Gerald Gardner Popularizes Witchcraft - 1948 on

(July 6, 2022) Gerald Gardner (1884-1964) was most important to history for his popularization of witchcraft and this came about because he incorporated nudity into his rituals (sex sells news). Not much about his rituals are used today in modern witchcraft or wicca. The only practices still used today are creating a sacred space, emotional energy raising dances or processions, and ritually consecrating ritual tools to associate them with an emotional memory of your own.

Gerald suffered from asthma as a child and his wealthy parents handed his over to a single friend, maybe a relative, named Josephine MacCombie to raise him. When in 1890 she married a tea planter from Ceylon (Sri Lanka) he ended up moving to the far east as a teen where eventually rose to manage tea and rubber plantations in Malaya and North Borneo. In 1923 he became a civil servant acting as an inspector and custom agent of plantations. Both of his parents had died by 1927 leaving him with a substantial inheritance. He traveled back to Britain to settle the estate and there met an nurse, Dorethea Rosedale. 

While in Malaya he became an avid naturist (nudist) possibly because he thought it helped his health or because he was still single. He also became fascinated by anthropology, archaeology, and religion. In 1936 at age 52 he retired and moved back to Britain. He then settled in a suburb of Bournemouth, England and joined the local mystical esoteric society called the Fellowship of Crotona at nearby Christchurch.

After Word War 2 Gardner's interests became more focused on organized magical practices like he had found among the native tribes of the far east. Consequently, he rented an apartment in London so he could participate in the Ancient Druid Order. He was elected to their governing council in 1946. This Druid organization was a Freemason type of organization which used the Druid as its icon. Gardner soon found out the organization had no interest in innovating.

The Ancient Druid Order was founded around 1900 in London. They drew mostly on the fake Druid documents of Iolo Morganwig and the occult ideas of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Significantly, the founders of both Wicca (Gerald Gardner) and Druidry (Ross Nichols) were members at one time and both left for the similar reasons. They both found the organization to be too stagnant in its rituals and ideology. In 1961 Nichols left to found the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids​.

In 1947 Gardner visited old Aleister Crowley who then led the Order of the Golden Dawn. At that time Gardner was looking to revive a spiritist organization called the Ordo Templi Orientis which had originated in 1904 in Germany as a mystical offshoot of Freemasonry. In 1912 this organization had made Crowley its head in England. (Hutton, p 222).

Disagreeing with Crowley's Satanist tendencies, Gardner decided to go his own way. In 1948 Gardiner published a novel called “High Magic’s Aid” which was a story mixing Murray’s portrait of witchcraft with the magical ritual approach of the Golden Dawn. The book presented witch rituals which he was probably already doing with a woman friend known to history as Dafo. These rituals included nudity which the novel justified as bringing the witch into a more powerful mystical unity with nature. Gardner himself was a nudist (naturist).

The real name of “Dafo” has not been published out of respect for her family’s privacy because she later was  ashamed of her part in this affair. In any case she was with Gardiner during 1947 in his witchcraft revival project called Ancient Crafts, Ltd.

Gardiner and Dafo bought some land next to a naturist (nudist) camp just north of London. Upon this land  they built an imagined sixteenth century witch cottage and it was there that they established the first modern witch coven and worked out its rituals with other mystical minded nudists (Hutton, p 214).

 In 1951 Britain repealed its witchcraft acts which had made practicing witchcraft illegal. In 1952 Dafo broke up with Gardner. In 1954 Gardner published his book “Witchcraft Today” with a foreword by Margaret Murray herself and began publicizing witchcraft as a religion, which he called “Wica” in the book. With that he began  initiating other members into his “secret” movement. Wican covens grew slowly at first but his publicity and the publicity generated by others inspired others to form covens of their own.

References

Hutton, Ronald (1999) The Triumph of the Moon. Oxford University Press​

(July 6, 2022) Near the end of his life in 1964 Gerald Gardner made public his rituals in what is known as the "Gardnerian Book of Shadows." This was the time  when alternate religious practices were starting to be noticed and invented. His rituals continue to be at the core of Traditional British Wicca groups. What follows are excerpts from his book.

How to Cast a Circle (1949)

It is most convenient to mark the circle with chalk, paint or otherwise, to show where it is; but marks on the carpet may be utilized. Furniture may be placed to indicate the bounds. The only circle that matters is the one drawn before every ceremony with either a duly consecrated Magic Sword or an Athame. The circle is usually nine feet in diameter, unless made for some very special purpose. There are two outer circles, each six inches apart, so the third circle has a diameter of eleven feet....

Gardner's Theory of Spiritual Power (1953)

This section on spiritual power shows that Gardner was biased by his naturist (nudist) desires and so assumed spiritual power was some sort of invisible material fluid created within the body which can only come out through the skin and orifices. This spiritual power could then be stored in items. This contradicts his other idea that spiritual powers come from focused emotions.

Skyclad Magic with a Lover (1953)

 Gardiner was a Naturist (Nudist).

The Working Tools (1953)

This section is a list of the magical tools Gardner used and it also indicates Gardner was rediscovering the emotional magic of the ancients as evidenced by the statement "magical operations are useless unless the mind can be brought to the proper attitude, keyed to the utmost pitch."

Gardner's Ideal Coven Organization (1961)

Priestesses were to rule the Coven but  they must resign once their beauty fades with age because her power actually comes from the masculine god and not the goddess.