The Wicca That Never Was
(Page 2 of 3)
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By Andy Steiner
For many years, Wiccans have turned to scholars like anthropologist-historian Margaret Murray for proof that their religion's roots are planted deeply in history. Murray's three books, the first published in 1921, claim that witchcraft persecutions were not simply episodes of mass hysteria but a calculated campaign to destroy a popular religion that competed with Christianity.
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A series of books published in the '50s by Gerald Gardner, a retired customs official and a member of the British Folklore Society, built on Murray's theories. Gardner set out the tenets and practice of a religion he claimed to have adopted after stumbling upon a practicing coven of witches in England's New Forest in 1930.Murray's research now has been largely disproved, Greer and Cooper contend. In the '60s and '70s, for instance, studies "demolished the entire basis of her theory point by point and showed beyond reasonable doubt that what she called the 'Old Religion' was a figment of her own imagination." More recently, the work of historian Carlo Ginzburg has shown that although scattered remnants of pagan religions exist in Europe, the traditions described by Murray do not match existing archaeological remains or credible historical research. With these revelations, Gardner, whose books rely heavily on Murray's research, was also discredited.
Modern Wicca's true origins, Greer and Cooper theorize, are in the Woodcraft Tribe, a nature organization established in 1902 by naturalist and writer Ernest Thompson Seton that in 1915 became known as the Woodcraft League of America. In an effort to placate the rowdy local boys who lived near his wooded estate in Cos Cob, Connecticut, Seton created a lodge called Woodcraft Indians, a nature club that by 1910 boasted some 200,000 American boys and girls as members.
For adults interested in taking part in the rituals of the Woodcraft Indians, Seton established Red Lodges: spiritual, initiatory groups whose practices and principles, according to Greer and Cooper, closely resemble those of modern Wicca. From the Red Lodgeóand from other offshoot organizations such as the British-based Kindred of the Kibbo Kiftóeventually grew the religion we now call Wicca. These nature-focused groups employed similar ritual meeting styles, secrecy rules, initiation rites, and even practiced mysticism and "magick"óhallmarks of modern-day Wicca.