Modern Wicca

by Michael Howard

  Whether or not Ray Bone found this admission odd is not recorded, but evidently their correspondence did not continue. In 1965 Score gave an interview to a local newspaper and in it he was described as an expert in witchcraft. The following year he gave a talk to the English-Speaking Union and was described in the Poole and Dorset Herald (December 30, 1965) as a nuclear disarmer (he was a member of CND, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament), an extrasensory parapsychologist, “a man about town extraordinary,” a believer in UFOs, and, by his own admission, a warlock, or male witch.

  After this interview was published, Score wrote again to Ray Bone and told her the publicity had generated several enquirers wanting to know about witchcraft. He said he had sent the enquiries on to the WRA postbox in London and she replied, congratulating him on his public defense of the Craft. Bone also put him in touch with Madge Worthington of the Whitecroft tradition, whom she described as her deputy. Score finally met Worthington in February 1967 at one of her weekly tea parties and was initiated by her soon afterwards. Jean Score was also initiated, and John Score received his second degree in September 1967. They then started their own coven in Poole, known rather grandly as the Order of the Golden Acorn (OGA).

  The early issues of The Wiccan newsletter were mainly concerned with the recent newspaper exposés of prominent Wiccans, including Score’s own initiator Madge Worthington, and Alex and Maxine Sanders, and focused on religious freedom and the right to privacy. Score was fond of invoking Article 18 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights that said: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or commonly with others in public and private, to manifest his religion and belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.” This became the mantra Score regularly repeated in his dealings with the media and the British government in the following years, even though at the time neither witchcraft nor neopaganism were officially or legally accepted by the authorities as an authentic and legitimate religious belief under the terms of the UN human rights charter.

  Some of John Score’s varied and idiosyncratic interests and political views can be gauged by the type of advertisements he published for free in The Wiccan. These included environmental organizations such as the National Society for Clean Air, the National Pure Water Association, the Soil Association (for organic farmers and smallholders), and The Ecologist magazine. His support for feminism and human rights was also demonstrated by advertising for the Women’s Liberation Workshop and the National Council for Civil Liberties. Score’s personal interest in health foods and alternative therapies was illustrated by an advertisement for the Vegetarian Society and a recipe in the newsletter for yogurt made from goat’s milk. On the other hand, his political views also included support for capital punishment, opposition to abortion, and the repeal of the law legalizing the practice of homosexuality.

  In 1970, John Score began a campaign in The Wiccan against Alex Sanders for lying about his initiation into the Craft, for betraying its secrets, allegedly practicing black magic, and calling himself by the false title of “King of the Witches.” This reflected the general hostility against Sanders and his activities by senior Gardnerians such as Ray Bone, Patricia and Arnold Crowther, and Jack Bracelin. However, it would be incorrect to see Score and The Wiccan as their mouthpiece in this matter.

  In other issues of The Wiccan, John Score turned his sarcastic brand of criticism on another pagan magazine called The Waxing Moon, published and edited by the late Joe Wilson in the United States. This was not because Score was anti-American, as Fred Adams of the neo-pagan group Ferafaria was favorably mentioned in the newsletter. In fact, in June 1970 The Wiccan was affiliated with the American Council of Themis, representing nature religions worldwide, and Score also publicized Earth Day in 1971.

  After the problems in 1970 with the aborted attempt to introduce new legislation in the British Parliament against witchcraft, Score and some other prominent witches, including Doreen Valiente, decided some kind of new organization should be set up to counter any future persecution. Score was also worried about the recent formation of a neopagan organization in Wales known as the Pagan Movement by Tony Kelly. One of its leading members was Joe Wilson, who had come in contact with Kelly after advertising The Waxing Moon in the British edition of the American magazine Fate in 1969. Tony Kelly’s brother passed him a copy and he wrote to Wilson. A lengthy correspondence began and was extended to include Ed Fitch and Gwydion Pendderwen. This led to the formation of the Pagan Movement of Britain and Ireland (Harrison August 2004).

  Joe Wilson was a staff sergeant in the USAF, and in 1970 was transferred to England, where he was based at RAF Upper Heyford in Oxfordshire. This was a joint Anglo-American base where, at the height of the Cold War, B-52 bombers and F-111 fighters were stored in concrete bunkers in preparation for war with the Soviet Union. Wilson held open meetings at his rented house in Bicester near the base for pagans and witches and interested enquirers. He also transferred the printing and publication of his magazine to the United Kingdom, and it eventually became the official journal of the Pagan Movement in Wales.

  Before he left the States, Joe Wilson had already been in contact with Ruth Wynn Owen of the Plant y Bran and as soon as he arrived in England he telephoned her at her apartment in Ealing, West London. She invited him to visit her at her home where he met a male Gardnerian witch he had also been corresponding with, and Madge Worthington and Arthur Eaglen. Wilson was later introduced to a woman “in the north” whom he called “Lady Alice” (possibly Patricia Crowther) and received the second- and third-degree Gardnerian initiations from her. He also attended full moon rituals with the Whitecroft Coven (Wilson, February and May 2005).

  While he was stationed in England, Joe Wilson became involved in a sensationalized court martial involving several USAF servicemen at Upper Heyford who were actively campaigning against the Vietnam war. During the trial it was disclosed that Wilson was recruited by military intelligence as an undercover agent to spy on the defendants. The British newspapers picked up on the story when he gave evidence, because Wilson refused to swear an oath on the Bible, on grounds he was a witch. Many English Gardnerian Wiccans, including John Score, regarded Wilson’s activities as a betrayal of the Craft and publicly denounced him.

  The meeting to set up the Pagan Front, as the new organization was called at first, was held at Madge Worthington’s London house. It was attended by John Score, Doreen Valiente, and “the High Priestess of a Hereditary Coven from Walsingham [Norfolk]” (Pengelly, Hall and Dowse 1997: 4). It was agreed the Pagan Front would adopt the Ancient Egyptian symbol of a crux ansata, or ankh, as its emblem or logo. The recognition of the Goddess, the feminine principle in religion, and the importance of women was central to the new organization. In fact the dual divinity of the God and Goddess in Wicca was seen in terms of the new Aquarian Age concept of sexual equality. Score and other Wiccans believed that witchcraft was going to be the religion of the New Age. Idries Shah had allegedly received a message to that effect from the “inner planes” in the 1950s, although he refused to believe it, and George Pickingill was of the same opinion in the nineteenth century (see Liddell 1994).

  The PF meeting was opened by a social pagan dance of Native American origin, followed by a keynote address by Doreen Valiente, just as she had done at the WRA dinner. She expressed her wish that the past problems with Kelly and Wilson’s Pagan Movement would be resolved and people on both sides could recognize they were unwise and unnecessary. Valiente went on to say there was unity in strength and welcomed all “sincere people of goodwill who follow the pagan path,” even if they did not agree with each other.

  During the meeting it was proposed The Wiccan should become the official newsletter of the PF. Eventually the following wording was displayed at the beginning of each issue: “The Wiccan is the newsletter of the Pagan
Federation, a national and international free association of pagans and crafters, devised in 1970 and ratified in 1971 (as the Pagan Front) at a meeting attended by a variety of branches of the Old Religion of Wisecraft (White Witchcraft). The Pagan Federation is a focus for contact between the Craft of the Wise and those who might find rapport with the Old Ways. It is a forum for discussion between various branches of the Craft and it serves to promote the united face of Paganism against the calumny of the media.” After John Score’s death, when The Wiccan was renamed Pagan Dawn, this statement was dropped because the organization had become more diverse and was not exclusively Wiccan (Pengelly, Hall, and Dowse 1997: 37).

  Unfortunately, Joe Wilson got to see a leaked report of the PF meeting. He wrote to John Score, complaining it was “intellectually misleading, if not libelous towards both myself and towards the Pagan Movement.” Wilson asked for a public apology for the comments made during the meeting and told Score that in the future he would not advertise the Pagan Front or The Wiccan in The Waxing Moon (letter dated June 9, 1971, in the MOW archive). This letter was apparently a response to comments made by Score during the meeting about Wilson’s spying activities in the USAF.

  Membership of the PF was open to all people of goodwill, whatever their occult [sic] commitments may be (or not), providing they accepted the concept of a nature religion complementary to the male and female principles. Respective members were also required to sign on to the Three Principles that formed the PF’s official creed. These principles were evidently dreamed up by Doreen Valiente, as she mentioned it during her correspondence with John Score about creating the PF (letter dated October 2, 1970, in MOW archive). The Three Principles were: (1) The Pagan Ethic “Do what you will, so long as it harms no one” (based on the Wiccan Rede invented by Gerald Gardner and based on Crowley’s maxim “Do What Thou Wilt”); (2) Reincarnation, with its implication of survival of bodily death, and karma (personal fate), which we make ourselves (Score was a firm believer in reincarnation and knew he had been an Atlantean, ancient Egyptian, and Native American in past lives); (3) Love and Kinship with nature, which reflected the emerging new belief that Wicca was a nature religion.

  By the 1990s, the Three Principles of the Pagan Federation had been changed to the following: (1) Love and Kinship of Nature, reverence for the Life Force, and the continuing renewing cycle of life and death; (2) the Pagan Ethic “Do what thou wilt, but harm none”; this is a positive morality, not a list of thou-shalt-nots—each person is responsible for discovering his or her own true nature and developing it fully in harmony with the world around them; (3) Acceptance of the polarity of deity, the reality of both God and Goddess; active participation in the cosmic dance of God and Goddess, female and male, rather than the suppression of either the male or female principle.

  Not all PF members and prospective members agreed with these principles, especially the last one, because they followed traditions that were mythically polytheistic or even monotheistic in nature.

  A private initiation ritual was introduced for new members, as a way of binding their commitment to the PF and the Three Principles. The new member was obliged to do the rite at the full moon by lighting a candle and burning some sandalwood incense in the form of joss sticks. They then had to link up with the “Powers of Life, Light, and Love” while meditating on the PF’s ideals and the reality of being joined in brotherhood and sisterhood with the “inner planes of Being” and sincere pagans everywhere. Instructions were given on opening and closing the ritual by drawing the sign of the PF’s logo, the ankh, in the air. Not surprisingly perhaps, this initiation ritual was not widely accepted or used. In fact, it was discontinued after John Score died in 1979.

  Although Score had liberal ideas about vegetarianism, feminism, alternative therapies, and religious freedoms, he also held strong and conservative views on other subjects. For instance, he opposed the social-cultural trends towards Britain becoming a multi-racial society (The Wiccan #10 May 1970). He also had a serious problem with homosexuals, bisexuals, and lesbians, and believed they should not be initiated into Wicca. In this respect, Score mirrored the attitude of Gerald Gardner, who was also homophobic. During a conversation with Jack Bracelin, an acquaintance of his was mentioned who had expressed an interest in joining the Brickett Wood Coven. When Gardner discovered this person was gay, he became angry and said: “There are no homosexual witches, and it is not possible to be a homosexual and a witch.”

  Although this may not be a politically correct attitude today, and regarded as a bigoted response, Gardner and his contemporaries were a product of the zeitgeist. To most heterosexual alpha males of their generation, especially those like Gardner who were politically right-wing, homosexuality was not morally or socially acceptable, and they regarded it as an “unmanly vice.” There was also the other factor that during most of their lifetime homosexuality was still illegal in Britain. Lois Bourne has confirmed that Gardner was homophobic and he personally regarded homosexuality as “a disgusting perversion and a flagrant transgression of natural law, negating the life force and the fertility aspect represented by the God and Goddess.” Ray Bone agreed with him and said she had never met or recognized any homosexual witches by the particular aura possessed by all witches (Bourne 1998: 38).

  These prejudiced views reflected the official policy regarding homosexuality in Gardnerian Wicca before the 1970s. It was, however, also to be found in traditional witchcraft such as the Pickingill Craft (see Liddell 1994). The traditional witch Bob Clay Egerton, who knew both Gerald Gardner and Alex Sanders, and was initiated into the Old Craft in 1940, was taught that anyone who started to practice witchcraft could be accepted as a witch. He took this to imply a witch could be homosexual. However, in practice, a gay man or woman who attempted to join a traditional coven would find obstacles placed in his or her path. His personal opinion was that they would find it easier to join a magical group or lodge (pers. comm.).

  Not all the Gardnerians agreed with the stance against homosexuals, and by the 1980s were changing their views. Doreen Valiente said that when reports of all-female covens first started to filter through from the United States there was an adverse reaction from some (male) Gardnerian witches. One (unnamed) said: “We don’t want to have anything to do with them. They’re a load of lesbians.” (Valiente 1989: 183). Valiente was told homosexuality was “abhorrent to the Goddess,” and her curse would be on people of the same sex who practiced the Craft together. She believed this for a long time and then in the 1980s came to question it. She could not understand how people could be “abhorrent to the Goddess” just because they were born with a particular sexual orientation (Ibid.).

  Writing in the revised version of her classic book, The Spiral Dance, in 1989, the feminist ecowitch Starhawk said modern witches should no longer describe the energy that flows through the universe represented symbolically as the God and Goddess as exclusively a male/female polarity. She claimed that doing this created a stereotypical form that enshrined heterosexual relationships as the norm and the basic pattern of sexuality (which of course they are), and branded any other form of sexual relationship as deviant. This idea had some logic at a mythic level, as many of the deities of classical paganism exhibited bisexual attributes and indulged in same-sex relationships. However, such a liberal view of pagan gods and goddesses is not found in historical witchcraft or in modern Gardnerian Wicca before the 1970s.

  John Score took the stance that the Craft was specifically and exclusively heterosexual. For that reason “no single male should be initiated without good evidence of heterosexual attainment.” Any coven that contained homosexuals or lesbians would be regarded by other witches as an “abomination” (letter to Dr. Leo Martello dated June 26, 1970, in MOW archive). Score also disagreed with Ruth Wynn Owen about the status (if any) of gay people in the Craft, and this is probably one of the reasons why she divorced herself from the Pagan Front. Evoking Score’s professed support
for religious freedom, she had apparently claimed everyone “has the right to worship as they will” (letter from Score to Wynn Owen, December 2, 1976, in MOW archive).

  In the United States there was a far more relaxed attitude on the subject in Craft circles. In an interview with the National Insider magazine in July 1970, Louise Hubner, the self-styled “Official Witch of Los Angeles,” said it was essential male witches had homosexual tendencies. This was because witchcraft is closer to women’s natures and for that reason heterosexual men cannot practice “the dark arts [sic].” In modern terms she was probably saying that male witches should be metrosexual, or in touch with their feminine side.

  As we have seen, Dr. Leo Martello was gay, although that did not stop Patricia Crowther from initiating him. Score must have discovered Martello was a homosexual as he began referring to him sarcastically in the pages of The Wiccan by the nickname “Marshmallow.” Ed Buczynski of the Welsh Traditionalist coven in New York joined together with other gay men and women in 1975 to create the new Minoan tradition. Its members worshipped the Cretan snake goddess and the bull god, while ironically still basing their rituals on Gardnerian Wicca. Other early pioneers of the initiation of gays were the Radical Faeries, who produced a magazine advocating “queer” activism. In 1970, Arthur Evans’ book Witchcraft and the Gay Counterculture became the bible of gay witches, but it was not until 1987 that an openly gay Gardnerian High Priest, Michael Thorn, was elected as the first officer of the Covenant of the Goddess organization.