Peregrin Wildoak egregiously misrepresents Gerald Gardner (and Ronald Hutton)

In his "Response" to Ronald Hutton" (written in response to Hutton's recent Pomegranate article), Peregrin Wildoak repeats yet again the tired-old straw-man routine about Gerald Gardner, Wicca and the Stone-Age:

The revisionist history discussed by Hutton concerns the collapse of the older view that modern Pagan Witchcraft was a continuation in terms of lineage and practice of a hidden Pagan magical-religion from the medieval period or older. To quote Gerald Gardner [from Chapter 2 of Witchcraft Today]:

[the witch] is a descendant of a line of priests and priestesses of an old and probably Stone Age religion, who have been initiated in a certain way (received into the circle) and become the recipients of certain ancient learning. 

Before going any further, let's take a closer look at the convoluted way in which Wildoak introduces the quote from Gardner. Wildoak posits that there is an "older view", which has now supposedly "collasped[d]", according to which "modern Pagan Witchcraft was a continuation in terms of lineage and practice of a hidden Pagan magical-religion from the medieval period or older."

But it turns out that what Wildoak presents as "the older view" is precisely the position that Ronald Hutton now defends, minus the red-herring of "lineage" (a word that appears precisely zero times in Witchcraft Today and The Meaning of Witchcraft combined). As everyone now knows, or should know, Ronald Hutton now adamantly insists that modern Paganism does constitute "a continuation", not just from "the medieval period", but from Hellenistic times and further back into ancient Egypt, in terms of religious beliefs and practices. It is true that Hutton did in the past  stipulate that this continuity was only magical and not religious, but he has since relented and now explicitly recognizes the religious, as well as the magical, nature of this continuity.

And now let us turn to a closer look at what Gerald Gardner actually did say in Witchraft Today. A major sign that something is amiss with Wildoak's "quote" is that it begins with [some stuff in square brackets]. If we pull back the curtain and have a look at the whole paragraph that Wildoak plucked his mangled "quote" from we read:

In Palestine and other countries there are two kinds of witches: the ignorant herbalist and charmseller, and the witch who is a descendant of a line of priests and priestesses of an old and probably Stone Age religion, who have been initiated in a certain way (received into the circle) and become the recipients of certain ancient learning.

Note how the context of the quote is not Witches in Britain, but Witches in "Palestine and other countries". Why "Palestine"? Well, if we look at the even broader context of the quote (that is, if one actually reads the book that the quote is taken from, or at least the chapter of the book in question), then one finds just four paragraphs earlier the following:

At a later time there were, perhaps, other reasons why women may have been dominant in the cult practice, though, as I point out later, there are quite as many men among witches as women. The Bible tells us of the poor persecuted Witch of Endor, working in secret when all other witches had been driven out of the land. It also tells us of Huldah the Sorceress, living in state in Jerusalem, consulted by the King on high points of religion when the High Priest himself could not answer

Of course, all those who know their Bibles and their Witches would immediately suspect that Gardner was referring to the Witch of Endor as soon as he speaks of Witches in Palestine. But Gardner has not left this to guesswork, for as the above quote shows, he has already explicitly introduced the Witch of Endor just prior to discussing Witches in Palestine.

What sort of Witch was the Witch of Endor? Well, in Jerome's Vulgate she is referred to as "pythonissa", which makes her a Priestess of Apollo. And so at least in the version of the story most closely associated with Western Christianity, this most famous of Palestinian Witches was, indeed, an initiated Priestess of a very old religion.

But what about those "other countries", and isn't Britain one of them? Well, yes, but once we see the whole quote and it's proper context, it immediately and emphatically raises the question of whether or not Gardner expresses himself any differently when he is talking more specifically about Witches in Britain? And, indeed, Gardner states of British Witches (in Chapter 1) that "their practices are the remnants of a Stone Age religion," which is not that far from the position that Ronald Hutton also eventually came around to.

Elsewhere in Witchcraft Today, Gardner further qualifies, twice, any connection between modern Wicca and the Stone Age as follows:

From Chapter 4, Witch Practices:

I fancy that certain practices, such as the use of the circle to keep the power in, were local inventions, derived from the use of the Druid or pre-Druid circle. At one time I believed the whole cult was directly descended from the Northern European culture of the Stone Age, uninfluenced by anything else; but I now think that it was influenced by the Greek and Roman mysteries which originally may have come from Egypt. But while it is fascinating to consider the cult existing in direct descent from ancient Egypt, we must take into account the other possibilities. 

From Chapter7, The Witches and the Mysteries:

I had always believed that witches belonged to an independent Stone Age cult whose rites were a mixture of superstition and reality and had no connection with any other system. But during my short stay in New Orleans, though I did not succeed in getting into Voodoo, I noticed some suspicious resemblances which made me think that Voodoo was not solely African in origin but had been compounded in America out of European witchcraft and African mythology; and when I visited the Villa of the Mysteries at Pompeii I realised the great resemblance to the cult. Apparently these people were using the witches' processes.

So, what Gerald Gardner actually wrote in Witchcraft Today is that modern Wicca is not "directly descended" [Gardner's words] from a Northern European Stone Age cult. Instead, Wicca has a variety of different sources, from different cultures, different continents, and different time periods.