Origins & history

Gardner stated that he was initiated into a surviving coven in the New Forest area of southern England in 1939, and that his published writings drew on its practices. The historical existence and continuity of that coven is not independently documented, although the involvement of specific identifiable people in the early circle around Gardner is.

The ritual material Gardner published and circulated through his Book of Shadows was substantially revised and expanded in the 1950s by Doreen Valiente, who replaced large amounts of material drawn from Aleister Crowley with new liturgy, including the well-known “Charge of the Goddess.” In the 1960s Alex Sanders established the Alexandrian tradition, drawing principally on Gardnerian material and rituals. Both lines spread to the United States during the 1960s and 70s and provided the seed for the wider movement.