Mogg says:
So for example his group may have used material from for example "The Key of Solomon"
but this doesn't tell you whether he bought the book in the 1940s
or the book was known and used by witches before then -
recent books underline the fact that witches or cunning men & women did exist in the 19th century,
they were literate and used material from the Grimoires -
so you cannot establish whether Gardner introduced this material or it was already extant from an earlier time within his initiating coven?
To take the Key of Solomon example, it still might be possible to get at these questions, if one were to compare Gardner's work to the Mathers editions to the others floating around (such as the Sibly editions copied in John Denley's shop). I don't know what the results would be, but perhaps further work would make this clearer.
Thanks,
Dan
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From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of mandrake [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Thursday, November 25, 2010 5:22 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Fortean Times Review of Ten Years of Triumph of the Moon
Sam et al
I agree there is nothing wrong with wicca being a new religion - although the foundation myth or account if you like, is that
he was initiated by a pre-existing coven - it is this that RH gathered or some would say selected evidence to disprove
(hence the accusation of debunking) - the issue reopened by subsequent evidence based research,
principally by Philip Heselton (Wiccan Roots) -
Its not really about tracing Wicca back to the stone ages (that another matter : )
purely about tracing it pre-1940s -
and whether his supposed initiator really existed and could have been a witch . . .
which is not a particularly outrageous claim and the evidence is there although one could assume
GG's was a patholgical liar and that he must have made it up -
but there again couldn't you assume that any historical
account is a lie for reasons unknown - but there is no compelling reason to think GG was telling a "platonic lie" ?
So for example his group may have used material from for example "The Key of Solomon"
but this doesn't tell you whether he bought the book in the 1940s
or the book was known and used by witches before then -
recent books underline the fact that witches or cunning men & women did exist in the 19th century,
they were literate and used material from the Grimoires -
so you cannot establish whether Gardner introduced this material or it was already extant from an earlier time within his initiating coven?
That's the sort of issues as I understand them - hence where we started with the new book "The Trials of the Moon" -
which I've not seen but presumably raises this kind of thing although as already
said with a certain amount of what Private Eye called "Colman Balls" or PsychoBabble : )
bb/93
Mogg
PS: On Amado Crowley - there is of course some overlap between Wicca & Thelema -
I have been in s everal Thelemic groups that added the
essentially wiccan cycle of feasts for
The Wheel of the Year
PPS: Academic v Practitioners in study of witchcraft and magick? Depends on the area - though maybe the current trend is for the primacy
of the practitioner perspective - especially in areas of Theology, meaning and best practice. Previous research often flawed because it ignored contemporary practice.
Other areas of research have in the past been practitioner driven - ie Hegelianism, Marxism, Kabbalah etc -
hence a professor of philosophy at Harvard was tutored in Hegelianism by his bank manager - an amateur scholar at a time when academia had lost
interest in the topic
-
TOTM again. Hutton marshals an impressive amount of research and details to support his positions and is careful not to overstate his conclusions. And, after reading it, Aidan Kelly's book, and the various texts that both argue that Gardner drew upon, I agree with them that the overwhelming balance of probabilities is that Gardner and associates, particularly Doreen Valiente, created a new religion.
So what? New religions are literally created each and every day. What is more interesting is the meanings created for and by practitioners of this one, the way it has worked to accumulate cultural capital (particularly for women and for sexual minorities, to some extent also for ecologically minded people), its growth and differentiation. Wicca, and to a lesser extent the other neo-Paganisms, is a post-modern religion, an interesting bird. This interest is something I fear the critics of Hutton miss.
Blessed Be and 93,
Sam Wagar MA (and 3rd degree)
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