Controversies

The lineage and historicity claims of several traditional witchcraft currents — particularly that of Cochrane’s Clan of Tubal Cain, which positioned itself as a pre-Gardnerian survival — are not corroborated by independent historical evidence and are treated by mainstream scholars (notably Ronald Hutton) as plausible inventions of the period in which they appeared.

The relationship between traditional craft and Wicca is sometimes adversarial within the wider witchcraft community, with some traditional practitioners insisting that Wicca is a different and historically more recent religion and some Wiccans regarding the “tradition” framing as a marketing distinction without a real lineage difference.