HERE have been a few articles and YouTube videos that claim that ‘Traditional Witchcraft’ is ‘the original religion that was introduced by Gerald Gardner’. This is a misleading and incorrect conclusion, based upon the fact that ‘the original forms of western witchcraft had died out because of the witch-hunts’. Now there are several reasons that this was never the case:
- During the Witch-hunts that formally began with the introduction of the Maleus Malificarum (the Hammer of the witches by Heinrich Kramer & Jacob Sprenger). Scholars found out that there were no ‘real witches’ persecuted, but rather old and suspected women that did not fit the required role of submissive women and thus were suspected of being witches. Most of the were christian
- Those men and women that didn’t conform to standard church doctrine, they also could be priests, ministers and/or were from other denominations.
Those witches, wise ones, druids, folk healers and pellars (a Cornish term for those who can provide counter curses) where still held in high regard and were protected by those who needed their services, some of them were persecuted, but quite a number escaped and survived.
The notion that the original form of witchcraft died out and thus Wicca is the only remaining form of western witchcraft that remains until today is therefore totally wrong. Families and individuals that kept their traditions survived because of secrecy and still exist in UK regions like Cornwall, Devonshire, Dartmouth, Exmoor, Wales, Scotland etcetera.
Other forms of magic like Rootworking (Hoodoo/Voodoo) Shamanism, Gipsy Witchcraft (Romania etc), Guna Guna (Indonesia), Seidr (Scandinavia) survived the wheel of time.
Now I notices a number of articles and videos where people suggest and claim that ‘Gardnerian Wicca in its original form is Traditional Witchcraft. One should study books, among those published by Troy Books Uk to see that Traditional Witchcraft is still alive and kicking
Morghain’s Traditional Witchcraft 