scourging."
[20]
In addition to raising power, "binding and scourging" can heighten the initiates' sensitivity and spiritual experience.
[21]
Following the time Gardner spent on the Isle of Man, the coven began to experiment with circle dancing as an alternative.
[22]
It was also about this time that the lesser 4 of the 8 Sabbats were given greater prominence. Bricket Wood coven members liked the Sabbat celebrations so much, they decided that there was no reason to keep them confined to the closest full moon meeting, and made them festivities in their own right. As Gardner had no objection to this change suggested by the Bricket Wood coven, this collective decision resulted in what is now the standard eight festivities in the Wiccan
Wheel of the year
.
[22]
: p16
The split with Valiente led to the Bricket Wood coven being led by Jack Bracelin and a new High Priestess, Dayonis. This was the first of a number of disputes between individuals and groups,
[15]
but the increased publicity only seems to have allowed Gardnerian Wicca to grow much more rapidly. Certain others also helped fuel this publicity, such as
Alex Sanders
(real name Orrell Alexander Carter) and
Raymond Buckland
. Sanders started his own separate tradition, together with his wife Maxine, known as Alexandrian Wicca and frequently were covered by the press. Buckland, who authored dozens of books on the subject, brought the Gardnerian tradition to the United States in 1964, later to start his own tradition known as Seax Wicca.
Controversy Over Transgender Individuals and Male/Female Polarity
[
edit
]
On July 18, 2022, an open letter titled “A Declaration of the Traditional Gardnerian Wica” was electronically published by 47 Third-degree and autonomous Second-degree Gardnerian initiates, representing coven leaders and Gardnerian Elders, who identified themselves as practicing Gardnerian Wicca within the framework of male/female polarity.
[23]
The letter’s signatories claimed that biological
gender essentialism
was fundamental to Gardnerian practice, and that initiates who disagreed with this view of gender had effectively left the Gardnerian tradition.
[24]
These claims were met with accusations of transphobia from six members of the Gardnerian community.
[24]
[25]
Pagan blog site
The Wild Hunt
noted that because of Gardnerian Wicca’s decentralized structure and emphasis on coven autonomy, “the proclamation effectively only applies to covens that are led by or hive from the documents’ signers.”
[24]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Dr, STEVE ESOMBA (6 June 2012).
THE BOOK OF LIFE, KNOWLEDGE AND CONFIDENCE
. Lulu.com.
ISBN
9781471734632
.
- ^
a
b
c
Valiente, Doreen
.
The Rebirth of Witchcraft
(1989) Custer, WA: Phoenix.
- ^
Heselton, Philip (2020).
In Search of the New Forest Coven
. Nottingham, UK: Fenix Flames Publishing. p. xiv.
ISBN
978-1-913768-00-3
.
- ^
a
b
c
Gardner, Gerald (2004).
The Meaning of Witchcraft
. York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser.
ISBN
1-57863-309-5
.
- ^
Hutton, Ronald (2019).
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
(New ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 237.
ISBN
978-0-19-882736-8
.
- ^
John J. Coughlin,
The Three-Fold Law
Archived
1 February 2015 at the
Wayback Machine
, on his website
The Evolution of Wiccan Ethics
Archived
1 March 2019 at the
Wayback Machine
. Also published in
Ethics and the Craft ? The History, Evolution, and Practice of Wiccan Ethics
(Waning Moon, 2015).
- ^
Akasha and Eran (1996). "Gardnerian Wicca: An Introduction"
http://bichaunt.org/Gardnerian.html
Archived
17 June 2010 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Fritz Muntean (2006) "A Witch in the Halls of Wisdom" interview conducted by Sylvana Silverwitch
http://www.widdershins.org/vol1iss3/l03.htm
Archived
13 July 2010 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
Hutton, Ronald
(2017).
The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present
.
Yale University Press
. p. 121.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
Gardner, Gerald (1954).
Witchcraft Today
London: Rider and Company
- ^
Gerald Gardner (1949).
High Magic's Aid
London: Michael Houghton
- ^
"Gardner & Crowley: the Overstated Connection"
Don Frew
Pantheacon 1996
- ^
Farrar, Janet & Stewart (2002). "A Witches' Bible." Robert Hale.
ISBN
0-7090-7227-9
- ^
Heselton, Philip (2012). "Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. Volume 1: Into the Witch Cult." Loughborough, Leicestershire: Thoth Publications.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
Hutton, Ronald (2001).
The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft
. Oxford University Press.
ISBN
0-19-285449-6
- ^
Ruickbie, Leo
(2004).
Witchcraft out of the Shadows: A Complete History
. Robert Hale Limited.
ISBN
0-7090-7567-7
- ^
Pentagram
magazine 1965
- ^
Doyle White, Ethan (2011). "Robert Cochrane and the Gardnerian Craft: Feuds, Secrets, and Mysteries in Contemporary British Witchcraft". The Pomegranate: The International Journal of Pagan Studies 13 (2): 205?224.
- ^
Kelly, Aidan
.
Crafting the Art of Magic
(1991) St Paul, MN: Llewellyn. pp 103?5, 145?161.
- ^
Allen, Charlotte (January 2001).
"The Scholars and the Goddess"
.
Atlantic Monthly, vol. 287, issue 1
. Retrieved
12 September
2023
.
- ^
Anon. (Used with permission from the author).
"The Scourge and the Kiss"
.
Gardnerian Wicca
. PB Works
. Retrieved
17 March
2012
.
- ^
a
b
Lamond, Frederic
.
Fifty Years of Wicca
Sutton Mallet, England: Green Press.
ISBN
0-9547230-1-5
- ^
Anonymous (12 September 2002).
"A Declaration of the Traditional Gardnerian Wicca"
(PDF)
. Retrieved
14 September
2023
.
- ^
a
b
c
Pagliarulo, Antonio; Moreno, Manny (31 July 2022).
"
"Traditional Gardnerian" declaration draws accusations of transphobia"
.
The Wild Hunt
. Retrieved
13 September
2023
.
- ^
Pagliarulo, Antonio (7 August 2022).
"Trans and nonbinary Witches respond to "Traditional Gardnerian Wica" declaration"
.
The Wild Hunt
. Retrieved
13 September
2023
.
External links
[
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]
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History
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Traditions
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Notable
figures
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Deities
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Key
concepts
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Rites
and ritual
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Holidays
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Paraphernalia
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Related
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