{"id":4927,"date":"2013-01-01T14:32:51","date_gmt":"2013-01-01T21:32:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4927"},"modified":"2013-01-01T15:18:44","modified_gmt":"2013-01-01T22:18:44","slug":"the-basic-split-in-pagan-witchcraft","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4927","title":{"rendered":"The Basic Split in Pagan Witchcraft"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Issue<\/a>

Issue 2 of the British newsletter Pentagram, November 1964, price 2s, “for private circulation only.”<\/p><\/div>\n

As I posted earlier<\/a>, the issue of The Pomegranate <\/em>now in press has an article about Robert Cochrane<\/a>, one of the first English witches to use the term “traditional” in opposition to Gerald Gardner’s Wicca, back in the 1960s. In fact, my own current researches are going to force me to grapple with that term and its permutations quite a bit.<\/p>\n

The term “traditional” is tossed around a lot more now than in past decades, but the clashes between various forms of revived Witchcraft started quite some time ago \u2014 in the 1960s, at least. Some of the infighting appeared in a short-lived publication called Pentagram<\/em>, arguably the first English-language Pagan zine.\u00a0 Note the headline, “Before Gardner\u2014What?”<\/p>\n

Gerald Gardner<\/a> himself had died earlier that year, so he could not say anything. There might be a connection with the timing of the article!<\/p>\n

The unsigned short article complains, in essence, that Gardner’s version of Witchcraft is getting all the press attention. It continues, “Now as you must know, there are a number of other groups, quite apart from the little group in which I am interested, who practice various forms of Magic and Witchcraft. Now why does the Press make no mention of them . . . ?” and goes on to speak of “hereditary covens” and about Witchcraft is a “complicated and all-embracing way of life.”<\/p>\n

There you have one split that has persisted to this day. Against Gardner’s claims of unbroken ancient tradition (which I do not think that any Wiccan leader would advocate today), you have another set of claims: that there are non-Wiccan groups that do not seek publicity (yet are apparently insulted that they do not receive it), that are “hereditary” in some sense, and that are more demanding of their members than some mere Stone Age fertility cult allegedly rediscovered in southern England.<\/p>\n

Was that Cochrane writing ? Possibly. He did write for Pentagram <\/em>under his own name as well. And the use of “sock puppets<\/a>” predates the Internet. The idea of being more “complicated” sounds like something he might have said.<\/p>\n

The appeal to (undocumented) tradition and other logical fallacies are still found\u00a0 in “Traditional Witchcraft,” but there can be something else as well, something healthy and refreshing. I will return to this topic in the near future.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As I posted earlier, the issue of The Pomegranate now in press has an article about Robert Cochrane, one of the first English witches to use the term “traditional” in opposition to Gerald Gardner’s Wicca, back in the 1960s. In fact, my own current researches are going to force me to grapple with that term […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,6,29],"class_list":["post-4927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-england","tag-wicca","tag-witchcraft"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-1ht","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10422,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=10422","url_meta":{"origin":4927,"position":0},"title":"A Festschrift for Ronald Hutton","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 28, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Magic and Witchery: Celebrating the Twentieth Anniversary of 'The Triumph of the Moon' will be published in September by Palgrave Macmillan. I love rolling the word Festschrift around, and if you are not used to it, this is what it means: \"In academia, a Festschrift\u00a0 (plural Festschriften) is a book\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"academia\"","block_context":{"text":"academia","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=academia"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/magic-and-witchery-1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13198,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13198","url_meta":{"origin":4927,"position":1},"title":"The First Wiccan Book Published in India","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 7, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"A little more than twenty years ago, in the preference to his landmark study of contemporary Pagan Witchcraft, The Triumph of the Moon, the historian Ronald Hutton wrote that \"the unique significance of pagan [sic] witchcraft to history is that it is the only religion which England has even given\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"India\"","block_context":{"text":"India","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=india"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/ANI-20221216115613-300x205.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":11755,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11755","url_meta":{"origin":4927,"position":2},"title":"“The Woman Who Inspired Wicca”","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"This popped up on Twitter recently: There is no conference that I know of, which may say something about how small a set of academics are interested in Wiccan history. Maybe we Pagan-studies types do not have anything new to say right now, because this issue has been covered pretty\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"journalism\"","block_context":{"text":"journalism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=journalism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/witch-cult-tweet.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/witch-cult-tweet.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/witch-cult-tweet.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":684,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=684","url_meta":{"origin":4927,"position":3},"title":"'Witch school' OpensWhat struck me\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 1, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"'Witch school' OpensWhat struck me most about this article on Ed Hubbard's Witch School was not the culture-war angle (\"Residents Petitioned and Prayed to Keep It Away\"), but the sort-of positive response from Kirk White of Cherry Hill Seminary at the end.One also could make comparisons with the Frosts' School\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1111,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1111","url_meta":{"origin":4927,"position":4},"title":"The Pentagram in 1964","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 12, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I have more reviews coming, but for now, here is a PDF download of the first issue of The Pentagram, August 1964, price two shillings.As far as I know, it was the first attempt to create a publication for the various branches of British Witchcraft, then only about fifteen years\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"England\"","block_context":{"text":"England","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=england"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":873,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=873","url_meta":{"origin":4927,"position":5},"title":"Wicca and Christianity","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I have not yet seen it, but English scholar Jo Pearson has a new book, Wicca and the Christian Heritage. Amazon-UK link here.From the publisher's catalog:What is Wicca? Is it witchcraft, Paganism, occultism, esotericism, magic, spirituality, mysticism, nature religion, secrecy, gnosis, the exotic or 'other'? Wicca has been defined by\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Christianity\"","block_context":{"text":"Christianity","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=christianity"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4927"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4942,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4927\/revisions\/4942"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}