Influences on Wicca
 
Sir James Frazer - The Golden Bough
    Cambridge academic
    rationalist
        anti-christian
        anti-religion
Jules Michelet - La Sorciere
    liberal historian
    scientific rationalism
    zealot & evangelist
        hated absolute monarchy & catholic church
    hypocritical in his respect for women
Matilda Joslyn Gage - Woman, Church, and State
    a leader in political & social rights for women
    quickly written with little time for research
        drew on Michelet
    source of "9 million women died during witch trials"
Charles G. Leland - Aradia: Gospel of the Witches
    american journalist & folklorist
    disliked absolute monarchy & catholic church
    scientific rationalism
Margaret Murray
    The Witchcult in Western Europe
    God of the Witches
    minimally researched
    outside of area of expertise
    attacked those who disagreed with her conclusions
T. C. Lethbridge - Witches: Investigating an Ancient Religion
    archaeologist
    self described upper-class dilettante
Robert Graves - The White Goddess
    intensely personal view / not mythology
    poet
    masochist
        need to be dominated by a female who made him unhappy
Gerald B. Gardner
    Witchcraft Today
    The Meaning of Witchcraft
    born 1884
    first contact with Wicca 1939
    started the modern religion of Wicca
    goddess worship
    started the myth of Wicca
Doreen Valiente
    An ABC of Witchcraft
    The Rebirth of Witchcraft
    helped create Gardnerian rituals
Alex Sanders - 1963
    Book of Shadows derived from Gardners's
    King of the Witches
    Janet & Stewart Farrar worked with him [until falling out]
Robert Cochrane - 1964
    once worked as a blacksmith
    magister
    Doreen Valiente worked with him [until falling out]
Z. Budapest [Zsuzsanna] - The Holy Book of Women's Mysteries
    radical feminist separatism
Margot Adler - Drawing Down the Moon  
    East coast
    rationalist & intellect
    highbrow journalism
Starhawk [Miriam Simos]
    The Spiral Dance
    Dreaming the Dark
    Truth or Dare
    feminist
    the myth of the "ancient religion"
    the "Burning Times"
        Gerald Gardner
    each book darker than the one before
Marija Gimbutas
    The Language of the Goddess
    The Civilization of the Goddess
    professional archaeologist
    moved from jungian psychology to feminist theory as major conceptual tool
    theories mostly disagreed with, but not disproven
    tends to depreciate those who disagreed with her conclusions
    extraplolated her theories into geographical areas she had little expertise in
Janet Farrar, Stewart Farrar
    Eight Sabbats for Witches
    The Witches Way
    originally with Alex Sanders
    eventually had a falling out with Sanders
Aidan Kelly - Crafting the Art of Magic
    New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn
    textual analysis of Gardner's Book of Shadows and papers
    disliked Gardner and some of his practices
Tanya Luhrmann - Persuasions of the Witch's Craft
    anthropological study of modern magic & its relationship with religious experience
    academic
    magic as valuable self-delusion
Ronald Hutton
    The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft  
    historian
    Stations of the Sun
    The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy
    estimates 40 to 50 thousand deaths from the witch trials