Modern Wicca: A History From Gerald Gardner to the Present

by Michael Howard

An insider's look at the history of Witchcraft The evolution of Wicca is as dynamic and colorful as the Witches who helped shape it. One of the most enigmatic and progressive practitioners of his time, Gerald Gardner was arguably the most instrumental Witch in spreading the Craft around the world. Drawing on his decades of personal involvement with Wicca, Michael Howard offers an intimate portrait of Gerald Gardner's life and traces the history and development of modern neo-pagan Witchcraft. Howard reveals little-known facts and stories surrounding the men and women who shaped Wicca over the past sixty years, including Aleister Crowley, Alex Sanders, and influential initiates such as Doreen Valiente. From the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft on the Isle of Man to the origins of the Book of Shadows, Modern Wicca tracks the expansion of Wicca as it spread from the United Kingdom to the United States and beyond-and takes you inside the political controversies, behind-the-scenes rivalries, and once-guarded secrets of pagan ritual, Wiccan spells, and the Craft of the Wise.
"This is an extremely important book, representing an account of Wiccan history from somebody who has himself been a major actor in it."―Ronald Hutton, author of The Triumph of the Moon

Genres: Wicca, Nonfiction, Religion, History, Witchcraft, Spirituality, Paganism

360 pages, Paperback

First published December 15, 2009

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Michael Howard (United Kingdom) was the editor of The Cauldron magazine from 1976 to his death in 2015. He has written numerous articles for other occult and neo-pagan magazines and since the 1970s has had over thirty-five books published on the runes, witchcraft, angelic magic, folklore, herbal remedies, and occult parapolitics.

Reviews

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had just finished Philip Heseleton's exhaustive two-volume biography, "Witchfather - a Life of Gerald Gardner," and I was looking for a book in the same vein, that would fill in the rest of the story from Gardner's death to the present. I found such a book here. Howard, a long-time occultist and editor of "The Cauldron," an influential magickal periodical, has met and known many of the principles in Wicca's rapid spread around the globe over the last five decades, and tells the tale in this well written and absorbing history. This book is not sentimental or misleading about the nasty infighting, jockying for influence, and suspected chicanery that went into assembling the basic elements of what we know as modern Wicca. People like Alex Sanders and his lovely wife Maxine are unsparingly portrayed here (Howard uses the stinging term "Media Witch" when necessary), and the story takes on a Keystone Cops aspect at times as the show-biz ambitions, back-biting and dubious claims of "hereditary" legitimacy of various Wiccan founders become all too apparent. The transition of Wicca from its somewhat wild magickal beginnings, with naked witches scourging each other to raise a cone of power in the English woods, hoping to scotch Hitler's plans for invasion (and some say it worked), to the feminist, eco-centered mother earth religion it has largely become in the USA is recounted in detail. While not a definitive history, I can recommend this book as providing a significant piece of the puzzle, especially when read in conjunction with Heselton, with Margo Adler's "Drawing Down the Moon," and with Ronald Hutton's "Triumph of the Moon." Good book and a useful reference.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a really long, detailed look at the whole Wicca phenomenon which took off in the 1990s, but had its roots in ... the 1950s. This was written by a Gardnerian, or Old School Wiccan, who became a Wiccan the year I was born, 1969. Howard is also right-wing and has very definite views on what and who should be practicing witchcraft.

Practicing witchcraft ... because there's no way you can master it, because magic (no matter how you spell it) doesn't exist. That's not Howard's view -- that's a mine.

Full disclosure -- I was a Wiccan/Pagan for about 10 years (although I was having a lotta doubts the last two years.) I'm now an atheist. Before all that, I was raised a Born Again Christian, then became a "don't give a fuck"-ist.

Anyway, I thought I'd read this for auld lang syne. This was certainly a LOT different from the Wiccan books available at my conversion (or whatever it's called now) in 1999. Those books had a highly romanticized view of the Craft, which was described as the oldest religion in the world. Gerald Gardner was a hero, etc.

This book kicks all that where it belongs -- in the rubbish. Wiccan was made up from Masonic-type rituals with nudity by British civil servant Gerald Gardner in the 1950s. He basically lied about most everything, as did his followers or usurpers. This isn't a book of witches so much as a book about bitches. The soap opera of who stabbed who in the back is arguably the best part of the book.

The book centers on UK Wicca, but does mention Wicca in other countries. American readers might be surprised that most popular Wiccan authors, except for Margot Adler, are given little mention. It was funny to see that the prolific Silver RavenWolf had only ONE book listed in the Bibliography, Teen Witch, and Howard clearly despised it, since he believed that only adults should practice Magick.

I used to have a very little joke that Wicca was not an organized religion by any means, but one reason why I eventually left is because it was getting organized. And if you're not witchy enough, you're on the outside.

This book was NOT written for non-Wiccans. There's a lot of slang and terms that are never defined. Again, you have to be in the inside in order to "get it".

[Anna Hepworth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sweeping history of modern Wicca, from the early publicity in the 1940s to the situation at the time of publication (c. 2009). And while I can respect that Howard knows the area, and has an insider's understanding and respect for the movement, what he doesn't have is a clear narrative. Nor, I suspect, a competent editor. The story is large and rambling, and unfortunately, the write up of it is as well. In some ways, it reads as a first draft outline for some rambling high fantasy trilogy, with witches involving themselves in the protection of Great Britain in WWII, and the diaspora, the infighting, the rewriting, and the politics of whose story is the true story.

While I have no objection to the same information coming up in different places, by the third or fourth time I saw a rephrase of the same information two paragraphs later, I was being less than tactful in my thoughts on either the writing or the editor. And the acronyms! argh. I suspect that there are over a hundred of them through out the book, although that might just be due to the liberal sprinkling of them on the majority of pages. Howard has very diligently written them out in full the first time they are encountered, and then not done so again. Which is okay (sometimes) in a short article, but in a full length book, I kept running across acronyms that had no meaning, and was unable to find their first use in order to determine which was which. This was further complicated by similarities between them - there was almost certainly more than one "Order of the ...", and I've no idea which was which.

I've come out of this with an understanding of the ways that the media representation has changed over time, of the acceptability of the early practices to many of the later recruits, and of the changes in the way that recruiting/initiation/etc has changed. There are probably some names that I'll recognise as being part of this context when I encounter them again. What I don't have is any idea of the details. I gave up trying to keep track of which group was involved in which bit of publicity or in-fighting, which sects followed which subset of the pagan pantheon, or which groups accepted other pagan groups, vs those that had the One True Way.

More to that, Howard gives the impression of attempting to be dispassionate and objective, with the end result that he neither naysays nor agrees with any of the spiritual or religious statements that he presents. For someone who makes great pains to be clear that he is a believer, I would find this more believable if he gave evidence of ownership of any of the beliefs. Especially when I consult the bibliographies at the end, and see the long list of wiccan texts that he has published.

On the other hand, this book does do a good job of dragging in a large amount of information, and presenting it in a rough sequential order. The bibliography of books referenced through the text is long, and gives the impression of being quite comprehensive. I imagine that it would be a good starting point for someone interested in a thorough understanding of the history of this movement. As for me, I only wanted a superficial understanding, and that is what I got. I would rather not have had to wade through some of the more stolid prose, but it is certainly no drier than some of the more academic* texts I have read in recent years.

* by which I mean texts that I have read specifically for classes/courses, rather than making a value judgement on the writer.

[Andrew Ceyton · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently also started 'Witchcraft for Tomorrow' by Doreen Valiente and some of the paragraphs in this book feel wholy lifted. That said, it is well traveled territory and difficult to have a fresh view of. I enjoyed this book but felt that the last 30 years were rushed through. It is important to speak on how Wicca's lack of cohesion help leave neopagans vulnerable to the New Age to Alt-right pipeline.

[Amanda · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars rounded down, to be revised when I read Hutton. Review to be completed shortly.

The book definitely would have benefited from better editing. The chapters should have had subheadings. The book really would have benefited from an index, and a timeline would have been amazing. While chairs could have been edited out (the invention of the internet, for one.) The ink smears when wet, which especially frustrates me.

[Carli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book very informative and useful when I read it several years ago. I was pleased with the author's presentation of the subject, especially the way he covered multiple facets of the topic. I learned a great deal that I had not known previously. I would recommend this book.