| In 1954, a former British civil servant called Gerald | | | | accepted that Gardner was actually initiated into an |
| Gardner proclaimed that he had received initiation into | | | | early 20th-century revival of the original witchcraft that |
| an ancient nature religion which had survived from | | | | Gardner had sought, rather than a fully genuine survival |
| pre-Christian European paganism. The practitioners of | | | | of an ancient European religious tradition. |
| Gardner's religion were using the name New Forest | | | | Regardless of the fact that he produced the craft's |
| Coven. Gardner launched an effort to reinvigorate and | | | | beliefs in an attempt to continue the Wiccan religion for |
| revive the witchcraft religion by putting together a | | | | his generation's descendants, Gardner understood |
| book named "Witchcraft Today," where he tried to | | | | "witchcraft" as a mystery tradition that should require a |
| reconstruct the recovered fragments of religious | | | | series of initiations to be properly understood and lived. |
| ceremony and belief from the New Forest Coven. | | | | An English national called Raymond Buckland was |
| Gardner designated the spiritual tradition as | | | | granted an initiation into the new mystery tradition from |
| "witchcraft," and called its practitioners "the Wica." He | | | | Gardner's own coven, which he named the Isle of Man, |
| maintained that this latter term came to him from | | | | and then spread the teachings of witchcraft back to |
| senior initiates of the Coven, and that its use was | | | | the USA. Wicca gained popularity rapidly in the new |
| what led him to consider the possibility that the "Old | | | | world, where a devotional and psychological sea |
| Religion" might still be in existence. Gardner believed, | | | | change was in the works. |
| like most current academics, that this term came from | | | | Since those early days of the craft, a variety of unique |
| the Old English term "wicca," which is the etymological | | | | permutations of Wiccan-derived paganism have |
| predecessor to the contemporary term "witch." | | | | spread widely. Most of these have owed their origin to |
| There has been a bit of argument as to the accuracy | | | | Gardner's original students who started their own |
| of his idea that he was resurrecting an ancient, | | | | covens and initiated their own members. Some of the |
| matriarchal, original European religion. A few claimants | | | | other fashionable forms of Wicca have been started |
| have argued that Gardner had just invented the | | | | by self-initiated mystics and practitioners who crafted |
| teachings of witchcraft, compiling fragments of some | | | | their own systems of nature spirituality that center |
| known archaic spiritual systems and from modern | | | | around the original published materials from Gardner |
| occult practices as needed. Be that as it may, the | | | | and others. These days several these subsets of |
| majority of academics are agreed that Gardner made | | | | Gardnerian religion are practiced in a variety of |
| his assertions with no intention of deceiving. It is widely | | | | countries and cultures. |