Object Literature
When the Wiccan religion first came to public attention, its followers commonly called it “Witchcraft”. Gerald Gardner—the man regarded as the “Father of Wicca”—referred to it as the “Craft of the Wise”, “Witchcraft”, and “the Witch-cult” during the 1950s. Gardner believed in the theory that persecuted witches had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion, but this theory has now been proven wrong.
As a name for the religion, “Wicca” developed in Britain during the 1960s. It is not known who first used this name for the religion, although one possibility is that it might have been Gardner’s rival Charles Cardell, who was calling it the “Craft of the Wiccens” by 1958. The first recorded use of the name “Wicca” was in 1962, and it had been popularised to the extent that several British practitioners founded a newsletter called The Wiccan in 1968. Many Wiccans believe in magic, a manipulative force exercised through the practice of “spellcraft”. It has been suggested that Wiccans “identify with the witch because she is imagined as powerful – she can make people sleep for one hundred years, she can see the future, she can curse and kill as well as heal…and of course, she can turn people into frogs!”
The pentagram is a symbol rife with controversy in the Western world. Often portrayed as a symbolic representation of Satanism, it has historically been banned in schools, and only fairly recently was approved as a suitable symbol of religious affiliation for United States veteran’s headstones. Drawing a circle around the five points creates a similar symbol referred to as the pentacle, which is used widely by Wiccans and in paganism, or as a sign of life and connections.
Whoever who assembled this concoction was clearly committed to the movement and that makes it an honest and intriguing piece of occult related ware.
