Mab's MA Blog

There's a lot of information in Cohn's book about impact of Murray on Wicca (pg 108). Also describes Hughes as a Murrayite. Interesting as Hughes's book is the one to which Gardner is responding in 'Witchcraft Today'.

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I've finally read the opening shots of Norman Cohn against Margaret Murray. That's not academic, it's personal. If that had been an e-mail on Kindly Ones, I'd have stepped in and had words. He's made broad personal assumptions about her, which shocked me even more because of the context. You just don't expect that in history books. (pg 109)

He's also getting on my nerves with his tone. He finds doing necessary historical research 'tiresome'. (pg 110)

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Cohn biographical information

More biographical info

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Margaret Murray

Dr Margaret Murray, formerly Assistant Professor in Egyptology at University College London, endorsed Gardner’s revelations in Witchcraft Today by writing its foreword. This was important to the social acceptance of the religion. In 1971, Keith Thomas wrote that Murray’s theories about witchcraft had ‘made some influential converts.’ This was an observation elaborated upon by Norman Cohn, in 1975, when he noted Murray’s ‘considerable influence’ amongst historians, scholars of witchcraft and ‘more or less serious readers’, whilst holding her responsible for the modern-day proliferation of organised witchcraft. By 1981, Colin Wilson was able to reflect favourably upon the significance of Murray’s involvement in the reception given to Wica, when he concluded that,

‘… the fact that Gardner’s book contained an approving introduction by Margaret Murray indicates that witchcraft has ceased to carry sinister overtones, and can once again be studied with detachment.’

However, an analysis of the foreword leaves the reader with the impression that either Dr Murray hadn’t read the book or else she was dubious about its contents.

The foreword is a mere three paragraphs in length, throughout which she appears dismissive of the worshippers, whom she calls ‘the so-called ‘witches’’ practicising ‘so-called ‘witchcraft’.’ She also implies that the practitioners worship the Christian God, as

‘(their rituals are) the sincere expression of that feeling towards God which is expressed, perhaps more decorously through not more sincerely, by modern Christianity in church services.’

Murray also stated confidentally, ‘(it) has nothing to do with spell-casting and other evil practices.’ This view and tone is at odds with the main body of Witchcraft Today, where the narrative takes as read that witchcraft does exist in the modern day, with its practitioners calling themselves witches; that there is both a God and a Goddess, with the latter taking precedence; and spell-crafting is very much a part of Wica.

However, this differing approach does not appear to have been an issue in the Wiccan debates thereon. Beyond noting that Murray provided the foreword, focus has been directed upon the cross-fertilization of historical/folklore ideas, between the early Wiccans and Murray. Gardner did not claim, as is commonly supposed, that Wica is proven to have survived the millenia with its roots in a prehistoric society. He stated that ‘the witches do not know the origin of their cult. My own theory is… that it is a Stone Age cult of the matriarchal times’. This is a perspective almost certainly adapted from Murray’s previous work, which had been published in The Witch-cult in Western Europe (1921) and The God of the Witches (1933).

In these books, Murray had argued that an indigenious religion, differing slightly in different locations, had survived Christianity in order to continue in secret for centuries.

(Cohn and Thomas)

This invalidation of Dr Margaret Murray, who had, after all, provided the foreword for Witchcraft Today, resulted in an on-going reappraisal of Wiccan history from within the Wiccan community. ‘Just how ancient the tradition was is a subject of much debate,’ wrote Vivianne Crowley in 1997, succinctly summarizing two decades of acrimony, recriminations, side-stepped or simply ignored issues, rewritten histories or defense of the existing history.

K Thomas, ‘Religion and the Decline of Magic’ p 614
N Cohn, ‘Europe’s Inner Demons’ p 108
C Wilson, ‘Witchcraft’ in C Wilson and J Grant (edit), ‘The Directory of Possibilities’ p 88
M Murray, ‘Foreword’, in G Gardner, ‘Witchcraft Today’, p 15
Ibid, p 16
Ibid, p 16
Ibid, p 16
G Gardner, ‘Witchcraft Today’, p 45
Ibid, p
G Gardner, ‘Witchcraft Today’, p 48
V Crowley, ‘Way of Wicca’, p 13.