Welcome to the Trad Guard Wicca Podcast. This podcast is for both seekers and initiates of the
Gardenerian path and focuses on historical contexts as well as modern-day concerns.
All contributors are either elders, high priests, or high priestesses of the traditional
Gardenerian Wicca, some with several decades in the craft.
Our guest today is a Gardenerian high priest with over 40 years of experience in our tradition,
High Priest O'Lorend. He serves the tradition both as a coven leader and as a lecturer on
Gardenerian topics. In the first half of this two-part episode, we explore both the historical
and magical roots of Gerald B. Gardener, the founder of the Gardenerian tradition.
Thank you so much for having me on this podcast. My craft name is O'Lorend and I've been practicing
Gardenerian craft for over 40 years, a short time really in the scheme of things, and I hope to give
you a sense of who Gerald Gardener was, speak briefly about some of his associates, and touch
on the practice of traditional Gardenerian craft. Because our time together is so short, I'm going
to try to be concise and cover many years of history. I'll be referencing things about Gerald
Gardener and the tradition which we know, as well as other things where we can only speculate
because of the paucity of the data. In any case, I want to state at the outset that what is spoken
of here in this venue comes from many sources, and I hope that you will publish the bibliography
of referenced works on your website so that those who have greater curiosity can research
my statements for themselves. When examining the Gardenerian tradition, it's important to examine
the historical context within which our tradition arose. I'll be giving some amount of history,
which you may find extraneous, but I hope you hang in there with me as there's a method to the madness
in painting a picture of the people and events surrounding Gerald Gardener and the manifestation
of Gardenerian craft. That's great, thank you. We will make sure to link the bibliography to
the episode directly. So where do you feel we should start when it comes to the history of the craft?
First, the practice of witchcraft was illegal in England until 1951 with the passage of the
fraudulent mediums act which focused upon premeditated deception. This was updated in
2008 with the consumer protection from unfair trading regulations. In the United States,
we have a difficult time thinking about spiritual practices as being illegal,
but 70 years ago it was a different time in England. Even back into the 60s and 1970s,
you could be fired for your religious practices or have a brick thrown through your front window.
In 1542, Parliament passed the Witchcraft Act, which made it a crime to practice witchcraft
up to punishment by death. This was repealed five years later but was restored in 1562.
A further law was passed in 1604 under James I, who was obsessed with demons and evils of all sorts.
One of the things which occurred in England was the institution of governmental courts
versus church courts. This at least gave some separation between religious zealots conducting
trials and a formal governmental legal process. Witches were hanged in England, not burned as
they had been on the continent. In Scotland, witches were burned but they were strangled first,
which I'm sure gave them great solace. So someone could be convicted of witchcraft in a court and
placed in jail for a year, as well as having their property forfeited. A second conviction
could result in being sentenced to death. And what would you say is the main reason this
fear led to persecutions? What was being targeted were magical practices, the making of talismans
or charms, divination of the future, or to find what was causing ill luck, or the distribution
or prescribing of urge to treat common ailments. What really caused the authorities the greatest
fear was malefica, that is the working of negative magic to kill or harm another through magical
means, or to harm their property, crops, livestock, homes, that kind of thing. The use of magical
means to affect political structure was feared even more by those with power. These were magical
practices which they certainly did not approve of. England had, and still has, a state religion,
the Anglican Church, which was supported by the power of the monarchy. The framework that the
Church uses to views these practices was that illicit magic was the result of evil demons
deceiving the practitioner. It's all the work of the devil. Now this framing of magic goes back
in the early centuries of the Catholic Church who as they were fighting paganism cast all things
they did not approve of as the work of the devil and as evil. So think about that for a moment.
Think about how many people live in the county where you are hearing this podcast. How many
people would need to be put in jail for a year, publicly hanged, to convey the message from
authorities that what you may be doing could cause your death. Not many, I would suspect,
as bad news never waits. Good news waits, but bad news travels fast. And this would be bad news,
indeed. When did the hangings of burnings in England finally end? Janet Horne was the last
person to be killed for witchcraft in 1727. She and her daughter were imprisoned following
charges from neighbors. Witch trials continued into the 1700s. The attitude towards witchcraft
changed over time with the integration of scientific thought into elite culture so that
magic and witchcraft were seen as an irrational delusion or superstition of the common folk
rather than as a demonic plague upon society. Rationality became the order of the day,
so what was considered accomplished by magic in the past was then considered fraud, perpetrated,
by the criminal upon the unsuspecting. The gullible public then needed to be protected
from this deception by the power of the state, and so astrology, fortune-telling, or divination,
or magic in general was considered fraud. By the time Gerald Gardner comes along over 200 years
after the last execution, witchcraft was still illegal. It was just that people weren't being
killed over charges of its practice. So that's the first thing to consider the legal angle.
The second thing to consider are the actual practices, the behavior of people on the ground
and the community. After all, we have this Christian monotheistic worldview that magic is the
result of deception by the devil and that it's promulgated by the clerics, the church, and the
elite, but that's not necessarily what the people believe nor is it necessarily how they live their
everyday lives. So the second thing to focus on is the cunning craft tradition, that is, there was a
thriving practice of people making money, selling charms, conducting divination, providing magic,
and the basic health care in villages all over the British Isles. This was also occurring in cities
as well, as can be seen through the widespread popularity, for example, of astrological consultation
in metropolitan areas. It must be remembered that neither health care nor justice was widely
available in rural areas, so people just had to make do. This meant using midwives for childbirth,
going to the village cunning man or woman for herbal cures, or to discover why your milk was
souring or who the thief was who stole your sheep, to use a water witch or dowser to find the best
location to dig a well for fresh water. A great deal of this cunning craft tradition was tied
into the fairy faith, that is, the belief in spirits associated with the land in a proximal
parallel world to our own who could be accessed to gain spiritual helpers, familiars, or powers not
accessible to the common person. It was a faith rooted to relationship with these spirits to mutual
benefit. Sometimes these relationships were even passed down in families. Fairy beings were certainly
ambivalent. They could help or hurt depending upon your relationship with them, but this was also true
of the cunning person. They could blast or heal, because it always has been true that those who can
heal can always do harm, but those who can do harm cannot always heal. The belief in the fairy world
would decline with the advent of industrialization, the movement off of farms and into cities for
employment. Factory work and production takes place of agriculture for employment, and with this change
we get both the blessings and the curse of the modern world. The blessings of technology and the
labor savings it provides, along with a de-enchantment of the environment, which brings us into our current
atheistic materialistic worldview dominated by a reductionist ecological positive in science.
An economic view of the earth is something to be used and exploited as a resource,
not as a matrix of life within which we all have to live. And so it is into this transition from
the old world of agriculture and into the new world of industry that Gerald Gardner steps into
returning to England from his retirement from the Far East. How well did Gerald understand
agriculture though, coming from an industrial nation? Gerald certainly understood agriculture
from staying in the south of France to visiting the Canary Islands yearly to growing up around
the tea plantations of Ceylon, modern-day Sri Lanka, to working as a customs official in the Far East
inspecting opium shops, on rubber plantations of Borneo, and in Johor in Malaysia. So Gerald
spent many years in Borneo and Singapore. During this period he became acquainted with the
spiritualism and magic of the local populations, the Malays, the Senoys, as well as that of Borneo.
This would do him well when he returned to England for spiritualism certainly had taken root there,
and not to the liking of the clerical authorities. But times had changed with the coming of
industrialization and the church's authority while still official had lost the ability to suppress
spiritual practices it didn't like. Now when Gerald returned to England for a visit in 1927
he quickly made contact with the spiritualist community in London. It was during this visit
that Gerald met his wife Donna who was working as a nurse. What were some of the additional
influences on Gerald in relation to spiritualism? We know that in addition to his interest in
spiritualism and the magic of the Far East, Gerald met and worked with Flinders Petrie,
one of the most prominent archaeologists of the time. Gerald toured some of the sites in Egypt
and worked with Petrie for several weeks on excavations in Gaza. Petrie had been working
in the field for decades by the time Gerald met and worked with him. Petrie was conversant with
all periods of Egyptian history from the ancient pre-donastic through the medieval period. Magic
was part and parcel of Egyptian society at least until the late Roman early Christian period.
When Petrie landed in Egypt in 1879 he felt that the destruction of the ancient culture was like a
house on fire and that it was his job to salvage as much as he could. Sound familiar? This appears
to be the same impression Gerald had when encountering the witch cult in 1939. In addition
to doing archaeological field work in the Middle East is not easy work, especially for someone with
asthma. It wasn't like he could just hop into an air-conditioned cinema for relief. I often have
wondered during this period of life how depilitated he really was. You can tell by just this brief
summary that Gerald was a voraciously curious man, especially regarding the esoteric, and we
haven't even touched on Gerald's visits to Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Turkey, and Hungary,
nor have we touched on his Masonic background. It isn't as if Gerald was just dabbling on the
surface of things after all. He was conversant enough with Malay culture, for example, to have
written the definitive text on the Chris, the Chris and other Malay weapons, the Chris being a general
special Malay knife. If you read that book you quickly get the impression that Gerald was not
only familiar with the weapon and its martial uses, but he was quite familiar with its magical uses
as well. It is my suspicion that Gerald, far from being a surface observer, was in fact integrating
all of his experiences into a world view which was appreciative of the esoteric and very sensitive
to its subtleties. Now we know that Gerald considered himself a patriot, joining the Home Guard
during the Second World War, but he was also involved with the Malay state's volunteer rifles
during World War I while in the Far East. Gerald was familiar with weapons and their use. From a
Gardnerian perspective I believe that it was the local practice of magic which affected Gerald the
most, watching the Malay and Senile conducting divinations, providing healings and raising energy
through dance, understanding that the life force pervades all things and that this is the same force
which is generated from the body of the witch when working magic. I suspect that there were other
embodied traditions which Gerald ran across during his career in travels. When Gerald returned to
England in 1936, retiring at the age of 52, it's also documented that he was socializing with
accomplished authorities in many fields, such as the architect Holgar Jacobson, an expert in
historical weapons, such as the flintlock and historical knives, James Laver, an employee of
the Victorian Albert Museum, who was an expert in costume and fashion and an acquaintance of Alastair
Crowley, Cotty Burland, a curator of ethnography of the British Museum, an expert on quote-unquote
primitive art and the author of books on magic, alchemy and seasonal festivals, Alexander Keiler,
an archaeologist who helped to study and preserve the standing stones at Avebury and who founded the
Morven Institute of Archaeological Research, Jaketa Hawkes, an archaeologist who worked on digs in
Palestine and Ireland and who wrote on prehistoric Britain and in the book quote Dawn of the Gods
suggested that the Monellans may have been ruled by women, J.S.M. Ward, an authority on Chinese secret
societies, a Masonic scholar and creator of the historic Abbey Folk Park and a priest of the Old
Catholic Church and lastly Abbey Brule, an expert on prehistoric cave art. Even following his
initiation into the craft, Gerald continued to read widely. It's clear that he was familiar with
the work of Arthur Avalon, the pseudonym of Sir John Woodruff focusing on the Hindu chantras
and the work of Carl Jung and his followers focused on depth psychology as well as the work
of Plato and Platonus. This is specialized literature. It's hard going, certainly much
harder going than any Wicca 101 book that you would run across and to me Gerald was seeking
deeply for the connections between cultures and looking for the historical flow of ideas associated
with religion, myth and magic. So you have focused a lot on Gardner's history and intersection with
spiritualism through culture and through other spiritualists. Why do you feel this is important
for understanding Gardner? Why do I bother with all these details? Well it's because we get the
impression from Gerald that he quote unquote stumbled upon the witch cult in the New Forest
but clearly there is no stumbling here at all. Gerald was adventurous. He made a conscious effort
over many years to actively seek out and socialize with diverse experts in the areas he lived in.
He went out of his way to work with and get to know experts far afield. These were elites, all of them
whether in the jungle of the Far East or in the urban areas of England and Europe. This is who
Gerald was. It was part of his character, an insatiably curious fellow who was always working,
synthesizing, thinking and probably experimenting as well. He was attracted to others who were
adventurous and he lived these adventures all before he wrote any of his books. Note that we
haven't even touched on his more explored acquaintances with Alastair Crowley, Margaret Murray
and the druid Ross Nichols. These relationships too follow Gerald's pattern of seeking out experts
in their field. Gerald joined the Folklore Society in 1939 as it was involved with them for another
20 years. Gerald's interest in folklore was certainly long-standing. We also know that when
visiting England in 1928 Gerald applied for a reader's card at the British Library to study
Basque and Welsh folklore. Gerald loved sunbathing and he spent time socializing at the Speelplatz
Sun Club with Ross Nichols, the founder of the Order of Bards, Oviets and Druids. Following this
he bought an interest in the Five Acres Sun Club where he socialized with James Laver,
Cotty Berland and Arnold Crowther who were also members. Gerald's interests and social activities
were wide-ranging indeed. Because many authors focus on Gerald's late-in-life activities we are
also led to believe he was just an old, infirm and asthmatic man. And it's true that Gerald struggled
with asthma all his life. It may have been what ultimately killed him. However, we know he pushed
against its limits. I mention this because as the Second World War was approaching in 1938
Gerald was digging trenches in Hyde Park as part of the ward effort. Certainly not the work of the
infirm. Gerald and Donna relocated to Highcliff in 1938 and he was taking bicycle rides around the
area exploring. These are not the activities of an infirm man. If he could dig ditches and bicycle
around he could certainly dance around a circle. We do know that but 1947, however, Gerald's asthma
was so bad that he was having difficulty walking upstairs. And this is the Gerald that most people
focus upon. In 1940 Gerald was volunteering to be an air raid precautions warden in his new area as
part of the efforts to contribute to the war effort. Gerald wanted to join the Home Guard and was
initially rejected. Maybe because of his age. Not allowing circumstances to stop him he had made
contact with the local head of the Highcliff Home Guard and got himself recruited as an armorer.
This in violation of the regulations regarding wardens not being permitted to be armed.
From my point of view this is typical Gerald. Being proactive, reaching out to the person in
authority with expertise, forming a relationship and getting where he wanted to be. All in service
of the greater good. Now politically Gerald was a fairly conservative fellow. Interestingly Major
Frederick Fish, the local head of the Home Guard was not. But he was considered left wing supporting
the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War. But Gerald got along with him. Another trait I think
would be important to point out in Gerald's character. This is interesting. Based on what
I know of history Gerald seemed pretty fluid in terms of political association even if he was
right of center himself. What do you feel that says about him as an individual and as a practitioner?
He was what we would call a people person. He could get along with others of markedly different
political viewpoints in service of a greater goal. We will see this played out later in Gerald's life
when he was able to work with Doreen Valiente who was left of center and whose husband probably had
PTSD from action seen during the Spanish Civil War. In fact we can see the same pattern even
later in Gardinerian history with Doreen and Patricia Crowther who is conservative working
together following Gerald's death becoming friends and working in common cause supporting
the tradition they loved. I believe this is true because their spirituality drove their politics.
Their politics did not drive their spirituality and because their spirituality became front and
center they were able to get along with those with whom they differed politically. But back to Gerald.
It was in Highcliff that Gerald discovered the amateur Rosicrucian theater, attended its
performances such as a play focused on Pythagoras and met the group involved in its productions.
The members he was most attracted to were those most serious about the cult, of course.
I would expect nothing less of Gerald. Some of these were members of the Crotona Fellowship.
The Crotona Fellowship was an esoterically based group which believed in the immortality of the
soul, reincarnation and the developing of natural psychic powers of the individual
in order to make spiritual progress. These people were working class but well read.
We are talking about the Mason family, Edith Woodford Grimes called Daffoe by Gerald and most
likely the source of Gerald's initiation into the craft. Now the Mason family who moved to Highcliff
in 1922 appears to be interested in a number of esoteric movements, the first being Theosophy
which was started and popularized by Helena Blavatsky and was very popular in England and
around the world. In fact it could be argued that the Theosophical movement supported the
occult revival in England in the late 1800s and early 1900s and in addition to supporting
prominent astrologers in England such as Alan Leo who was arrested twice for fortune telling,
Walter Garnold who wrote under the name Safariel, Dane Rudjar and John Adley who founded the Urania
Trust. The Theosophical Society was set up in 1875 to study comparative religion, philosophy
and science, to explore occult laws and human powers and to foster a universal brotherhood
regardless of race, sex, caste and creed, pretty progressive for its time.
How easy or not easy was it to find these Theosophical Societies?
There were Theosophical lodges all over the world. Most major cities had one. Some small
towns had them too. They would be a safe place for free thinkers and those interested in the
esoteric to meet and discuss different world views. You could go to these lodges and hear
lectures on many topics, reincarnation, meditation, auras, and
interfaith belief, developing mystical powers, enlightened masters, exploring cosmic evolution,
astrology, tarot, Indian philosophy, Buddhism, Jainism, spiritual helpers, yoga and it goes on
and on. These lodges still provide lectures and exist today. You could do an entire podcast
on the importance of the Theosophical Society to the occult revival.
In any case, back to the Mason family who was involved with Anthrosophy, an offshoot of Theosophy
started by Rudolf Steiner in 1912 in Switzerland and is famous for its ongoing educational system,
the Waldorf schools and its agricultural theories in biodynamic farming which closely tied the
planting to the relation to the cycles of the moon and focused on our relationship with the
spiritual beings inhabiting plants. Members of the Mason family were not only interested in
Anthrosophy but also in optics, astronomy, they had a small observatory in their backyard,
and co-masonry which is a Masonic movement unlike the Grand Lodge of England,
that co-masonry admits women on equal footing as men. Masonic movements which admit women are the
majority worldwide but you wouldn't necessarily know this living in England or in America.
This is important and of personal interest to me as I am a member of a Masonic order which admits
men and women on equal footing. Now the Mason family was wealthy and established enough to
construct and dedicate a building to esoteric endeavor. They called this Beechwood Hall.
The building was 20 by 30 feet, had windows on two sides, its own kitchen and bathroom,
Beechwood served as the headquarters of a co- Masonic lodge named Harmony Lodge. Suzy Mason was
listed as the secretary of the local Theosophical Society. Her brother Ernie Mason was listed as
having joined in 1915 with his sister Suzy joining the following year. Their sister Rosetta Fudge was
also a member of the lodge from 1924 to 1933. Rosetta was clearly interested in Anthrosophy,
having the first books by Rudolf Steiner translated into English in 1910. Harmony Lodge had a quite
famous member, Annie Besant, starting out life as an atheist. She became a student of Blavatsky in
1890. Besant became president of the Worldwide Theosophical Society in 1907, at that time
headquartered in India. Annie was a socialist, co-Mason, women's right activist, campaigner for
Indian nationalism, and the author of a number of books on esoteric subjects such as the Bhagavad
Gita, Lessons on Karma, Adivaras, Thought Forms, its Control and Culture, a Study in Consciousness,
Thought Forms, Occult Chemistry, An Introduction to Yoga, Giudano Bruno, etc. Well, you get the
idea. She was prosecuted in 1877 for publishing a book by a birth control campaigner, but beyond
Theosophy, Annie Besant also started the first co-Masonic lodge in England. Although she died in
1933 prior to Gerald moving to the area, I suspect that she had quite the influence on the lodge
members and on the Mason family. For those who are unaware, Masonic bodies require for membership
the acknowledgement of the existence of a supreme being called the Grand Architect of the Universe
and leave the qualities of this being unarticulated, thereby allowing personal flexibility and
interpretation. Masonic bodies generally don't discuss politics at lodge to dissuade conflict
in the lodge. It's interesting that a political Masonic disagreement regarding the admission of
atheists into the order caused Harmony Lodge to dissociate from the British Supreme Council of
Co-Masonry, especially since Annie Besant at a young age claimed to be an atheist. As can be seen
in parallel with present-day events, mainstream politics intersecting with esoteric work causing
a split with these English co-Masons withdrawing from the larger international body and as we know,
however, the esoteric work carried on and that's the important part. It appears that Ernie Mason is
an interesting character in his own right. He was an engineer and chemist with an interest in astronomy.
Rebuilding the observatory his father had constructed in the back garden,
apparently Ernie made an 18-inch reflective telescope on his own, grinding the mirrors and
completing the mirror finish. That's pretty impressive. He was a member of the Royal
Astronomical Society and it's noted by one of his friends that Ernie would teach quote
mental exercises within a Rosicrucian context. Now we don't know exactly what that means.
His esoteric work appears to involve some type of chanting. All of his teachings were given free of
charge. Ernie was reported to have telepathic abilities to be able to materialize objects,
see auras, change the weather and walk on water. Pretty impressive, I would say. From my perspective,
though, Ernie Mason thought of himself as a quote unquote white witch belonging to a quote white
wooder and that when he passed the power he had to do so to a woman. According to Ernie the power had
to be passed man to woman and woman to man, exactly how it's done in traditional Gardnerian craft.
So these important concepts and practices were in the esoteric landscape that Gerald was enmeshed in
and they are at the core of Gardnerian craft. With all these influences and touch points then
for Gardner, who actually initiated Gardner into Gardnerian craft? Gerald's probable initiator in
the craft was Edith Woodford Grimes or Daffoe as he called her. She was certainly described as
adventurous by one of her relatives and she lived in Baldin, a town of six thousand, where it just
so happened that the head of a temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn resided as well
as a number of its members of that particular temple. We don't know if Edith had any acquaintance
with any of these members but it's certainly an interesting coincidence. One of the things we do
know is that Daffoe and Gerald had a long-standing relationship. It's speculated that it was probably
romantic and it certainly involved business dealings as Edith was involved with Gerald's
interest in the Five Acres Sun Club after the war in the late 1940s. One of their common interests
was their experience of being able to recall elements of past lives. It is speculated that
Daffoe worked with Gerald on the final manuscript of his novel A Goddess Arrives, which revolves
around reincarnation as a central theme. Philip Heselton speculates that Gerald's
acquaintance with these individuals in the New Forest influenced some of the esoteric
elements included in the novel. There is no way to know for sure, however, as documented in Gerald
Gardner Witch, it appears that other members of this group also experience memories of past lives
and of lives of being together as a group. This is the group who are called the quote New Forest
Coven from where Gerald's practices originates. How exactly they practiced we do not know. After
all, what they were doing had been illegal for many decades. We only know what Gerald has mentioned.
It's interesting, however, that Philip Heselton quotes a letter from Cecil Williamson, the owner
co-operator of the Witchcraft Museum, who writes of having met Edith Woodford Grimes during the
Second World War when he was stationed in the New Forest with his army unit. She mentioned to him
about the activities of her group and that he, Williamson, also mentions he heard of two covens
operating in the New Forest. Interesting stuff. I would say this because although I am Gardnerian,
there were others at the time practicing what they called witchcraft with sometimes very different
world views and practices while there were others with views and work more similar to Gerald.
The cunning craft traditions in England involved practitioners of folk magic in the local villages
and these practitioners were known to be able to both bless and blast, that is to heal and curse.
The world view during the time and in that place was very black and white, so much so that
practitioners might be called white witches or black witches depending upon whether they practiced
malefic magic. This black-white world view in the occult was certainly prominent through the 1960s.
Some of these other schools might be called, quote, traditional witchcraft as they involve
satanic practices while others might be called Luciferian, but discussing these streams are
beyond the scope of this particular podcast. It should be said clearly that Gardnerian practice
does not involve working with Satan as we see this as following a Christian framework which is at odds
with our pagan outlook, but following Gerald's bursting on the scene the esoteric world has not
been the same since. Gerald was initiated a few days after the start of World War II
in the Mill House, the home of Dorothy Clutterbuck who is called Old Dorothy, where he first
encountered the term Wicca. Now it has been speculated that Old Dorothy was Gerald's initiator
into the craft, but I believe that Philip Heselton using information attained by Doreen Valiente who
spoke with Gerald on these points that Gerald was actually initiated by Daffoe, Edith Woodford-Grimes,
and that the house was borrowed from Old Dorothy Clutterbuck for the purpose. And although Old
Dorothy may not have been present at Gerald's initiation, her writing indicates she clearly
had an affinity with nature and the world of Faerie. Another member of the group that Gerald
was socializing with was Rosamunde Sabine, known as Mother Sabine. In 1905 she applied to be a
member of the quote rectified rite, an offshoot of the Golden Dawn started by A.E. Waite after
the collapse of the larger body. The original Golden Dawn was a hermetic ceremonial magic group
which included Samuel Mallard's, Alastair Crowley, Violet Firth who you may know as Dion Fortune,
and W.B. Yeats. The Golden Dawn, like co-masonry, accepted women on equal footing as men.
This was unusual for the times. The rectified rite only lasted until 1915 when it was closed
due to political infighting. She was certainly familiar enough with the Rose Cross layman of
the Golden Dawn to write an article about it. This implies that she was an initiate of some type of
esoteric order. Rosamunde Sabine had joined the Society for Psychical Research in 1900.
This interest in esoteric work apparently followed through the rest of her life. She also seemed to
have had an interest in astrology. Rosamunde lived very close to High Cliff on Sea at the edge of the
New Forest and it is clear that Gerald had some level of contact with her, having inherited some
of her herbal cabinets and a 1684 copy of Culpepper's herbal following her death.
I say these things because the esoteric world is very small. Even before the internet everyone
knew everyone else. These are small social circles. They were certainly much smaller
in the 1930s when most lived and died within a few miles of their birth. Gerald and Mother Sabine
certainly lived close enough to each other. Back then as today there is often an overlapping
interest in the esoteric. It would not have been unusual to be interested in theosophy,
comasonry, folklore and magic and participate in the activities of a few groups at the same time.
The same is true today where you meet different folks at a meetup or a moot for example,
share ideas, theories and practices on the esoteric and then introduce those who you think are
compatible to social circles where they would be welcomed. Interestingly the Sabines owned a rather
substantial house with a large secluded garden. I can tell you from personal experience that it's
possible to hold sky-clad gatherings in a private well-sculpted garden located in suburban Philadelphia
with homes closer than you think. If it is possible in this day and age I have no doubt it would have
been possible for the Sabines to hold gatherings on their property should they have chosen.
As has been remarked by Gareth Medway it is odd that such a small place as Highcliff
and Christchurch turned out to be a hotbed of the esoteric as he states,
Within a few miles there were astrologers, spiritual healers,
Rosicrucians, the Order of Melchizedek, a spiritualist mission and a witch-coven."
We don't know why Highcliff ended up being such a magnet for those interested in the esoteric.
It certainly was and is a favored place to retire given its location between the coast and the
forest. It could have been chance which favored this constellation of personalities and interests
or if you believe in the gods it may have been fate. But this is where Gerald found the Wicca.
From what Gerald has written it appears that there was a quote old coven established in the area.
We would have expected that they were below ground so to speak as their activities would have been
illegal in the recent past. As the nature of the esoteric however, those with unusual interests
and who ask questions deeper than the mainstream tend to find each other.
When Gerald found the Wicca was it a group of individuals who had these differing interests
such as theosophy and commasonry as you mentioned or were they different people?
Where did they come from? On one of Gerald's articles, New Light on Witchcraft, he quoted
people that he knows who speak of their grandparents telling them of having attended meetings over a
hundred years prior. We now know that Gerald has stated that he came from a hereditary coven.
Who these hereditary witches were exactly we don't know. It could have been members of the Mason
family. It could have been his initiator. It could have been Rosamund Sabine as Philip Ezleton
has suggested. Gerald maintained that the witches he knew spoke of family magical activities such
as dissuading Bonaparte from invading England in 1803-1804. This hereditary part is important
because it speaks to the importance of family. Passing down information and knowledge from
generation to generation. In fact it is the passing down of working knowledge and information,
doing things and knowing why you are doing them that constitutes tradition. I say this to contrast
it with custom. A custom is where we do things but we don't know why we do them. Tradition can move
to a custom and move back again if the understanding is recovered or a tradition is born if a new
understanding is used to organize the practice of the group. Now Gerald was certainly a controversial
figure. He finds this group, becomes initiated into the Wicca and in his enthusiasm immediately
wants to start to publicize it. He wanted to write books and later give interviews. This on a topic
which was recently illegal. The people he associated with were certainly not shy but they didn't want
their activities broadcast to where they would be attracting unwanted attention. When he proposed
this it was initially rejected but he was permitted to first write about the craft in a fictional form
in High Magic's Aid, his novel, and he was finally allowed to write non-fiction accounts
in Witchcraft Today published in 1954 and the meaning of Witchcraft published in 1959.
For those interested in Gartnerian Craft there is no better place to start than these two works.
Nothing is wasted. I often recommend when starting to study the craft that you read them. After you
become initiated read them again. If you are elevated read them again. Gerald hides gems in
plain sight. For example in the meaning of Witchcraft gems are scattered placed in the
middle of a paragraph and then Gerald moves on as if they were of no consequence. This is Gerald's
style hiding things in plain sight just as he talks about witch beliefs by putting them in the words
of Morven and High Magic's Aid. One of the frequent mistakes I see initiates make is to read these
works once when they are training and to never pick them up again. They are well worth referring
back to. That said we know that Gerald's likely initiator was not pleased with his activities
publicizing the craft and the people he chose to bring in. Gerald often initiated people through
his intuitive sense of fit for the craft. Actually the word he used was not fit it was sympathy.
A wonderfully magical term with a an interesting occult pedigree. Far be it from me to criticize
Gerald's decisions and while I understand his motivation in wanting to rescue what he saw as
a dying cult from extinction using intuition to guide major decisions can be useful. It can also
lead to dreadful mistakes. Gerald certainly made dreadful mistakes in initiating people who were
unsavory and who bought negative publicity on the craft most likely alienating his initiator
and past colleagues. On that note we will end part one of this episode Understanding Gerald Gardner.
In part two we will discuss traditional Gardnerian Wicca beliefs and tenets which continues our
conversation with High Priest O'Lauren. Thank you for listening and we hope you have enjoyed this podcast.