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Aradia: Gospel of the Witches
by Charles G. Leland, 1899

A large part of the Charge of the Goddess is based on a passage from Aradia:

When I shall have departed from this world, Whenever ye have need of anything, Once in the month, and when the moon is full, Ye shall assemble in some desert place, Or in a forest all together join To adore the potent spirit of your queen, My mother, great Diana. She who fain Would learn all sorcery yet has not won Its deepest secrets, then my mother will Teach her, in truth all things as yet unknown. And ye shall all be freed from slavery, And so ye shall be free in everything; And as the sign that ye are truly free, Ye shall be naked in your rites, both men And women also: this shall last until The last of your oppressors shall be dead;¹

Leland claims to have gotten his information in Aradia from an Italian strega, or practitioner of witchcraft. Aradia is the daughter of siblings Diana and Lucifer, sent to earth by her mother to teach magic to the witches. While Wiccans use this as further evidence of surviving pagan religion, Aradia is heavily laden with very Christian images: frequent mentions to Cain, the citing of Lucifer as her father, meals in which food is consecrated as the body and blood of Diana, Aradia described as a "female Messiah".

In addition, the ideas laid down in Aradia are not those any self-respecting Wiccan would want associated with them, reading more like the accusations of the old witch-hunters:

And thou shalt be the first of witches known; And thou shalt be the first of all I' the world; And thou shalt teach the art of poisoning, Of poisoning those who are great lords of all; Yea, thou shalt make them die in their palaces; And thou shalt bind the oppressor's soul (with power); And when ye find a peasant who is rich, Then ye shall teach the witch, your pupil, how To ruin all his crops with tempests dire, With lightning and with thunder (terrible), And with the hail and wind...

And when a priest shall do you injury By his benedictions, ye shall do to him Double the harm, and do it in the name of me, Diana, Queen of witches all!

And when the priests or the nobility shall say to you that you should put your faith In the Father, Son, and Mary, then reply; "Your God, the Father, and Maria are Three devils..."

"For the true God the Father is not yours; For I have come to sweep away the bad The men of evil, all will I destroy!"2

If such a group ever existed, they should have no association with Wicca. We cannot credibly pick certain pieces from Aradia and tout it as something slightly short of gospel, then insist the rest is inconsequential.