Jump to content

Gerald Gardner

From Tilcayo Cats, the lean encyclopaedia by Tilcayo Knowledge Systems
Tilcayo Cats original · British Bees · Sources and editorial assessment · Originals retention rule

Gerald Gardner (1884 – 12 February 1964) was an Englishman who is seen as the central inspiration for Wicca. He spent much of his working life in colonial Asia before retiring to England, where he publicised the religion in the 1950s.[1][2]

Early life and career

Gardner taught himself to read as a child. The historian John Callow argues that a spiritualist book by Florence Marryat and Walter Scott's Ivanhoe gave him an idea of a spirit world without devils, and the figure of the "witch" in the character Rebecca. He had little Christian upbringing.[3]

From 1910–11 he worked as a planter in Ceylon, North Borneo and Malaya. He joined a Masonic lodge in Colombo in 1910 and left within about a year; Callow suggests it gave him the model of a secret society with graded degrees.[4] In Asia he also met local spiritual and magical practices, which Callow believes fed his ideas about goddess worship and the ritual circle.[5]

From 1926 he worked as a customs officer policing the opium trade. Callow argues that part of his fortune probably came from bribes, though this is Callow's interpretation.[6] His book Keris and Other Malay Weapons (1936) divides scholars; Callow links its idea of a living blade to the Wiccan ritual knife, the athame.[7] Gardner retired in 1936. In 1937 he bought a doctorate that was not genuine, and some of his papers borrowed from other writers.[8] His novel A Goddess Arrives (about 1939) is the first of his works to feature a "secret witch cult".[9]

Occult interests

Gardner's belief in a surviving witch cult came from Margaret Murray's books, a theory later historians rejected.[10] In the 1940s he joined several occult and alternative groups, including the Ancient Druid Order, borrowing ritual and degree structures from them.[11] His novel High Magic's Aid (1949) reused material from the occultist Aleister Crowley and diagrams from the Key of Solomon.[12]

Gardner said he was initiated by a coven in the New Forest. Callow concludes that, whatever Gardner found there, it was not an unbroken ancient religion, and that its "Southern Coven" was essentially Gardner, his High Priestess Edith Woodford-Grimes and a few friends.[13][14] Researchers who believe a real coven existed, such as Philip Heselton, take a more positive view.[13]

Publicity

Gardner lobbied MPs over the repeal of the Witchcraft Act in 1951.[15] He answered the claim in Pennethorne Hughes's Witchcraft (1952) that the witch cult was dead with his own Witchcraft Today (1954).[16] In it he left out the Devil and repeated a figure of nine million victims of the witch trials, which Callow traces to the writer Matilda Joslyn Gage.[17] The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) set out the eight festivals and the authority of the High Priestess.[18]

On the Isle of Man he became the "resident witch" at Cecil Williamson's folklore centre in Castletown, and later took control of it after the two disagreed over how to present witchcraft.[19] In 1961 he met the writers Idries Shah and Robert Graves; Graves thought Wicca shallow.[20]

Death and legacy

Gardner died at sea off Tunis on 12 February 1964. By then there were covens across Britain and the first openings in America.[2] Hostile books published soon afterwards fixed a lasting sceptical picture of him.[21] Callow gives a more generous reading, describing Gardner's role in creating a new mystery religion as a "wonder and achievement".[2] He also sees Wicca's focus on the High Priestess and the Goddess as a deliberate empowering of women.[22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 1–3.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. p. 51.
  3. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 9–10.
  4. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 11–12.
  5. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 12–13.
  6. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 13–14.
  7. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 15–16.
  8. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 17–19.
  9. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 19–20.
  10. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. p. 19.
  11. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 20–21.
  12. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. p. 29.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. p. 33.
  14. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 33–34.
  15. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. p. 31.
  16. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 31–32.
  17. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 34–35.
  18. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. p. 38.
  19. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 39–40.
  20. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 48–49.
  21. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 3–4.
  22. ↑ Callow, John (2025). Gerald Gardner and the Creation of Wicca. Elements in Magic. Cambridge University Press. pp. 52–54.
Retrieved from "https://tilcayo.cat/w/index.php?title=Gerald_Gardner&oldid=163178"