The Surprisingly Recent Origins of Wicca and Druidism

In this intriguing episode, we delve into the modern origins of what is known today as witchcraft, Wicca, and Druidism. Discussing key figures like Gerald Gardner, who invented Wicca in the 20th century, and how he convinced people of its ancient roots, we also explore other notable personalities such as Aleister Crowley. The episode sheds light on how these new-age religions were shaped by modern influences and entirely invented narratives. The conversation further debunks misconceptions about ancient connections to current mystical practices, analyzing the role of historic beliefs and comparing them to modern adaptations. Dive into the fascinating history and evolution of these mystical traditions with a critical eye.

[00:00:00]

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. Today is going to be a very interesting episode on a topic I should have done a long time ago. It's going to be on how the movement that today purports itself to be witchcraft or Wiccan or juridic, all of these religious systems.

are very, very modern. They are some of the youngest religious systems to exist and have literally no ties to any historic pagan faith practices. And even when they were revived, were revised as monotheistic traditions and only became pagan in their later iterations. What?!

Specifically here, I'm talking about the guy who made up the druidic phase, not the Wiccan phase.

And these were both around the 1900s. So we're gonna go into these individuals, how they made it up, how they got people to believe them. We're gonna go into Alistair Crawley, another interesting figure. He didn't even claim to have connections to anything in the past, he was just Okay.

A wackadoo. I didn't know he was a real guy. I, I saw him from the show, right? And I was like, [00:01:00] Oh, a real guy. No, he was a, he was a wacko, but way more fun than the other guys. Cause at least he owned that he was just making everything up. And the other guys, well, and he stole a bunch from Kabbalah and we'll go over where So were the other guys trying practiced as witchcraft today within the Wiccan community, not realizing that what they're practicing doesn't come from ancient witches, but it comes from Jewish mysticism.

Simone Collins: Oh, my God. Do I understand correctly then that the two men who claimed to have either rediscovered or who reignited druidic practices in Wicca sort of pointed to historical materials that they may have made either misinterpreted or made up kind of like Joseph Smith using funerary texts from Egypt?

Malcolm Collins: It's, well, maybe not crazier than the Joseph Smith story, but he said he, he, he met a cult in the woods that taught him about all of this is the first one we're going to go to. And we think we know who some of the figures he was talking about were. So we know that like, they didn't do this. There's been people who have [00:02:00] gone through and, and, and researched him to learn more about this.

So the guy. Was Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant, with a taste for the occult. He returned to England in the 1930s, and he claimed that in 1939, he was initiated into a secret coven. in New Forest by a group he called the Wicca, allegedly survivors of an ancient pagan witch cult. His story leaned heavily on the now debunked theories of anthropologist Margaret Murray, who argued in the 1920s that European witchcraft was a remnant of pre christian fertility religions.

Scholars later dismantled Murray's hypothesis. There is no solid evidence of a contiguous witch cult surviving the middle ages, but Garner ran with it. So a quick note here, if you're like, well, where did all of these mystical traditions come from if they didn't come from some ancient religion it turns out that people will invent the same [00:03:00] mystical traditions over and over again.

For example, when you hear a sports player keeps a lucky sock under their helmet or something to win games, you don't go, oh, he must've picked that up from some ancestral religion. You're like, oh yes, humans often end up associating fetishes, not like Sexual fetishes, but like small token stuff with having magical properties and then build rituals around them.

It is a natural and emergent human behavior with the fact that we see today things like chaos magic, which is another group I could go into, where they believe things like McDonald's arches are like abundant signs and stuff like that and can be used like, like just, or you see, pop culture paganism where people will believe that.

Like Loki, not Loki, like the ancient Norse God, but Loki, like the hot guy from Marvel. Oh my God. Is, is. Oh no. The one who all the girls get a crush on. I mean, I don't know. I hear that he's supposed to be the hot one. Not

Simone Collins: the [00:04:00] actual God. No, no, no, no, no, no. They're the different like Marvel characters. Like, Snape wives, right?

Like, yeah. But not, not the. Snape wives. Yes. Snape is definitely not, no connection to anything. Harry Potter, Sephiroth. Like. The actor whatever it's

Malcolm Collins: not that there was no rituals being practiced in these regions but these rituals were almost certainly maybe two generations old. They were not, it's very hard to keep rituals running a long time unless they are being practiced publicly and at the community level when rituals aren't being practiced at the community level or really rigidly within a family structure.

And we've seen this historically over and over again, it's hard to keep a tradition going without public rituals or, or at least publicly saying that you're a member of it but we'll get to like other proof we have that he probably wasn't even pulling this from local folklore of the period.

Not

Simone Collins: even trying, but I, you know what, I like the idea of being a lifelong fan of [00:05:00] cults. And just making the cult you wish existed, right? Can you imagine a lifetime spent in civil service? Your nights and weekends spent, you know, looking, looking to find proof of the thing you wish existed. And you're like, you know what?

Screw it. Just going to make it up.

Malcolm Collins: I'm just going to, no,

Simone Collins: because then people follow people, people like actually started doing all the other people

Malcolm Collins: made up their religions. Like it starts somewhere.

Simone Collins: He, he, you know, the, the, they say, you know, dress for the job. You want to get, you know, be the person you want to be like he did it.

He made the bolt he wanted. I'm so happy for him. That's nice.

Malcolm Collins: So, in the 1930s, he got involved, or he says he got involved with the local esoteric scene in Hampshire. He claimed that in September 1939, he was introduced to a hidden group of witches in the New Forest, led by a woman who he called Old Dorsey, later identified as Dorsey Clutterbuck.

It's still called the very real name of Dorsey Clutterbuck. Clutterbuck, right, yes. This is a real person who later people went and investigated the area [00:06:00] he was and who he was talking to. And Dorsey Clutterbuck did exist. And he, he referred to her as like a wealthy, older woman. Okay. Who fit.

Dorsey Clutterbuck at the time. She was a wealthy conservative Christian woman who lived in Highcliffe near New Forest and died in 1951. Oh, so she would have found this very offensive. Oh yeah. Gardner's associate Doreen Valentin tracked down her diaries via Clutterbuck's housekeeper after her death and confirmed her identities.

The diaries mentioned social events and gardening, but nothing about witchcraft or coven. So, the person who discovered all of this was a true believer