Are Witches Gnostic?

[Background: I am first and foremost a Gnostic, spiritually, religiously, and philosophically. I have also been involved in magickal study for over 20 years, having being initiated into several Witchcraft tradions and delivering workshops and lectures with such people as Starhawk, Ray Buckland, and Janet and Stewart Farrar. I became involved with the Caliphate OTO in 1988 and ran Parzival Camp in Victoria British Columbia, and served as a Deacon in the OTO's Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica. During this period I also hosted and interviewed Robert Anton Wilson, Antero Ali, and Soror Meral of the College of Thelema. Since leaving the Caliphate OTO I became involved with the "Akkadite" A.'. A.'. - which bases their study on the Work of Charles Stansfeld Jones 9°=2, and an independent Ordo Templi Occidentalis group known as M.'. M.'. G.'. I am currently in the process of transferring my Diaconate to the Apostolic Johannite Church - the only legally registered Gnostic Church in Canada. I am a Witch, though not a Wiccan, and while there are many philosophical elements of Thelema I admire I do not call myself a Thelemite. Caught up now?]

The purpose of this longish post is to illustrate that a bridge exists between Wicca and Traditional and Apostolic Gnosticism by way of Thelema-as-Gnostic-revival.

Some terms: (all of which are by necessity gross and incomplete generalizations, forgive me).

Witchcraft is a practical, magical religious philosophy that is Gnostic in essence though not in origin. Its tenets are animism (an inherent soul in all things), and the use of intuitive states to communicate and interact with this soul, often for practical purposes (healing, fertility, success). These states are accessed via poetry, myth, and psychodrama.

Gnosticism is a pre-Christian syncretic religion which combines Roman, Kemetic (Egyptian), Hellenic and Judaic themes and philosophy. Its central tenet is that the liberating experience of knowing oneself profoundly and intuitively - gnosis - is essential in knowing and experiencing the Divine. Its central rite is the Eucharist, which is the manifestation of incarnate Divinity in the form of Mithras/Dionysis, Wasir/Heru (Osiris/Horus) and the Logos/Christ. While much of Gnosticism resembles Christianity aesthetically and structurally (particularly since the Gnostic Revival of the 19th Century), it is an older and distinct religion in its own right.

Thelema is a 20th Century religion drawing from Rabelaisian philosophy ("Do what thou Wilt") and Kemetic aesthetics. Its central document is a prose poem written in a trance state in 1904 by Aleister Crowley. Also Gnostic in essence, Thelema demands its adherents discover their true nature and maintain its integrity in all things. Its central rite is the 1913 Gnostic Mass, a re-envisioning of the Eucharist. Thelema had originally three main organizations: A masonic (some would argue pseudo-Masonic) fraternity, the OTO (which predated Thelema but a majority of Lodges chose to embrace the new religion); a more public Church, the Ecclesia Gnostica Catholica (at least those congregations of the pre-existing EGC which chose to proceed along Thelemic lines) and the A.'.A.'., an initiatory system of meditation and alchemy with a strongly Buddhistic and Kabalistic orientation.

Wicca is a 20th Century agrarian/folkloric religion with central themes of the sacred environment and the Divine Feminine. It was conceived in its entirety by Gerald Gardner, who originally gave it the trappings of nudism, Co-Masonry, and practical occultism, along with the nostalgic aesthetic of Witchcraft by way of Shakespeare, Goya, Grimm, and the medieval Inquisitors. It is distinct from Witchcraft in that Wicca is specific "operational envelope" while Witchcraft is more general, and free of Wicca's presumptive histories and hierarchies.

[While I personally find the modern Wiccan aesthetic disingenuous (pretentious magical names, the disrespectful pillaging of myriad cultures, and irresponsible historical revisionism) this is not to imply at all that there is not genuine religious experience to be had there. I respect the sincere efforts of Wiccans to work toward personal and planetary enlightenment.[

Many Wiccans will take serious issue with the above definition, having read repeatedly that Wicca is a surviving pan-European megalithic Goddess cult, the word having Teutonic origins. This understanding is in its entirety a fiction.

Most Wiccans have heard the "rumour" that Gerald Gardner employed Aleister Crowley to create rituals for a new, populist occult religion - and that these rumours have been thoroughly discounted. Readers will encounter how Gardner met Crowley at the end of his life in 1947, when he was enfeebled by drug addiction and old age, and that their meeting was an unique, casual introduction. Such dismissals are likewise false. The facts bear out the assertion that;

- While some ancestral trappings of pre-Christian Europe survived through the centuries (maypoles, superstitions, folk dances, nursery rhymes) these cannot be said to constitute a religion. There is no evidence whatsoever of a magical Goddess religion being practiced in England before Gardner and after the Christianization of Europe.

- Evidence supports that Gardner and Crowley knew each other as early as 1936

- Gardner was a member of the OTO and had a charter from Crowley to initiate others into OTO

- Wicca was specifically invented by Gardner to popularize Thelemic Gnosticism (specifically the Gnostic Mass).

- Upon Crowley's death, Lady Freida Harris - the artist of the popular Thoth Tarot - understood Gardner (mistakenly) to be the head of the OTO in Europe. It was viewed by many within Crowley's circle that what Gardner was doing (Wicca) was merely an extension and performance of the Gnostic Mass.

- Gardner's Third Degree Initiation Ritual of the original Wicca is an exact copy of the Gnostic Mass

- The Charge of the Goddess used in all "Traditional" Wiccan groups is comprised verbatim of quotes from Crowley's Book of the Law

Bishop T Allen Greenfield has researched this issue extensively. A very long article here

"My bottom line is that Wicca is not related historically in any way other than literary inspiration to any aboriginal pagan religion. It is, in fact, a product of the 1930s and 40s, hugely influenced by the rituals of Freemasonry, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). It, in fact, is a errant direct descendent of an OTO encampment in London chartered by Aleister Crowley and under direction of Crowley's direct student and would-be successor, Gerald Gardner. It is interesting to observe that Crowley's Acting Master of Agape Lodge OTO in America in the same period also wrote extensively a few years later on a "revival of witchcraft". [...]

"The only man I can think of who could have invented the rites," [Gardner] offers, "was the late Aleister Crowley....possibly he borrowed things from the cult writings, or more likely someone may have borrowed expressions from him.... " WITCHCRAFT TODAY (p 47) [...]

As we have seen, Wicca since Gardner's time has been watered down in many of its expressions into a kind of mushy white-light New Age, religion, with far less of the strong sexuality characteristic of Gardnerian Wicca, though, also, sometimes with less pretense as well. [...]

In introducing a goddess element into their theology, Crowley and Gardner both understood the yin/yang, male/female fundamental polarity of the universe. Radical feminist Neopagans have taken this balance and altered it, however unintentionally, into a political feminist agenda, centered around a near-monotheistic worship of the female principle, in a bizarre caricature of patriarchal Christianity.

So What?
Here's how I understand it.

- Many Wiccans I speak to have a common experience. A love of the sense of community, an honouring of the role of myth, imagination and play, a strong attraction to the role of the Divine Feminine - but a growing disaffection for paperback-populism and spice-rack-sisterhood of modern Wicca. Many also seek a deeper or more fully developed theology.

- Witchcraft, as it is exercised today in the context of Wicca is a deliberate expression of Gnosticism, via the Gnostic Revival Churches of the 19th Century, Theosophy, Thelema, and similar currents. Wiccans are already heirs to the legacy which many of them seek.

- As we Gnostics embrace Thelemites, Freemasons, Theosophists, Hermeticists, and Christians into our celebrations, so too must we make room and welcome for those from the Pagan community.

- Pagans/Neopagans/Wiccans tend largely to be from Catholic backgrounds and are at first extremely skeptical of Church work, which they identify with rigidity and authoritarianism. They should be invited to decode the Eucharist and the Orders from a mythic, almost Jungian perspective - as we do.

- Fundamentally, most Witches are very comfortable with the practical philosophies of Gnosticism - the honouring of the intuitive voice, the strong sense of personal responsibility, as well as specific Sophianic writings, such as Thunder, Perfect Mind.

- We do this NOT out of a desire to proselytize, and NOT out of a condemnation of deficiency in Wicca (or any other religion), but for the simple reason that many people are hungry for what we're doing. Many young people who find themselves to be looking for Gnosticism often explore Paganism first, as it is so much more accessible (and the book covers are cooler).