Inside, the floor was covered by a new black surface on which a double magical circle was drawn in white paint. The inner one was the traditional nine feet in diameter and between the circles were inscribed Cabbalistic symbols. In one quarter of the room was a wooden chest used as an altar (Ibid., 166). There was also a four-poster bed on which the coven left their clothes when they got undressed for their skyclad rituals. Cecil Williamson claims an old wartime Anderson air-raid shelter was used as an altar. He says it was covered in several ex-Army mattresses and was utilized by the coven for the Great Rite (Winter 1992). According to an entry in Doreen Valiente’s personal notebooks, the signs of the planetary spirits were painted on the walls of the cottage. In the 1950s, when descriptions of the inside of the cottage were published in sensational newspaper stories about Gardner and his coven, these sigils were inaccurately described as “satanic symbols.”
Williamson claimed that Gardner tried to convince him that the cottage had once been George Pickingill’s in Canewdon. Apparently when Gardner met Crowley the latter was “very interested” in a photograph of the witch’s cottage for that reason. Williamson checked with the local council in Essex and found out that Pickingill’s cottage had been demolished before the war. In fact the witch’s cottage had originally been located in Herefordshire, where it had been used to store apples. Father Ward had rescued it for the Folk Park when he heard it was going to be knocked down.
Somebody who saw the cottage in 1991 reported it had been moved because Gardner’s plot of land at Brickett Wood had been sold to a property developer for a new housing development. The magical symbols had vanished from the walls, but part of the magical circle on the floor was still visible. It was then put up for sale with an asking price of £5000, and the wife and son of Jack Bracelin, the manager of Five Acres, and High Priest of the Brickett Wood Coven, were said to have been trying to buy it. It was never sold, and Philip Heselton said in 2003 the cottage was being used as a store by the club’s groundsman. It was in a poor state with the tiled roof replaced by felt and new timbers replacing some of the original old ones (Ibid., 166–167).
Among the early recorded members of the Brickett Wood Coven was a major who used to be a judge in India. Because of his experience, he was often called in as an expert on criminal matters by Scotland Yard. In an interview with the Sunday Pictorial newspaper about the opening of his Museum of Witchcraft and Magic on the Isle of Man, Cecil Williamson referred to a coven of witches he knew in southern England. He said that one of their members was a civil servant and another was a schoolteacher. Although some of the members were quite old, he says there was a “very attractive girl” he knew who belonged to the coven. He added that they practiced fertility rites that involved dancing in the nude. Williamson may have been talking about the New Forest Coven, but the newspaper followed up the interview with a story about a nudist camp near London where “nude devotees of both sexes [performed] midnight rites (The People 31.10.1951).
Doreen Valiente told me that when she first joined Gardner’s coven in 1953, there was a “pretty blonde girl” who attended some of the rituals called Barbara Vickers (d. 1973) (letter dated March 24, 1997). She was told Vickers and her husband were members of a coven in Cheshire. In 1950 or 1951, Barbara Vickers was apparently willing to initiate Cecil Williamson into Wicca, but he declined the offer on the rather wimpish grounds that his wife would not approve (Heselton 2003: 253).
At the time I was under the mistaken impression that Vickers belonged to a traditional pre-Gardnerian coven. However subsequent investigations by Philip Heselton have established that this was not true. In fact, Heselton believes Barbara Vickers first met Gardner in the late 1940s, and was possibly introduced to him through her membership in a naturist club where she was living in Cheshire. Heselton says that by November 1950 Gardner had initiated her into Wicca as photographs of her at that date exist showing her skyclad, holding ritual tools. Alternatively she used to visit her parents in London and Heselton speculated her interest in Spiritualism and the occult may have led her to the Atlantis bookshop and a possible meeting with Gardner (May 2008).
In one of the photographs mentioned above, Barbara Vickers is sitting on the edge of a single bed. Her arms are crossed over her chest, in her right hand she is holding what looks like a wand, and in her left is a scourge. On the bed is a small book that appears to be handwritten, and could be an early version of the Gardnerian Book of Shadows. She is wearing a silver witch bracelet, engraved with symbols and writing in the Theban magical alphabet of the type Gardner used to make for his initiates. In the second photograph, Vickers is standing before a magical “dark mirror” with the names of the four archangels painted on its frame. In her hands she is holding a two-handled metal cup.
Philip Heselton has suggested that Barbara Vickers initially attended some of the rituals at the Brickett Wood covenstead and later at Gardner’s London apartment in Holland Park, where Doreen Valiente first met her in 1953. Heselton believes she stopped attending in 1956, and the last ritual she went to was the initiation of Jack Bracelin and Thelma Capel (witch name “Dayonis”) at the full moon in March of that year. In later years, she took a stand against witchcraft and, following an incident in 1959 when she saw an apparition of Gardner appear at the end of her bed, threw all her witch regalia away with the garbage.
Heselton believes that the book displayed in the photograph featuring Vickers was her personal copy of the BoS. Initiates into Gardnerian Wicca were required to write out in longhand their own copy, using their initiator’s copy as a master. Obviously once the basic rituals of the three degrees of initiation and the seasonal festivals had been transcribed, the new initiate was at liberty to add their own material. Although this had never been much of a problem for British Gardnerians, in the United States stories circulate of initiates having to show new entries in their copies of the BoS to the High Priestess of the coven for approval and having to sign and date any additions or alterations.
There has been a fair amount of speculation over the years regarding the origin of the actual term “Book of Shadows.” It is a term that cannot be found in any of the historical records or folkloric accounts of witchcraft. A “Black Book” is mentioned, but this seems to have been more of a coven record listing the names of members and details of their induction into the witch cult. Individual witches and cunning folk also kept their own personal books of recipes, spells, and charms, and these were passed down to their apprentices or through families. However, the term “Book of Shadows” seems to be unique to twentieth-century witchcraft and to have originated with Gerald Gardner.
Gardner may have got the term from a Scottish children’s author called Helen Douglas Adams (1909–1993). Her book Charms and Dreams from the Elfin Pedlar’s Pack (Hodder & Stoughton 1924) was divided into three sections and entitled the Book of Shadows, the Second Book of Shadows, and the Third Book of Shadows. Douglas Adams went to the United States in 1939 and eventually she became involved with a group of beat poets in San Francisco. Among them she had a reputation of being a witch who followed the Old Religion, read tarot cards, and cursed people who crossed her. At the time, much of her poetry was influenced by folklore, witchcraft, and magic (Ash: August 2004).
An alternative and more widely accepted theory was given by Doreen Valiente. While browsing in the Quinto bookshop in Brighton, she found some back issues of a magazine called The Occult Observer published in the 1940s by Michael Juste of the Atlantis bookshop. In a copy dated 1949 were two articles by the famous Indian palmist Mir Bashir. One of the articles told of an ancient manuscript written in Sanskrit called The Book of Shadows that Bashir had heard about in India in 1941. It was supposed to be thousands of years old and described a method of Hindu divination involving the measuring of a person’s shadow. Bashir eventually found a holy man who had a copy of the book and he gave him a very accurate life reading (Valiente 1989: 51–52, and letter to Dr. Allen Greenfie
ld dated August 28, 1988, in MOW archive).
Bill Liddell claimed in his articles that there was a prototype Book of Shadows in Aleister Crowley’s handwriting exhibited in the witchcraft museum on the Isle of Man by Gardner, and that Raymond Buckland, his first American initiate, had referred to it (1994: 29). The alleged existence of this document has caused considerable controversy and speculation, especially as Buckland’s statement cannot be verified. Liddell is adamant that Campbell “Scotty” Wilson, husband of Monique Wilson who inherited the museum from Gardner, showed this elusive manuscript to Liddell’s common-law wife, Sylvia Tatham. She gave it only a cursory glance, but told him she saw some OTO rites and Gardnerian Wiccan rites in it (Ibid., 161).
Cecil Williamson told me that when Gardner was playing the role of resident witch at the museum when he still owned it, he had his own personal BoS and carried it with him everywhere. Tucked into it were two carefully folded sheets of thin airmail-type paper. This was covered from top to bottom in handwriting executed using a pen with a fine steel nib. One of these sheets had Crowley’s personal symbol on the bottom, which he often used as his signature. One Friday afternoon, Gardner was having lunch with some visiting French women. He took them to see a display cabinet containing some magical artifacts that had been loaned to the museum by the New Forest Coven. Gardner accidentally left his personal BoS with its enclosures on the table. When he returned he found it was gone and, according to Williamson, was distraught (letter dated 1982 in MOW archive doc.401/423).
There seem to have been several early versions of the BoS in existence. The writer and researcher Aidan Kelly has said he discovered an early version in 1974. Shortly after Kelly had began his studies for a Ph.D. at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, he mentioned to his friend Isaac Bonewits that he was writing an essay on the so-called “Craft Laws” in the Gardnerian BoS. Bonewits was just about to take a position as the editor of the esoteric magazine Gnostica published by Llewellyn. He asked Kelly to submit the essay for publication and also mentioned it to Llewellyn’s founder and president Carl L. Weschcke. This reminded him of a file he had of Gardnerian material and Weschcke sent photocopies of it to Kelly for his interest.
These documents consisted of thirty-eight typed pages of ritual material, including all the eight Sabbats, the “Old Craft Laws,” three methods for casting the circle, a ritual to “Gain the Sight,” “The Eightfold Way,” the three degrees of initiation, consecrations, and several versions of the Charge of the Goddess and the Witches’ Rune. Weschcke told Kelly this file had been sent to him by a man who had been initiated in 1960. Gardnerian Craft historian and researcher Melissa Seims has said that they were sent to Weschcke by one of Gardner’s initiates, Charles Clark, in April 1969 (Seims May 2006). The document had several handwritten amendments in Gardner’s hand and Seims identified one called “All Are Purified” as the oldest, possibly derived from the famous Ye Bok of Ye Arte Magical compiled by Gardner in the 1940s. From an examination of the rituals in this document, Aidan Kelly came to the conclusion that he was looking at one of the earliest copies of the Gardnerian BoS. He was able to identify the sources of much of the material it contained. These included Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, Leland’s Aradia, MacGregor Mathers’ translation of the Key of Solomon, Dr. Murray’s books, and Sir James Frazer’s The Golden Bough (1900) (Kelly 1991: xv–xvii).
In 1975, Aidan Kelly visited the headquarters of Ripley International in Toronto, the company that purchased the museum collection from the Isle of Man when Monique Wilson put it up for sale three years earlier. Kelly was told by Ripley’s vice-president for research and development, Derek Copplethwaite, that the only document in the collection that resembled anything like a BoS was a manuscript they had found hidden in the back of one of the display cabinets from the museum. This document was entitled Ye Bok of Ye Art Magical (BAM) and Kelly believes that it represents a prototype BoS put together by Gardner in the 1940s.
From the BAM, Kelly asserts Gardner created his first edition of the BoS, which Kelly calls Text A, and he gave a copy of it to Doreen Valiente when she was initiated in 1953. She also had in her possession a copy of another version, known as Text B, which was an expanded version of A. Kelly claims that when the Brickett Wood group split in 1957, Gardner rewrote the BoS, and this third version was given to Monique Wilson when he initiated her.
The BAM consisted of 150 large sheets folded and sewn into signatures slightly larger then a modern standard C4 or A4 English paper size. These had then been hand-bound into a leather cover inscribed with the title of the manuscript and the symbol for the third degree initiation surrounded by a triangle. The contents included watercolour drawings of Cabbalistic talismans, seals and sigils, biblical quotations, instructions on making and consecrating magical tools, a cakes and wine ritual, details of magical robes, the casting of the circle, a painting of The Devil card from Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, another of the Rosy Cross symbol of the Rosicrucian Order, various extracts from the writings of Crowley, and rituals from the Grand Sabbats. One conjuration in the BAM was written in the Theban magical alphabet from Agrippa’s sixteenth-century work Occult Philosophy and this is still widely used in Wiccan circles (Kelly 2007: 95–98).
A considerable amount of the material in the BAM originated with the Key of Solomon. As we know, Gerald Yorke loaned a copy to Gardner in the 1940s. The American Gardnerian and researcher Don Hudson Frew has claimed Gardner was already aware of the Key, as he had access to a manuscript of it that was partly descended from MacGregor Mathers’ translation. Roger Dearnley has speculated this manuscript had been in the possession of a member of the New Forest Coven and they passed it to Gardner. Dearnley has examined the copy of the BAM, which is currently in the possession of Richard and Tamara James of the Wicca Church of Canada in Toronto, and believes it contains textual errors that can be explained by it being copied from an original handwritten source.
An alternative story about the origin of the BAM put forward by the late Jim Davies was published in an article in the Canadian Wiccan Candle magazine (Beltane 1993). Davies was the Magister of a traditional coven and had emigrated to Canada from the Isle of Man. There he had known Monique Wilson, and also been in contact with the robed covens on the island. He also claimed Gardner knew these groups. In his article Davies claimed that the BAM was “… crafted by Gerald as a public display for the museum … It’s what would be known in the film business as a ‘prop.’ And, like everything else in the museum, it was made to look and be as authentic as possible to show to the visitors.” A photograph from the Bracelin biography accompanied the article, allegedly showing Ye Bok on display in the museum.
It is certainly known that Gardner made items for display in the museum. When he purchased it from Cecil Williamson he only bought the buildings and not the actual collection. Gardner borrowed some objects from Williamson and also hired people to make some of the other exhibits. Doreen Valiente confirmed to me that she had helped Gardner make some of the things for the museum including ancient magical manuscripts with sigils in colored inks (letter dated November 29, 1995, in MOW archive). Arnold Crowther also employed his puppetry expertise to make a model of a demon from papier-mâché and this sat in a magical triangle in the museum (Crowther 1998: 27). It seems unlikely, however, that Gardner would have gone to all the trouble of producing a book with over a hundred pages as a prop for his exhibition.
In the BAM, the procedure for casting the circle calls for the use of a scimitar or sickle, a “Magic Sword,” or a “Witch’s Athame” to draw it. The word “athame” comes directly from the Key of Solomon and is the name for the magician’s ritual dagger. In both the BAM and the later “All Are Purified” text in the Clark documents, the circle is cast by the Magus, as opposed to the later use of High Priest as a male coven leader, and not by the High Priestess, as in later versions of the BoS. Melissa Seims has said that the fact that the Magus draws and conse
crates the circle and summons the Mighty Ones at the four quarters (described as the “Dread Lords of the Outer Spaces”) in the BAM and in the rituals in High Magic’s Aid may support Bill Liddell’s claims. Liddell has said that Gardner was inducted into a cunning lodge led by a male leader that combined the worship of the Horned God with ceremonial magic, Freemasonry, and paganism (May 2000).
The references to the Magus casting the circle, the use of magical robes and hints of male-to-male initiations, which are not orthodox Wiccan traditions, would suggest the influence of pre-Gardnerian practices. In a 1952 letter Gerald Gardner wrote to a Mr. Blackwell, who had sought his advice, he recommended making a charm. He was advised to take a knife and stand naked in the east while drawing a triple circle on the ground, saying: “Athor Malaus ve Guverah, Ve Gudular, he Olam.” Blackwell then had to copy these words onto two pieces of parchment and he and his wife had to wear these in a bag around their necks. Gardner signed the letter with his magical name in the OTO “Scire” (letter dated January 14, 1952, in MOW archive). Again this ritual does not sound like a typically Wiccan one.
We have seen that the ritual that Kenneth Grant attended with Gardner in 1949 involved the summoning of a spirit into physical manifestation. One of the current exhibits in the Museum of Witchcraft at Boscastle is the incense burner and stand depicted on the front cover of High Magic’s Aid. The description with it says that Cecil Williamson and Gerald Gardner used it in a ritual to summon up a spirit. However, Williamson claimed that when Gardner saw the shadowy hooded figure of the spirit materialize in the incense smoke he ran away (Winter 1992). All this suggests that before the arrival of Doreen Valiente on the scene in 1953, and her rewriting of the BoS, what Gardner was practicing was based on a ceremonial magic and a more traditional form of witchcraft.
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