The Man Who Made Witchcraft (Pagan Documentary) | Timeline

Britain is a hugely diverse religious society but of all the faiths practiced here only one is truly British modern pagan witchcraft otherwise known as wicker wicker is one of the fastest growing religions in the world its followers call themselves witches worship the goddess of nature and believe in the power to cast spells witches are among us there's no doubt about it a long-held presumption about us that we worship the devil oh no we don't but the most extraordinary thing about Wicca is the story of how it was born because while it looks like an ancient folk religion wicker was actually developed in the 1940s by a middle-aged nudist from the new forest called Gerald Gardner he won since he was highly devious he wasn't a typical founder of a religion-- king of the witches his hair goes this way his beard goes that way he was witchcraft I'm Professor Ronald honey as a historian of British paganism I've been studying wicker for over 20 years in this film I'm going in search of the truth about this secretive magical faith I want to find out how this extraordinary Englishman reinvented witchcraft became Britain's first celebrity winch and in the process created a new world religion it did not affect the speed meeting really very large their sexual orgies they're not not released [Music] you might not realize it but in modern Britain you are never far from a winch but it wear pointy hats and they don't ride on broomsticks but they do cast spells and they definitely believe in magic and unless we're talking about Harry Potter a lot of people find that problematic to the public wicker is often seen as mysterious secretive maybe even dangerous but is this fair I've been studying Wicca for two decades and I have yet to be turned into a frog but if I'm really going to understand wicker I need to get beyond the textbooks and get under the skin of this religion but first I need to find them and as Wiccans are notoriously secretive even that's a challenge I've been invited to attend a ritual of a Wiccan group which is quite an honor unlike other faiths when Wiccans go to worship they don't go to a church or a temple they go somewhere altogether different modern witches are often the urban creatures but as a reverence for nature lies at the heart of their faith they conduct their rituals in parks and woods right in the heart of the city but despite this you would never know they were there as an outsider attending this ritual as a rare privilege to talk me through it as one of Britain's highest-ranking Wiccan priestesses Christina Oakley Harrington this is a gorgeous looking place why have you chosen it what are we going to do here well we're in Queens wood which has been used by pagans for ceremonies for decades and decades and what we're here to do is to have a Wiccan based ceremony to remember what's sacred about us and about our connection and our connection with the land and the place that we live and it's customary in Wicca that there aren't observers there are only participants so I'd like to invite you to join us if you'd be willing to I'd be honored I'm a bit nervous when doing a Wiccan ritual one feels in connection with something very very old and connected to the earth and those things that we find deeply moving in beautiful the moon the sunsets those parts of nature that we don't understand that give us a sense of mystery and awe we make a Wiccan ceremony by casting a circle and that's done with a wand what it's like to cast a circle is to make a space that is completely within nature in order that we can leave aside those things that we have to deal with every day but this is a place of rest there's a part of the ceremony in which we consecrate one another and in that moment we're doing the balancing act which is remembering the divinity that dwells within so when we consecrate each other with a salt in the water we're remembering ah you know you're a human being in front of me but you too were divine blessed be when doing a Wiccan ritual one feels in connection with something very very old and very beautiful and very connected to the earth and all the tension of all the duties and all the things that we have to carry I just feel it just draining away blessed be now I thought that was a lovely ritual there's clearly more going on here than just a bunch of people having a good time in a wood there's something quite deep but does it bring me any closer to understanding what wicker actually is rituals like this with their reverence for nature feel like the continuation of a very ancient tradition but in fact nothing could be further from the truth because Wicca doesn't have its origins in the mists of time but in 1930s Dorset in 1938 a 52 year old ex colonial gent scalds Gerald Gardner retired with his wife to the south coast of England this is Highcliff an archetypal conservative English community with its village church Rotary Club and Tory MP but hidden just beneath the surface 75 years ago was something a lot stranger and Gerald wasn't long in finding it for one thing high cliff was a hot spot for naturists and despite his eminently respectable appearance Gerald liked nothing more than taking his clothes off well Gardiner moved to this area in 1938 and this is the house that he bought Wow and this is where Gerald and his naturist friends would have enjoyed the sunshine it's almost the perfect private nudist paradise it is larger sunniest open yet it's well Gerald had found the perfect retirement spot and he wasn't alone bankers accountants teachers and a host of tea and scones types seem to be keen on retiring disgracefully we've got extraordinary evidence of this from a rather jokey piece which appeared in the Christchurch Times in 1939 the instant success with the neighbors at the elphinston Road nudist colony has been marked one old gentleman who has rented a second floor back says his outlook on life generally has entirely changed in the last few weeks he is now no use for his car or fishing tackle and wishes to exchange him for anything useful such as telescopes binoculars or camera and also God had a darkroom built and I think he was going to develop and print his own photographs but it may be that there are were of a nature that it was not sort of thing you want to take along to your local chemists because even more rumors would have spread then he would stand out and he arrived because he would look so different he had this shock of white hair and also and what what I remember was that he had tattoos on his arm and I know of boys and they would cross the road that he was a bit odd looking so even with his clothes on Gerald seemed different it was rumored that his racy photo sessions went along with affairs and a taste for flagellation but Gerald wasn't satisfied he was seeking something stranger and in 1939 he found it Gerald was about to become a witch [Music] this old house in Hampshire has a remarkable claim to fame for it was here on a night in 1939 but a middle-aged man called Gerald's gardener was apparently initiated into witchcraft I was blindfolded clasped from behind and told I give you the password Jerald claims that he was strips naked brought him to a room full of witches all similarly nude and then given the secrets of an ancient magical religion I was then pushed through a doorway and into the circle and then the word Wicca was mentioned Wicca which there which is which is still exist from that night until his death nearly thirty years later Gerald Gardner devoted his life to witchcraft he appeared in the papers non-tv he wrote books and crucially he initiated others into wicker so it would not die with him the question is what kind of man in 1930s England decides to become a witch for clues about Gerald's journey to becoming Britain's most famous witch we need to delve into his earlier life journal Gardiner came from a family that have made a fortune and the timber trade he grew up in Lancashire but at the age of six he was packed off abroad with his nanny because of ill health and he never went to school Gerald Gardner was essentially an unwanted child I think really because he was asthmatic and Branca tic and he was sent out to the Far East for his health but the family never really reclaimed him Gerald was more or less sort of left on his own to learn that he did Jerald became very well traveled very quickly and as a colonial that was natural for him to seek his forked rune among the tea and rubber plantations of the Far East but while most Colonials were content to sit back and drink GMT Gerald went out and studied the tribal cultures of the places where he was living in particular he became fascinated by tribal ritual magic one of the rituals that he attended was putting a young girl into into trance disease was driven out of their bodies by spells magic to these tribal people was a matter-of-fact affair it was real Gerald says it was is really quite atmospheres quite unlike anything that he had seen before Gardner's fascination with tribal magic went along with a deep interest in Western occultism he was inspired by pioneers like Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle who was heavily involved in spiritualism and had become one of the most prominent public figures in magic and the supernatural Gerald picked up on Conan Doyle's magical world and it wasn't long before he was following in his footsteps experimenting with seances and spiritualism the tribal rituals he then witnessed in Malaya only cemented this belief that magic was a powerful a very real thing [Music] so with the time he retired Highclere Gerald had been studying magic for decades and he soon made contact with local law cultists in particular a large group of Freemasons who are based nearby he found a people who were if not exactly like-minded then similarly minded there are some people are very interested in esoteric things but others that were interested in nature and nature spirits they were people who can use a local folklore they knew the lie of the land those people as he got to know were interested in something else as well this something else turned out to be a kind of native English version of the ritual magic Gerald have experience in the Far East it was real English witchcraft and Gerald wanted in he began taking part in magical rituals after the New Forest but what did witches actually do add at this point in in British history what did it mean to call yourself a witch as Gerald tells it after his initiation he and his coven began to work rituals in the new forest and they certainly started a tradition which continues to this very day I've come to meet Wiccan priestess Pam Dora who's going to demonstrate a ritual that Gerald and his coven would recognize it's based on a traditional kind of healing spell but the way it's done in a group casting a circle using certain words all comes from Gerald so you've got some hazelnuts here in a cauldron what we're gonna do is imbue them with some of our wishes and strengths and things that we think we can use in the dark of the year coming does this actually involve costing a spell natural objects in this case hazelnuts are charged with energy designed to cure winter ailments and as I've got a cold I'm hoping that it might help me [Music] Pandora I think I know it was going on there it felt as if we were charging these material objects with our own spiritual energy with the support of other spiritual entities which you'd invite into our circle is that kind of right or is there more to it than that the other thing to add into it too is writing our own energies because what we do is we've taken that energy that surround us and we've pulled it into ourselves and because we've got ourselves moving we've used that energy within us to charge these imagine if you can how this sort of thing would have seemed to most people in 1939 to most residents of Highcliff had they but known the truth Gerald aura seemed little short of insane but was this all madness or was Gerald simply following tradition in Britain there is a long history of useful witchcraft dating back to the Middle Ages known as the cunning folk these witches would cast spells to heal the sick or bring good luck research has shown that Gerald essentially used these spells in his own new forest rituals but it was his ambition that set Gerald apart from the cunning folk of old for him these English folklore spells held much greater power Gerald had ambitions to use magic on a much grander scale that would change not just your health but the entire world he was about to test his newfound magical powers against something truly dangerous as just across the sea Hitler began to threaten invasion when he wasn't casting spells Gerald was also a prominent member of the local Home Guard and so it made sense to Gerald to prepare to repel the Nazis not just with rusty bayonets but with magic and on one night in 1914 that's exactly what he and his coven are said to have done we were taken at night to a place in the forest where the Great Circle was erected I've come to the depths the New Forest in search of the exact location of this famous magical encounter and here to talk me through it it's Gerald's biographer Philip peasant we're here because Gerald Gardner said we were taken at night to a place in the forest and there we created the largest cone of power that we had ever attempted what's a cone apart well it's not a physical cone it is something magical something a thought-form if you like for Gerald the threat of German invasion was the perfect opportunity to demonstrate the true power of Wiccan magic and the great cone of power was raised and slowly directed in the general direction of Hitler they built up power dancing quickly round and then when that power had reached its climax there was this code of power which could be seen by those who are sensitive to these things the command was given you cannot across the sea you cannot across the sea they rushed towards the fire at the same time raising this code of power and sending it over to the German High Command and indeed to Hitler himself I have to confess although the night isn't particularly cold I'm shivering a bit here I got wet feet it's pretty uncomfortable would it have been similarly physically exhausting for them well yes because they weren't in the first flush of youth most of them it was something which exerted them it exerted them greatly and Gardner says several of them died shortly after that Ritchie you cannot cross the sea you cannot come you cannot come this was that if you like the life force of the individuals coming out this was important and they were prepared to sacrifice themselves if necessary in order to achieve this objective [Music] now from the perspective of the present day this story might seem utterly preposterous which is effectively sacrificing their lives in order to create a spell to ward off the Nazis but Hitler didn't come and even the British government seemed to feel threatened by the power of magic shortly after Gerald's cone of power ritual a spiritualist called Helen Duncan was actually prosecuted for her occult activities Duncan had raffles twitchy naval officers and attracted the attention of the authorities in 1944 when she held seances in Portsmouth and began answering questions about people's relatives who've been killed in action she had been too good at her prophecies and had alarmed the security forces and in fact she was imprisoned for a while [Music] but Gerald's passion for the occult was unwavering and crucially he wasn't alone he was drawing closer to the most notorious magician in the entire world Aleister Crowley known as the Great Beast Crowley was an infamous magician whose alleged black magic had earned him the title wickedest man in the world never far from controversy Crowley could have a distinct dark take on your cult I simply went over to Satan side I found myself as passionately eager to serve my new master as I had been to serve the old gerald new Crowley's work and actually appropriated many of his magical writings and his early Wiccan rituals but Gerald now astir were very different men where Crowley's brand of magic could be dark Gardner was interested in the positive side of the occult and these colorful characters gathered here at the Atlantis bookshop which had a temple in the basement and sold rare texts with instructions on how to summon the dead talk to angels and wield supernatural power it became a safe haven for like-minded people to come meet and discuss things without prejudice and it gave them the protective coloring that at the time they needed what sort of things happened at this shot and why do they matter to history they matter because there were so few places that people who've been interested in this sort of thing could meet their fellows where you could talk as equals where you were though you were a witch or you were a high ceremony magician or an astrologer and numerologist you have always been treated as equals here what do you think of gerald gardner my father used to come home say he was in a game today kids king of the witches his hair goes this way his beard goes that way and he had style he had presence and he had a great cracking wit as well Crowley was nearing the end of his life and he wanted Gardner as heir to his secret occult society but Gerald was not content with a secretive underground subculture he wanted to take wicker to the masses so that's exactly what he was about to do with a bang it did not affect that these meetings are really very largely sexual orgies they're not released dr. Gerald Russell Garner is a qualified scientist he is also a witch this is Gerald Gartner appearing on the bbc's panorama program in 1958 my wishes are initiated quite young and of course they're there some of them a young just a few years previously Gardner been performing spells in the new forest with a small coven of witches so how on earth did Gerald make the transition from local eccentric to celebrity on the BBC's flagship current affairs program Gerald had come back to London in the mid 1940s full of enthusiasm about Wicca but he had to be careful it might be okay to discuss this stuff of the safety of the atlantis bookshop but the witchcraft act was still in force in those days to proclaim yourself a public which was illegal and to be involved in the occult maybe a social pariah in the 1940s the core beliefs of wicker were so radical it was a very risky religion indeed Britain was still a very Orthodox society and anything other than Christianity was treated with suspicion but Gerald was desperate to spread the Wiccan word and so in 1949 he found a compromise he adopted a pseudonym and he published a novel and this is it hi Magic's aid although it had to be disguised as a work of fiction it is actually the first published account of Wiccan magic this passage one of many describes how to conduct a classic Wiccan ritual upon the altar lay the remaining pentacle also cause black cloth and other things which he would want for the operation taking this Pentagon he bound it with a cord and shrouded it with a cloth it could be seen just as a as a story but for those in the know you know it was it was quite revealing it included quite a lot of witchcraft rituals that are fairly familiar today in some ways it's a terrible novel here's to many years and privies and forces and vowels but in essence it's witchcraft writ large there [Music] hi magic say it wasn't exactly a best-seller but it did so the first seeds of wicker out in the wider world then in 1951 offer a campaign by a group of spiritualist MP supported by Winston Churchill who himself had become interested in the occult the witchcraft act was finally repealed Gerald was now free to out himself as a witch and to tell the world all about Wicca which was by now developing into a fully fledged religious system since his new Forrest initiation Gerald had become something of a magpie building his new religion from many sources he borrowed heavily from both English folklore witchcraft and modern shamanic magic for his spells and rituals whilst the iconic symbols that would become synonymous with Wicca most notably the pentagram were in fact ancient symbols that have been adopted by the Freemasons [Music] this blend of influences found expression in Gerald's collection of magical objects but to see some of these you have to go to a rather unlikely location I've come here in pursuit of one of the most significant collections of Wiccan artifacts in the world and among them is one of the most important wicked manuscripts of all the owner is John bellum pain a property developer now living in Spain he is also one of whicker's senior priests and in the great tradition of the faith has had many of Gerald's most prized magical possessions handed down to him Wow you talked me through some of general subjects and explained what they were for okay this was our gardeners wand or at least one of them and he would have used that to cast a circle the other items here that we have from Gerald is one of his famous what are our famous it's a ritual knife we only use in a samey for magical purposes oh my obviously it's it's phallic so it would be used for some sort of recreational purpose I think other items of Gerald's are these two crowns the priest s would wear this one of the representing the triple aspects of the moon and this would be what he would have worn which was a which was representative of the Horned God it's there representing goddess and God and Goddess on God absolutely right Ron I actually think - - your size would you like to try it out if you would like me to do so yes by all means okay it's remarkably comfortable journaled as a practical sort of chat but the real prize is much too valuable to be kept in John's basement worth more than a million dollars it's locked away in a much more secure location now I'm being granted a remarkable privilege I'm about to see a Wiccan Holy Grail here in a secure vault in this Bank is one of the most significant and valuable religious documents of the 20th century this is the foundation text the closest thing to a Bible of modern pagan witchcraft it's called The Book of Shadows it's Gerald's own magical workbook his experimental notes for what wicker would become here Gerald wrote down the original rituals and spells that Wiccans have been using ever since it's a manual unlike wicker itself that remained a work-in-progress rather than a fixed set of doctrines so this is it this is Gerald Gardner's first and original book of shadows first of all it's probably the most famous book that there is in the craft and as far as that is concerned my take on this book is I think is as important as owning the original Bible because it's full of just everything that garden are learned at that stage from a whole load of different sources first draw a circle with Athena and sprinkle with exercise water light candles and this is the important part is this is a book of experiences this is a book about things that have gone right and some things that have gone wrong this is wonderful it's certainly the oldest Wiccan book surviving in Europe it is a strange mixture which i think is a classic of Gerald hmm it's a mixture of a book of actual ritual to be used in the temple read from it's also a kind of notebook with odds and ends taken from all sorts of sources I call upon the goddess to enlighten the hearts of all whom I call and looking at this gives me two further insights and tools Gerald the first is just his love of beautiful things artistry his love of script yeah like his love of wands like his love of crowns and and also his willingness to adapt to go on from one thing to another is the somebody who's creating a work in progress which other people can pick up and with which they can do things and move on from yeah yeah that's the exciting thing about the craft is it never stays still in the book of shadows Gerald had written not just a guidebook to the spells and rituals of wicker he'd produce a manifesto for a new religion wicker had truly been born and now he was desperate to take it to the masses Gerald was now a man in a hurry desperate to ensure that Wicca didn't die with him he'd devote the next 10 years to spreading word of it throughout the lands whatever the consequences in 1954 Gerald published his essential guide to Wicca witchcraft today he also opens Britain's first Museum of witchcraft on the Isle of Man and he started to be featured newspapers looking for a sensational story today the people the existence of optical stores and three stats go wild it was after a series of muckraking tabloid features accusing gerald of practicing black magic devil worship but he really got his big break Gerald was invited to defend himself on panorama this would become a definitive TV moment watched by millions that gave the British public their first sight of a real live which is it true that the dancing takes place as a rule naked yes now why is that it's good tradition it's the order of the goddess who you should only be naked at my right and of course to work magic you must believe it Gerald couldn't have hoped for a bigger audience and even in the face of some provocative questioning he kept his dignity just I want to put this to you very frankly I've been reading your book and I am tempted to ask you it is not a fact that these meetings are really very largely sexual orgies they're not the least Gerald might have faced derision for the BBC but twelve million people had just heard about wicker for the first time and what then happens when the circle is drawn well then of course the general you have felt with the dance then there's a worship of the God then of course it depends what they want to do if we want to work magically work magic I think Gerald felt he was a nothing less than a sacred mission and now he had found his audience what he was about was getting this thing planted in as many places we could possibly bloody well planted because he reckoned it was it was it was great stuff and he wanted it he wanted survive he's the one who put it out there and said no people should know about this this is amazing thank you very much broomsticks I think are all waiting [Music] and through all this Jerald got his wish he had become Britain's first modern celebrity which he's not it's like turning the crank handle of an old car you know nothing happens then and then suddenly it sparks into life you know that that's what happened [Music] as gardeners fave grew so too did his following people were writing to him in their hundreds wanting to become witches one of his converts who joined him on panorama was Louis born tell it how old are you and are you a hereditary witch well I don't have witch ancestry but it's only within the last few years that I am in practicing witchcraft how did you find out about Wicca I had all these spiritual gifts and I didn't know what to do with them and eventually I read a book by Gerald Gardner I think it was called witchcraft today and I wrote to him and I asked him if he could explain these strange things which had happened to me throughout my life and he said well it's very clear to me my dear that you are a witch what makes people take out witchcraft well it seems to me that we live in a highly mechanized age in which many people have lost their sense of belonging witchcraft brings them back to living in harmony with the rhythm and the seasons of the earth why did Gerald value publicity so much I think he was driven by something outside himself I think this was his purpose in life well I'm sure I am convinced that we all come to earth with a purpose that there is something that we have to do and I think that this is what this is what Gerald's purpose was it wasn't just women who were drawn to Wicca several young men joined Gerald's original columns one of them was Zachary Cox his eyes were bright blue and credibly glittery eyes he didn't know mad in any destructive sense but he looked kind of nicely magic you know what I mean these were the eyes of someone who had only one foot in the world in the world of the commonplace I don't know how guy gets into that straight I'm sure but he's got into it somehow he was witchcraft if you like but the really weird thing is it works [Music] and at the dawn of the new decade there was something else in the air that would work and whicker's favored social revolution as the 60s began to swing whicker's emphasis on gender equality nature worship and sacred sexuality made a perfect fit for the historical moment it was almost as if Gerald had predicted how the world was about to change he was a conduit for something that were it was the right time for that down but the time that Gerald died in 1964 wicker was on its way to becoming a global faith and an America where the counterculture was really rocking society to its core Gerald's radical new religion exploded into a phenomenon throughout the seventies and eighties wicker continued its march into the mainstream helped to no small part by hugely successful cult movies like The Wicker Man which provided a tantalizing if inaccurate glimpse of the pagan faith to cenomar goers throughout the world but as wicker expanded across the globe without its eccentric leader would this very British religion flourish or perish in Britain today Gerald Gardner's radical religion his feminist eco-friendly magical faith has taken its place at the heart of our culture where once witches were persecuted and driven underground today they could be out and proud 21st century wicker is plainly a far cry from its roots in the new forest the forthcoming census results are expected to show it well up among the top 10 religions in the United Kingdom and as the faith has grown Wiccans have formed campaign groups these organizations Lobby the government about the ongoing recognition of wicker and its followers rights one of the most prominent and active of these groups is to be found in the modern police service I want to find out how Gerald's legacy is influencing policy and changing attitudes within some of our most respected professions Andrew party as spokesman for the police pagan Association border officer Adam commenced represents pagans in the home office the format we use the way things are laid out was brought to us by Gerald Gardner and when we look at it if I look at Wicca it's probably the only religion that England has ever given to the world police sources may go in and they may see an altar set up and they may not know whether the position of a ritual knife falls underneath defenses in law or not and it's simple things like that that just make the police a bit more reassured of how they're dealing with people but also allow us that Pagan community know that they can be dealt with fairly just as any other person would and if Gerald's legacy is becoming influential in the UK in America his radical English faith has infiltrated the very heart of the establishment the US military Roberta Stewart and Reverend Selina Fox are on a mission Stewart's husband sergeant Patrick Stewart was killed in combat last September in Afghanistan the Nevada native was a Bronze Star and Purple Heart recipient he was also a member of the Wiccan religion whose symbol is the pedicle Stewart was refused to Wiccan memorial because the authorities viewed his faith as a cult and not as a true religion I said where's my husband's plaque and they indicated that the emblem of our chosen faith was not allowed to be on there since this test case in 2007 the Wiccan pentagram has been a religious symbol officially recognized by the US military and can be carved on the gravestones of servicemen and women who were killed in the line of duty back in the UK whicker's evolution shows no sign of slowing down indeed it's almost certainly the fastest growing religion in the country and what's interesting to me is that it's the younger generation that is leading the March [Music] this is Croydon South London not perhaps the most magical place in the planet this weekend's Croydon is hosting the biggest gathering of witches in the world I've come to which fist where Gerald Gardner wanted to find witchcraft he had to do so by getting into a secret coven today's would be witches can do sir the click of a mouse but do these young people know who Jarrell Gardner walls [Music] to me Gerald is trailblazer and a revolutionary he was so brave and courageous in embracing a religion that was so outside of the norm he inspires me because he he was so alive in in his own lifetime and vibrant she ate how he helps make it more public and you know we're all interested in it probably because like with his influence with India which part well Gardner's legacy clearly lives on amongst this new generation of witches but have modern Wiccan beliefs stayed true to the original vision of its eccentric creator what does paganism mean to you to me paganism is a spiritual path and it involves reverence for nature Wicca means to me finding my spirituality embodied in a religion that is incorporating a feminine divine what would you call it as a religion to you is it a spirituality is it a craft it's a craft because we practice witchcraft and it's a spirituality because it's independent how we are as individuals and how we explore it within ourselves whether its nature feminism or spirituality that inspires gardeners young followers wicker is about the power of magic magic changed Gerald's life it gave him a vision of the new type of religion and it drove him to push back the boundaries of the possible magic does work the fact that sunrises every morning and we're here to say it is magic the fact that the moon glows and big and bright and lights the way in the darkness is magic and we have that and we celebrate that and we hold it very very dear to our hearts it's very difficult to define but it's so powerful a witch on their own can't do that much but when they get together they're so powerful in the course of making this film I've encountered many people who practice a religion called pagan witchcraft which to them is clearly as beautiful transcendental and effective as other faiths are to their believers and it was brought as the world by a classic English eccentric who managed to publicize a religion of losting power its feminists its nature centered it seems to give people a great deal of choice but the single most powerful idea I take away from wicker is this whereas other faiths say this is what you should feel about the divine this one says this is how you can feel divine you

Channel: Timeline - World History Documentaries

Views: 2,026,977

Rating: 4.6728592 out of 5

Keywords: Full length Documentaries, Documentary, documentary history, Wicca, stories, Channel 4 documentary, TV Shows - Topic, Documentaries, History, history documentary, Full Documentary, Documentary Movies - Topic, Gerald Gardner, BBC documentary, 2017 documentary, real

Id: M56-6XA3h2M

Length: 45min 9sec (2709 seconds)

Published: Sat Sep 09 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/ReubenXXL]

I've never met someone who's casually into Wicca. There's no "yea I do Wicca on easter and Christmas to make grandma happy, you know?".

They're always like full blown draped in black with an alchemy book.

Always nice people though.

[u/zacharmstrong9]

There's a thematic compatibility with Law of Attraction adherents, and having been successful in sales and retired early, I can understand the thinking and the power of ritual in Wicca. The good quality of these believers is that they never force their values on others like (US) Tennessee hillbilly 'snake handler' christianists who "speak in tongues" ! ! LOL!

[u/9fingerNate]

Man, Camp Hope has really changed Gerald Gardner