Gerald Gardner: Witch

by J.L. Bracelin

Biography of Gerald Gardner. This book is attributed to Jack L. Bracelin, but was actually written by Idries Shah.

Genres: Nonfiction, Wicca

Paperback

First published September 1, 1999

Reviews

[Matal “The Mischling Princess” Baker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Delving deep into the life and thought processes of Gerald Brosseau Gardner means reading every book about and by him, so I read “Gerald Gardner: Witch.” Although this book is supposed to have been written by J.L. Bracelin, a number of people now believe that it was more likely written by Idries Shah.

First published in 1960, it is clear to me that Idries Shah was indeed the author. How did I come up with this assessment? The numerous references to “Palestine” where “Israel”—a UN-recognized nation since 1948—should appear. Although Shah may have been friendly with Gardner, and I don’t doubt it, he was still a product of his raising; he was a British-Afghani Muslim scholar (born in British India) born in 1924. And, according to many people in the Middle East even today, if you simply ignore something (i.e., Israel) and refuse to name it, well..then it therefore ceases to exist…right??? Wrong.

This type of thinking was not limited to Shah, but also infected his daughter, who, in 2004, wrote and produced “Death in Gaza”—a place where her family has no known lineage. In short, Shah and so many other people who actually have zero ties to either Palestine or Israel are so obsessed with Jews that they are willing to go to extraordinary lengths to whitewash an entire nation. And, in doing so, they are revealing their own intellectual immaturity.

Authors like Shah in 1960 or even Ronald Hutton in 2017 seem to have not caught on that—after twelve years and sixty-nine years, respectively—despite their ongoing self-inflicted mind game of, “I say not its name, so therefore it doesn’t exist,” has been an utter failure. Why? Because **everyone** knows that Israel exists as a country, these authors’ inability to do something as simple as name a country in writing reveals their own deeply entrenched biases and discrimination. And anyone who’s invested in writing history who finds themselves incapable of setting aside their discriminatory biases—at least temporarily—has no business writing history in the first place. “But everyone is biased!” you’re saying. Yes! ALL humans have both inherent biases and discriminations. But as scholars, we are trained to at least **try** to temporarily set them aside, and if we can’t do that, then we need to investigate why we have them in the first place.

No self-respecting terrorist—be they Jewish, Christian, or Muslim—would be caught dead (literally and figuratively) with a book expounding the joys of witchcraft in their possession. And Shah, even though he was not a terrorist, likely felt the same, hence his insistence on using the pseudonym (i.e., Jack L. Bracelin) of a man who was-then part of Wicca (though he later left) rather than using his own name. So, why did Shah decide to write this in the first place? I have my own suspicions, but only the heavens know for certain.

Gardner began traveling abroad when he was just four years old under the guardianship of his au pair, Josephine “Com” McCombie. After Com’s marriage, the sixteen-year-old Gardner traveled and lived throughout Southeast Asia. It was here (e.g., Ceylon, Borneo, Singapore Malaysia, etc.) that Gardner opened his eyes to the reality that humans have psychic experiences.

When Gardner ended up with synovitis (inflammation) in his knee, he was hospitalized. Not long after, he discovered that he couldn’t straighten his leg. Though filled with despair, he saw the beautiful weather outside, and he got a nurse to wheel him outside. He recovered. From this life-changing situation, Gardner became an advocate for outdoor nudity. It is through this and other life experiences that Gardner began to embrace the idea of Wicca as a religion. Luckily for Gardner, he was able to retire at the young age of fifty-two and returned to England.

This biography was written while Gardner was still alive, and approximately half of it focuses on his childhood and particularly on his early adulthood in foreign countries.

Unfortunately, instead of dispelling untruths (e.g., that Gardner was an academic), Shah actually tried to lend weight to these false claims. He also consistently referred to Wicca as “the Cult.” After having previously read other autobiographies of early Wiccans, and particularly their admissions regarding Gardner’s ongoing flirtations with the press, I had to laugh when I read the following quote that Shah attributed to Gardner:

“…Genuine magicians (by which Gardner means those who do not seek publicity, followers, or money) are difficult to meet, even more difficult to get on easy terms with: for they really need nothing from others…” p 215

Overall, this was an interesting biography, but Shah’s failings—including those issues not listed above—reduce this book to, at least in my opinion, another method to inculcate a book that has absolutely nothing to do with Shah’s sociopolitical goals.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great read to see what Gardner did in the early years. I enjoyed learning about his young life in Sri Lanka, Borneo, and then Malaysia more that I thought I would. It's really amazing how much time he spent there, virtually from childhood. It all contributed to the knowledgeable person who arrived in Britain in the 1930s. The hard work and persistence he endured to get witchcraft where it is in the Western world certainly shows here. We really must thank him for all that work. Say what you will about Wicca, it may not be as ancient as some say, but it does work, and that's how traditions begin.