The History of Wicca

(Mostly from Wikipedia)

The origins of Wicca are surrounded by much debate and uncertainty. The religion first came to public notice in the United Kingdom in the early 1950s through press articles and a book titled Witchcraft Today (1954) by Gerald Gardner, a retired British colonial administrator. In his various writings and his authorized biography, Gardner reported that he had met a group of witches in Dorset, England immediately prior to the start of the Second World War in 1939. This group has become known as the New Forest Coven. From the 1950s onwards,Gardner was enthusiastic in initiating new candidates into the religion that he had brought to light, Wicca soon spread dramatically both within Britain itself and in the United States.

In 1953 Gardner initiated a young woman, Doreen Valiente, into the craft, and she soon went on to become the High Priestess of his Bricket Wood coven. Around the same time, Gardner invented the Book of Shadows, a workbook of rituals, although he claimed it was of ancient origins. Valiente helped Gardner rewrite the Book, cutting out what she saw as "Crowleyanity", and writing sections such as the Charge of the Goddess in poetic verse. Valiente and Gardner later fell out, however, when she got fed up with his constant attempts to gain publicity and when he tried to impose the Wiccan Laws upon the coven, something which he claimed were used by the Witch-Cult, but which Valiente believed he had simply made up. She, and several other members of the coven, left, and founded their own.

The ritual format of Wicca shows the undeniable influence of late Victorian era occultism and there is very little in the ritual that cannot be shown to have come from earlier extant sources. The religion's spiritual content, however, is inspired by older Pagan faiths with Buddhist and Hindu influences. 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. 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 (1919). Gardner is not known to have owned or had access to a copy of this book, although he met with Crowley towards the end of the latter’s life. Gardner admitted that "the rituals he received from Old Dorothy's coven were very fragmentary, and in order to make them workable, he had to supplement them with other material."

Some, such as Isaac Bonewits(October 1, 1949–August 12, 2010, Rest In Peace.), have argued that Valiente and Heselton's evidence points to an early 20th century revival (by the New Forest Coven, perhaps) 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 Family-Traditionalists 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."

Gardnerian Wicca came to the United States through an Englishman who had recently emigrated to the USA, named Raymond Buckland, and his wife, Rosemary. Raymond, working for British Airways, regularly returned to England, and he began to correspond with Gardner. In 1963, both Bucklands were initiated into the Gardnerian craft by Monique Wilson in a ceremony in Britain. The couple returned to America where they founded the Long Island coven in New York state, basing their practice upon the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.

Also in the 1960s, non-Gardnerian forms of Witchcraft (which are sometimes viewed as Wicca, or sometimes as "Traditional Witchcraft") made their way to the USA. Traditions that became known as Alexiandrian Wicca, 1734 tradition founded in 1966, Algard Wicca, founded in 1972, Seax-Wica in 1973, Dianic Wicca in 1971, though founder Zsuzsanna Budapest had no connection to any Gardnerian or Alexandrian covens. In 1968 Gavin and Yvonne Frost established the Church and School of Wicca; which in 1972 became the first Federally recognized Wiccan church.

In traditional Gardnerian and Alexandrian craft, initiates took an oath of secrecy never to reveal the rituals of it to outsiders. Despite this, both Gardner and Sanders sought publicity, and allowed reporters to witness their practices. Initiates such as Valiente and Buckland had been annoyed at this, the first commenting that "by speaking to the press, Gardner was compromising the security of the group and the sincerity of his own teachings". However, the key rituals of the Gardnerians (which were the basis for most of the Alexandrian ones) were made public in the 1960s when Charles Cardell, in an act of spite against the recently deceased Gardner, published the Gardnerian Book of Shadows.

Following this, several prominent Wiccans decided that it would be better to simply reveal the Wiccan mysteries to the public in their true form. Most prominent among these were Stewart and Janet Farrar, two Alexandrian initiates. Stewart, prior to his marriage, had already published information on Wiccan rituals (with Sanders' blessing), in his 1971 book What Witches Do. Together they published further works on the subjects, such as 1981's Eight Sabbats for Witches and 1984's The Witches' Way. They were joined by their friend, Doreen Valiente, who also published information on the subject of pagan Witchcraft in general.

From these published writings many other practitioners began to follow the Witchcraft religion, working either as solitary Witches or in non-lineaged covens. Valiente herself considered all of these such people to be "Witches", as she reserved the term "Wiccan" to refer solely to Gardnerians, however most of these new followers used the term "Wiccan" to describe themselves. As such, in the United States, it became the norm to refer to any Neopagan witchcraft as "Wicca", and so Gardnerians, Alexandrians and Algards, wishing to emphasize their lineage that stretched back to Gardner, began referring to themselves as followers of "British Traditional Wicca".

For a long time, Wicca was seen as being simply a minor sect, or cult. However, with the rise of solitary practitioners describing themselves as Wiccans, the faith went from becoming simply a mystery cult to becoming a public religion. Groups were formed to represent the Wiccan community, such as the Covenant of the Goddess, which was founded in 1975. Wiccans began to appear on various British television documentaries. In the USA, the court case of Dettmer v. Landon in 1986 established that Wicca was a religion, and therefore should be treated as such under the eyes of the law. The first Wiccan Wedding to be legally recognized in the UK (by the Registrars of Scotland) was performed in 2004.

In the 1990s and 2000s, Wicca began to become ingrained in popular culture. Aspects of Wicca were incorporated into the New Age movement, and many Wiccans took on New Age beliefs and practices. Wicca was also taken up by popular entertainment; Whilst most portrayals of magic users were heavily criticized by many Wiccans they did encourage many teenagers and young adults to investigate more about the religion. Most covens and Neopagan groups refused to allow under 18s into their ranks, and so many teenagers turned to books to find out more. In turn, several books were published to cater for them.