Yep, the old chap knicked bits and bobs from all over the place and made it all into Ye Olde Worlde Wiccan Lore.
He was a right old rascal, getting all those nubile young things to work skyclad as in 'days of old'.......yeah, right!
_________________ Pagan Pride: The God and The Goddess Rock!
Trouble is, a great many pagans and witches think his words are graven in stone and that Uncle Gerald's way is the Only True Way. Thus some Wiccans can be as bad as Christians for dogma.
The extended and formal Pagan community is heaving with con artist, bullies, know it alls, fake Priestesses and Priests, pretenders who run Pagan shops to make a vast profit, pompous self styled 'elders' and in fighting.
The whole Wiccan versus wiccan argument is based upon snobbery about being able to trace initiatory lineage back to Gardiner or Saunders: it sounds very 'apostolic' if you ask me!!!
Cynical?
Moi?
You bet!!! _________________ Pagan Pride: The God and The Goddess Rock!
You're right Taz but I'm sure Uncle Gerald would turn in his grave if he saw some of the things that go on in the pagan community.
We mustn't bash him though. Whether you follow his teachings or not it must be remembered that without him a lot of the craft's ways we know and love wouldn't be as avaliable as they are. The old elitist witches would have kept them to thmeselves and by now the craft would be all but dead.
We owe him a debt of gratitude at least.
It does annoy me when I speak to young pagans and pagans from other countries who have never even heard of him. Grrr!
I don't disagree, he collated information that might otherwise have been lost forever and forged the way for the freedom that many Pagans take for granted today.
It's a bit like Jesus (calm down dear!): I don't think he was a bad bloke, the comments attributed to him make a lot of sense. Then he goes and gets himself crucified and the Christian PR machine rolls into action. The resulting church is probably something that he himself would preach against if he were about today.
Gerald Gardiner and, later, Alex Saunders brought the Craft into the open, within the reach of those who heard the call of the Goddess but didn't know how to answer Her.
It is a tad disheartening that newbies often jump straight in a the magick end of the Craft without looking at those who founded modern Witchcraft and laid the groundwork and formed the heaving mass of traditions and folklore into a living, breathing body.
I still think he was a saucy old so and so though... _________________ Pagan Pride: The God and The Goddess Rock!
Gerald Gardiner and, later, Alex Saunders brought the Craft into the open, within the reach of those who heard the call of the Goddess but didn't know how to answer Her
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