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Gardnerian
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. 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. 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. For this reason, Gardnerian Wicca is usually considered 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 th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algard Wicca
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. 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. 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. For this reason, Gardnerian Wicca is usually considered 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 th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
British Traditional Wicca
Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices. Wicca has no central authority figure. Its traditional core beliefs, principles, and practices were originally outlined in the 1940s and 1950s by Gardner and an early High Priestess, Doreen Valiente. The early practices were disseminated through published books and in secret written and oral teachings passed along to their initiates. There are many variations on the core structure, and the religion grows and evolves over time. It is divided into a number of diverse lineages, sects and denominations, referred to as ''trad ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wicca
Wicca () is a modern Pagan religion. Scholars of religion categorise it as both a new religious movement and as part of the occultist stream of Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices. Wicca has no central authority figure. Its traditional core beliefs, principles, and practices were originally outlined in the 1940s and 1950s by Gardner and an early High Priestess, Doreen Valiente. The early practices were disseminated through published books and in secret written and oral teachings passed along to their initiates. There are many variations on the core structure, and the religion grows and evolves over time. It is divided into a number of diverse lineages, sects and denominations, referred to as ''tra ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Doreen Valiente
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente (4 January 1922 – 1 September 1999) was an English Wiccan who was responsible for writing much of the early religious liturgy within the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. An author and poet, she also published five books dealing with Wicca and related esoteric subjects. Born to a middle-class family in Surrey, Valiente began practising magic while a teenager. Working as a translator at Bletchley Park during the Second World War, she also married twice in this period. Developing her interest in occultism after the war, she began practising ceremonial magic with a friend while living in Bournemouth. Learning of Wicca, in 1953 she was initiated into the Gardnerian tradition by its founder, Gerald Gardner. Soon becoming the High Priestess of Gardner's Bricket Wood coven, she helped him to produce or adapt many important scriptural texts for Wicca, such as ''The Witches Rune'' and the ''Charge of the Goddess'', which were incorporated into the early Gardn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Cochrane (witch)
Robert Cochrane (26 January 1931 – 3 July 1966), who was born as Roy Bowers, was an English occultist who founded the tradition of Witchcraft known as The Clan of Tubal Cain. Born in a working-class family in West London, he became interested in occultism after attending a Society for Psychical Research lecture, taking a particular interest in witchcraft. He founded one coven, but it soon collapsed. He began to claim to have been born to a hereditary family of witches whose practices stretched back to at least the 17th century; these statements have later been dismissed. He subsequently went on to found a tradition known as The Clan of Tubal Cain, through which he propagated his Craft. In 1966, he committed suicide. Cochrane continues to be seen as a key inspirational figure in the traditional witchcraft movement. Ever since his death, a number of Neopagan and magical groups have continued to adhere to his teachings. Early life As noted by Michael Howard, "factual detai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gerald Gardner
Gerald Brosseau Gardner (13 June 1884 – 12 February 1964), also known by the craft name Scire, was an English Wiccan, as well as an author and an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist. He was instrumental in bringing the Contemporary Pagan religion of Wicca to public attention, writing some of its definitive religious texts and founding the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. Born into an upper-middle-class family in Blundellsands, Lancashire, Gardner spent much of his childhood abroad in Madeira. In 1900, he moved to colonial Ceylon, and then in 1911 to Malaya, where he worked as a civil servant, independently developing an interest in the native peoples and writing papers and a book about their magical practices. After his retirement in 1936, he travelled to Cyprus, penning the novel ''A Goddess Arrives'' before returning to England. Settling down near the New Forest, he joined an occult group, the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship, through which he said he had encount ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alexandrian Wicca
Alexandrian Wicca or Alexandrian Witchcraft is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders (also known as "King of the Witches") who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Alexandrian Wicca is similar in many ways to Gardnerian Wicca, and receives regular mention in books on Wicca as one of the religion's most widely recognized traditions. Origins and history The tradition is based largely upon Gardnerian Wicca, in which Sanders was trained, and also contains elements of ceremonial magic and Qabalah, which Sanders had studied independently. Maxine Sanders recalls that the name was chosen when Stewart Farrar, a student of the Sanders', began to write ''What Witches Do''. "Stewart asked what Witches who were initiated via our Covens should be called; after much discussion, he came up with "Alexandrian" which both Alex and I rather liked. Before this time we were very happy to be called Witches". ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Book Of Shadows
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious text and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Since its conception in the 1970s, it has made its way into many pagan practices and paths. The most famous Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The Book of Shadows is also used by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrian Wicca and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how to begin following non-initiatory Wicca in the 1970s onward, the idea of the Book of Shadows was then further propagated amongst solitary practitioners unconnected to earlier, initiatory traditions. Initially, when Wicca was still dominated by covens, "only one copy f the Bookexisted for an entire coven, kept by the high priestess or high priest. That rule has pro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Bricket Wood Coven
The Bricket Wood coven, or Hertfordshire coven Page 289 is a coven of Gardnerian Wicca, Gardnerian witches founded in the 1940s by Gerald Gardner. It is notable for being the first coven in the Gardnerian line, though having its supposed origins in the pre-Gardnerian New Forest coven. The coven formed after Gardner bought the Fiveacres Country Club, a naturist club in the village of Bricket Wood, Hertfordshire, southern England, and met within the club's grounds. It played a significant part in the history of the neopagan religion of Wicca. Many important and influential figures in Wicca were once members of the coven, including Edith Woodford-Grimes, Dafo, Doreen Valiente, Jack Bracelin, Frederic Lamond (Wiccan), Fred Lamond, Dayonis and Lois Bourne. The coven is still active today, though it maintains secrecy and its history was only known up until the 1970s. Chapter 11 and 12 There have been misleading and fraudulent online claims by people claiming to be running (and thus adm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Horned God
The Horned God is one of the two primary deities found in Wicca and some related forms of Neopaganism. The term ''Horned God'' itself predates Wicca, and is an early 20th-century syncretic term for a horned or antlered anthropomorphic god partly based on historical horned deities. The Horned God represents the male part of the religion's duotheistic theological system, the consort of the female Triple goddess of the Moon or other Mother goddess. In common Wiccan belief, he is associated with nature, wilderness, sexuality, hunting, and the life cycle. Whilst depictions of the deity vary, he is always shown with either horns or antlers upon his head, often depicted as being theriocephalic (having a beast's head), in this way emphasizing "the union of the divine and the animal", the latter of which includes humanity. In traditional Wicca (British Traditional Wicca), he is generally regarded as a dualistic god of twofold aspects: bright and dark, night and day, summer and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wiccan Rede
The Wiccan Rede is a statement that provides the key moral system in the neopagan religion of Wicca and certain other related witchcraft-based faiths. A common form of the Rede is ''An ye harm none, do what ye will'' which was taken from a longer poem also titled the Wiccan Rede. The word "rede" derives from Middle English, meaning "advice" or "counsel", and being closely related to the German or Scandinavian . "An'" is an archaic Middle English conjunction, meaning "if." " Ye" is an archaic or dialectal form of "you" (nominative plural). History In its best known form as the "eight words" couplet, the Rede was first publicly recorded in a 1964 speech by Doreen Valiente. Other variants of the Rede include: *''Eight words the Wiccan Rede fulfill, An it harm none do what ye will.'' Note: this is the first published form of the couplet, quoted from Doreen Valiente in 1964. Later published versions include "ye" instead of "it" (as the second word, following 'An'): "Eight words t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cochrane's Craft
Cochrane's Craft, which is also known as Cochranianism, is a form of traditional witchcraft founded in 1951 by the English witch Robert Cochrane, who himself claimed to have been taught in the tradition by some of his elderly family members, a claim that is disputed by some historians such as Ronald Hutton and Leo Ruickbie. Despite numerous practical and theological similarities to other forms of modern witchcraft, such as Gardnerian Wicca, Cochrane's Craft sets itself apart from other traditions in many notable ways, such as its emphasis on the pursuit of wisdom as the highest goal of witchcraft and Cochrane's insistence that witchcraft is not Pagan and, in fact, has no more in common with Paganism than does Qabbalah. History Around the time that the British 1735 Witchcraft Act was repealed in 1951, and it became legal to practice witchcraft in the United Kingdom, Cochrane, who was in his early twenties, founded a coven, and named it the Clan of Tubal Cain after the biblical fi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
