Reflections on Fate and Fictional Power in Real Witchcraft and Wica
Ave, Diana
It has been just over four years since the REX NEMORENSIS project began.
Original photo taken at YMCA Camp Hi-Rock – Mt. Washington, MA
“If turning from the unrest of the present and the uncertainties of the future we revisit once more in imagination the scene from which we set out on our long pilgrimage, we shall find the Lake of Nemi but little changed from what it was in the days when Diana saw her fair face reflected in its still waters.”
– Sir James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, 1890
My timing at that moment coincided with the death anniversary of Roy Bowers, a witch who is more commonly referred to by the moniker ‘Robert Cochrane.’ As they tell it, he committed suicide by way of a dread mixture of pills and poison. 1
For the unacquainted, the surname itself is a play on words for ‘Caer Ochren,’ a reference to an underworld fortress from Arthurian myth – specifically, a poem called ‘The Spoils of Annwn’ from the Book of Taliesin.
To put it mildly, Roy did not go gently into that good night. It took him around 10 days to succumb to the self-inflicted fatal dose, and another 10 days for them to bury him in an unmarked grave.
He was only 35.
Arnold Böcklin – Die Toteninsel
1-There is a small chapbook entitled ‘A Poisoned Chalice’ written by the occultist Gavin Semple – originally published in August 2004 via the German publisher Reineke Verlag – which anecdotally provides the grim details of Cochrane’s demise. Semple deserves high praise for publishing an electronic version – still widely available – gratis.
Remembering Rex Nemorensis
More secretly – in his coven – Roy was known as Rex Nemorensis, which I use here (and have consistently used) as affectionate homage to him and another who took the title, albeit in a more public fashion, preferring to be referred to as ‘The Fish’ in private – Charles Cardell.
One might refer to Bowers as an ‘unhappy man’ – but there is an undeniable strand of anger running through his death which seems attached to a growing bitterness with a specific strain of initiatory Witchcraft that came to be known only in the 1960s (some few decades after its modern presentation, as it were) as ‘Gardnerian.’ Ironically, as mentioned before and widely known – this label was a pejorative from Roy himself.
In layman’s terms – he fucking hated us.
No wonder—a lot of his contention dealt with the perceived authenticity (or lack thereof) of the Gardnerian persuasion. As it turns out (just skim books by Ronald Hutton, Michael Howard, or Aidan Kelly), in many ways he was right.
Matthäus Merian the Elder – Artemis and the Star of Hope
I would like to say that ‘one can only imagine’ how he might have perceived the haughty arrogance of a self-appointed spiritual ‘elite’ (in his niche bubble of practice, the Gardnerians) ruling a Faith that inherently defies being ruled.
Speaking from experience – Witchcraft is a wild bitch of a religion, and the idea that some slipshod parliament has reins over it is (and by proxy, its Goddess) should be offensive to anyone who takes this sort of thing even marginally seriously.
Simply put, is a matter of life and death which has been utterly reduced to a modern con.
What they did to Roy Bowers they do to many of us.
They did it to Charles Cardell.
They did it to Raymond Buckland.
They did it to Alex Sanders.
They did it to many of whom you’ve never heard of.
They are doing it others as you read these words.
And yes—they did it to me.
Gardnerian Family Feuds
Years ago, I opened with the revelation that the Gardnerian Craft was undergoing a massive orthodoxic schism.
Later, that was corroborated as a ‘manifesto’ that began to circulate underpinning the tenets of the so-called ‘Traditional Gardnerians.’
At least part of their outburst was directly influenced by my writing here, although I had nothing to do with its authorship. In fact – well before any of this – I was personally offered the opportunity to create a ‘Traditional Gardnerians’ website that I did not pursue because I find the premise to be entirely flawed and misleading, and the people behind it beyond reproach.
Although it matters very little to the outside world, this split is indeed the biggest which modern Witchcraft has ever seen. It is important for both practitioners and – perhaps one day – historians and cultural anthropologists to understand what really happened.
In the United States, there really only used to be one game in town for ‘vouched for’ legitimate Gardnerian initiations and what essentially amounts to an apostolic succession to Gerald Gardner himself.
Borrowing a contrived vernacular from Charles Manson and all toxic professional environments, it was (and still is), called the ‘Gardnerian Family.’
Things changed in the vacuum of power which was created in the digital void when numerous ‘initiates only’ listservs (including Gardnerian Family) ceased operation in the early 2010s. There were a handful of reasons for this – some of them technical and others practical – for instance, the inefficiency of email lists in contrast to the immediacy of social media platforms (at one point, many among the community crowd-funded a new solution which never came to fruition – as it turns out, there is in fact, no honor amongst either witches or thieves).
Even in the listserv days, access was tiered. Typically, 1st- and 2nd-degree Witches got their own sandbox to delight in naivety – hoodwinked and isolated from the absolutely rampant in-fighting and power struggles occurring at the top of the power pyramid for 3rd-degrees.
It’s bigger than that – these things often spill into real life beyond what they used to call ‘flame wars.’ Shouting and tears in living rooms and by phone were more than common; confrontations at ‘Gathers’ were not unheard of; and threats of curses (or braggadocio surrounding black Magic in general) – even threats of physical harm were (and are) – very much commonplace.
Experiencing such a culture inspired my extreme sympathy to the plight of Robert Cochrane. For the first time, I could understand and literally see the rationale for his hostility which many writers chalked up to either some kind of ‘Young Man Blues’ or misguided and mercurial ego-driven misinterpretations of Robert Graves. Yet the Gardnerian environment which I myself found was pure toxicity, and if a tiger doesn’t change their stripes, I could intuitively feel that it just had to have been the same in the 1960s when the last straws broke Bowers.
In fact, we know that it was. There are literally letters from the Post-war era that Cochrane may not have even been privy to – absolutely rampant in-fighting amongst the Gardnerians about this or that feud of the week was the norm. One in particular from a little-known early Gardnerian High Priestess to Gerald himself hit me the hardest – it literally amounts to ‘we just want to practice our religion in peace!’
Back to Gardnerian Family – they had (and have) their own events with printed workshop itineraries. Automated ‘how did you like the event?’ questionnaires. Their own magazine. T-shirts. Hoodies. Mugs. Tote bags.
With a power structure in place down to the level of merchandise, ideologies gradually started to deviate to the whims and preferences at the top of the faith’s food chain. It could be big or little things – for example:
- Which covens and initiates are/were considered ‘valid’ by the Gardnerian Family hornet hive. This includes – but extends far beyond a ‘vouch’ and veers into compliance-based incentive.
- Highly organized ‘shunning’ for initiates who ran afoul of currently-endorsed groupthink.
- Backchannel steering of conversations or wrist slaps for supposed infractions thereto (e.g. don’t mention this topic/position to a non-initiate or a person lacking favoritism or rank).
- Discipline or permanent bans (or yanking subscriptions to newsletters) for sharing anything from the group to those who outside of it – even valid initiates.
Whereas all of the above contributed to an atmosphere or fear and unease, theological questions around transgenderism ultimately led to a split which created a secondary group that was designed for ‘everyone.’
Until it wasn’t.
Giving Them the Third Degree
Before we get into the ‘challengers’ to the Gardnerian Family – let’s pause.
Recalling above the access governance to certain groups by ‘rank’ – the whole game gets a bit more obvious.
Although in some ways clearly inspired by Craft Freemasonry, the three degrees of modern initiatory Witchcraft are distinct and nuanced. One of the ways in which this is true is the significance of the 2nd, rather than 3rd, degree – especially as originally practiced.
That’s because it is the 2nd – not the 3rd – which introduces the initiate to the ‘High Priesthood’ and traditionally empowered them – whatever that might mean / and whether you believe it or not, just know that they do – although a fair parallel would be to the Eastern concept of genuine siddhis.
They are sharpening their pitchforks as I write this as it gets to the very heart of it: the 3rd degree is elegant and beautiful, and to treat it as a graduation ceremony misses the mark completely.
For example, they used to call every woman who experienced the second degree a ‘Witch Queen’ before this morphed to a broken interpretation of having a coven ‘hive off’ (or 3 or more hives) depending on who you ask.
What happened to that? The term now directly correlates not to attainment but the number of cheerleaders that a given high priestess has, like some MLM pyramid scheme with perks for recruiting more people. Such is not how it was originally authored or designed.
“If we can keep this in mind, and if we can learn to tell the corposants and jack-o’lanterns from the predictable stars, we may not arrive at our goal, but we shall know the failure does not lie at our door.”
– Elliot Rose, A Razor for a Goat: A Discussion of Certain Problems in the History of Witchcraft and Diabolism, 1962
The Ideological Island of the ‘Long Island Line’
After Gardnerian Family, a secondary group quickly became an echo chamber of the reverse pendulum swing.
Far from being ‘for everyone’ and promoting unity, it was (and is) essentially run by Long Island Line ‘purists’ (using the term loosely and ironically) which trace firstly through Olwen (Monique Wilson) and later through Rosemary Buckland.
If you pick up what I did there, one of the very many quirks of the Long Island Line which sets it distinctly apart from the rest of initiatory Witchcraft if that it traces initiations and elevations (read: succession) in a most peculiar manner, which is through the High Priestess or Witch Queen who cast the circle in which an individual is guided through the Mysteries.
It’s distinct, because most or all other such ‘lines’ are much more balanced, tracing initiations from man to woman (or vice versa).
There are additional idiosyncrasies that split this variant of Gardnerian praxis which originated with the Wilsons, the Bucklands (and later, Theos and Phoenix, whom Ray Buckland was openly hostile to), one of them dealing with how a ritual circle is closed – which specific elements are consecrated – another of who ‘rules’ the coven during the dark half of the year, and so on – ad nauseum, down to literal mispronounced words which are used that are parroted back for the sheer reason that they were written down wrong in the 1970s. There are small or otherwise inconsequential changes to ritual wording, etc. as well.
But most jarring of all are four key changes which effectively break the system:
- 1 – The names of the gods (in certain contexts) themselves.
- 2 – The insistence that all initiatory/elevation circles must be cast by a woman (never a man) despite it being well-known that Gerald Gardner himself sometimes did so for the same purposes.
- 3 – ‘Notes and Guidelines’ (sometimes abbreviated as N&G) which amounts to prefatory revisionism from Theos and Phoenix and did not exist before they introduced it. It is widely considered ‘gospel’ by the ‘purists’ despite lacking roots in tradition.
- 4 – Another addition to the Book of Shadows (or rather supplement thereto) which is held to be so provocative that it is even withheld from many 3rd-degrees and unknown to many other Gardnerian lineages.
Access to such a ‘secret chapter’ is weaponized in the true fashion of cult control.
Furthermore, the normalization of honorific titling for any High Priestess as ‘Lady’ – implying that they are something of an infallible empress, and the emphasis on paper lineage documents tracing back to Olwen in November 1963.
There are further splits by coven within the line under the guise of ‘autonomy’ which carry no rhyme or reason aside from the amount of indulgence the greater community affords that coven or individual practitioner specifically.
There is nuance around who is considered valid – specifically a vague hostility (in my opinion, rightfully so) to the ‘Old Kentucky Line,’ although they have made exceptions here for their friends when it suits them (isn’t that right, ‘Lady Inanna?’)
It’s rare, but some even refuse the Book of Shadows to men on the premise that they have no use for it, reducing them to an entirely secondary role to the High Priestess.
Again—
There would be no Long Island Line without the New York Coven.
Lunatics then began to run the asylum that a more lustrous lunacy once built.
In sum, the traditional Gardnerian ‘orthodoxy’ which has since emerged is inherently revisionist (even on purely ‘Wiccan’ ideas). The self-professed ‘inclusive’ Wiccans (e.g. most of the ‘Family’) have lost the New Forest for the trees, and the best that the rest of us might hope is to simply stay wise.
The Forklift Book of Shadows
Perhaps most apparent in regard to the rampant modifications made to the supposedly pristine orthodoxy of the Traditional Gardnerians is the simple fact that their Book of Shadows is so heavily distorted that it amounts to a series of volumes rivaling 2 to 3 old printed phonebooks, whereas what is described as ‘core material’ is exceptionally less voluminous.
It remains a common contention between the Olwen/Long Island Line Gardnerians and the rest of the Faith that – by virtue of Olwen essentially being Gerald Gardner’s last High Priestess – that she received ‘more material’ or some additional imparted wisdom from her time at the feet of the master. Unfortunately, it is not really so.
As Witches are no stranger to humor, it is occasionally referred to as ‘the Forklift Book,’ and although it could possibly double as a doorstop in a pinch; the only forklifts with which might be needed among both the more ‘inclusive’ and the ‘Traditional’ brethren (again, a false dichotomy) are those for the egos of the practitioners themselves, or more practically – to help their massive asses up onto the altar for ‘Cakes and Wine.’
One must wonder if Old Gerald were still alive – even as a stickler for keeping things traditional – if after spending some time amongst his happy bunch of reincarnated souls, that he might be inclined to suggest that they trade cookies for rice cakes, and wine for seltzer.
Young Man, Are You Listening to Me?
Some six months before he died (in a letter dated 12th Night, 1966), Cochrane wrote in a letter to Joe Wilson that “Fate is a cradle that rocks the infant spirit.”
Heavy.
Wilson died in 2004. Is Fate a web? I have sat at tables, in real life – heard stories that most never will – with people who practiced (for lack of better word) 1734 rituals with him; and more Gardnerian Witch Queens, Maguses (shall we say Magi?), high priestesses, high priests (and low ones!) than one can count.
I deeply understand Roy here.
But could he ever guess the literal irony that his words carry?
Original photo taken at YMCA Camp Hi-Rock – Mt. Washington, MA
That the Gardnerians whom he hated so much would turn the witch religion (the ‘Faith of the People,’ as he called it) into a picnic, with free admission for kids, like a trailer park breakfast buffet?
With raffles for prizes.
Hooliganism with ‘Jello shots’ and powdered eggs and frozen sausages for breakfast in some cafeteria mess hall?
He could teach a class on poetry, or glue some glitter on dollar store candles.
Maybe I’m just too cynical – perhaps Roy Bowers would have found it ‘fun to stay at the YMCA.’
’11th Annual’ 2025 Northeast Gardnerian Fall Gather registration page; publicly accessible via fundraising site Zeffy.com at time of writing
Then again, they say he was destitute at the end. It’s a good thing that the Gardner Rosedale Spiritual Alliance, Inc. (really, doc?) has scholarships.
If he had only played nice with those mean Gardnerians, he could’ve ‘hung out with all the boys,’ and later woven it into an almanac article or something – while sipping a bottle of Kentucky bourbon, in true puckish spirit.
To the Vicar, the Spoils
It’s been therapeutic – in a way – to ‘share my Wiccan journey with you.’
I wonder what else they’d have me do? Tattoo on some eyebrows and start a TikTok channel?
There was a fellow Gardnerian High Priest some time ago, who approached me along the lines of – “I hear that you’re the guy to ask about Robert Cochrane.”
I never felt that way, but was flattered to share the same breath with one of my few heroes in this incarnation. You see, there’s no way to respond to something like that. One either gets it or they don’t… You either live it, or you talk about it.
I am nothing more than a pallbearer for the past princes of the Faith; that old tired cliche of being descended from the witches that refused to burn here holds true.
The King is Dead – Long Live the King
There will surely be outrage at what I’ve written here. Witches don’t like to be criticized.
But they’re ruthless. Just look at what they did to the troubadour of Tubal Cain.
Maybe they’ll all get together on that Christian campground next month, and throw a delightful mix of ‘Our Fathers’ and ‘Curses of the Goddess’ at me.
Do you know how that’s turned out for others?
“Such are the autumn people. Beware of them.”
– Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes, 1962
Roy pointed out the illusion, and by virtue of that, so much of the charade of false piety has been rend worthless—
A cruel assessment of his passing might call it ironic.
What’s that old line again?
You have to love it.
Julien Champagne – Le Vaisseu du Grand Oeuvre
“It is not enough to see The Lady, it is better to serve Her and Her will by being involved in humanity, and the process of Fate (the single name of all Gods is ‘Fate.’)
In fate, and the overcoming of fate is the true Graal, for from this inspiration comes, and death is defeated.” – Roy Bowers to Joe Wilson, 12th Night, 1966
Rex Nemorensis, 3°
LE ROY LE VEULT
August 13–15, 2025
Nemoralia
“In the heroic ages, when gods and goddesses loved,
Desire followed a look, and joy followed desire.”
– Goethe, Roman Elegies III, 1795