Old Craft, New Craft
The reality of Gardner's claim to have discovered an existing religion is one of two large problems which confront a historian concerned with the origins of modern pagan witchcraft. The other, closely related, is whether any other groups of pagan witches existed at the time when he was forming his own. It was central to his portrayal of this process that he was believed to be reviving an old and secret faith that had almost died out; built into that portrayal, therefore, was the suggestion that other adherents of that faith might have survived in the manner of the New Forest coven, and could surface now that Gardner had initiated the process of emergence. This chapter explores evidence relating to non-Gardnerian pagan witchcraft before 1960.
Keywords: witchcraft, witches, non-Gardnerian pagan witchcraft, New Forest coven, modern pagan witchcraft, faith, religion
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