TWH – A document published last week and signed on July 18, 2022 by an anonymous group of Gardnerian witches is creating controversy in the Pagan community reflective of the wider debate in America on gender identity. The document, titled “A Declaration of the Traditional Gardnerian Wica,” has been labeled transphobic by a number of prominent Gardnerians because it references “fundamental principles, qualities and energies” that are exclusive only to male and female genders and contains a tone antithetical to the inclusive spirit of magical practitioners.
“One such principle that is inextricably woven into the foundations of our Tradition is that of working with male/female polarity,” the document states. “We recognize that male/female polarity is present in both the physical and metaphysical, and we set forth that the physical is inseparable from the metaphysical while incarnate. It is therefore necessary to practice biological female to biological male and vice versa, within a Traditional Gardnerian circle. We acknowledge that anything other than this is not Traditional Gardnerian practice, and will lead to different currents of power and different mysteries.”
The Declaration sites its instructional source as “Nature,” noting that Wica “celebrates the cycle and season of LIFE which focuses not only on the agrarian, but also emphasizes the FERTILITY cycle of humankind exemplified through the relationship between the Goddess and God.”
Editorial Note (8/1/2022): TWH was contacted by a redditor from a Gardnerian group described as the “Reddit hub for Traditional Gardnerian Wica”. The full document is available publicly on their Reddit thread.
The document further notes, in boldface, that “ultimately, the tradition is not altered to suit the Seeker. The Seeker is informed of the structure and tenets of the Tradition and decides whether or not they are a suitable match.”
One of the Book of Shadows owned by Gerald Gardner, left in his will to Doreen Valiente, and through her to John Belham-Payne. [Photo Credit: Midnightblueowl – CC BY-SA 3.0]
Secrecy and respect are core values in Gardnerian covens. Various accounts and public commentary have attributed the source of the document to a Florida line of Gardnerian initiates, practicing strict secrecy and centered on a conservative approach to Gardner’s original practice. The signers are not all exclusively from that lineage.
Gardnerians hold a prominent place in the worldwide Pagan community. Gerald Gardner, the founder of this tradition, was a British civil servant who settled near the New Forest in England after his retirement and claimed to have been initiated in 1939 into a coven that was practicing a pre-Christian religion. Determined to introduce this faith to the world, Gardner penned Witchcraft Today in 1954 and The Meaning of Witchcraft in 1959.
Both books sparked interest in magic and Witchcraft and remain definitive texts on modern Wicca. Though Gardner’s claims about the religion’s origins have been widely scrutinized by historians and academics, he is still recognized as the “Father of Wicca.”
According to the authors of the “Declaration,” Gardnerian Wicca is rooted in fertility, nature and the power of creation, and “to negate or reduce the importance of fertility in Gardnerian Craft is to remove the very essence of our mysteries.”
The Declaration also declares no room for discourse, stating: “Those of us who embrace the traditional tenets, philosophies and praxis of Gardnerian Witchcraft take exception to any who would dare to change the foundational principles of it.”
The anonymity of the Declaration’s authors and signers has led to widespread speculation. The vast and secretive nature of the Gardnerian community, which is comprised of countless covens and individuals worldwide, adds to the intrigue.
The document was signed and sealed by 47 Gardnerians who are either third-degree or autonomous second-degree. There is no central Gardnerian authority akin to a sovereign spiritual leader found in other faiths like Roman Catholicism or the Gelug school of Indian Buddhism. Covens are also autonomous.
Publicity still from “Britain’s Wicca Man.”
Despite the publicity around the document, the proclamation effectively only applies to covens that are led by or hive from the documents’ signers. Those seeking Gardnerian initiation can approach covens not bound by the Declaration.
Nevertheless, the document has brought attention to the practice of the Gardnerian tradition and some leaders see it as unwelcome.
Among the many Pagans who have been vocally critical of the Declaration is Jason Mankey, a third-degree Gardnerian high priest and author of several books, including The Horned God of the Witches and Transformative Witchcraft: The Greater Mysteries.
“I strongly believe that there’s a place for everyone in a Gardnerian circle, period,” Mankey said via email. “ ‘A place for everyone’,” means accepting individuals for who they are. A trans woman is a woman, suggesting that she should have to be a high priest is gross, and certainly does not speak to the acceptance of others that I most commonly encounter in the Gardnerian community. Silence equals complicity in this case, which means I could not in good conscience be silent on this issue.”
@panmankey “Traditional Gardnerians,” what a joke!#witchtok #witchcraft #wicca #witch #gardnerianwitchcraft ♬ original sound – Jason Mankey
Mankey was also quick to point out a particularly disturbing piece of the Declaration.
“What bothers me most about this situation is that by calling themselves ‘traditional Gardnerians,’ a small group of transphobic Gardnerians is attempting to discredit everyone else in the tradition, the great majority of whom disagree with the letter currently being circulated,” he explained. “The phrase ‘traditional Gardnerian’ is not an accident, and by using the term “traditional” this small group of individuals is implying that the vast majority of today’s Gardnerians are somehow not preserving the tradition and are not real Gardnerians. That’s absolute bollocks, of course.”
Mankey is also sensitive to the fact that trafficking in such rhetoric mirrors the current trans rights debate in wider society.
“In addition, use of the term ‘traditional’ suggests that being transphobic is an original value of the Gardnerian tradition, which is just not true. There’s a long history of trans-individuals in Gardnerian Craft,” he said. “Perhaps what’s most sad about this is that the signers of the letter in question are playing directly into the hands of today’s Republican party, which has decided to target trans individuals simply for existing.”
Some Gardnerian practitioners suggest that the Declaration seems particularly confusing from a historical perspective as well. According to one Gardnerian, and echoed by others interviewed for this story, transgender individuals have been active in Gardnerian Wicca for a long time.
“Trans initiates in Gardnerian Wicca are by no means new to the tradition; they’ve been around for decades,” said Jack Chanek, a Gardnerian Wiccan and author of Qabalah for Wiccans: Ceremonial Magic on the Pagan Path. “The mysteries of Gardnerian Wicca touch on universal human experiences that are available to anyone, regardless of gender. If someone is called to the Gods and finds a coven that feels like home, it doesn’t matter whether they’re cis or trans, and I know several trans, nonbinary, and gender-nonconforming initiates who are among the most devoted and magical members of the Craft I’ve had the privilege to meet.”
Even so, Chanek noted that transphobia is alive and well in the Gardnerian community.
“Unfortunately, there are transphobic individuals in Wicca, and many of those individuals choose to exclude trans seekers from their groups,” he said. “However, no one has the right to speak for the whole of the Gardnerian tradition.”
Chanek underscored that Gardnerian Wicca is a decentralized tradition, with no one individual with power over any coven but their own.
“The unpleasant reality is that discrimination does happen, but discriminatory covens don’t get to dictate who is and is not initiated by any other group. It’s important for trans seekers to know that there is a place for them in this tradition, and although there are some transphobic covens, there are equally covens that are safe and welcoming places for trans practitioners,” said Chanek.
Thorn Mooney, a Gardnerian high priestess and author of Traditional Wicca: A Seeker’s Guide and The Witch’s Path: Advancing Your Craft at Every Level, is equally disapproving of the declaration. She also points to structural inconsistencies within the Gardnerian community.
“This is hardly the first time Gardnerians—and American Gardnerians in particular—have struggled as a tradition with the public spectacle of declaring insiders and outsiders, and this is particularly true in our very tumultuous relationship with gender and sexuality,” Mooney said.
“There are plenty of letters and declarations in our history—it seems to be what we do. There’s no overseeing body of Gardnerian Wicca, no council, no elected elders, and no central authority, and initiates have the right to run their covens however they like,” she notes. “The relationship between community and autonomy is paradoxical, and something we all have to struggle with. As such, this declaration only has the authority that individuals grant it, and I don’t.”
Mooney also addressed the declaration’s use of language as it relates to deity and ritual. There has long been a debate about gendering in religious text, especially in Judaism and Christianity, which draw from clearly gendered languages like Hebrew. Attempts have been made in recent years to create more inclusive blessings and rituals that transcend gender and harken to teachings like those of Maimonides, the medieval Jewish philosopher, who noted the incorporeality of the Divine.
“The Wica that I practice centers upon the worship of gods who, ultimately, are not human. They just aren’t. They don’t have bodies, and they don’t have an objective human experience,” Mooney explained. “The gendered language and imagery that we have assigned to them is always only an approximation of who they are, and for many of us, that language was never consistently useful. It’s not inherent, and it’s not where ‘tradition’ lies. We can choose better metaphors.”
Mooney pointed out that individual experience with the gods is a core belief of Gardnerian Wicca – an experience that is meant to be personal.
“We all come to know them [the gods] for ourselves, without mediation. And since the beginning, my experience of them has been transcendent of my own human body. I’ve heard their voices in the elements, in animals, and in the power of the land I live on. I’ve experienced them through my connection to my ancestors, and through the emotional bonds I’ve shared with the people I love,” she said. “When I commune with them in ritual, I cease to be limited by the confines of my immediate human condition. They don’t care what body I have, and thus all bodies and bodily expressions are sacred. That is where the gods live for me. That is the experience(s) that Wica offers, and that is the pursuit of the covens that I associate with.”
Will this lead to a schism within Gardnerian Wicca, as many in the magical community have posed? Mankey doesn’t think so.
“The only schism being created is by the authors and signers of the letter in question,” he explained. “Coven autonomy is a real thing in the Gardnerian Community, and no one speaks for all of us. I have no control over how other covens operate, nor should I have such control. And there have most likely always been covens that are inclusive, and others that are not. Though I obviously disagree with the letter and those who have chosen to sign it, I will admit that they are still Gardnerians (though it saddens me to see the tradition tarnished so).”
For Mooney, repairing the damage caused by the declaration’s authors and signers starts with a reimagining of the Gardenarian approach. She points to how they organize themselves and in their outlook on gender identity.
“If you want to dispel transphobia in the tradition—and you should—then you need to build a coven that is genuinely welcoming to trans seekers and initiates,” she said. “Address your liturgy, and stop pretending that any of these texts are inherently sacred. We make them sacred through our practice, and that’s what we’ve always done. You want to know how our rites work when we eliminate gender, or complicate it? You’re a witch—figure it out.
“Lots of brilliant coven leaders are doing that right now, and have been for decades,” she continued. “Witchcraft is by its nature experimental, flexible, and resistant to stagnation. We pretend that ‘tradition’ is an objective, tangible thing, but any critical engagement at all with constructions of tradition throughout history reveals otherwise.”
She argues that adherents should “fight back by running a healthy coven that survives for decades. Fight back by refusing to require subservience from your initiates though nonsense titles and ridiculous promises of fealty—that’s how we got here. That’s how we keep getting here, over and over. Fight back by not sharing these kinds of documents. Social media doesn’t care about your counterpoints—a share is a share, and a share is an endorsement, as far as social media algorithms are concerned.”
Mankey, for his part, calls for a radical welcome and also a vetting of covens to ensure that trans individuals know they have a place in Gardnerian Wicca.
“The vast majority of today’s Gardnerian Tradition supports the trans community,” he said. “For trans-seekers out there, know that we hear and see you and that the overwhelming majority of us believe that you have a space in circle. If you are interested in joining a coven, ask questions and do your homework to weed out the bad apples.”
The Wild Hunt will be sharing a follow-up story that includes trans voices and their perspectives on Wicca and Witchcraft practices.
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