on the occult underpinnings of the OWC
barbarosa:
Sethur wrote in Reply 226: "I have no doubt many groups were experimenting with Murray as a practical guide - most notably the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry from 1927-7 but the agenda behind the Lugh corpus is to try to date Trad Craft to before Murray by picking on a local cunning man first noted as such in the 1950's and going 'Aha. He was one of us! We predate Murray and Gardner! We're the real thing, you are't (sic), nah nah neh nah nah!'"
Histrionics aside, Sethur is entitled to his opinions. The problem is that it is he who contradicts himself about the Pickingill material.
Sethur was the editor of the defunct Aisling magazine which argued that the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, the Woodcraft Folk, and the Kibbo Kift Kindred were the true progenitors of Gardnerian Wicca. He explained in his editorial (Aisling No. 8): "A combination of Gareth Medway, Dr Ronald Hutton, Terry Baker and myself have been working for years,... on the origins of Wicca... Suffice it to say that the origins of Gardnerian Wicca have been fixed with 99% certainty - only certain details may be fuzzy;..." (page 3, Aisling No. 8)
The article Woodcrafting the Art of magic claimed on page 14 of Aisling No. 8: "The Chivalry, like so many groups, split into factions, each of which was carrying out rites at night in the New Forest in 1938 and no doubt into the war itself. So there is no doubt the New Forest Coven existed after all. Which one Gardner encountered is difficult to know, and the final stage of investigation will also be the most tedious, which is why I have published now - but I have no doubt that the so-called Pickingill Covens of which the Lugh letters tell were in fact Woodcraft Chivalry or adult Woodcraft Folk groups."
Having relegated the Pickingill Papers to "the dustbins of pagan history", Sethur admits: "Underlying most of this is my conviction that the attempts to 'explain' Gardnerian Craft in the Pickingill Papers obscures their real value as a source of lore from older sources that really do need investigating, many of which Ron Hutton and myself have been working on for a while... What value there is in the Pickingill Papers is totally obscured by the assault on Gardner. Future issues of Aisling will look at rural initiatory traditions, including the 18th century groups of doctors and vets who disguised themselves as cunning men in order to win over otherwise distrustful natives, the friendly societies and of course the horse whisperers. It is entirely possible that the Lugh tradition emanates from such sources who were completely surprised when Gardner went public, and just assumed he had been involved in their groups. These may well have borrowed material from the Key of Solomon (Cunning Murrell in Hadleigh from around 1820 onwards, certainly did, via the Magus) and thus developed pentagram-based circle working independently."
The Aisling collaborators were determined to prove an alternative origin for Gardnerian Wicca; and, by extension, the entire Witchcraft Revival. There is no more Gardner warts and all; "Old Gerald" is squeaky clean and not tainted by Crowley and the O.T.O Sethur wrote a letter to Mike Howard which is a preamble of the contents of the forthcoming Aisling No.9. Item 6 of this letter claimed: "Far from denigrating Gerald Gardner and Wicca, it is Aisling that has vindicated Gardner's reputation, where both Lugh Liddel and Kelly have called him an untrustworthy liar and a plagiarist, and it is Aisling that has shown an ancestry for Gardnerian Craft that is noble and inspiring, and not from the often witch-hunting, male only 'cunning men' of recent legend."
Item 7 of Sethur's letter to Mike states: "Both myself and Dr Ronald Hutton were privileged to be present at the 75th anniversary firelighting ceremony of the Woodcraft Chivalry, at the place that Dr Hutton described to me as 'possibly the birthplace of Gardnerian Wicca,'... However the confusion between the Woodcraft Folk and the Woodcraft Chivalry did cause doubts, and others, notably 'Leonora James' have heard this mistake made in the past."
A thumbnail sketch of the supposed progenitors of Wicca will not be out of place. Ernest Thompson Seton purchased some land circa 1900CE and founded a nature reservation. He impressed local youths with campfire tales about the self-sufficiency and survival skills of those American Indians who lived in the forests and woodlands of the north-eastern states of the USA. Seton's Woodcraft Scouts organised themselves into "tribes" and in 1917 these scattered "tribes" formed the Woodcraft League of American. Seton's back to nature movement attracted the attention of two Englishmen: Ernest Westlake and John Hargrave.
Ernest Westlake was raised a Quaker, but became interested in both the Woodcraft movement and Paganism. Ernest and Aubrey Westlake, a father and son team, founded the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry. This group emulated the Scout movement based on Seton's "Birch Bark Roll" books. The Westlakes organised the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry into three grades: wood cubs, woodcraft scouts, and Pathfinders. The elite core of the Woodcraft Chivalry worked at "Sun Lodge" at Godshill in the New Forest. For three years in the 1930's Peace Army Camps were conducted at Godshill, "where young unemployed men were involved in something now being seen as Permaculture work." (page 13, Aisling No.8) The Westlakes approached John Hargrave in 1917 and invited him to join the Order of Woodcrafft Chivalry. He declined, but agreed to be a member of their guiding council.
John Hargrave rose through the scouting ranks to become Scout Commissioner for Woodcraft and Camping. His Lonecraft manual is still the definitive text on solo survival for scouts. He incorporated many of the North American ideas pioneered by Seton into his own groups, Hargrave was associated with both the Social Credit Party and the Kibbo Kift Kindred. The Woodcraft Folk were initially members of the Kibbo Kift who dissented from Hargrave's political views.
It was stated on page 14 of Aisling No.8 that "Informatoin about the Kift is sketchy." This is not so. John L Finlay's classic "Social Credit: the English Origins" provides considerable information about John Hargrave and the Kibbo Kift Kindred.
Hargrave was raised as a Quaker and a pacifist. He accused the Scout Commissioners of being "militarist" and "imperialistic", and claimed that the scouting movement was being exploited by "the ultrapatriotic forces as an instrument of war." The scout Hierarchy, in turn, contempuously branded him a socialist, and something of a "Bolshevik." Hargrave retaliated in 1920 by launching the Kibbo Kift Kindred as an anti-war, outdoor philosphy. It existed "to act as an intrument of social recognition." However, Finlay claimed: "The Kindred have one common aim, world unity (page 150). He further stated that Kibbo Kift was an old Cheshire phrase meaning "proof of great strength." (page 149). This makes nonsense of the Aisling claim that Kibbo Kift meant "a good chap." Finlay's thorough history of the Social Credit Party discounts most of the Aisling claims.
The Aisling statement "Unlike scouts, each Kifter had to take a Craft name..." is misleading. The inference is that the Kibbo Kift shared practices with Witchcraft. Each Kin member adopted the name of an animal or a bird after the manner of the American Indians. Hargrave's name was White Fox. He subsequently adopted the "Indian" title Wa-Whaw-Goosh to indicate that he was the paramount chief of the Kibbo Kift Kin.
Hargrave intended to head a movement of national regeneration and looked ahead to a glorious future. Paradoxically, he would lead England into the brave new world by founding a folk revival. Hargrave believed that the English could only produce a superior breed by drawing on their Anglo-Saxon roots!
Finlay stressed that the Kibbo Kift Kin was a folk revival. The philosophy of the Kin owed much to Thoreau on the one hand and the Herbert Spencer on the other. To achieve this ideal, citizenship and the right to marry would be withheld until the candidate had successfully completed a system of training. Eugenics and recapitulation were central to the thinking of the Kin.
Nietzsche had influenced both the Kibbo Kift Kin and the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry. The major premise of the Kin was "the proper function of the individual was to live splendidly." Hargrave encouraged elitism. The Kin were the nucleus of a new human strain. "We were the elite," one ex-member proudly proclaimed. (Finlay page 151)
Both the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry and the Woodcraft Folk practised forms of recapitulation. The Soldier of Pan article on page 9 of Aisling No.8 made an oblique reference to recapitulation. It claimed that Rick's aunt "unbaptised" him. This incident was misleading because readers were meant to see a witchcraft parallel. However, this is the initial step in recapitulation.
Westlake and the Kibbo Kift Kin stressed that only a system of child education based upon the theory of recapitulation could reveal Man's true nature, and suggest ways to perfection. Westlake believed that children had to live through all the stages of mankind before they would appreciate and accept the present state of human evolution. (Finlay page 149). This entailed a ritual to remove all social and religious values imposed on the child. Only then could the mentor guide and monitor the child's spirtual progress. Finlay claimed that Westlake believed "that until instinct was recognised and fitted into a scheme of education, no lasting improvement in society could be hoped for." (page 149) Westlake enjoined ecstatic dancing to cast off the restraints of social and cultural conditioning!
The article Woodcrafting the Art of Magic triumphantly concluded: "So far from being the invention of a retired plantation manager, Wicca emerges as the inheritor of the first Ecological Party in this country, the first to revive Saxon feasts and Shamanism, and so fully deserves its prime place in British Paganism." (page 14, Aisling No.8)
The articles in Aisling No.8 have stripped the modern Craft of any links with the past, "Wicca" supposedly owes its inception to Ernest Thompson Seton, Ernest Westlake and John Hargrave. It is stated that Gardner's New Forest coven originated with the Woodcraft factions. Any belief in an historical continuity with traditional witchcraft is quashed once and for all. The so-called Great Rite is totally meaningless: there is no "power" that can be passed!
Regards,
Barbarosa
Sethur wrote in Reply 226: "I have no doubt many groups were experimenting with Murray as a practical guide - most notably the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry from 1927-7 but the agenda behind the Lugh corpus is to try to date Trad Craft to before Murray by picking on a local cunning man first noted as such in the 1950's and going 'Aha. He was one of us! We predate Murray and Gardner! We're the real thing, you are't (sic), nah nah neh nah nah!'"
Histrionics aside, Sethur is entitled to his opinions. The problem is that it is he who contradicts himself about the Pickingill material.
Sethur was the editor of the defunct Aisling magazine which argued that the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, the Woodcraft Folk, and the Kibbo Kift Kindred were the true progenitors of Gardnerian Wicca. He explained in his editorial (Aisling No. 8): "A combination of Gareth Medway, Dr Ronald Hutton, Terry Baker and myself have been working for years,... on the origins of Wicca... Suffice it to say that the origins of Gardnerian Wicca have been fixed with 99% certainty - only certain details may be fuzzy;..." (page 3, Aisling No. 8)
The article Woodcrafting the Art of magic claimed on page 14 of Aisling No. 8: "The Chivalry, like so many groups, split into factions, each of which was carrying out rites at night in the New Forest in 1938 and no doubt into the war itself. So there is no doubt the New Forest Coven existed after all. Which one Gardner encountered is difficult to know, and the final stage of investigation will also be the most tedious, which is why I have published now - but I have no doubt that the so-called Pickingill Covens of which the Lugh letters tell were in fact Woodcraft Chivalry or adult Woodcraft Folk groups."
Having relegated the Pickingill Papers to "the dustbins of pagan history", Sethur admits: "Underlying most of this is my conviction that the attempts to 'explain' Gardnerian Craft in the Pickingill Papers obscures their real value as a source of lore from older sources that really do need investigating, many of which Ron Hutton and myself have been working on for a while... What value there is in the Pickingill Papers is totally obscured by the assault on Gardner. Future issues of Aisling will look at rural initiatory traditions, including the 18th century groups of doctors and vets who disguised themselves as cunning men in order to win over otherwise distrustful natives, the friendly societies and of course the horse whisperers. It is entirely possible that the Lugh tradition emanates from such sources who were completely surprised when Gardner went public, and just assumed he had been involved in their groups. These may well have borrowed material from the Key of Solomon (Cunning Murrell in Hadleigh from around 1820 onwards, certainly did, via the Magus) and thus developed pentagram-based circle working independently."
The Aisling collaborators were determined to prove an alternative origin for Gardnerian Wicca; and, by extension, the entire Witchcraft Revival. There is no more Gardner warts and all; "Old Gerald" is squeaky clean and not tainted by Crowley and the O.T.O Sethur wrote a letter to Mike Howard which is a preamble of the contents of the forthcoming Aisling No.9. Item 6 of this letter claimed: "Far from denigrating Gerald Gardner and Wicca, it is Aisling that has vindicated Gardner's reputation, where both Lugh Liddel and Kelly have called him an untrustworthy liar and a plagiarist, and it is Aisling that has shown an ancestry for Gardnerian Craft that is noble and inspiring, and not from the often witch-hunting, male only 'cunning men' of recent legend."
Item 7 of Sethur's letter to Mike states: "Both myself and Dr Ronald Hutton were privileged to be present at the 75th anniversary firelighting ceremony of the Woodcraft Chivalry, at the place that Dr Hutton described to me as 'possibly the birthplace of Gardnerian Wicca,'... However the confusion between the Woodcraft Folk and the Woodcraft Chivalry did cause doubts, and others, notably 'Leonora James' have heard this mistake made in the past."
A thumbnail sketch of the supposed progenitors of Wicca will not be out of place. Ernest Thompson Seton purchased some land circa 1900CE and founded a nature reservation. He impressed local youths with campfire tales about the self-sufficiency and survival skills of those American Indians who lived in the forests and woodlands of the north-eastern states of the USA. Seton's Woodcraft Scouts organised themselves into "tribes" and in 1917 these scattered "tribes" formed the Woodcraft League of American. Seton's back to nature movement attracted the attention of two Englishmen: Ernest Westlake and John Hargrave.
Ernest Westlake was raised a Quaker, but became interested in both the Woodcraft movement and Paganism. Ernest and Aubrey Westlake, a father and son team, founded the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry. This group emulated the Scout movement based on Seton's "Birch Bark Roll" books. The Westlakes organised the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry into three grades: wood cubs, woodcraft scouts, and Pathfinders. The elite core of the Woodcraft Chivalry worked at "Sun Lodge" at Godshill in the New Forest. For three years in the 1930's Peace Army Camps were conducted at Godshill, "where young unemployed men were involved in something now being seen as Permaculture work." (page 13, Aisling No.8) The Westlakes approached John Hargrave in 1917 and invited him to join the Order of Woodcrafft Chivalry. He declined, but agreed to be a member of their guiding council.
John Hargrave rose through the scouting ranks to become Scout Commissioner for Woodcraft and Camping. His Lonecraft manual is still the definitive text on solo survival for scouts. He incorporated many of the North American ideas pioneered by Seton into his own groups, Hargrave was associated with both the Social Credit Party and the Kibbo Kift Kindred. The Woodcraft Folk were initially members of the Kibbo Kift who dissented from Hargrave's political views.
It was stated on page 14 of Aisling No.8 that "Informatoin about the Kift is sketchy." This is not so. John L Finlay's classic "Social Credit: the English Origins" provides considerable information about John Hargrave and the Kibbo Kift Kindred.
Hargrave was raised as a Quaker and a pacifist. He accused the Scout Commissioners of being "militarist" and "imperialistic", and claimed that the scouting movement was being exploited by "the ultrapatriotic forces as an instrument of war." The scout Hierarchy, in turn, contempuously branded him a socialist, and something of a "Bolshevik." Hargrave retaliated in 1920 by launching the Kibbo Kift Kindred as an anti-war, outdoor philosphy. It existed "to act as an intrument of social recognition." However, Finlay claimed: "The Kindred have one common aim, world unity (page 150). He further stated that Kibbo Kift was an old Cheshire phrase meaning "proof of great strength." (page 149). This makes nonsense of the Aisling claim that Kibbo Kift meant "a good chap." Finlay's thorough history of the Social Credit Party discounts most of the Aisling claims.
The Aisling statement "Unlike scouts, each Kifter had to take a Craft name..." is misleading. The inference is that the Kibbo Kift shared practices with Witchcraft. Each Kin member adopted the name of an animal or a bird after the manner of the American Indians. Hargrave's name was White Fox. He subsequently adopted the "Indian" title Wa-Whaw-Goosh to indicate that he was the paramount chief of the Kibbo Kift Kin.
Hargrave intended to head a movement of national regeneration and looked ahead to a glorious future. Paradoxically, he would lead England into the brave new world by founding a folk revival. Hargrave believed that the English could only produce a superior breed by drawing on their Anglo-Saxon roots!
Finlay stressed that the Kibbo Kift Kin was a folk revival. The philosophy of the Kin owed much to Thoreau on the one hand and the Herbert Spencer on the other. To achieve this ideal, citizenship and the right to marry would be withheld until the candidate had successfully completed a system of training. Eugenics and recapitulation were central to the thinking of the Kin.
Nietzsche had influenced both the Kibbo Kift Kin and the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry. The major premise of the Kin was "the proper function of the individual was to live splendidly." Hargrave encouraged elitism. The Kin were the nucleus of a new human strain. "We were the elite," one ex-member proudly proclaimed. (Finlay page 151)
Both the Order of Woodcraft Chivalry and the Woodcraft Folk practised forms of recapitulation. The Soldier of Pan article on page 9 of Aisling No.8 made an oblique reference to recapitulation. It claimed that Rick's aunt "unbaptised" him. This incident was misleading because readers were meant to see a witchcraft parallel. However, this is the initial step in recapitulation.
Westlake and the Kibbo Kift Kin stressed that only a system of child education based upon the theory of recapitulation could reveal Man's true nature, and suggest ways to perfection. Westlake believed that children had to live through all the stages of mankind before they would appreciate and accept the present state of human evolution. (Finlay page 149). This entailed a ritual to remove all social and religious values imposed on the child. Only then could the mentor guide and monitor the child's spirtual progress. Finlay claimed that Westlake believed "that until instinct was recognised and fitted into a scheme of education, no lasting improvement in society could be hoped for." (page 149) Westlake enjoined ecstatic dancing to cast off the restraints of social and cultural conditioning!
The article Woodcrafting the Art of Magic triumphantly concluded: "So far from being the invention of a retired plantation manager, Wicca emerges as the inheritor of the first Ecological Party in this country, the first to revive Saxon feasts and Shamanism, and so fully deserves its prime place in British Paganism." (page 14, Aisling No.8)
The articles in Aisling No.8 have stripped the modern Craft of any links with the past, "Wicca" supposedly owes its inception to Ernest Thompson Seton, Ernest Westlake and John Hargrave. It is stated that Gardner's New Forest coven originated with the Woodcraft factions. Any belief in an historical continuity with traditional witchcraft is quashed once and for all. The so-called Great Rite is totally meaningless: there is no "power" that can be passed!
Regards,
Barbarosa
Sethur:
There were indeed errors, minor errors, in the Aisling article, mainly due to the fact that Terry Baker was in the US at an unknown address and I had to remember his research from memory - hence the mistake about the origin of the name "Kibbo Kift". But Barbarosa is wrong to say I contradict myself. The Kibbo Kift were never stated to be the organisation that was directly relevant, the OWC was, and their presence in the New Forest, calling four quarters and worshipping a horned god and moon goddess, while naked, as early as 1923 when Kibbo Kift members were present has been established, as has the fact that the owners of the New Forest property were part of the faction that rejected the abandonment of paganism in 1927 - though they allowed the "orthodox" faction to use the property - and still do.
However, none of this disassociates Gardner from Crowley, since we know they didn't meet until after WWII, when Crowley was on his last legs and Gardner had already been conversing with Ross Nichols about forming a new earth-based religious movement. What Gardner needed was wording to flesh out the basic ritual structures he had learned, and Crowley initially supplied that second-hand, Gardner lifting what he needed from material he now had - and to a certain extent had permission to use.
Meanwhile, it is not Ernest Westlake who is the interesting character here, it was his son Aubrey, and in 1995 his Grandson Martin, who retained the New Forest property. Aubrey wanted the rites to continue and was there in the New Forest during the time of the "coven" that Rolla Nordic attended. His library is full of Rosicrucian material so a connection to the Rosicrucian theatre is at least likely, and we also know that both his father and at least one member of the Kibbo Kift knew of the Golden Dawn system - a copy of the degree structure diagram was kept in a Kinlog (forerunner to the Book of Shadows as a diary) that is still around today. So there was a precedent for use of the pentagram in the four quarters already when Gardner got involved.
Unfortunately, the period 1927-1939 is what needs the work - Hargrave had got bogged down in politics. I feel another trip to the New Forest coming on.....
Steve W
There were indeed errors, minor errors, in the Aisling article, mainly due to the fact that Terry Baker was in the US at an unknown address and I had to remember his research from memory - hence the mistake about the origin of the name "Kibbo Kift". But Barbarosa is wrong to say I contradict myself. The Kibbo Kift were never stated to be the organisation that was directly relevant, the OWC was, and their presence in the New Forest, calling four quarters and worshipping a horned god and moon goddess, while naked, as early as 1923 when Kibbo Kift members were present has been established, as has the fact that the owners of the New Forest property were part of the faction that rejected the abandonment of paganism in 1927 - though they allowed the "orthodox" faction to use the property - and still do.
However, none of this disassociates Gardner from Crowley, since we know they didn't meet until after WWII, when Crowley was on his last legs and Gardner had already been conversing with Ross Nichols about forming a new earth-based religious movement. What Gardner needed was wording to flesh out the basic ritual structures he had learned, and Crowley initially supplied that second-hand, Gardner lifting what he needed from material he now had - and to a certain extent had permission to use.
Meanwhile, it is not Ernest Westlake who is the interesting character here, it was his son Aubrey, and in 1995 his Grandson Martin, who retained the New Forest property. Aubrey wanted the rites to continue and was there in the New Forest during the time of the "coven" that Rolla Nordic attended. His library is full of Rosicrucian material so a connection to the Rosicrucian theatre is at least likely, and we also know that both his father and at least one member of the Kibbo Kift knew of the Golden Dawn system - a copy of the degree structure diagram was kept in a Kinlog (forerunner to the Book of Shadows as a diary) that is still around today. So there was a precedent for use of the pentagram in the four quarters already when Gardner got involved.
Unfortunately, the period 1927-1939 is what needs the work - Hargrave had got bogged down in politics. I feel another trip to the New Forest coming on.....
Steve W
taken from http://www.pagan-network.org/forums/index.php?topic=19416.250;wap2
posted by Classical Polytheist @ 09:15
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