Abstract
This chapter concerns the theatrical aspects of two related occult movements that were established in England near the middle of the twentieth century: Alex Mathews’s (1890–1942) Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship (ROCF) and Gardnerian Wicca, which is a modern witchcraft religion that Gerald Brousseau Gardner (1884–1964) revealed to the public in 1951. Gardner became one of the most influential occultists of the current era, and it could be argued that Wicca is one of the most successful esoteric religions in the history of Western culture.
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Notes
Gerald B. Gardner, Witchcraft Today (1954; reprint, New York: Citadel Press, 2004), 82.
J. L. Bracelin, Gerald Gardner: Witch (London: Octagon Press, 1960), 164.
Quoted in Philip Heselton, Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival (Berks, UK: Capall Bann, 2000), 54.
John Patrick Deveney, “Spiritualism,” in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1077.
Rudolf Steiner, “Christian Initiation,” in The Essential Steiner: Basic Writings of Rudolf Steiner (San Francisco, CA: HarperSanFrancisco, 1984), 258.
Ronald Hutton, Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraf, paperback edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 213.
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “Tradition,” in Dictionary of Gnosis & Western Esotericism (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 1127.
Sir Edward Bart Sullivan, Verulamania: Some Observations on the Making of a Modern Mystery (London: Bedford Press, 1904), 9. Rosicrucian Collection. Special Collections, Hartley Library, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK.
Hutton, quoted in Ian Stevenson, “Christchurch Garden Theatre,”, Journal of Christchurch Local History Society 15 (2009): 20.
Joanne E. Pearson, “Neopaganism,” in Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism (Leiden: Brill, 2005), 830.
Margaret Anne Murray, Witch Cultin Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1921; reprint, Whitefish, MT: Kessinger, n.d.), 12.
Robert C. Fuller, Spiritual, But not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 4, http://ebooks.ohiolink.edu/.
Rudolf Steiner, The True Nature of the Second Coming, 2nd ed. (London: Rudolf Steiner Press, 1971), 126–127.
Doreen Valiente, The Rebirth of Witchcraft (Custer, WA: Phoenix, 1989): 37–47; quoted in Hutton, 241–242.
Doreen Valiente, Witchcraf for Tomorrow (Blaine, WA: Phoenix, 1978), 73.
Vittorio Macchioro, The Villa of the Mysteries in Pompeii (Naples: Richter, 1931).
Colin Wilson, The Occult (New York: Vintage, 1977), 455.
Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Law, in The Law is for All, edited by Israel Regardie (1975; reprint, Scottsdale, AZ: New Falcon, 1991), 50.
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© 2014 Edmund B. Lingan
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Lingan, E.B. (2014). Rosicrucian Theatre and Wiccan Ritual. In: The Theatre of the Occult Revival. Palgrave Studies in Theatre and Performance History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137448613_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137448613_6
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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