¨ The foundational myth of the Craft is Gerald Gardner's story that in 1939 he was initiated into one of the last surviving English covens, whose faith went back through the Middle Ages to the Pagan religions of antiquity.
¨ The historical fact is that in 1946 Gardner and Edith Woodford Grimes began inventing the religion now called Wicca out of a great variety of materials, all of which have by identified by scholarly research.
¨ The contrast between the preceding two statements is typical of religions in general, including Judaism.
¨ Gardners second High Priestess, Doreen Valiente, rewrote Gardners Book of Shadows into the form still used, producing several of the religions most important theological documents in the process.
¨ Raymond and Rosemary Buckland were initiated in 1962 in Scotland, and founded the first Gardnerian coven in America in 1963. The movement has been doubling in size about every two years ever since.
¨ The pre-Gardnerian Witches in America, who had a similar sort of Pagan religion, quickly adopted everything about Gardnerian Witchcraft that seemed useful to them. Traditions known to have pre-Gardnerian roots include Andersons Feri Tradition, Joe Wilsons 1734, and Thomas Giles Magian Tradition.
¨ Many other Wiccan Traditions were founded in the late 60s and the 70s; a few of these admitted they were imitating the Gardnerians, but most did not. New Traditions have continued to be founded at a great and probably accelerating rate.
¨ The New, Reformed, Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn was founded in 1967, as an admitted imitation of what could then be learned about the Gardnerians. It has continued to grow and evolve, and now comprises several dozen covens scattered across the country.
¨ The Covenant of the Goddess was founded in 1975 as the first national church for Witches. It did not expand outside California until the early 80s,but then quickly became national in fact in a few years. It unfortunately has never had more than about 100 member covens at one time, out of the 5,000 or so that now exist.
¨ The Pagan Way Movement during the 70s, followed by the rise of the festivals system in the late 70s, changed the nature of the movement, in that it gave at least ten times as many people a way to participate meaningfully in the Wiccan religion than could ever have been accommodated in covens.
¨ Some Traditions, like the conservative Gardnerians within the New York lineage, are highly structured and centralized. Other Traditions are extremely loose-knit and exercise almost no control at all over covens which claim to be in that Tradition. The NROOGD is somewhere in the middle of this spectrum, and currently attempts to promote high standards without interfering with any covens autonomy.
¨ The actual decisionmaking in the Craft movement as a whole has nothing to do with the Traditions. Instead, it is carried out by the network of Elders who have known each other since the beginning of the movement, and by the overlapping structure of regional and special-purpose groups.