The jury did not accept this explanation, and as a result the Cardells lost the case and were forced to pay all the costs. In 1968, Charles Cardell was back in court, where he was found guilty of circulating defamatory statements about the firm of lawyers who had defended the Evening News and its reporter. As a result, he was declared bankrupt and the Cardells had to sell off some of the land and the house at Dumbledene. In 1970, Doreen Valiente reported that Mary Cardell was reduced to living in a caravan on the grounds of their former estate. Although she was still loyal to her “brother” she was also a “very unhappy woman.” In September 1972, Valiente took a bus from her home in Brighton and made a secret trip to Dumbledene. In her notebook she wrote that she saw Charles Cardell in a shed near the house, chopping wood. The house itself looked “neglected, and in need of a coat of paint.”
Doreen Valiente is supposed to have owned a copy of The Book of Atho, which was Cardell’s equivalent of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows. On the front cover was a trident, the symbol of the first witches’ coven founded in the Water City, or the lost continent of Atlantis. Other symbols in the book included the Witches’ Pyramid and the Eight Paths of Magick, possibly borrowed from Gardner’s BoS. These were represented as a crescent moon, a bell, an alchemical sigil, a chalice, a trident, a spoon, a scourge, and a Hand of Glory (a candlestick made from the mummified hand of an executed criminal). These eight symbols were also associated with a secret handshake and password used in the coven. Other symbols used in the Atho tradition were a key, a lantern, the sun, the waxing and waning moon, a star, and a crown.
When I was initiated into Gardnerian Wicca in 1969, the general consensus was that Charles Cardell was a complete fake who made up the story about his mother being a witch. However, the account of the famous ritual in the wood does sound like a traditional form of witchcraft. Recently someone associated with a surviving group practicing the Atho tradition claimed it originated with Ray Howard. He then passed it on to the Cardells. Ironically some of the Coven of Atho material is supposed to have entered Gardnerian Wicca. This was possibly through Doreen Valiente or Stella Truman, or direct from Ray Howard to Eleanor Bone, as her BoS contained some of its rituals. These were passed to her initiates Madge Worthington and Arthur Eaglen of the Whitecroft Gardnerian tradition. They appeared in their BoS under the title of “The Rites of Atho” (pers. comm. to author).
Chapter Nine
New Witch Blood
Following the adverse publicity the Brickett Wood Coven received in 1957, and the split from it by the breakaway group led by Doreen Valiente and Ned Grove, matters became even worse. In January 1957, The People newspaper continued its attack on Wicca. An article was published that not only named several of the coven’s members, but also gave their addresses and occupations. It also revealed the location of the covenstead at the witches’ cottage at Five Acres, with accompanying photographs. The article said that the building was registered as the “Ancient British Church.” In fact it was being used for witch meetings involving “dancing naked and the worship of sex.” The article added that all the people interviewed by the newspaper who belonged to the cult “showed every sign of believing in this disgraceful rubbish about gods of fertility.”
As a result of this latest exposé, Thelma Capel lost her job as a secretary after reporters from other papers following up the original story besieged her office. Both she and another woman named in the exposé were forced into hiding, leaving Jack Bracelin to fend off the media pack. Although Gardner had not been named or mentioned in the article, he decided to leave the country for a while. The continuing interest in the coven by various newspapers meant that the witches’ cottage was temporarily abandoned as a meeting place. On Hallowe’en 1959, three cars full of reporters turned up with a large mobile searchlight mounted on a lorry, “looking for the witches.” The police had to be called by the coven to get rid of them (Valiente 1989: 74–75).
When Thelma Capel eventually emerged from hiding and Gardner decided it was safe enough to return to England, he began passing on the letters he was receiving at the witchcraft museum from interested enquirers. He told her to initiate as many people as possible because, despite all the publicity the Craft had received and the public interest in it, he still believed it might die out. Gardner also decided to initiate some of the enquirers himself, some of whom, like Olive Greene, the Brickett Wood Coven had already rejected as they thought they were unsuitable. As a result, several High Priestesses and at least three High Priests became Wiccans in the late 1950s and early 1960s. New covens were also established in Scotland, Yorkshire, South London, and eventually in the United States.
Professor Ronald Hutton has claimed that the instigation of this new policy meant that the emerging Wiccan movement became chaotic and confused. He says even Gardner’s closest associates lost track of the number of new initiates he was introducing into the Craft. Professor Hutton quotes a letter in the Wiccan Church of Canada’s collection in Toronto written in 1962, possibly by Lois Bourne, criticizing Gardner for starting new covens across the country “in the hope they would turn out well, without real monitoring or support of the results.” The letter writer said that half of these had either disbanded or she had lost contact with them and there were others she knew nothing about (Hutton 1999: 251).
The Aquarian Press published Gerald Gardner’s second nonfiction book, The Meaning of Witchcraft, in February 1959. Basically it was a sequel to Witchcraft Today and used some of the material that, due to space reasons, had not been included in the earlier book. Philip Heselton summed it up by saying: “… the amount of material that Gardner claims came directly from the witches is severely limited, and the bulk of the book is compiled from the wealth of information that he had been collecting, albeit in a disorganized way, about the history of witchcraft.” Heselton described it as “more of the same,” and for that reason it did not achieve the same sales as Witchcraft Today. However, he added that the new book did provide insights into the witch cult that were still worth reading fifty years on, and for that reason it was of historical interest (February 2009).
The Meaning of Witchcraft was heavily influenced by the now widely discredited theories of Dr. Margaret Murray. It featured chapters on the alleged Stone Age origins of witchcraft, druidism, and the “Aryan Celts,” witchcraft in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times, and the Old Gods of Britain. These chapters were evidently designed to give some kind of historical background to modern Wicca, which by the late 1950s and its divorce from the now defunct New Forest Coven was sadly lacking. There was also a chapter in the book on the Black Mass, and three chapters dealing with the allegations about Gardner and Wicca in the newspapers. These chapters had been compiled by Doreen Valiente and were written in 1955 and 1956. Valiente said she collaborated on The Meaning of Witchcraft with Gardner before she left the Brickett Wood Coven in 1957. She persuaded him to include the chapters debunking the newspaper stories so that his side of the story could be told.
Philip Heselton has suggested that Gardner may have at first submitted the finished manuscript of The Meaning of Witchcraft to Rider & Co. (pub. February 1959). This would seem logical as it is common practice in British publishing for authors to be contractually obliged to offer any new work to their existing publisher. Heselton has said that Gerald Yorke was an editorial advisor at Rider in 1954 and he had dismissed Witchcraft Today as “a thoroughly bad book” (letter to Cecil Williamson dated April 11, 1958, in the MOW archive). Perhaps he was the editor at Rider who was responsible for rejecting the new manuscript from Gardner, and this time they took notice of his advice.
One of Gardner’s new male initiates in the late 1950s was Charles Clark (1930–2002). He was a former Anglo-Catholic who worked as a linesman for the GPO (General Post Office) in Saltcoats, Ayrshire, on the west coast of Scotland. When they met in the 1990s, Clark told Melissa Seims that he was initiated by Gardner and his wife Donna (even though it has always been sa
id she was not involved in the Craft) at their house in Malew Street, Castletown (Seims May 2005). However, Clark also claimed that his grandfather had practiced witchcraft.
After his initiation, Clark started his own coven with Gardner’s blessing. Its members included a library assistant, several students from Glasgow University, a butcher, an artist, and a nurse. Meetings were held when Clark’s wife was out of the house, as she did not take part. He told her that he was having a Masonic meeting and she would go out with their two children. Gardner sometimes attended these witch meetings when he came over from the Isle of Man. Because there were no commercial suppliers of witch tools, Gardner made them for the coven (Seims August 2006).
Charles Clark took on the role of secretary for Gardner answering some of the enquiries received at the museum from people wanting to know more about Wicca or join covens. At one stage he was getting over a hundred letters a week to answer. Oddly, considering her estrangement from the Brickett Wood Coven, Clark was also in correspondence with Doreen Valiente, as she wrote to him after Gardner’s death in 1964 when Charles Cardell published his book Witch. As we have seen, he was also in contact with Llewellyn Publications and sent them copies of the ritual documents written by Gardner.
Another of his correspondents was Anton Miles, an ex-member of the Brickett Wood Coven. He had been initiated in 1959 and then emigrated to Australia. Miles appears to have inherited his parent coven’s flair for publicity, and in 1961 gave an interview to a newspaper in Sydney. In it he was described as “the head witch of Australia.” He told the paper he had arrived in the country after traveling through the Middle East and Asia, where he had studied magic and the occult, and become a Buddhist monk. The newspaper article described how his Australian coven danced nude around an altar to the accompaniment of music from a record-player while incense burned. They also practiced a type of pagan marriage where the couple had to jump naked over a broomstick. According to Miles, the Sydney witches worshipped the Greek goat god Pan and the Roman moon goddess Diana.
At the time, Australia had its own homegrown form of traditional witchcraft as practiced by the controversial bohemian artist Rosaleen “Roi’” Norton (1917–1979), and allegedly introduced by early British colonists. She was an eccentric and colorful character who wore skin-tight leopard skin trousers and earrings in the shape of bats. She was physically striking to look at, as her hair was cut short, and she had slanted eyes, pointed ears, and prominent teeth. Norton told people she possessed two small blue dots on the skin behind her left knee. These were the “Devil’s mark,” and she could also see in the dark like a cat (Valiente 1973: 25). Because of their occult and erotic content Rosaleen Norton’s paintings often attracted the attention of the authorities. The police vice-squad raided her exhibitions several times and she found herself in court charged with displaying obscene items.
In 1958, a Sydney newspaper published an interview with Gerald Gardner at his apartment in Shepherd’s Bush, West London. The article described him as “the boss of witches,” and said he had been corresponding with Rosaleen Norton. Gardner was quoted as saying: “During her trial—for obscenity, I think they called it—Witch Norton wrote and implored us to keep her from prison. Through magical means witches all over Britain came to her aid. Prayers and dances were held almost nightly. Finally the trial verdict in Sydney was known. Witch Norton escaped from prison” (The People March 5, 1958).
Doreen Valiente told her friend Leslie Roberts, an ex-gossip columnist for a British national newspaper and a private investigator, about Gardner’s contact with Rosaleen Norton and that she had sent him a copy of one of her books of artwork. Roberts loved traveling and in 1959 got a job as a waiter on a cruise liner. The ship stopped at Sydney, where Roberts visited Norton and was initiated into her coven. Roberts said the rituals they practiced were similar in some ways to Wicca, but also different in many ways. They used the word “consurier” for a first degree initiate, which Valiente claimed was derived from an old Welsh word for a ‘“wise woman” or “cunning man,” although it sounds more like French. Norton also gave her British initiate a copy of an address to the candidate used during the initiation ritual. On his return to England, Roberts passed this on to Valiente. She gave a copy to a Gardnerian High Priestess and so it found its way into Wicca (1989: 154–157).
In 1961, Charles Clark wrote to Gerald Gardner to tell him he had helped to establish new covens in Glasgow, Perth, and Saltcoats. He also planned to start up others in Fife and Edinburgh, although Melissa Seims does not believe this ever happened. Clark was supposed to have resigned from Wicca around 1961, and wrote to Charles Cardell asking to join his Coven of Atho, although Seims says his involvement did not actually end until the 1970s. Clark told Seims he had become disillusioned with Wicca as things had changed, people had become obsessed with fame and fortune, and the old loyalties to each other (which in reality probably never existed) had been disappearing. He was concerned that the Wica (as he spelled it) were losing sight of their original goals and their unity of purpose, and this was causing the movement to fragment (Seims May 2005). However, he was still in contact with both Gardner and his new initiate Lois Bourne. They visited Glasgow and carried out the initiation of new members, who would then be sent rituals by post (letter from Lois Bourne to Gardner dated April 11, 1961, in the MOW archive).
In 1959, a futile attempt was made to heal the rift between the Brickett Wood Coven and the rebels who had split away from it over the publicity issue and the Craft Laws. It was arranged that those who had left would meet up with the members of the current coven for a joint midsummer ritual. This was to be held outdoors at the Rollright stone circle on the border of Warwickshire and Oxfordshire. Unfortunately this attempt at reconciliation did not go as planned and it led to them all falling out again (letter from Lois Bourne to Gerald Gardner dated June 29, 1959, in MOW archive).
The High Priestess of the Brickett Wood Coven fell in love with a member of the Five Acres Naturist Club, and they then relocated to the United States. Lois Bourne (née Pearson) had written to Gerald Gardner, along with hundreds of other enquirers, at the museum. However, unlike the others, she was invited to meet him at his London apartment. She described him as looking “unruly” (with “startlingly white hair, piercing blue, twinkling eyes and a grey goatee beard”). He had “the faint tan of someone who had spent years in the tropics, but his skin was strangely unlined for someone of his mature years.” His face, however, was thin, and his cheeks looked sunken. There were several rings on his fingers engraved with magical sigils and a bracelet on his wrist. He was wearing a baggy suit made of green-flecked tweed, and carpet slippers (Bourne 1998: 17–18).
In October 1958, the famous television presenter John Freeman interviewed Gerald Gardner on the BBC current affairs program Panorama. It was a few days before Hallowe’en when the British media traditionally become interested in witchcraft and modern witches. Freeman did not take the subject seriously and asked Gardner if he performed Black Masses and took part in sex orgies. A female witch named “Tanith” was also interviewed on the program. She sat in shadow with a thick veil covering her head and face. This was in fact Gardner’s new initiate Lois Bourne. In 1960, the Sunday Express newspaper described her as a twenty-nine-year-old housewife, and a member of a secret cult that met to worship a god and goddess of fertility.
Lois Bourne later left the Brickett Wood Coven after becoming friendly with another member, Monica English, who belonged to a traditional pre-Gardnerian “old coven” in Norfolk. English had joined the Hertfordshire coven, like several other traditional witches, to find out what Gardner and his followers were doing. She did not have a very high opinion of Wicca and believed that Gardner knew nothing about the real secrets of the Craft. Bourne has described how Monica English would participate in rituals at the witches cottage, and her wild calls attracted owls from miles away who came and settled on the roof. Subsequently Bourne left Brickett Wood and
for a short period joined English’s Norfolk coven. She also started her own occult mail-order service called “Magistra” with her husband Wilf, and it is still going strong today.
Another of Gardner’s new initiates was Eleanor “Ray” Bone (1910–2001), and she became the High Priestess of a new Gardnerian coven in Streatham, South London. Bone was the owner and matron of a private nursing home for the elderly in Tooting, and claimed she had been previously initiated into the Craft in Keswick, Cumbria. This was while she was on military service during World War II. This pre-Gardnerian coven worked robed, had different colored cords around their waists to indicate their rank, and wore amber necklaces. They always worked outdoors and white, red, and blue candles were placed in lanterns around the circle when they danced to raise the power. Their working tools were a wand, a staff, a chalice, a black-handled knife, and a sword (Doreen Valiente notebooks dated July 18, 1964, in MOW archive). When she retired in 1972, Bone turned her back on Wicca and went to live in Cumbria. Shortly before her death she was offered honorary membership in the UK Pagan Federation (PF). She refused because she said she did not recognize the validity of many of the traditions it represented.
Ray Bone’s disillusionment with Wicca is evident as early as 1962 when she wrote to Gerald Gardner, saying she was considering appearing on a television program (letter dated September 24, 1962, in MOW archive). She said this was because Lois Bourne and other new Wiccan initiates had already done so. Bone referred specifically to Patricia and Arnold Crowther and said they did it “as it obviously helps them to eke out a living.” Bone did get her fifteen minutes of fame in June 1964, when she was interviewed by the popular weekly magazine Tit-Bits. In it she said that by day, as a matron of her nursing home, she dressed in a tweed suit, thick stockings, and brogues, but at night danced naked in a witches’ circle with only a garter on her thigh. She said that the GLC (Greater London Council), who licensed her house as a nursing home, knew she was a practicing witch and they had no objection. Her elderly residents also trusted her and had left her money in their wills as well as antique silver objects and an ancient Egyptian ring she used in her witchcraft ceremonies. She justified the witches performing naked rituals by making the odd claim that “a speck of dust from our everyday clothes might spoil our magic.”
Modern Wicca Page 17
