Wicca has no head, no council and no single book. Within a generation of its appearance it had branched into distinct traditions, and it has gone on branching ever since.
A tradition, in the Craft, is a family of covens that share a body of rites and trace their descent to a common source. Some traditions are separated by real differences of belief and practice. Others differ in little more than their history. This page describes the main ones, beginning with the two that arose in Britain.
Gardnerian Wicca
The Gardnerian tradition descends from the covens of Gerald Gardner, who made the Craft public in England in the early 1950s. It is the original from which nearly all later Wicca derives. It is initiatory, which means that it can only be entered through a rite performed by an existing initiate of the proper degree. Its covens are small and autonomous, are led by a High Priestess with a High Priest beside her, work from a hand-copied Book of Shadows, and observe an oath of secrecy about the content of their rites. Traditionally they work skyclad, that is, naked.
The name was first used by others, probably in the mid-1960s, and was not entirely a compliment. It has long since been adopted with pride. The whole of the section on Gardnerian Wicca is devoted to it.
Alexandrian Wicca
The Alexandrian tradition was founded in England in the 1960s by Alex Sanders and his wife, who was his High Priestess. Sanders had obtained a Gardnerian initiation and the Gardnerian rites, and the tradition that bears his name is built on them. Its structure is the same: three degrees, a High Priestess and High Priest, a Book of Shadows, an oath. Alexandrian covens have tended to place more weight on ceremonial magic and to be a little more flexible about ritual dress and about adapting the rites.
The two traditions were rivals while Sanders was courting the newspapers in the late 1960s. That quarrel is over. In Britain today many initiates hold both lineages, many covens describe themselves as both, and the two are generally treated as a single family.
Traditions founded in America
Gardnerian Wicca reached the United States in the early 1960s, and American witches were soon founding traditions of their own. A few of the best known are these.
- Seax-Wica
- Founded in 1973 by Raymond Buckland, the Englishman who had first carried Gardnerian Wicca to America. Seax-Wica takes its imagery from Anglo-Saxon England and honours Woden and Freya. It has no oath of secrecy and no degrees, elects its coven officers, and allows a person to enter by self-dedication. Buckland published its rites in full.
- Dianic Wicca
- A feminist tradition that arose in California in 1971. Dianic covens honour the Goddess alone, and in the original line are open only to women. Structure is loose, ritual is often improvised, and the tradition has always been closely tied to the women's movement.
- The Algard tradition
- Formed in 1972 by an American High Priestess initiated in both the Alexandrian and the Gardnerian lines, who combined the two. It anticipated what later happened informally in Britain.
- Other American lines
- A number of traditions were founded in the United States in the late 1960s and the 1970s on the Gardnerian pattern, some by people with Gardnerian training and some without. They generally keep degrees, covens and a Book of Shadows of their own.
Eclectic and solitary Wicca
By far the largest number of Wiccans today belong to no tradition at all. They have learned from books and from one another, they practise alone or in informal groups, and they draw on whatever sources speak to them. This is usually called eclectic Wicca. It took shape from the late 1970s onwards, when authors began publishing complete systems of practice that needed neither a coven nor an initiator. In 1988 the American writer Scott Cunningham published a guide for the solitary practitioner that has probably introduced more people to Wicca than any other single book.
Eclectic Wicca keeps the outline of the older traditions: the Goddess and the God, the circle, the elements, the eight Sabbats, the Rede. It leaves out lineage, the oath and, as a rule, the degrees. Our page on solitary practice says more about it.
Witchcraft that is not Wicca
Not all modern witchcraft descends from Gardner. In the 1960s an English witch named Robert Cochrane led a group whose practice was quite different: robed, outdoors, with different tools and a different mythology. He was scathing about the Gardnerians and seems to have coined the name for them. The currents that flow from his work, together with others that draw directly on British folk magic, are now usually called traditional witchcraft. Their followers do not regard themselves as Wiccan, and it is courteous to take them at their word.
The traditions compared
| Tradition | Began | How it is entered | Secrecy | Leadership |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Gardnerian | England, early 1950s | Initiation by a Gardnerian initiate | Rites are oathbound | High Priestess, with a High Priest |
| Alexandrian | England, 1960s | Initiation by an Alexandrian initiate | Rites are oathbound | High Priestess, with a High Priest |
| Seax-Wica | United States, 1973 | Initiation or self-dedication | None | Officers elected by the coven |
| Dianic | United States, 1971 | Varies from group to group | Varies | Usually shared |
| Eclectic | From the late 1970s | Self-dedication, or none | None | None, or as each group decides |
Which is the real one?
We are asked this, and we decline the question. Gardnerian Wicca is the oldest tradition, and a Gardnerian initiation gives something that cannot be had another way: a place in a particular line of people and access to a particular body of rites. That is a fact about lineage, not a ranking of souls. The gods are not the property of any coven. A solitary who keeps the Sabbats faithfully in a rented flat is practising a religion as real as ours.
What we would ask in return is exactness. A person is a Gardnerian if they have been initiated by a Gardnerian, and not otherwise. The name describes a lineage, and it means nothing if it is used loosely. The page on lineage and initiation explains why we care.