Witchcraft, The Craft of the Wise:

A Brief Modern History

Today, in North America, Great Britian, Australia and other diverse parts of this great world, one of the fastest growing religions is that of witchcraft. The very word cojures up images of cackling crones stirring boiling cauldrons filled with noxious ingredients, seductive ladies luring men to their dooms, and great, forbidden rites of horror held far from the prying eyes of mortal men.

While it is true that each of these images has been associated with the Craft of the Wise, not one of them can be said to correctly portray what witchcraft truly is. One of the purposes of Abiegnus is to provide the curious and the initiates alike with information of value; this particular page shall begin our look into the Craft by covering it's history briefly.

It is often assumed by most people that the isles of Britain were always populated by the Celts. Modern archaeology and anthropology have proven that this widely-spread misconception is wrong. Long before the Celts set foot upon the hallowed isles of ancient Albion and Eire, those rolling lands were populated by another race; a race made up of short, dark-complected peoples who lived a simple life, fed by hunting. These people have survived in modern legends and stories as the 'Fey', or 'faeries', and a great body of nonsense has built up around them, though the breed has been nearly bred out through mixed marriges with the later peoples of Britain.

We know little about these peoples, although the anthropologist Margaret Murray wrote extensively about them in her controversial book, 'God of theWitches'. We do know their homes were built into the hillsides, much like the short hill-dwelling hobbits of J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle Earth books. They hunted with great skill, using small bows and arrows. These facts have given rise to the legends of faeries living within hills and striking down their foes with 'elf-arrows'.

'The Witches' Sabbath' by Goya

One of the lasting legacies the Fey left us today is a body of folk belief and wisdom that has, in part, given rise to modern witchcraft as we know it. A common misconception prevalent in the Craft today is that we owe much of our faith to the Celts. What is often overlooked is the polaric nature of the Celtic gods. Whereas today's witchcraft revolves around a female, lunar goddess and her solar-aspected consort, the Celts venerated the sun as female (the gaelic word 'grianne', meaning sun, is feminine) and the moon as male. So, one of the great roots of witchcraft rests in the legacy of this ancient people.

As years wore on, and the Celts became the dominant people of Britian, the Fey, who were rather isolationist in their philosophy, became seen less and less as they slowly began their cultural decline. Tales from the Celts still mentioned them; but their silent comings and goings began to take on an almost legendary quality as they spread. Tales of invisibility and mysterious powers began to develop around them, and yet they continued their decline and assimilation. Finally, all that was left of the Fey were stories.

Now, we flash forward in time to the nineteenth century. A man by the name of Charles Leland met an Italian woman during his travels remembered only as Maddelana. She claimed to be a strega, or Italian witch, and after much debate was finally convinced to provide Leland with a book entitled 'Aradia: Vangello des Strega'. Leland translated and released this book under the title, 'Aradia: Gospel of the Witches'. The book is the tale of a moon goddess, Diana, her husband Lucifer ( a solar diety not connected with the Christian Satan) and their daughter, Aradia, who taught witchcraft to man. Most of the charms and invocations contained in the book are typical of the wants and needs of the peasant class. They revolve around fertility of field and animal, and the punishment of one's enemies.

This book, together with Margaret Murrays' "The God of the Witches" and "The Divine King in England", although hotly contested today, became classics of the renaissance of witchcraft.

Which brings us to 1939. Gerald Brouseau Gardner, a retired British civil servant, came into contact with a secretive bunch who claimed to be members of a coven, or group of witches. These witches believed themselves to be inheritors of an ancient religious tradition, guarded by oaths of secrecy. Gardner eventually was initiated into the coven as a witch and priest of the Old Gods. Although under the oath of secrecy, Gardner wished the world to know of the true nature of the Craft, for he saw that most of the initiates he knew were older men and women. He feared the faith would die out, yet his High Priestess, who we now know was named Dorothy Clutterbuck (nee St Quinlan) forbade him from revealing the Craft to outsiders. Finally, in 1949, after years of argument, he was allowed to publish a book portraying the Craft in a fictional light, called 'High Magic's Aid'. Interest in the book was great in some circles, and after the death of Mrs Clutterbuck, a great change in the British legal system occured.

In 1951, the British courts abolished the ancient Anti-Witchcraft Act, and replaced it with the Flaudulent Mediums Act. This new law made it a crime to make money by falsely claiming psychic or supernatural powers. It remains unique, for it is the only law on record in modern times that in its wording acknowledges the possibility of genuine abilites. With the Craft no longer a crime, Gardner published the first book about witchcraft ever written by a witch, "Witchcraft Today". An instant hit, it generated massive amounts of mail, and finally, a few years later, he followed it up with 'The Meaning of Witchcraft', both of which remain classics in their genre today.

With the Craft gaining new life through its exposure, and many seeking initiation, it seemed that Gardner had saved the faith he so loved. In the 1960s, a man named Alex Sanders founded a new tradition of the Craft, drawing heavily upon an ill-gotten copy of the Book Of Shadows Gardner possessed. (A book of shadows is a book of rituals, ceremonies and beliefs hald by a witch). Sanders proclaimed himself 'King of the Witches'. Since his new tradition was called the 'Alexandrian', Sanders and his people coined the term 'Gardnerian' to describe the original resurrected Craft. This term has remained.

Over the years, as information on the Craft became more readily available, new traditions were founded. The Gardnerian tradition was brought to the New World by Raymond Buckland and his wife, as well as other British initiates.

Gradually, the Craft in all its various traditions, has grown, extending outwards from the original Gardnerian reconstruction to become the fastest growing religious movement today.

Wicca, or witchcraft, is a polaric path, and deals with the unification of opposites on all levels, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. This is symbolically expressed in The Legend of the Descent of the Goddess, the central myth of the Craft.