Gerald Gardner

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Gerald Brousseau Gardner
Gardner in his museum, 1962
Born	June 13, 1884 Blundellsands, Lancashire, England
Died	February 12, 1964 (aged 79) at sea, returning from Lebanon
Occupation	Tea planter; rubber planter; customs officer; Wiccan Priest
Spouse(s)	Dorothea "Donna" Gardner née Rosedale
Parents	William Robert Gardner; ??? Gardner

Gerald Brousseau Gardner (June 13, 1884 - February 12, 1964), who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an English civil servant, amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist who wrote some of the definitive texts for the religion of Wicca, which he was instrumental in bringing to public attention through his 1954 book, Witchcraft Today.

Gardner claimed that Wicca was the survival of a pre-Christian pagan Witch cult that he had been initiated into by a New Forest coven. The tradition as he subsequently popularised it through the Bricket Wood coven (of which he acted as High Priest) became known as Gardnerian Wicca, and this in turn spawned or inspired numerous other branches and traditions of Wicca. For this, he has sometimes been referred to as "the father of Wicca".

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life 1.2 Life in Asia 1.2.1 Ceylon, 1900-1908 1.2.2 Borneo, 1908-1911 1.2.3 Malaya, 1911-1936 1.3 Travels around Europe 1.4 Return to Britain 1.5 The Wicca Movement 1.5.1 The Rosicrucian Theatre, 1939 1.5.2 The New Forest Coven, 1939-1946 1.5.3 Cecil Williamson and Aleister Crowley, 1946 1.5.4 The Bricket Wood Coven and High Magic's Aid, 1946-1951 1.5.5 The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft, 1951-1963 1.5.6 Valiente and the Book of Shadows, 1953- 1.5.7 Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft, 1954-1959 1.5.8 Media Attention, 1953-1963 1.5.9 Feuds within Wicca, 1953-1963 1.5.10 Later life, 1960 1.6 Death, 1964 2 Personal life 3 Bibliography 4 Notes and references 5 External links

[edit] Biography

To date, there is only one biography exclusively about Gardner, which was Gerald Gardner: Witch, published in 1960, and written by his friend, Idries Shah under the pseudonym of Jack L. Bracelin. Writers such as Ronald Hutton, Leo Ruickbie, Doreen Valiente, and Philip Heselton have also discussed Gardner's involvement with Wicca in their books.

[edit] Early life

Gardner was born at The Glen, The Serpentine, Blundellsands, near Liverpool in England to a well-off middle class family as one of four brothers, only two of which, Bob and Douglas, lived with Gerald at home.^[1] The family business was Joseph Gardner & Sons, the British Empire's oldest and largest importer of hardwood, and they were of Scottish ancestry.

The Gardners' had in their service an Irish nursemaid named Josephine "Com" McCombie,^[2] who was employed to take care of the young Gerald. Gardner had been suffering from asthma at the time, bearing the illness from a young age, and his nursemaid had offered to take him to warmer climates at his father's expense. This began in 1891, when the pair travelled to the Canary Islands,^[3] and they then went on to Accra,^[4] followed by Madeira.^[5] According to Gardner's official biographer, J.C. Bracelin, Com was very flirtatious and "clearly looked on these trips as mainly manhunts".^[6]

[edit] Life in Asia

[edit] Ceylon, 1900-1908

In 1900, Com married David Elkington,^[7] a wealthy man in Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), and it was agreed with the Gardners that Gerald would live with her on a tea plantation named Ladbroke Estate.^[8]

In 1905, Gardner came back to Britain for a visit, during which he spent a lot of time with family relations known as the Surgensons. Gerald became very friendly with this side of his family, whom his mother and father avoided because they were Methodists. The Surgensons readily talked about the paranormal with Gardner. The patriarch of the family, Ted Surgenson, who believed that fairies were living in his garden, would say "I can often feel they're there, and sometimes I've seen them", though he readily admitted the possibility that it was all in his imagination.^[9]

It was from the Surgensons that Gardner discovered a family rumour that his grandfather, Joseph, had been a practising witch,^[10] after being converted to the practice by his second wife. Another family belief was that a Scottish ancestor, Grissell Gairdner, had been burned as a witch in Newburgh in 1610.

Gerald stayed in Ceylon till 1908, when he decided to move on, heading first for Singapore, and then to Borneo.

[edit] Borneo, 1908-1911

In 1908, Gardner moved to Borneo where he became a rubber planter on the Mawo Estate at Membuket,^[11] where he did not get on well with the manager, Graham,^[12] who had wanted to cut down all the local forest to grow rubber. Instead Gardner became friendly with many of the locals, including the Dyaks, a tribe of local headhunters.^[13] Gardner, as an amateur anthropologist, was fascinated by their way of life, particularly their weaponry,^[14] but also their beliefs in polytheism and spiritualism.

[edit] Malaya, 1911-1936

In 1911, Gardner travelled to Malaya for a holiday, on his planned way back to Ceylon,^[15] however he was soon offered a job working on a rubber plantation and decided to stay. It was here that Gardner made friends with an American man known as Cornwall, who had converted to Islam, and married a local Malay woman.^[16] Through Cornwall, Gardner was introduced to many locals, whom he soon befriended. He went on to also befriend members of the Saki, a secretive jungle tribe of pygmies.

In 1916 Gardner once again returned to Britain. At the time, the country was fighting in the First World War, and so he attempted to join the British Navy, but was turned down due to ill health.^[17] Unable to fight on the front lines, he began working in a hospital treating injured soldiers from the western front. He soon had to give this up when he caught malaria, and so decided to return to Malaya. His mother died in 1920, though Gardner did not return home on this occasion.^[18]

In 1923, he gave up his job as a rubber planter, and became a civil servant inspecting the various rubber plantations around the country. In this role he had to deal with a great deal of criminality, and was shot at on a number of occasions.

In 1927 his father became very ill and he returned to Britain. On this visit, he began to investigate spiritualism and mediumship. He soon had several encounters which he attributed to spirits of deceased family members. Continuing to visit Spiritualist churches and seances, he was highly critical of much of what he saw, but he encountered several experiences he considered genuine, some of which concerned obscure prophecies that later came true. That same year, Gardner married Dorothea Rosedale, who went by the name of Donna, and they honeymooned in Ryde, before both headed, via France, to Malaya.

Gardner witnessed the magical practises performed by the Malay locals, and both he and Cornwall readily accepted a belief in magic.^[19] During his time in the country, Gardner became very interested in local customs, namely those involved in folk magic and weapons. In 1936, he published an authoritative text on the subject of the keris, a Malayan knife used for magical purposes: Keris and other Malay Weapons.^[20]

Gardner was not only interested in the anthropology of Malaya, but also in its archaeology. He began excavations at the city of Johore Lama, alone and in secret, as the local Sultan considered archaelogists little better than grave-robbers.^[21] Prior to Gardner's investigations, no serious archaeological excavation had occurred at the city, though he himself soon unearthed four miles of earthworks, and uncovered finds that included tombs, pottery, and porcelain dating from Ming China.^[22] He went on to begin further excavations at the royal cemetery of Kota Tinggi, and the jungle-city of Syong Penang.^[23] His finds were displayed as an exhibit on the "Early History of Johore", at the Museum of Singapore, and several beads that he had discovered helped to prove that trade went on between the Roman Empire and the Malays, presumably, Gardner thought, via India.^[24]

In the same year as the publication of his book, and aged 52, Gardner retired and returned to England.

[edit] Travels around Europe

In 1936, Gardner left Malaya, and on his way back to Britain, visited Palestine, where he became involved in the archaeological excavations at Lachish. Here he grew particularly interested in a temple containing statues to both the Living God of Judeo-Christian theology and the pagan goddess Astaroth.^[25]

From there he went on to Turkey, visiting several local museums, and to Greece, followed by Hungary and Germany (which at the time was under the Nazi regime). He eventually reached England, but soon went on a visit to Denmark to attend a conference on weaponry.

In 1938 he sailed to Cyprus. It was here that he wrote his first novel, A Goddess Arrives, which was set in ancient Cyprus and featured a queen that practiced sorcery. It was on this island that he made friends with a local Christian order, the Abbey Folk Park, located near St. Albans.^[26]

[edit] Return to Britain

In 1938, Gardner returned from Cyprus to Britain, where he and Donna settled down and remained for much of the rest of his life. Despite initially living in London, the pair soon moved to Highcliffe, just south of the New Forest, Hampshire.^[27] With the threat of war looming, Gardner joined the Air Raid Precautions as a warden,^[28] and wrote a very vocal letter to the Daily Telegraph:

“

Belgium and France were lost because the civilian population bolted instead of staying and delaying the invaders. It has been proved in many wars that if the civil population will fight delaying actions they can be most troublesome to invaders and may even beat them... The made-in-Germany rules of war mean that Germany does not obey the rules of war as they should have been hitherto understood. Why should we? Everyone willing should be given arms when they are available and shown how to use them... Why should people who wish to defend themselves be prevented, just to make it easy for Germany? By Magna Carta every free-born Englishman is entitled to have arms to defend himself and his household. Let us now claim our right.[29]

”

He went on to arm, from his own personal collection of weapons, many of the members of his local A.R.P.

[edit] The Wicca Movement

Gardner's greatest influence was that upon the creation of the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Gardner claimed he did not invent the religion, but discovered it through the New Forest Coven, who initiated them into their ranks in 1939. He went on to publicise the religion, gaining new converts, and forming the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca, which provided a basis for many other forms of Wicca.

[edit] The Rosicrucian Theatre, 1939

In 1939, Gardner took his wife to a theatrical performance on the life of Pythagoras held by a local dramatic society known as the Rosicrucian Theatre. Donna, herself an amateur thespian, hated it, thinking the quality of both actors and script terrible, and she refused to go again.^[30] Gardner was intrigued, however, and joined the group running the theatre - the Corona Fellowship of Rosicrucians, an occult society based upon Rosicrucianism.

Gardner was quite critical of many of the group's practices; their leader, named Aurelius, claimed to be the reincarnation of Pythagoras, Cornelius Agrippa, Francis Bacon and the person who wrote the plays of Shakespeare.^[31] Gardner facetiously asked if he was also the Wandering Jew,^[32] much to the annoyance of Aurelius himself. Another belief held by the group that Gardner found amusing was that a lamp hanging from one of the ceilings was the disguised holy grail.^[33]

Gardner's dissatisfaction with the group grew. In 1939, the High Priestess of the group sent a letter out to all members that war would not come. The very next day, Britain declared war on Germany,^[34] greatly unimpressing the increasingly cynical Gardner.

Prior to his encounter with Wicca, Gardner was already an accomplished writer on the topic of magic and witchcraft. For instance, he had become a member of the Folklore Society in 1939.^[35] His first contribution to its journal Folklore, appeared in the June 1939 issue and described a box of witchcraft relics. Later, in 1946, he became a member of the society's council.^[36] He seemed to be anxious to achieve academic acceptance, and for a period claimed to have doctoral degrees from the Universities of Singapore and Toulouse. Doreen Valiente has shown these claims were untrue.^[37]

[edit] The New Forest Coven, 1939-1946

Gardner became good friends with a group of people within the Rosicrucian Crotona Fellowship who, "unlike many of the others, had to earn their livings, were cheerful and optimistic and had a real interest in the occult". Gardner later said of them:

“

I was really very fond of them, and I knew that they had all sorts of magical beliefs. They had been very interested when I told them that an ancestress of mine had been burned alive as a witch at Newborough in Scotland about 1640; although I did not mention Grandfather. And I would have gone through hell and high water even then for any of them.[38]

”

One night in September 1939 they took him to a large house owned by "Old Dorothy" Clutterbuck,^[39] a wealthy local woman, where he was made to strip naked and taken through an initiation ceremony. Halfway through the ceremony, he heard the word "Wica", and he recognised it as an Old English word for witchcraft. He was already acquainted with Margaret Murray's theory of the Witch-cult, and, in his words:

“

I then knew that that which I had thought burnt out hundreds of years ago still survived. How wonderful; to think that these things still survive.

”

This group, he claimed, were the New Forest coven, and he believed them to be one of the few surviving covens of the witch-cult religion.

In 1940, Gardner claimed, the New Forest Coven, along with other covens, took part in the magical Operation Cone of Power to prevent the German invasion of Britain. Gardner said of this:

“

We were taken at night to a place in the Forest, where the Great Circle was erected; and that was done which may not be done except in great emergency. And the great cone of power was raised and slowly directed in the general direction of Hitler. The command was given: "you cannot cross the sea, you cannot cross the sea, you cannot come, you cannot come". Just as, we were told, was done to Napoleon, when he had his army ready to invade England and never came. And, as was done to the Spanish Armada, mighty forces were used, of which I may not speak.[40]

”

Historian Ronald Hutton instead argues that Gardner's witchcraft tradition was largely the inspiration of members of the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship and especially a woman known by the magical name of "Dafo".^[35] Her identity is uncertain, but Philip Heselton believes her to be Edith Woodford-Grimes. ^[41]

It has been suggested that Gardner may also have been introduced to Co-Freemasonry through the Rosicrucian theatre; Mabel Besant Scott, the one-time head of the British Federation of Co-Freemasonry, was a prominent member of the theatre, and several of the members that have been proposed as members of the New Forest coven were also very active in Co-Freemasonry.^[36]

[edit] Cecil Williamson and Aleister Crowley, 1946

In 1946, Gardner met the witch Cecil Williamson in London's Atlantis Bookshop during a talk which Gardner was giving, and befriended him. The next year, Gardner was introduced to Aleister Crowley through their mutual friend, the stage magician Arnold Crowther, and the two met several times after. Shortly before his death, Crowley elevated Gardner to the VII° of Ordo Templi Orientis^[42] and issued a charter decreeing that Gardner could perform its preliminary initiation rituals. The charter itself was written in Gardner's handwriting and only signed by Crowley.^[43] According to Crowley's friend, Gerald Yorke, Gardner had actually paid £300 for Crowley to sign the charter, though this seems highly apocryphal.^[44] Despite owning it, and later displaying it in his Museum of Magic and Witchcraft, Gardner never made use of it or performed any of the rituals it allowed him to, claiming that he "had neither the money, energy or time".^[45] Crowley also sold Gardner some of his books, which may have been the source of Crowley material later used within Gardner's witchcraft rites.^[46] This is consistent with Gardner's claims that the rituals he had received were fragmentary, and that he had incorporated other material to make a coherent system.^[47]

Dr Leo Ruickbie concluded that Aleister Crowley played a crucial role in inspiring Gardner to establish a new pagan religion.^[48] Ruickbie, Hutton, and Rankine & d'Este further argue that much of what has been published of Gardnerian Wicca, as Gardner's practice came to be known by, was written by Doreen Valiente and Aleister Crowley and also contains borrowings from other identifiable sources.^[46]

[edit] The Bricket Wood Coven and High Magic's Aid, 1946-1951

In 1946, Gardner and Donna moved from the New Forest to Bricket Wood, outside St Albans, where they lived in a cottage in the grounds of the Fiveacres Nudist Club that Gardner had purchased the previous year. Gardner was not interested in running the club, so employed an administrator. In Bricket Wood, Gardner founded a new coven, the Bricket Wood coven, though he kept in touch with members of his old coven in the New Forest. Donna did not take part in any of the coven's rituals and was not a believer in magic.

The Bricket Wood coven assembled to celebrate esbats and sabbats in the witches' cottage, located in the midst of some woodland that Gardner owned on the grounds of the nudist club.^[49] He had purchased and assembled this building from his friend, the Freemason J.S.M Ward, who was a pioneer of the restoration of historical buildings.^[50]

Gardner thought that the witches should publish information on the cult so that it would not die out. Many disagreed, so in 1949 Gardner (using the pen-name Scire), described some of the witches' practices and beliefs in a book of fiction, High Magic's Aid, which he had written three years previously.

[edit] The Museum of Magic and Witchcraft, 1951-1963

In 1951, Gardner travelled to the Isle of Man, where, in the town of Castletown, he became employed by Cecil Williamson at the Museum of Magic and Witchcraft as the director and "resident witch". On 29 July 1951 The Sunday Pictorial published an article about the museum named "Calling All Covens!", in which Gardner declared:

“

Of course I'm a witch. And I get great fun out of it.[51]

”

Williamson and Gardner later fell out, when Gardner accused Williamson of focusing on sensationalist aspects of witchcraft in his museum exhibits, and Williamson said of Gardner that he was a "vain, self-centered man, tight with his money, and more interested in outlets for his nudist and voyeuristic activities, than in learning anything about authentic witchcraft".

In 1952, Gardner bought the museum from Williamson, and started running it using his own private collection for the exhibits, including items such as the signed OTO charter issued by Crowley. Williamson meanwhile began his own museum, named the Museum of Witchcraft, across the channel in England.

[edit] Valiente and the Book of Shadows, 1953-

From 1953 onwards, Gardner continuously ran the museum, worked with his Bricket Wood Coven, and published further books on Wicca.

In 1952, Gardner had begun to correspond with a young woman named Doreen Valiente. She eventually requested initiation into the craft, and though Gardner was hesitant at first, he agreed that they could meet during the winter at the home of the woman whose craft name was Dafo. Valiente got on well with both Gardner and Dafo, and, having no objections to either ritual nudity or scourging (which she read about in a copy of Gardner's novel High Magic's Aid which he gave her), she was initiated by Gardner into the craft on Midsummer 1953.

Valiente went on to join the Bricket Wood Coven. She soon rose to become the High Priestess of the coven, and helped Gardner to rewrite his Book of Shadows, cutting out Crowley's influence, which she feared was too shrouded in bad publicity.

[edit] Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft, 1954-1959

In 1954, Gardner published a non-fiction book, Witchcraft Today, containing a preface by Margaret Murray, who had published her theory of a surviving witch cult in her 1921 book, The Witch-cult in Western Europe. In his book, Gardner not only espoused the survival of the witch-cult, but also his theory that a belief in faeries in Europe was due to a secretive pygmy race that lived alongside other communities, and that the Knights Templar had been initiates of the cult.^[52]

In 1959, he followed this book with a sequel, The Meaning of Witchcraft, where he attempted to counter many of the misconceptions of witchcraft published in the media.

[edit] Media Attention, 1953-1963

Gardner began to increasingly court publicity, going so far as to invite the press to write articles about the religion. Many of these turned out very negatively for the cult; one declared "Witches Devil-Worship in London!", and another accused him of whitewashing witchcraft in his luring of people into covens. Gardner continued courting publicity, despite the negative articles that many tabloids were producing, and believed that only through publicity could more people become interested in witchcraft, so preventing the "Old Religion", as he called it, from dying out.^[53]

[edit] Feuds within Wicca, 1953-1963

Gardner's increasingly overt attempts at garnering media attention was one of the major reasons for rifts in his coven (and others). Many witches felt he was threatening their traditional vows of secrecy and bringing about too much bad publicity, which in turn led to social ostracisation and job losses. Another source of contention was Gardner's insistence on working skyclad. Other Witch covens, such as Robert Cochrane's Clan of Tubal Cain, always practiced wearing robes, and some^[who?] suggested that Gardner was simply trying to introduce his hobby of nudism into the religion.

Gardner had initially been a friend of the witches Cecil Williamson and Charles Cardell, but later fell out with both. After their split, Cardell tried to destroy Gardner's reputation by sending an informant to join their coven.

Gardner introduced the Wiccan Laws to his coven, which drastically limited the powers of the High Priestess and even allowed the High Priest to call for the retirement of the High Priestess when he considered her too old. Valiente and other members of the coven were furious and left in disgust. Valiente herself said "we had had enough of the gospel according to Gerald, but we still believed that the ancient religion of Witchcraft had existed".^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Later life, 1960

In 1960, the official biography of Gardner, entitled Gerald Gardner: Witch, was published. It was written by a friend of his, the Sufi mystic Idries Shah, but used the name of one of Gardner's High Priests, Jack L. Bracelin.^[54] In May that year, Gardner travelled to Buckingham Palace, where he enjoyed a garden party in recognition of his years of service to the Empire in the Far East.

Soon after his trip, Gardner's wife Donna died. Gardner himself once again began to suffer from asthma.

[edit] Death, 1964

In 1963, Gardner decided to go to Lebanon over the winter. Whilst returning home on the ship, The Scottish Prince on February 12 1964, he suffered a fatal heart attack at the breakfast table. He was buried in Tunisia, the ship's next port of call, and his funeral was attended only by the ship's captain.^[55] He was 79 years old.

Though having bequeathed the museum, all his artifacts, and the copyright to his books in his will to his High Priestess, Monique Wilson, she and her husband sold off the artefact collection to the American Ripley’s, Believe It Or Not organisation who scattered the pieces about their museums.^[56] He also left parts of his inheritance to Patricia Crowther and Jack Bracelin,^[57], the latter inheriting the Fiveacres Nudist Club and taking over as High Priest of the Bricket Wood coven.

Several years after Gardner's death, the Wiccan High Priestess Eleanor Bone visited North Africa and went looking for Gardner's grave. She discovered that the cemetery he was interned in was to be redeveloped, and so she raised enough money for his body to be moved to another cemetery in Tunis,^[58] where it currently remains.

In 2007, a new plaque was attached to his grave, stating:

Gerald Brosseau Gardner

13th June 1884 - 12th February 1964.

Author, Archaeologist, Artist.

Father of Modern Wica

Beloved of the Great Goddess.^[59]

[edit] Personal life

Gardner only married once in his life, to Donna, and several who knew him made the claim that he was devoted to her. Indeed, after her death in 1960, he began to again suffer serious asthma attacks. Despite this, as many coven members slept over at his cottage due to living too far away to travel home safely, he was known to cuddle up to his young High Priestess, Dayonis, after rituals.^[60] The author Philip Heselton, who largely researched Wicca's origins, came to the conclusion that Gardner had held a long-term affair with Dafo, a theory expanded upon by Adrian Bott.^[61]

Gardner was a nudist, taking up the hobby on doctor's instructions after getting a bad cold.^[62] Those who knew him within the modern witchcraft movement recalled how he was a firm believer in the therapeutic benefits of sunbathing.^[63] He also had several tattoos on his body, depicting magical symbols such as a snake, dragon, anchor and dagger.^[64] In his later life he wore a "heavy bronze bracelet... denoting the three degrees... of witchcraft"^[65][66] as well as a "large silver ring with... signs on it, which... represented his witch-name 'Scire', in the letters of the magical Theban alphabet."^[67]

According to Bricket Wood coven member Fred Lamond, Gardner also used to comb his beard into a narrow barbiche and his hair into two horn like peaks, giving him "a somewhat demonic appearance".^[68]

Doreen Valiente, who had split from Gardner's Bricket Wood coven over disagreements regarding his handling of publicity and his control over the group, recounted many years after his death:

“

With all his faults (and who among us is faultless?), Gerald was a great person, and he did great work in bringing back the Old Religion to many people. I am glad to have known him.[69]

”

[edit] Bibliography

Books by Gardner:

• 1936: Keris and Other Malay Weapons
• 1939: A Goddess Arrives (fiction)
• 1949: High Magic's Aid (fiction)
• 1954: Witchcraft Today
• 1959: The Meaning of Witchcraft
• The Story of the famous Witches Museum at Castletown, Isle of Man, a guidebook

Books about Gardner:

• 1960: Gerald Gardner: Witch by J.L. Bracelin
• 2000: Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival by Philip Heselton
• 2003: Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration by Philip Heselton

[edit] Notes and references

[edit] External links

• GeraldGardner.com an online reference resource
• Historical documents and media reports about Gardner.
• Biography at Controverscial.com
• Biography at About.com
• List of books owned by Gardner

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