I’m reading a cute book called The Love Almanac. It is full of poems, recipes, and stories about love. I was very surprised when I came across a bit of Wiccan “bad history.” Page 43 of this book there is a piece entitled “Love Spell Bottle.” It reads in part:
If you’re on the lookout for love, this love spell bottle might just do the trick. Spell bottles have been in use in America and Great Britain as part of the Wicca tradition since the 1600s.
Can you spot the “bad history”? Like I said to quanta, it would be correct if it read “since the 1960s.”
Perpetrating the idea of Wicca as an ancient religion is bad enough in Wiccan books, but when our bad history starts showing up in mainstream books these is a serious problem. I’m not sure what we can do about it, other then do our best to educate everyone about the correct history of Wicca.
That might be difficult, as the number of genuinely accurate “histories” of Wicca that extend further than the 1960’s are very few, and the ones that predate Gardner are non-existant. For my part, I’ve taken to telling people that Wicca has a verifiable age of about 65 years.
That youth is also, I believe, what explains the various shortcomings of our faith. Ah, well… time will help that, I suppose.
WELL YOUR COMMENTS ON WICCA HISTORY i HAVE HEARD ALOT ABOUT IT ,AND i GUESS IF EALIER WRITERS MADE STUFF UP AND ALMOST EVERYTHING WE DO COMES FROM THE MASONS AND THE GOLDEN DAWN HOW CAN i BE A PART OF WICCA IT SEEMS THAT i DON’T HAVE ANYTHING TO CALL MY OWN. This fighting over the history that isn’t true is very hurtful to those that are just trying their best to follow this path.
thanks jim