Tuesday 14 February 2012 Origins Of Wicca

Origin The origin of Wicca is a disputed subject, discussions of which have lead to three prevailing theories. The first is that Gardner was taught a religion, based on pre-historic European matriarchal religions, by an unknown woman he simply referred to as "Dafo" or "old Dorothy". This person is assumed by most researchers to be Dorothy Clutterbuck, although several, including Philip Heselton have presented theories that they were two separate persons. In Wiccan Roots and Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration he contends that Gardner did not write the Wiccan rituals, but received then from an unknown source. He also wrote that most of the material used to "flesh out" Gardner's written work not only came from Aleister Crowley, but came from solely from his book, The Equinox vol 3 no. 1 or Blue Equinox. According to a partial estate listing, Gardner never owned a copy of this book, but had other books and even visited Crowley shortly before his death in 1947.