margaret murray #2

While I was browsing the internet looking for something else, I came across the suggestion that some of her writings may have encouraged the making of new covens in the 1920s and 1930s, covens such as the one into which Gerald Gardner was initiated in September 1939.

This reminded me of a certain number of times during my recent re-reading of God of the Witches when I paused long enough to observe that the example she had just cited, or something very much like it, is still to be found either as an ideal to be sought after or as something actually incorporated into current practice.

There is, for example, the proposition that the ideal number of witches in a coven is twelve; or twelve plus the Master; or twelve plus the High Priestess. From time to time I find the same information appearing in introductory manuals.

Another example is the evidence from one of her witnesses of the new witch kneeling before the Master, then placing one of their hands on their head, their other hand beneath the soles of their feet, and dedicating everything in between. In a modern context, I have been present at first degree initiations when the postulant kneels before the initiator, the initiator places one hand on the candidate’s head, the other hand under the candidate’s feet, and all between is then willed into witchcraft.

(It is important to add that because some of Murray’s instances are also present in Wicca, this does not necessarily imply that the latter results from the former.)

I recall that when I first met a practising witch and he talked about his craft, I recognised a substantial amount of his exposition as derived, directly or indirectly, from the works of Margaret Murray. This was more than thirty years ago and both he and the other witches I was in touch with at that time were practising a form of coven-based witchcraft that made no reference to Wicca. For them it was simply witchcraft.

© francis cameron, oxford, 10 july 2009