Customer Reviews

Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival

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This book focuses on Gerald Gardner and his web of contacts woven in its entirety.

Compiled by perhaps the most authoritative researcher on Gardner to date Philip Heselton, the text is bound with wonderful illustration from the personal journals of Gardner's associates, including extracts and photos from the previously unseen Boscastle archives, providing the most compelling evidence of Gardner's connections with 'Old Dorothy', his High Priestess 'Dafo', and involvement with the New Forest Coven in repelling the threatened WWII Nazi invasion of the United Kingdom.

It is immediately apparent the author has not only researched current knowledge to its furthest conclusion but has also taken the brave step of educated speculation on other associations, which is sure to provide further researchers with useful data.

One for any student into the roots of modern Paganism and the Wiccan religion - Excellent.

Wiccan Roots is an excellent counter to Hutton's book Triumph of the Moon, providing the reader with credible altenative views and explanations (overlooked or ignored by Hutton). In effect, this book corrects some of the many errors found in Triumph of the Moon. A must have for every Witch/Wiccan.

Philip Heselton's book "Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival" should be recommended along with Ronald Hutton's "The Triumph of the Moon" as a solid, scholarly examination of the roots of modern Wicca.

Heselton doesn't deal in unsupported claims about Wiccan history as far too many other Wiccan writers do. He sticks to the facts, and presents the results of his research in a clear, easy-to-read manner.

Like any good researcher, Heselton raises many new questions that need addressing while clearing up longstanding misunderstandings. The author doesn't pretend to have the definitive answer about whether Gardner really was just passing on an existing tradition or was instead inspired to put together the religion now known as Wicca.

Hesleton provides compelling evidence for the existence of a group of self-described witches who did in fact perform an initiation on Gardner, thus giving him a formal introduction to witchcraft. What remains to be determined, though, is whether what that group of witches practiced was anything like Gardnerian Wicca, and whether they did in fact have any sort of established pagan "tradition" which they passed on to him, rather than just a mishmash of occult and pagan lore.

Heselton has done the Wiccan community a great service. His book should be an excellent starting point, along with Ronald Hutton's "The Triumph of the Moon," into further scholarly research about our pagan past

This book, along with Hutton's _Triumph of the Moon_, is essential reading for anyone interested in an accurate history of Wicca. Heselton provides solid evidence of the people and places behind Gardner's discovery / invention of Wicca, offers his well-measured conjectures, and fills some of the gaps Hutton alludes to in his work. For those of us interested in the history of the Craft, a very, VERY important little book.

I purchased this work based on the glowing conclusions found on this page. I was somewhat crestfallen once I read the book to find that although Mr. Heselton appears to be a fine researcher, he lacks any scholarly or logical discernment on how do use that research. Annoyed for wasting my time and sure that someone other than myself must share this view, I searched the web to find this fine review by Brock, a Wiccan High Priest:

"Heselton has a bad habit of suggesting in one chapter that the available evidence may indicate that such-and-such is true, and then beginning his reasoning in the next chapter as if the such-and-such mentioned in the previous chapter was an established fact. One sees this all too often in the popular press, (Holy Blood, Holy Grail being but one horrible example of this sort of reasoning,) but it is disturbing to find it in a work intended to be a piece of serious scholarship. Heselton also makes what I view to be a serious error in his interpretations of the various entries in Dorothy Fordham's "diaries." He clearly views her allusions to a number of common images from classical mythology in those diary entries as evidence that Dorothy was pagan. In doing so, he, ignores the fact that Dorothy, who was born in 1880, received the sort of private, classical education traditional for a young woman of Britain's upper classes during the late Victorian and early Edwardian periods. Flowery allusions to classical themes were common features in formal writing (particularly of poetry), in the society in which Dorothy was raised, without being accorded any special meaning beyond being decorative. Such things were, in essence, evidence that the author had been properly educated. The inclusion of such things in a piece of verse would only be considered significant of something else when viewed from the context of a society where such ornate forms of writing have fallen wholly out of favor."

My thanks to Brock for this analysis, since I've wasted quite enough time on this book.