Wiccans : do you ever question the authenticity of gerald gardner's ideas?

During the 19th and 20th Centuries Anthropologists went to the rural areas to try to recreate paganism. Gerald Gardner did not make up his theories, rather he took them from (then) respected Anthropologist Margaret Murray. That later Historians (even Pagan ones like Ronald Hutton) have found Murray's theories unlikely, doesn't make the Wiccan authentic experience any less authentic.

It also doesn't stop the need for us to psychologically speaking, recreate a more natural religious experience, hence me being a Neo-Pagan.

to my knowledge, New Forest was a Witchcraft-Theatre group, not Rosicrucian, though there were other Rosicrucians (as well as Thelemites, Theosophists, and other Occultists) who taught Gardner after he retired from Civil Service in India.

No religious practice is any older than the specific religious practitioner in question. If you don't trust Anthropologists and other professionals to recreate a History, then who do you? Or do you only trust the Anthropologists who have told you about the history of your religion/philosophy/way?

"What you see today in the pagan cults is at the most a couple of hundred years old and often the invention of "modern people."

Not a Wiccan but I do disagree with that statement. Firstly not all Pagans are Wiccans. And not all Wiccans base their practices on the European Gods.

The basis of Wicca for most (solitary) practitioners is personal gnosis, so why is ancient literature relevant? Personal gnosis today is more relevant to the practitioner, then the personal gnosis of someone who lived 1000 years ago. The books on Wicca have always been more like a guide than a manual. Is a religion irrelevant simply because they don't have a musty old book of disputable origins?

Regarding Paganism however (and the reason I answered this question), several of the NEO-pagan religions of today (NEO meaning NEW, ie the recreation of the old religions) are based on religions that are incredibly well documented. Asatru has written documents - the Edda's. The religions of Rome and Greece are well documented by historians at the time these religions were at their height. Yes, there are gaps, and no we don't worship the same way our ancestors did. but can you tell me christians worship their god, the same way they did 1000 years ago? Our religions have evolved, just as our culture has evolved.

Read the Book of the Law and check out Crowley's charter to Gardner for the establishment of an encampment of OTO. Wicca, as a modern religion, was basically established as a watered-down, prettied-up version of Thelema and OTO practices. Check out "Do what thou wilt", and compare it with the Wiccan Rede. You'll see what I mean.

A lot of what became Wicca was carried over from various forms of Ceremonial Magick, which have all kinds of roots -- Qabalistic, Rosicrucian, Pagan, Esoteric Christian, Enochian, Hermetics, Egpytian mysticism and magick, the list goes on.

Wicca blends other ideas and systems into its own that one might not find in more traditional Ceremonial Magick, which, IMO, makes Wicca a bit more New-Agey than CM. Wicca has some good in it, but it's a bit too watered down for my personal taste.

Buuuut... Most Wiccans have no clue that there roots are actually in Thelema. Go through the study of OTO and the Golden Dawn if you want to find out the roots of Wicca.

Gardner was, afterall, an OTO initiate.

As a Wiccan I do not take anyone seriously who claims that my religion is ancient.

You're right: there's no evidence to back such a claim up, and plenty of evidence to negate it. There is no historical religion that looks like Wicca.

To be fair, not all of the ludicrous historical claims come from Gardner. Gardner actually disagreed with Murray on a variety of issues, including the issue of a single panEuropean Old Religion. While Gardner was wrong about our history, some post-Gardner Wiccans have actually multiplied the historical absurdities.

Wicca is a 20th century religion which has borrowed from a wide number of sources both old and new and constructed into something quite modern. And I have no problems with that.

As for being "authentic," Wiccan rituals are authentically Wiccan. ;) it's only when people start claiming that they are authentically something else that there is a problem.

You seem to be using "authentic," "traditional" and "ancient" as synonyms. They aren't.

No Wiccan sees Gardner as some... prophet or god; he only made Wicca popular. Everything in Wicca is based on pre-Christians beliefs.

In fact, all of my beliefs so far agree with Wicca... and that is before I knew what Wicca was. So age of a religion means nothing. Take Christianity for example: It was not "founded" until either 40 or so AD and one can argue not until about 100 AD. We know for a fact that humans have been worshiping higher beings for at least 40,000 years. Yet the most popular (Christianity) is not old at all and has over 2 Billion followers.

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you're saying here.

You're totally wrong about the date of the establishment of Wicca. Gardner wrote his third book in 1954, but the stuff started getting set down earlier. We have dated entries to 1949, so you're off by a minimum of five years.

Of course Gardner's ideas were authentic. His facts were regularly wrong, but we don't see him as a divine prophet who was never wrong.

I'm interested what Wiccan doctrine you're having trouble with... few of us claim we're an ancient religion, and those that do are hardly authorities on Wicca.

Nothing like finding fault in Wicca for a 'problem' most of us resolved 30 years ago...

Edit: I'm curious about your apparent cognitive relationship between 'authentic' and 'ancient,' Could you explain it?

whether or not our modern practice of religion is authentic to the way it was done hundreds or thousands of years ago is a moot point since this is a very different world from that of our ancestors. what you claim has been 'wiped out' was not so cleanly destroyed, anyway, and we still know a lot about the religions of our ancestors. we also have the mother of indo-european religion in hinduism to compare what we know of european practice to what we know of the development of modern hinduism.

these were living religions that changed and adapted to the world. now they belong to us and it is for us to adapt to the world. anthropology is not religion. religion that merely apes a fixed period of time in the past is not relevant to the modern world. so authenticity with the ancient world isn't at all important. what's important is striving to understand the world as it is expressed thru the gods, and we know enough about our gods to be faithful to them without having to reenact every nuance of a druid ceremony.