Who founded Wicca, and was it planted by the NWO?

There is an astounding amount of material on the Web, so I'll keep my intro short, and it is based on information from the Time-Life book "Witches and Witchcraft" by the eds. of Time-Life Books, 1990; particularly the third chapter "Witchcraft Today".

I'm sure that most people are familiar with the concept of Wicca as a pagan tradition that practices "white magic/witchcraft" based on nature and the law of karma and "harm nobody". Others would call it the cult of Diana and the horned god, and a romantic hotch potch of pagan myth and deities.

Authors like Margaret A. Murray claimed to have found remnants of a pre-Christian folk tradition of witchcraft (see Murray's "The Witch Cult in Western Europe", 1921). Other works like the older "Aradia" (Chalrles Leland, 1899) supported such notions. However, the movement only took off with Gerald Gardner's "Witchcraft Today" (1954), which described a nature-based mystery religion that survived the "burning times". Gardner also became a celebrity as a leader of a "White Witchcraft" coven. Many academics remained sceptical of a dying witch-cult that had survived underground across many generations, and regarded the new movement as the invention of Gardner himself, who had borrowed heavily from poetry, Aleister Crowley, freemasonry and his own preferences for nudity, public sex and sado-masochistic flogging.

The movement quickly spread and the focus on the female goddess made it attractive to feminists. In the 1960s and 1970s it divided into several off-shoots, many removing the the nudity and claims of an ancient tradition. Soon it was claimed that Gardner meant the horned god to be the main figure, and that his first high priestess, Doreen Valiente invented most of the rituals and made it goddess-centered. Whatever the truth, the movement of ancient archetypes gave meaning to many lives and remains a growing "faith" to this day.

Whatever the various meanings may be for adherents today, my questions are:
- Was Gardner a Freemason and why does the oath of secrecy copy Masonic material?
- What was the role of Aleister Crowley? Was Crowley not a self-confessed Satanist or black magician?
- I got into Wicca through the books of Sybil Leek, who claimed that Wicca was indeed an ancient, secret tradition in her New Forest region of southern Britain. Is it possible that Wicca had indeed survived inter-generationally and existed before Gardner? Or did Gardner and his followers invent it.
If Gardner and Crowley invented it, then it was indeed planted as another means of social and mind control by the NWO. Well, that would be my interpretation.

If Gardner and Crowley invented it, then it was indeed planted as another means of social and mind control by the NWO. Well, that would be my interpretation.

If you read the Witches Bible by Gardner, i don't think him and Crowley were actual friends..not sure, but pretty sure..Gardner pretty much brought wicca to the states with a small following at first, then it seemed to escalate to what it is today..but..it is not the same today as it was back in the 50's-60's..today it has been turned into an "insta witch" type of thing where , if you read new aged wicca books, you can pretty much fly on a broom stick.. Never in the history was it meant to be that way..if you need more info..i can have my wife give it to me and i will be happy to share what i can....peace

No, christianity is the tool of the NWO. Though not specifically planted by them, it is used by them. The NWO would hate us because we're not drones, we're free thinkers, something they HATE!

reply to post by ldyserenity


Very true. Wait till they start rounding up people for having a library card. It'll happen.

I always thought the Wiccans stemmed from Celtic Druidism. Don't know anything about them being planted by the NWO, and can't really imagine why they would.

reply to post by ldyserenity

Well, good point and strong opinion, but doesn't that make it sound as if Wiccans are just anti-Christian? Isn't Wicca pretty much the same? The creed says harm none or it will return to you three-fold, Jesus said "judge not lest ye be judged"? Isn't it just the same moral core, with all the pagan symbols that co-opted Christian states hide in statues and semi-Pagan feasts like Easter (Ishtar)?
There is an African shaman called Credo Mutwa who claims that Jesus and the his entourage were shamans. So yes, I can see how contemporary Christianity can be seen as a censoring movement of its own pagan influences and origins.
But, were there European witches who survived the "burning times"? I'm not sure that I would dismiss all their narratives.
Wicca is pretty much an evolving, dynamic movement, so it seems it doesn't require "authenticty".

Wicca has always been around in various forms. Remember, all across Europe (and later the colonies) many women burned at the stake because witchcraft was greatly feared. I believe it was first re-popularized by the victorian elite. Some time later it was legalized which gave rise to the modern version.

reply to post by SteveR

Yes, doubtlessly aspects of it have a timeless quality. However, I'm beginning to doubt the authenticity of the Book of Shadows, or the general charge of the goddess, the oath of secrecy and other aspects.
Well, it did give the emerging feminist movement a channeled spiritual "organization" within references of male dominated influences. That does strike me as a bit odd, particularly Gardner's timing.

reply to post by SteveR


"Wicca" has been around for a few decades. It's, as described, a total hodge-podge of stuff, most of which has absolutely no real historicity, much less any hearkening back to Druidic practices.

Wicca is, at the most basic, a far-removed branch of Christianity. It defines itself in (and often against) Christian terms, yet is swathes itself in largely christian outlooks, mores, practices, and beliefs. This is because it's largely based on Hermetic mysticism, which is itself based off Christian mysticism, with a touch of Prechristian Latin mysticism.

Onto this second-hand Christian core, all sorts of things get stuck, depending on who you're talking to. Originally it was simply rehashed mysticism wrapped in "Ye Aulde Druide" bullcrap in order to sell it as "authentic" and from there we get its tinge of environmentalism and nature-centricness... but even then it remained largely anthropocentric.

Then it got grabbed by Feminists who saw a religion with a major goddess, and latched on to rebel against the "patriarchy" of Christianity. Basically this is the root of most modern Wicca, with its "The goddess is everything and the god only exists to impregnate her" - basically it's misandry, the same variety of sexism that led the feminists to take this silliness, only flipped around.

Since then it's become a sort of dustbin for all kinds of new-agey stuff. Yoga and Hindu beliefs, crystal-waving, UFO's, angels and unicorns, all this sort of feel-good, mid-90's-self-empowering-you-go-girlfriend- dippiness, and a big dose of commercialized crap (Do an amazon search on how many "wiccan" books are selling you love potions)

And its modern adherents still buy the whole "it's like, totally ancient and, like, people used to practice it, like, a long time ago, and they were totally burned at the stake"

People were burned at the stake. They were primarily men. And their crime was heresy (of which witchcraft was a variety thereof). Plenty of women got toasted as well, and I'll tell you now, odds are the vast majority of people burned as witches... were as much churchgoing, dutiful, witch-hating Christians as the people who tied them up and set them on fire (take that as you will).

The actual pagan religions of the time had squat to do with anything resembling Wicca. It was practical, it was often bloody, and it was very definitely male-dominated.

For a comparison, here's a spell to drive away someone you dislike:

Wiccan:
Boil a sprig of rosemary and clove of garlic together in a mixture of wine and rainwater, while repeating the name of the person over and over. When you're done, throw the whole mixture out your back door while envisoning the power of the spell and directing it at the person.

Druidic:
Raid your enemy or some of his relatives. Cut the head from one of the dead bodies and bring it home with you. Slow-roast it over a smoky fire for several days until it has dried and tanned thoroughly. Embalm it in pine resin, and either put it on a stake or hang it fro ma tree near your encampment. Supposedly if it sees your enemy (or any of his relatives) it'll cry out their name in recognition (More likely it would work the other way around, but either way, you get a good warning)

Note the subtle difference?

[edit on 3-4-2010 by TheWalkingFox]

reply to post by TheWalkingFox

Great interesting post.
I also thought that the modern druids, Nordic paganism and others were a spin-off of the success of Wicca, rather an influence on it's creation.
Nevertheless, there are powerful aspects of Wicca that were methods from ceremonial magick. I think that goddess worship can have both negative or positive aspects, and the original ideal was possibly to balance the spiritual aspects of the genders. Some would argue that invoking old deities indeed brings their energies to life, so whether the methods are old or new, the energies invoked are timeless.
Morally there are grey areas in Wicca, such as love or banning spells, but then again there are grey areas in prayer as well (such as praying for the triumph of an army or sport's team over an enemy). Some Wiccans even use Old Testament prayers in their spells.
But yes, it probably is a construction, but almost all modern faiths are hybrid constructions.
But what was the purpose?
Was it indeed to further disrupt gender energies with anti-male sentiments?
Wiccans have certainly served as tangible enemies for the Christian anti-occult panic, although in the US they have threatened law-suits against Christians who have called them "Satanic". And rightfully so.

reply to post by halfoldman


To be fair, Wicca probably did pave the way for a lot of actual reconstruction religions, as well as the revitalization of a few religions that had survived all this time. As dopey as I think Wicca is, it does take a bit of stones to "step out of the broom closet" as they say.

I think that the NWO, if such a thing exists, probably has much more impressive tricks up its sleeve than giving Silver Ravenswolf a career.

reply to post by TheWalkingFox

I must say, they sure are one movement that was a lot more libertine when it began (with nudity and the "great rite"). Nowadays they are mostly fairy-like "goth" people in burqa-type robes.
Quite a transformation from liberating "white witchcraft" to socially banal "Wiccans".
At least the evangelical Christians see them as real competition for converts, so I'm not sure the movement is not big or relevant enough to be NWO. When bookshops sell "Teen Witch" books or divination sets Christians regard that as a very real threat. What is worse, good Christian girls can dabble in it unseen, because it never requires conversion to anything. It's the enemy within.

Originally posted by ldyserenity
No, christianity is the tool of the NWO. Though not specifically planted by them, it is used by them. The NWO would hate us because we're not drones, we're free thinkers, something they HATE!

The only problem with that is Wicca, through the influence of Gardner and the influence on him of Crowley and various societies and magical systems is that much of it belongs to one Judeo-Christian paradigm or other anyway. The influence of Judeo-Christian thought on the likes of the Golden Dawn and Crowley is glaringly obvious.

Originally posted by SteveR
Wicca has always been around in various forms. Remember, all across Europe (and later the colonies) many women burned at the stake because witchcraft was greatly feared. I believe it was first re-popularized by the victorian elite. Some time later it was legalized which gave rise to the modern version.

That's not quite right, and arguably that's a little backwards. Witchcraft, folk magics and so on, have always been around in various forms. That's a little different than saying Wicca has always been around as, arguably, Wicca is at best a modern reinvention of something that's always been around. A subtle but significant difference. Much of what passes for Wicca, particularly given the popularity of eclectic forms of Wicca, hasn't really always been around at all.

[edit on 3-4-2010 by Merriman Weir]

Originally posted by treemanx
I always thought the Wiccans stemmed from Celtic Druidism. Don't know anything about them being planted by the NWO, and can't really imagine why they would.

Well there were no books written by the celtic druids. The descriptions of druids were all penned by non druids like the Roman writers. I don't believ e that wiccans were planted by the NWO because Wiccans are an unrulable lot. If you have two wiccans in a room you get three opinions minimum. If you have five wiccans in a coven they immediately try to split on religious differences in to two or three covens and go their separate ways.

reply to post by Merriman Weir

Really? Not as far as mainstream Judeo-Christianity is concerned. Perhaps as far their mystical traditions rooted in the Kabbalah are concerned.
I can guess that Christians would say that any deviating mystecism going back to the Gnostics is not Christian, but an occult heresy.

When you compare the kitchen sink witchcraft to the highly ploished Alexandrain and Gardenerian rituals you see a massive conceptual difference.

See if you can google Boscastle and the Witches Museum to see the kitchen sink rituals described. Margaret Murray has been widely denounced as a shoddy academic with her own transparent agenda.

Will write more latter

Originally posted by halfoldman
reply to post by Merriman Weir

 

Really? Not as far as mainstream Judeo-Christianity is concerned. Perhaps as far their mystical traditions rooted in the Kabbalah are concerned.

Hmm, but I didn't say mainstream Judeo-Christianity did I? I hope you're not creating a straw man here, or rather a wicker man?

Ultimately, Wicca is probably best described as magical practice rather than religion. Compare this with the modern take on Germanic heathen beliefs where religion and, for want of a better word, magic are separate strands. Wicca doesn't appear to have this.

That being the case, then obviously it's going to be mystical and ritual traditions that are adopted or taken as influence rather than mainstream thought.

reply to post by Tiger5

The splitting of Wiccans do not disqualify them from being NWO controlled. Once the yoke of two controlling churches was thrown off Christianity by Luther in the 1700s they began splitting. With the freedom of religion enshrined in the US constitution they split even more. And today we have thousands of Protestant sects in Christianity.
What keeps coherency over the evengelical Christian movement? Arguably books and media. Otherwise I see almost every Christian poster on ATS having a personal interpretation fixed to a central concept of salvation. So the root of Wicca is that it's nature based and harms none.
So simply having countless demoninations and interpretations around one concept can be NWO. In fact its the best form - it's being everything to every man (to paraphrase Constantine). It implies common reaction to any enemy based on a single dogma, but never taking collective responsibilty for history.



[edit on 3-4-2010 by halfoldman]

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
reply to post by halfoldman

 

To be fair, Wicca probably did pave the way for a lot of actual reconstruction religions, as well as the revitalization of a few religions that had survived all this time. As dopey as I think Wicca is, it does take a bit of stones to "step out of the broom closet" as they say.

I think that the NWO, if such a thing exists, probably has much more impressive tricks up its sleeve than giving Silver Ravenswolf a career.

I'm not sure that's really the case. Perhaps it might be for clean, bright, shiny and new and predominantly Christian America, but Old Europe? Really?

Besides, the folk revivals of the 18th and 19th Centuries arguably dragged out inclinations towards older beliefs way before Wicca and these became intrinsic regarding the reinvention of national identities: cf with the modern take on Celts which dates back to these revivals.