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Spelling Out History: Transforming Witchcraft Past and Present

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[The Pomegranate 11.1 (2009) 14-28] ISSN 1528-0268 (Print)
doi: 10.1558/pome.v11i1.14 ISSN 1743-1735 (Online)

Spelling Out History:

Transforming Witchcraft Past and Present

Helen Cornish

helen.cornish@virgin.net

Abstract

History and heritage are often asserted as indicators of continuity.

However, meaningful pasts are mobilized according to the needs of the
present, and continually reinvented and transformed. This paper seeks
to explore the dynamic and fluid ways that the past is continually under
revision to meet such needs. Contemporary British Witches are currently
experiencing a radical shift in the ways they conceptualize, evidence, and
rationalize their history. Until recently, practitioners claimed that con-
temporary practices could be traced back to pre-Christian times: formal
groups of Witches (covens) had a continuous and unbroken religious tra-
dition going back to antiquity. This position has recently been subjected
to extensive critique which suggests a prevailing scepticism to the idea of
continuity and an alignment with recent interpretations from scholarly
historians. However, while the “inventions” of earlier writers are criti-
cized, Pagans continue to feel connected to the ancient past by privileging
less-specific ideas about rural traditions and the primacy of experience
rather than explicitly historical arguments; the use of the past is a continu-
ally creative and ongoing process. Therefore, it is clear that dynamic ideas
of what constitutes both the content and context of history are central con-
cerns for practitioners today.

Introduction: Historical Conundrums

Contemporary British Witchcraft practitioners deploy a plethora of
origin stories that provide a sense of history and heritage and that also
serve as sources for experience and practice. For example, deep con-
nections may be made between surviving traces of ancient Paganism
remaining after Christian conversion; the Horned God may be vener-
ated, as may any number of goddesses. It may be argued that formal
groups of Witches (covens) have a continuous and unbroken religious
tradition rooted in antiquity. Ancestors may be claimed from those tried

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009, Unit 6, The Village, 101 Amies Street, London SW11 2JW.
 Cornish   Spelling out History 15

for Witchcraft in Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centu-

ries. Furthermore, it may be asserted that through rural traditions and
snippets of folklore links can be traced between contemporary practices
and the practical magical knowledge of hard-working wise women.
All these accounts have been central to the emergence of contemporary
Witchcraft since the mid-twentieth century. Nevertheless, their histori-
cal credibility has been seriously critiqued by scholars and some practi-
tioners over the last twenty years. It is not my aim to present yet another
historiography for contemporary practitioners, but rather to explore
some of the ways Witches today negotiate and mobilize the past, in the
face of what appears to be a serious crisis of history.1 British Pagans
and Witches are often both highly educated and live in cosmopolitan
centres. Their sources for historical knowledge are drawn from pub-
lished texts as much as from alternative sources. As such, they may be
non-specialists rather than professional historians, but tend to take for
granted Western assumptions about the status of historical knowledge,
what can count for historical evidence, and what value the past may
have.2
While images and material evidence are not excluded from credible
historical sources, they are often seen as a different class from textual
sources. Written records conventionally provide the core of historical
documentation, although the implied realism of these accounts has long
been criticised.3 At the heart of debates about the deployment of Witch-
craft historiographies are relationships between history and practice,
and history and myth. These often become dichotomized and essen-
tialized in the search for historical verification and authenticity. Inter-
pretations are classified according to factual history or unsubstantiated
myth.4 Such readings are often reinforced by the legitimizing power

1. Chas S. Clifton, “Leland’s Aradia and the Revival of Modern Witchcraft,” The
Pomegranate no. 1 (Winter-Spring 1997): 2-27; Helen Cornish, “Cunning Histories:
Privileging Narratives in the Present,” History and Anthropology 16 no 3 (2005): 363-
376.
2. This paper draws on my anthropological doctoral research. I carried out eth-
nographic fieldwork between 2000-2002 across a selection of sites that include
the Museum of Witchcraft, Cornwall, UK; regional Pagan groups in the South of
England; Pagan conferences and open rituals; publications and the Internet. See
Helen Cornish “Recreating Historical Knowledge and Contemporary Witchcraft in
Southern England,” PhD thesis (University of London, 2005).
3. See Elizabeth Tonkin, “History and the Myth of Realism,” in The Myths We Live
By, ed. Raphael Samuel and Paul Richard Thompson (London: Routledge, 1990),
25-35.
4. Critical theoretical and analytical discussions on myth are beyond the scope of
this paper. However, distinctions may be made between myth as untruth or fiction,
and myth as ancient knowledge.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

16 The Pomegranate 11.1 (2009)

of professional academic historians who aim to provide objective rep-

resentations, based on empirically verifiable truths. Expert ideas are
inevitably implicated in the ways the past is made sense of in every-
day discourses. However, such histories often disregard the multiplicity
of ways that historical knowledge is produced socially and draw on a
number of multivocal sources.5
It has become apparent through radical critiques of historiography
that our knowledge about the past is neither neutral nor static but always
dynamic, situated, and contextual. Rather than a concrete set of values
and events that are distanced from people, histories are produced and
maintained from within embodied senses of historicity.6 Mainstream
interpretations shift as new evidence comes to light, old evidence is
read in new ways, and contexts are continually reconceptualised and
remade; new knowledge transforms and displaces previous models and
narratives. As such, “historicity” is highly political and dialogic, where
representation and social memory revolve around disagreements, con-
tradictions, and competing interpretations. These dynamic and pro-
cessual ideas about historicity and historiography provide valuable
ways to think about the discussions contemporary Witches are having
about the status of history. Paradoxically, while the postmodern milieu
may promote reconsideration of the distinctions between history and
myth within academic circles, I suggest that practitioners increasingly
adhere to strict historical tenets to counteract claims that their history
is perceived as unreliable and tenuous. Ultimately, this strategy aims to
produce distinct but complementary threads of objectified history and a
mythopoetic past that can serve dual purposes. However, such concep-

5. Ludmilla Jordanova, History in Practice (London: Arnold, 2000).

6. Discussions on what constitutes history have proliferated since the 1960s and are
too numerous to list here. Publications that have helpfully informed this discussion
include Paul Connerton, How Societies Remember (Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press, 1989); Michel de Certeau, The Practice of Everyday Life (Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1984); Michel de Certeau, The Writing of History (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1988); Roy Dilley, ed., The Problem of Context (Oxford:
Berghahn Books, 1999); Peter Heehs, “Myth, History and Theory,” History and Theory
33, no. 1 (1994): 1-19; Katharine Hodgkin and Susannah Radstone, Contested Pasts:
the politics of memory (London: Routledge, 2003); Tim Ingold, “The Past is a Foreign
Country,” in Key Debates in Anthropology, ed.Tim Ingold (London: Routledge, 1996),
199-248; Michael Lambek, The Weight of the Past: Living with History in Mahajanga
(New York: Palgrave, 2003); Susannah Radstone and Katharine Hodgkin, Regimes
of Memory (London: Routledge, 2003); Raphael Samuel, Theatres of Memory: Volume
1: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture (London: Verso, 1994); Raphael Samuel
and Paul Thompson, eds., The Myths We Live By (London: Routledge, 1990); Eliza-
beth Tonkin, Maryon McDonald, and Malcolm Chapman, eds., History and Ethnicity
(London: Routledge, 1989).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

 Cornish   Spelling out History 17

tual devices also highlight the ambiguity and arbitrariness of such his-
torical categories as analytical tools.

Verifiable Histories or Mythic Pasts?

It is always difficult to position competing versions of the past when
discussing the nuanced and competing versions of historical knowl-
edge. Nevertheless, regardless of possibly earlier antecedents, the ortho-
dox histories of Witchcraft that emerged through the work of Gerald
Gardner and others in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s drew on his asser-
tion that he had uncovered the last remaining remnants of a Witch cult.
He asserted that Witchcraft had maintained unbroken continuity and a
formal religious structure since antiquity. It was, he claimed, the very
same cult that had been sought out by the witch-finders of the seven-
teenth century and later explored through trial documents by Mar-
garet Murray in the 1920s.7 The emerging narrative drew heavily on
established publications from the nineteenth century such as those of
Bachofen, Frazer, and Leland amongst others.8 It was combined with
Gardner’s interests in English folklore, and his participation in Freema-
sonry and occultism. As a total history, Gardnerian history appeared to
provide a sound basis for a religious tradition where magical experi-
ence was deeply rooted in a sense of historical continuity that in turn
provided a source of rituals and practice. History was literally the stuff
of practice. Regardless of abundant influential textual sources, such
as Leland’s Aradia, or Grave’s White Goddess, experiential elements of
knowledge and belief are highly reified within Witchcraft traditions,

7. Gerald B. Gardner, The Meaning of Witchcraft (London: Aquarian, 1959); Gerald

B. Gardner, Witchcraft Today (London: Rider, 1954); Margaret Murray, The God of the
Witches (Castle Headingham, Essex: The Daimon Press Limited, 1961 [1931]); Marga-
ret Murray, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (London: Oxford University Press, 1921).
Doreen Valiente was also significant in reinforcing these historical ideas through her
publications in the 1960s and 1970s, see Doreen Valiente, An ABC of Witchcraft (New
York, St. Martin’s, 1973); Natural Magic (New York: St. Martin’s, 1975); Where Witch-
craft Lives (London: Aquarian Press, 1962). The literary tradition continues through
Philip Heselton who has carried out significant research into the details of Gardner’s
life, and in tracing the stories told by Gardner that led him to uncover the secret
trail of witchcraft. See Philip Heselton, Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration:
An Investigation into the Sources of Gardnerian Witchcraft (Milverton, Somerset: Capall
Bann, 2003); Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival (Chieve-
ley, Berks.: Capall Bann, 2000).
8. J J Bachofen, Das Mutterrecht (Basel: Benno Schwabe, 1981 [1861]); James Frazer,
The Golden Bough: A Study in Magic and Religion (London: Macmillan, 1978 [1921]);
Charles G. Leland, Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches (New York: Samuel Weiser, Inc.,
1974 [1890]).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

18 The Pomegranate 11.1 (2009)

which emphasise intuitive and emotional elements.9 The response to

orthodox Gardnerian histories that has been gaining ground since the
1980s is that it is simply wrong. Relying on earlier historical interpreta-
tions based on inaccurate sources, wishful thinking, and received myths
with no basis in empirical reality, it might be empowering as a foun-
dation myth, but not as history. It is now commonplace to argue that
myth and history were conflated in order to produce a coherent nexus
of history and practice. This appears to leave contemporary Witchcraft
with little or no foundation.
Practitioners who urge a collective re-examination of historical ortho-
doxies feel that perpetuating out-dated explanations makes contempo-
rary Paganism appear irrational and untenable to outsiders. Conversely,
some continue to assert that the abandonment of established meaning-
ful pasts on the “whims of historians” is equally irrational. Nevertheless,
revisionist histories of Witchcraft are establishing new orthodoxies that
are more closely aligned with current scholarly accounts. These debates
contribute towards an increased tension between conflicting historical
narratives that offer foundational explanations for Witchcraft in the past
and the present. Many practitioners make careful distinctions between
the kinds of empirical evidence they seek to explain the history of witch-
craft as a contemporary movement, and other ways of thinking about
the past that can be invoked through practice. By making such distinc-
tions, revised histories privilege the written record in ways that contra-
dict Gardnerian, orthodox histories.

“Huttonisation” and the Crisis of History?

My research into the ways magical practitioners conceptualise and
negotiate the past coincided with the publication of Ronald Hutton’s
detailed examination of the historical roots of modern Witchcraft, The
Triumph of the Moon.10 The publication had a mixed reception, although
its impact was felt strongly by varying Pagan communities in Britain.
Some welcomed his detailed narratives on the diverse and documented
routes to the emergence of modern Witchcraft. His dismissal of previ-

9. Leland, Aradia; Robert Graves, The White Goddess (London: Faber & Faber, 1981
[1948]).
10. Ronald Hutton, The Triumph of the Moon (Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1999). See also Ronald Hutton, “Modern Pagan Witchcraft,” in The History of Witch-
craft and Magic in Europe. Volume 6: The Twentieth Century, ed. Bengt Ankarloo and
Stuart Clark (London: Athlone, 1999), 1-80; Ronald Hutton, “Paganism and Polemic:
The Debate over the Origins of Modern Pagan Witchcraft,” Folklore 111, no 1 (2000):
103-17.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

 Cornish   Spelling out History 19

ously acceptable stories was received with uncritical support and relief
that the apparently mythic foundations of Witchcraft histories are seri-
ously addressed. What might be understood as the “Huttonian hard
line” is the suggestion that nothing predates the 1940s.11 As one Pagan
practitioner told me,

Naive people who believe that Wicca is an ancient religion don’t like his
[Hutton’s] arguments. Unfortunately, it’s a new religion. Hutton does a
good job explaining how it came about, and he says there’s no evidence
for the existence of any organised Witchcraft in Britain before Gardner
popped up.12

Hutton’s analyses are often perceived as promoting a sense of abso-

lute rupture and discontinuity for today’s practitioners. In a desire for a
certain view on history perhaps, some readers seem unaware of claims
for continuity through sources such as Freemasonry, Mithraism, Neo-
Platonism, or Renaissance interpretations of Egyptian texts. Certain
types of source material are privileged, and the construction of histori-
cal knowledge is placed firmly within the domain of textual evidence.
Others decried the challenge to what they believed was not only the
history of their religion, but also the heart of their practice and their
spirituality. Despair and frustration are invoked on the premise that
either the critical features of “orthodox” Witchcraft histories are under-
mined, or that oral histories and folkloric ancestry is ignored at the
expense of documentary evidence. To some extent, these readers exem-
plify the perspectives of those described by anthropological analyses
of British Witchcraft in the 1980s and 1990s. For example, Luhrmann
asserted that Witches did not seem to be able to differentiate between
history and myth. A decade later, Greenwood commented that Witches
were, actually, quite capable of distinguishing between the two but pre-
ferred to honour a past rooted in myth.13 Many of those who are critical
of Hutton do not necessarily support the idea of an unbroken tradition
of organised networks of religious Witchcraft in the style of Murray or
Gardner. To the contrary, they are often also critical of these narratives,
but are concerned by what they see as a denial of continuities of prac-

11. Lynn Meskell, “Feminism, Paganism, Pluralism,” in Archaeology and Folklore, ed.
Amy Gazin-Schwartz and Cornelius Holtorf(London: Routledge, 1999), 88.
12. Reg, personal Interview, 22 August 2001.
13. Tanya Luhrmann, Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft: Ritual Magic in Contemporary
England (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 242; Susan Greenwood, “The British Subcul-
ture: Beyond Good and Evil?,” in Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft , ed. James
R. Lewis (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1996), 279. See also Susan
Greenwood, Magic, Witchcraft and the Otherworld: An Anthropology (Oxford: Berg,
2000).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

20 The Pomegranate 11.1 (2009)

tice, in non-literate, non-elite environments, and the use of magic as a

part of a skills base in understanding and being in the world.
In 2005, during the annual meeting of Friends of the Witchcraft
Museum in Cornwall,14 Ben, a Witch who follows the “Old Ways,”
expressed some concern that one of the important sources of histori-
cal knowledge he drew upon, making connections through folklore and
cunning traditions, was becoming increasingly untenable. During the
same weekend, Jim, a Traditional Witch,15 found himself frustrated with
attitudes towards the roots of Witchcraft. A large part of the following
discussion relies on a series of conversations with Jim, Ben, and other
practitioners over this weekend, but the sentiments were echoed over a
number of years of fieldwork.
Jim reported that a fellow attendee, a longtime practitioner, had
lamented the lack of a viable history for today’s Witches. Margaret,
who claims ancestry through cunning traditions, felt forced to choose
between accepting unfounded myths or acknowledging that the origins
she had previously believed were without substance. Furthermore,
she felt that there was no choice, given the implications of irrationality
and ignorance that seemed to follow any kind of rejection of scholarly
history. According to practitioners such as Jim, the academics appear
to have won. Magical histories have been thoroughly and successfully
rationalised. Jim claimed this was the successful “Huttonisation” of
Witchcraft, its basis removed, and its core whittled away. He was insis-
tent that this approach denied the role of spirit, which was not possible
to pin down from such a rationalist perspective. This kind of conversa-
tion was a familiar event in discussions of historical possibilities with
magical practitioners and often turned on variations of the phrase “our

14. The Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, North Cornwall, has a flourishing

network of museum friends. This informal community was set up soon after the
current owner bought the museum from Cecil Williamson in 1996. Now formalised
into a charity, its members continue to meet annually for a weekend of talks, museum
news, and fellowship.
15. The term “Traditional Witch” describes different affiliations in Britain and the
United States. American Witches tend to use this to denote connections with Gard-
nerian lineages, while in Britain it is more likely to be used by those who choose to
align themselves with the rural traditions of cunning folk as distinct from Wicca.
Historical connections by today’s practitioners to cunning folk and wise women in
the past are readily made in popular publications. For example Michael Howard,
“Cunning Men, Wise Women and Modern Witches,” The Cauldron 97 (2000): 9-14;
Kathy Wallis, Spirit in the Storm: The True Story of Joan Wytte, Fighting Fairy Woman of
Bodmin (Wadebridge, Cornwall: Lyngham House, 2003). This is not necessarily seen
to stand up to historical scrutiny, for example: Owen Davies, Cunning-Folk: Popular
Magic in English History (London: Hambledon, 2003); Jason Semmens, The Witch of the
West (Plymouth: Printed for the author, 2004).

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

 Cornish   Spelling out History 21

history has been Huttonised.” While it might be expected that religious

knowledge turns readily to mythopoetics as a significant source, many
practitioners stated that they felt under pressure to maintain a coherent
and plausible narrative at all times.
Of course, Hutton is not solely responsible for the shift in witch-
craft historiography by practitioners over the last twenty years. During
this time, scholars have made significant contributions to the process
of unpicking historical truth from myth.16 Additionally, many Witches
have declared that they had been slowly and carefully debunking their
history since the late 1980s, publishing in a small way in the Pagan
press.17 The arrival of meticulous examinations such as Hutton’s may
validate some of this ongoing critical and sceptical process. A critical
outcome of these heightened debates about historicity was the ways
in which Witches make strategic distinctions between what counts as
history and what counts as practice, in contrast to an earlier conflation of
history and myth. Interestingly, while the majority of Witches I encoun-
tered took this kind of revisionist perspective on history for granted,
they were often under the impression that it was a minority view, and
the greater proportion of practitioners were still under the illusion that
ancient continuities and intuitive sources of historical knowledge con-
tinued to provide a reasonable and valid history for the majority.

16. For example, Kenneth Rees “The Tangled Skein: the Role of Myth in Paganism”
in Paganism Today, ed. Graham Harvey and Charlotte Hardman (London: Thorsons,
1995); Cat Chapin-Bishop and Peter Bishop, “Embarrassed by Our Origins,” The
Pomegranate no. 12 (Spring 2000): 48-54; Jenny Gibbons, “Recent Developments in
the Study of The Great European Witch Hunt,” The Pomegranate no. 5 (Summer 1998):
2-16; James R Lewis, ed., Magical Religion and Modern Witchcraft: A Scholarly Study
of Neopaganism in the 90s (Albany, New York: State University of New York, 1996);
Joanne Pearson, “Wicca, Paganism and History,” in Robert Poole, ed., The Lancashire
Witches: Histories and Stories (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002), 188-
203; Joanne Pearson, “Writing Witchcraft: the Historians’ History, the Practitioners’
Past,” in Witchcraft Historiography, ed. Jonathon Barry and Owen Davies (Basingstoke,
Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007), 225-241; Diane Purkiss, The Witch in History:
Early Modern and Twentieth Century Representations. (London: Routledge, 1996).
17. Such as Adrian Bott, “The Great Wicca Hoax—Part 1,” White Dragon 31 (Lugh-
nasa 2001): 5-8; Mike Howard, “Gerald Gardner: The Man and the Myth,” The Caul-
dron 51 (1988): 1-3; Prudence Jones, “The Long View,” Pagan Dawn no. 120 (Lammas
1996): 17; Aidan Kelly, Crafting the Art of Magic. Book 1: A History of Modern Witchcraft,
1939 - 1964 (St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn, 1991); Phil Vance, “The Old Religion,” White
Dragon 34 (Beltane 2002): 4-5; Brian M. Walsh, “The Great Debate: Did Murray Meet
her Brief?,” The Cauldron 110 (2003): 35-36; Steve Wilson, “Archaic Witchcraft,” The
Witchtower no. 8 (2004): 10-12.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

22 The Pomegranate 11.1 (2009)

History: Tracing Legitimacy

Marked distinctions arise through revised Witchcraft historiographies
that strictly describe the history of a modern movement. Relying heavily
on conventional empirical historiography, an explicit focus on textual
evidence means that narratives are disregarded if they cannot be proven.
Classical mythology and folklore are considered aspects of mythic his-
tories, but these have little bearing on the possibilities for a “proper”
history. It is perceived that a reliance on less than exacting sources will
only perpetuate the mythic histories practitioners are currently keen
to displace. While questions of historical bias may arise, assumptions
about the possibilities of objectivity and the truth of past events means
that clear distinctions are carved between history, and myth and prac-
tice. This does not generate notions of practical experience, but rather
legitimates current senses of belonging.
History, in these terms, proves relatively unproblematic. By the early
twenty-first century, there are five decades of an emerging and coherent
movement to provide legitimacy—and with it a strong archive of his-
torical documents. In turn, these can be linked to a considerable range of
documented earlier traditions such as occultism, ritual magic, Theoso-
phy, and the growing Spiritualist movement. These legitimize contem-
porary Pagan traditions through a historically sound basis, albeit one
that turns on different sets of evidence than the orthodox narratives that
founded the movement. Some Witches, in particular those who claim
allegiance to initiatory Wiccan traditions, still cling to traditional narra-
tives. Although at least one elderly Wiccan claimed that early histories
of continuity were never treated literally, but were always seen as alle-
gorical. Many of the Witches I encountered were not part of initiated
covens, but worked informally either individually or in small groups,
although several had previously been part of initiatory traditions. They
were largely unthreatened by the problematic status of coven conti-
nuity as none saw this as a critical element of their practice. Orthodox
ideas of continuity were generally seen to be somewhat spurious and
untenable.
Practitioners are keen to demonstrate that myth is not mistaken for
history. Ideas of ancient continuity still provide difficult questions, and
attitudes towards historical criteria and sources as evidence remain vari-
able. However, the unlikelihood of continuous coven practices stretch-
ing back into the distant past tends to be taken for granted. This kind
of history conforms to current interpretations by professional historians
and serves to provide a valid record of an emerging movement.
Furthermore this historical shift has considerable political relevance.

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 Cornish   Spelling out History 23

There is a growing conviction that an irrational sense of history is an obsta-

cle to mainstream acceptance to move contemporary Paganism beyond
a marginal or powerless position.The profile of modern Witchcraft is
seen to be raised by demonstrating its rational and rigorous research
based on reliable textual sources; to prove that contemporary Witches
are no longer gullible romantics. One Pagan practitioner acknowledged
the invaluable power invoked by mythic histories that often form part
of an initial attraction to Witchcraft. She insisted, however, that it is
unacceptable to hold on to inaccuracies once they have been revealed,
arguing that contemporary Witchcraft can only become stronger, and be
taken more seriously, when practitioners accept its limited history. This
reinforces ongoing campaigns for greater recognition of Witchcraft and
Paganism as alternative religions in a modern multi-faith world. It is a
pragmatic and strategic move that highlights explicit political dimen-
sions of contemporary Witchcraft, such as the determined campaign in
2000-1 to encourage British Pagans to declare their religious identifica-
tion on the UK census in 2001.18

Practice: Generating the Past

The pragmatics of clearly marking history are further enhanced by the
ways in which practice and myth can be imagined once they no longer
serve the purposes of providing a history for the Witchcraft movement.
Unlike orthodox histories which conflate history and practice to enhance
claims of legitimacy, new perceptions on the relation between the past
and practice have aimed to liberate practice from strictly historical con-
texts. Once history is only required to evidence the legitimacy of the
modern movement, then practice perhaps becomes a bit of a free-for-
all. Critically, as Jim claimed, history is irrelevant to spirit. He argued
that what happens as part of magical experience, through experiential
connections to the otherworld, is timeless and ahistorical. It has little
to do with the history of witchcraft as set out by empirical historians.

18. Paganism was not an option on the census; rather it could be specified in a
box marked ”other.” In a strategic move, the campaign encouraged practitioners to
claim Pagan identification, rather than to assert specific traditions, in the hope that
this would create a greater statistical impact. Despite relatively high profile debates
at the time, no Pagan tradition features on the breakdown of results by the Office
of National Statistics, see http://www.statistics.gov.uk/census2001/profiles/com-
mentaries/ethnicity.asp#religion. Other indicative examples include campaigns to
incorporate Pagan perspectives in state religious education, and public pressure
groups such as PEBBLE (The Public Bodies Liaison Committee for British Paganism,
see http://www.pebble.uk.net/).

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24 The Pomegranate 11.1 (2009)

Instead, it privileges deeply felt resonances with spiritual and magical

experiences.
The sense of knowledge through practice provides not only a valu-
able sense of past, but a primary sense of connection with a magical
otherworld, and with those who have also sought it. Experience is char-
acterized as creative, intuitive, and dynamic. Spirit rather than text is
emphasized. The practice of magical knowledge in a diverse array of
practices over time and place provide a broad sense of continuity with
countless unknown individuals who have sought similar experiences.
The phrase “if it works, use it” has, perhaps, become a truism in Pagan
communities, but it carries the weight of experience. Similarly, it is sug-
gested that claims to follow the rural traditions of cunning folk can also
be generated out of this approach. Several practitioners asserted that the
historical problem was a lack of evidence; rural and oral traditions were
unlikely to leave traces in the written record, and thus they felt quite jus-
tified in “following our noses” through trial and error.
It is arguable that elements of these practices can be found through
conventional historical documentation. Occult writings for instance,
such as old grimoires, spell books, or accounts of esoteric experiences.
These texts are critical to practitioners like Jim, who feel that these are
helpful, informative, and provide good company on his magical path.
Nevertheless, he insists that texts are only part of the story, and they
contribute towards a set of tools, rather than an outline of a lineage. He,
amongst others, argued that any scrap of information or emotion drawn
from a wide range of sources, from myths, dreams, intuition, artefacts,
rural traditions, or the landscape can be relevant. What is important is
that this is used to describe or invoke practice. On this basis, it is not
considered necessary to subject it to strictly rigorous historical analyses;
its place in the history of a movement is disregarded, while its use as
part of an array of timeless experiences is invaluable.

History and Practice in Practice: Concluding Reflections

Conscious and deliberate distinctions made between history and prac-
tice, as well as history and myth demonstrate, how what constitutes
historical knowledge is continually reassessed and renegotiated. This
suggests that today’s Witches make pragmatic decisions to help fashion
a route through some of the difficult and contradictory aspects of Witch-
craft history. By claiming a privileged position for practice, experiential
knowledge can be distinguished from rationalist histories of Witchcraft
and allows an emphasis on the creative and innovative practices that
current practitioners relish. In turn, Witchcraft can be seen as a contem-

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

 Cornish   Spelling out History 25

porary movement and alternative religion that offers the opportunity for
a broad political presence in everyday social and cultural contexts. Thus
Witchcraft is seen as a contemporary movement and alternative religion
that offers the opportunity for political presence in broader social and
cultural frames, and also to emphasize the creative innovative practices
that current practitioners relish.
Critically, these pragmatic distinctions between history and practice
and history and myth ignore the extent to which many themes, ideas,
and practices that are claimed under the guise of experiential, intui-
tive knowledge also have roots in published literature. Contemporary
Paganism, for all its reification of the experiential, is a deeply literate
tradition. While it is often characterized as a religion without texts or
other conventional religious structures, researchers have often noted
that today’s Pagans are part of a highly literate tradition. Not only does
Pagan Witchcraft emerge substantially from literary sources, but prac-
titioners read widely, embracing diverse genres such as history, anthro-
pology, religious studies, archaeology, natural history, mythology,
folklore, and fairy tales. The historical narratives that are now proving
so problematic are drawn from nineteenth and early twentieth-century
publications that were seen as quite acceptable by the academy at the
time.19 Practice is constituted through interpretations of the past and is
also processual. It is inseparable from the trajectory of textual witchcraft
histories. For practitioners there are difficulties in reconciling the para-
doxical elements outlined here. For scholars, there are difficulties in rec-
onciling current practices with the historical evidence.
Nevertheless, illusions continue and myths are maintained. Prob-
lematic issues may be elided by this pragmatic approach. While current
critiques may be applauded for taking historical criteria seriously, an
adherence to the “myth of realism” provided by conventional approaches
to historical evidence may generate over-simplified interpretations and
understandings of the past.20 Despite the apparent ease of distinguish-
ing between history and practice described here, it is also clear that cat-
egories of knowledge such as history, myth, folklore, or practice are not
easily distinguished as discrete sets of knowledge.
What this discussion usefully reveals is the ways that shifts and
changes in what constitutes a meaningful history for modern Witches
over the last few decades demonstrates the extent to which historicity is
a fluid and changeable discourse, undergoing continual negotiation and
transformation. Currently, contemporary Witches are trying to find a

19. Meskell, “Feminism, Paganism, Pluralism,” 88.

20. Tonkin, “History and the Myth of Realism,” 25-35.

© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2009.

26 The Pomegranate 11.1 (2009)

meaningful path that does not reject intuitive or emotional knowledge,

or a range of valuable strategies for approaching the past, while simulta-
neously aiming to fulfill certain criteria for historical knowledge. It also
provides an illustration of the paradoxical and sometimes disorderly
ways in which the past is contested and how narratives are transformed
over time to serve reconfigured agendas in the competing terrain of his-
torical accuracy and legitimate pasts.

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