Home          Wicca 101/FAQ          Glossary           About the Author          Email the Author       Blog / Question of the Day        Email List

Wicca 101 - People

Gerald Gardner (1884 - 1964)
Gerald Brosseau Gardner was an Englishman who effectively founded the religion of Wicca in the 1950s with the publication of Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft. He believed (or at least claimed) he wasn't creating a religion at all, but merely bringing to light one that had existed in secret for hundreds of years. Because the sources he was working from were fragmentary at best, he supplemented them with a lot of information from Ceremonial Magic, especially where ritual was concerned. [more]

Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947)
Aleister Crowley was a rather infamous Ceremonial Magician and member of the Golden Dawn whose writings strongly influenced occult thinking. The rumor of him being a Satanist is false - the effect of a society who neither understood nor appreciated his studies and lifestyle coupled with the man's love of controversy. He did refer to himself as the Great Beast 666 and attempted to shock and offend Victorian and Christian sensibilities every chance he got.

The degree of his influence on Wicca continues to be debated. We know he and Gardner met on multiple occasions, and there is significant evidence that Gardner was offered the chance to revive Crowley's O.T.O movement in England. The Wiccan Rede was clearly influenced by Crowley's "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law" and the Charge of the Goddess likewise bears a passage of Crowley's. However, Crowley was long dead before the publication of Witchcraft Today, and he never claimed to be a witch. The suggestion that Crowley ghost wrote for Gardner is completely without merit.

Dr. Margaret Alice Murray (1863-1963)
Margaret Murray was a highly regarded anthropologist in her time, particularly on the subject of Egypt, which was her specialty. However, she will be most remembered for two historical works, God of the Witches and The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. These two books detail the Old Religion that was practiced before the advent of Christianity and whose followers were persecuted in the witch-trials. She went so far as to suggest that reports of witches in the woods with Satan were actually pagans with their priest wearing a horned helmet to represent their Horned God.

Unfortunately, her theories were nonsense, based upon scant and painfully interpreted sources. Around 1970 the academic community completely debunked her work. Before then, however, her theories wielded enough influence that she got to write the entry on witchcraft in the Encyclopedia Britanica. Her writings were also taken in by Gerald Gardner. Indeed, she wrote the introduction to Witchcraft Today. He believed - and taught - that Wicca was the modern extension of Murray's Old Religion. [More]

Doreen Valiente (1922-1999)
Valiente was Gardner's High Priestess in the 1950s. Politics concerning Gardner's very public profile caused the coven to eventually split, the splinter group headed by Valiente. Her most known piece of work is the Charge of the Goddess, and she is creditted with the removal of some of the more obvious influences of Crowley in the Gardnerian rituals. She published a handful of books which are still relatively respected today, although she never gave up the belief that Wicca was the Old Religion.

Raymond Buckland
Buckland was a student of Gardner's (although not initiated by him, as Gardnerians are always initiated by a member of the oppoiste sex) and is largely credited with introducing Wicca to the united states in the 1960s when he moved there from England. Like Valiente, Buckland was one of the first to publish practical information on Wicca. He eventually created his own Tradition, Seax Wica.