Traditional Witchcraft

Founded: Mid-twentieth century onwards Region: Originated in Britain; spread internationally

A loose family of modern witchcraft currents distinct from Wicca, generally darker in tone, less doctrinally fixed, and drawing on folkloric, cunning-craft, and Sabbatic-witchcraft strands rather than on the Gardnerian liturgy.

“Traditional witchcraft” is an umbrella term for several modern witchcraft currents that define themselves at least partly in contrast to Wicca. The label is contested and has been used by very different groups; what they share is a tendency to draw on European folklore and the historical “cunning folk” tradition rather than on the duotheistic, eight-festival, three-degree structure that Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente codified in the 1950s.

Practice is generally less standardised than in initiatory Wicca. Solitary working is common; where covens or working groups exist they are small and lineaged in idiosyncratic ways. The aesthetic is typically darker, the cosmology more agnostic about the literal existence of named gods, and the tone less liturgical.