Neopagan witchcraft
[1] These traditions began in the mid-20th century, and many were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis; a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches in Europe had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion.
In contemporary Western culture, some adherents of these religions, as well as some followers of New Age belief systems, may self-identify as "witches", and use the term "witchcraft" for their self-help, healing, or divination rituals.
[11][12] Though the theory of accused witches being followers of an organized pagan religion was discredited in academia, it spurred renewed interest in witchcraft.
They were initiatory secret societies inspired by Murray's witch cult theory, ceremonial magic, Aleister Crowley's Thelema, and historical paganism.
Others such as Sybil Leek, Charles Cardell, Raymond Howard, Rolla Nordic, Robert Cochrane and Paul Huson also said they had been initiated by surviving witch covens.
"[25] Following its establishment in Britain, Gardnerian Wicca was brought to the U.S. in the early 1960s[26] by English initiate Raymond Buckland and his then-wife Rosemary, who together founded a coven in Long Island.
Gardner was a retired British civil servant, and an amateur anthropologist and historian who had a broad familiarity with pagan religions, esoteric societies and occultism in general.
[30][better source needed] Various forms of Wicca are now practised as a religion with positive ethical principles, organised into autonomous covens and led by a High Priesthood.
Some of these solitaries do, however, attend gatherings and other community events, but reserve their spiritual practices (Sabbats, Esbats, spell-casting, worship, magical work, etc.)
Although typically united by a shared aesthetic rooted in European folklore, the Traditional Craft contains within its ranks a rich and varied array of occult groups, from those who follow a contemporary Pagan path that is suspiciously similar to Wicca, to those who adhere to Luciferianism.
Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain worshipped a Horned God and a Triple Goddess, much akin to Gardner's Bricket Wood Coven.
[43] At a gathering at Glastonbury Tor held by the Brotherhood of the Essenes in 1964, Cochrane met Doreen Valiente, who had formerly been a High Priestess of Gardner's Bricket Wood Coven.
The Sabbatic Craft is described by its founder Andrew D. Chumbley as "an initiatory line of spirit-power that can inform all who are receptive to its impetus, and which – when engaged with beyond names – may be understood as a Key unto the Hidden Design of Arte.
[49][51] He reserved "Sabbatic Craft" as a unifying term to refer to the "convergent lineages"[49] of the "Cultus Sabbati," a body of neopagan witchcraft initiates.
[citation needed] 'Sabbatic Craft' describes a corpus of magical practices which self-consciously utilize the imagery and mythos of the "Witches' Sabbath" as a cipher of ritual, teaching and gnosis.
This is not the same as saying that one practises the self-same rituals in the self-same manner as the purported early modern "witches" or historically attested cunning folk, rather it points toward the fact that the very mythos which had been generated about both "witches" and their "ritual gatherings" has been appropriated and re-orientated by contemporary successors of cunning-craft observance, and then knowingly applied for their own purposes.In his grimoire Azoëtia, Chumbley incorporated diverse iconography from ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, Yezidi, and Aztec cultures.
[51] He spoke of a patchwork of ancestral and tutelary spirit folklore which he perceived amidst diverse "Old Craft" traditions in Britain as "a gnostic faith in the Divine Serpent of Light, in the Host of the Gregori, in the Children of Earth sired by the Watchers, in the lineage of descent via Lilith, Mahazael, Cain, Tubal-cain, Naamah, and the Clans of the Wanderers.
"[49] Schulke believed that folk and cunning-crafts of Britain absorbed multicultural elements from "Freemasonry, Bible divination, Romany charms, and other diverse streams,"[51] what Chumbley called "dual-faith observance," referring to a "co-mingling of ‘native’ forms of British magic and Christianity".
[35] Wiccans often consider their beliefs to be in line with liberal ideals such as the Green movement, and particularly with feminism, by providing young women with what they see as a means for self-empowerment, control of their own lives, and a way of influencing the world around them.
It is an international community of women and men working to combine neopagan witchcraft, the Goddess movement, earth-based spirituality, and political activism.
Yet she notes that the ideology of these neopagan movements "would be quite alien to the sixteenth-century cunning woman, whose magical beliefs coexisted comfortably with her Christian ones".
[57] Some of the recent growth in Wicca has been attributed to popular media such as Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Harry Potter series, with their depictions of "positive witchcraft",[54] which differs from the historical, traditional, and Indigenous definitions.
[62] Based on the most recent survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted in 2014, there are approximately 1 million Pagans in the United States, comprising 0.3% of the population.
