---
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title: "The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft"
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# The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft

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## Description

Here is a book that brings witchcraft out of the shadows. The Triumph of the Moon is the first full-scale study of the only religion England has ever given the world--modern pagan witchcraft, otherwise known as wicca. Meticulously researched, it provides a thorough account of an ancient religion that has spread from English shores across four continents. For centuries, pagan witchcraft has been linked with chilling images of blood rituals, ghostlike druids, and even human sacrifices. But while Robert Hutton explores this dark side of witchery, he stresses the positive, reminding us that devotion to art, the natural world, femininity, and the classical deities are also central to the practice of wicca. Indeed, the author shows how leading figures in English literature--W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Graves, just to name a few--celebrated these positive aspects of the religion in their work, thereby softening the public perception of witchcraft in Victorian England. From cunning village folk to freemasons and from high magic to the black arts, Hutton chronicles the fascinating process by which actual wiccan practices evolved into what is now a viable modern religion. He also presents compelling biographies of wicca's principal figures, such as Gerald Gardner, who was inducted into a witch coven at the age of 53, and recorded many clandestine rituals and beliefs. Ronald Hutton is known for his colorful, provocative, and always thoroughly researched studies on original subjects. This work is no exception. It will appeal to anyone interested in witchcraft, paganism and alternative religions.

Review: A history of modern Witchcraft based on fact, not fantasy... - Finally, a historian has written a book that details the origins of modern Witchcraft and Wicca. And said historian actually did a great deal of research and backs up his thesis with factual, primary source material, as opposed to the usual fantastical wish-fulfillment claptrap that many Neo-Pagan authors use to support thier pet theories regarding the history of Witchcraft. Some people will be disappointed in this book, no doubt, for nowhere does Hutton mention an unbroken lineage of Witches that stretches beyond the burning times far into the dim reaches of matriarchal prehistory where all the women were strong, the men were beautiful, and the children were peaceful and never hit each other over the head with rocks whilst playing oppressive, competitive male-oriented team sports. What this book does detail is a plausible explaination as to -why- modern Witchcraft would arise at all, and how it fits into post industrial society. I cannot praise the fact that Hutton doesn't only delve into the history of Witchcraft, but he shows us why it is important in the first place, and what it has to say about society as a whole, and Neo-Pagans in specific. The book is well-written, if densely packed with information. It is not an easy read; if one skims, one is apt to miss essential details and lose sight of the myriad threads that Hutton traces in his search for the warp and weft of Witchcraft today. I took my time reading this book, savoring it with rhapsodic glee: it was good to find that there was an academic who had actually taken the time to prove some of my own pet theories about Witchcraft in England during the modern period. At any rate, this book belongs on the shelf of every literate and educated Witch, Wiccan and Neo-Pagan in the world. If we Witches ever got around to opening up schools, I believe this should be a standard history text for any class that includes the study of our religious beliefs. It is always important to know where one comes from, in order to better decide where one would like to go.
Review: Witchcraft and Wicca--not quite the same thing - Ronald Hutton is professor of history at University of Bristol, and quite possibly the foremost academic authority on Wicca--modern pagan witchcraft. His hypothesis is relatively straightforward: Wicca is the only religion England has ever given the world; it is not the same thing as witchcraft, but a modern synthesis of a great many historical events and intellectual currents. Throughout recorded history, one finds evidence of witchcraft and occult practices. But Wicca, properly so called, is the brainchild of Gerald Gardner. Gardner was an Englishman who spent much of his life as the owner of tea and rubber plantations in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), North Borneo, and Malaya, and who later worked as an inspector in the Malay customs service. In 1936, at age 52, Gardner retired to England. After a series of encounters with other occultists (including the notorious Aleister Crowley and the Ordo Templi Orientis, and someone whom Gardner calls "Old Dorothy"), and his own research and inquiries, Gardner published in 1949 a novel entitled "High Magic's Aid," which he claimed contains beliefs and rituals of the alleged witches with whom he worked. In 1951, England repealed the Witchcraft and Vagrancy Act, allowing witches to practice more openly. And in 1954, Gardner brought out his second book, "Witchcraft Today," in which he posed as a disinterested anthropologist lucky enough to have discovered surviving covens practicing a secret initiatory system of pagan religion, a religion that Gardner claimed stretched back into antiquity over millenia. But Professor Hutton demonstrates, to my satisfaction at least, that this isn't really what occurred. Instead, Hutton claims, Gerald Gardner drew on a wide disparity of sources and subject matters, and on his own and others' misinterpretations and misunderstandings of history, to synthesize his own version of what he believed witchcraft ought to be, a normative rather than empirical phenomenon. Gardnerian Wicca is therefore the product of Gerald Gardner's creative genius. Hutton also clarifies the relationships among the various descendants and step-children of Gardnerian Wicca. Professor Hutton tells this story with supreme craftsmanship and elan. A lesser analytical talent might be overwhelmed with the vast amount of source material; such an inferior author might also confuse the various strands, or fail to trace properly the various twists of the tale. Red herrings indeed abound in this story, but Professor Hutton does not fall for them, nor allow them to divert him from the book's main task. He skilfully weaves all the various threads together. At book's end, the careful reader has been enlightened, confusion dispelled, not increased. This reader, who has paid properly close attention to what Professor Hutton has to say, will find her understanding of Wicca and its origins greatly enhanced, and will not be so credulous when confronting Wiccan claims of its immense antiquity. Professor Hutton succeeds in the task he sets for himself. By taking us along in the journey, we have not only been vastly entertained, but enlightened. Bravo!

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | #865,039 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #160 in Religious History (Books) #262 in History of New Age & Mythology #744 in Wicca |
| Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 325 Reviews |

## Images

![The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/618D44Ho3QL.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A history of modern Witchcraft based on fact, not fantasy...
*by B***R on January 3, 2002*

Finally, a historian has written a book that details the origins of modern Witchcraft and Wicca. And said historian actually did a great deal of research and backs up his thesis with factual, primary source material, as opposed to the usual fantastical wish-fulfillment claptrap that many Neo-Pagan authors use to support thier pet theories regarding the history of Witchcraft. Some people will be disappointed in this book, no doubt, for nowhere does Hutton mention an unbroken lineage of Witches that stretches beyond the burning times far into the dim reaches of matriarchal prehistory where all the women were strong, the men were beautiful, and the children were peaceful and never hit each other over the head with rocks whilst playing oppressive, competitive male-oriented team sports. What this book does detail is a plausible explaination as to -why- modern Witchcraft would arise at all, and how it fits into post industrial society. I cannot praise the fact that Hutton doesn't only delve into the history of Witchcraft, but he shows us why it is important in the first place, and what it has to say about society as a whole, and Neo-Pagans in specific. The book is well-written, if densely packed with information. It is not an easy read; if one skims, one is apt to miss essential details and lose sight of the myriad threads that Hutton traces in his search for the warp and weft of Witchcraft today. I took my time reading this book, savoring it with rhapsodic glee: it was good to find that there was an academic who had actually taken the time to prove some of my own pet theories about Witchcraft in England during the modern period. At any rate, this book belongs on the shelf of every literate and educated Witch, Wiccan and Neo-Pagan in the world. If we Witches ever got around to opening up schools, I believe this should be a standard history text for any class that includes the study of our religious beliefs. It is always important to know where one comes from, in order to better decide where one would like to go.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Witchcraft and Wicca--not quite the same thing
*by A***R on April 25, 2009*

Ronald Hutton is professor of history at University of Bristol, and quite possibly the foremost academic authority on Wicca--modern pagan witchcraft. His hypothesis is relatively straightforward: Wicca is the only religion England has ever given the world; it is not the same thing as witchcraft, but a modern synthesis of a great many historical events and intellectual currents. Throughout recorded history, one finds evidence of witchcraft and occult practices. But Wicca, properly so called, is the brainchild of Gerald Gardner. Gardner was an Englishman who spent much of his life as the owner of tea and rubber plantations in Ceylon (Sri Lanka), North Borneo, and Malaya, and who later worked as an inspector in the Malay customs service. In 1936, at age 52, Gardner retired to England. After a series of encounters with other occultists (including the notorious Aleister Crowley and the Ordo Templi Orientis, and someone whom Gardner calls "Old Dorothy"), and his own research and inquiries, Gardner published in 1949 a novel entitled "High Magic's Aid," which he claimed contains beliefs and rituals of the alleged witches with whom he worked. In 1951, England repealed the Witchcraft and Vagrancy Act, allowing witches to practice more openly. And in 1954, Gardner brought out his second book, "Witchcraft Today," in which he posed as a disinterested anthropologist lucky enough to have discovered surviving covens practicing a secret initiatory system of pagan religion, a religion that Gardner claimed stretched back into antiquity over millenia. But Professor Hutton demonstrates, to my satisfaction at least, that this isn't really what occurred. Instead, Hutton claims, Gerald Gardner drew on a wide disparity of sources and subject matters, and on his own and others' misinterpretations and misunderstandings of history, to synthesize his own version of what he believed witchcraft ought to be, a normative rather than empirical phenomenon. Gardnerian Wicca is therefore the product of Gerald Gardner's creative genius. Hutton also clarifies the relationships among the various descendants and step-children of Gardnerian Wicca. Professor Hutton tells this story with supreme craftsmanship and elan. A lesser analytical talent might be overwhelmed with the vast amount of source material; such an inferior author might also confuse the various strands, or fail to trace properly the various twists of the tale. Red herrings indeed abound in this story, but Professor Hutton does not fall for them, nor allow them to divert him from the book's main task. He skilfully weaves all the various threads together. At book's end, the careful reader has been enlightened, confusion dispelled, not increased. This reader, who has paid properly close attention to what Professor Hutton has to say, will find her understanding of Wicca and its origins greatly enhanced, and will not be so credulous when confronting Wiccan claims of its immense antiquity. Professor Hutton succeeds in the task he sets for himself. By taking us along in the journey, we have not only been vastly entertained, but enlightened. Bravo!

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Good interesting book, but not the last word.
*by T***R on May 14, 2003*

The Triumph of the Moon, by Hutton, Hutton is a British historian who has spent 10 years or so researching pagan history. He recent book deals with the social and cultural forces that led to the emergence of Wicca in the middle of the 20th century. He then chronicles the major trends in Wicca in the last half of the 20th century. In one chapter he discusses the Starhawk/Budapest feminist California liberal misandrist turn that paganism took in the 1980s. Hutton describes how their badly misandrist and overly emotional writing lacked any scholarly credibility, but nevertheless had a major impact of Wicca and paganism in general for two decades. With publication of Hutton's book and others we are finally beginning to see some signs of returning to a more balanced pagan literature. His history is incomplete however, and he makes some of the same mistakes and assertions that he criticizes others for making. For example in the first half of the book Hutton extensively details literary references to witches and claims about historic roots. Many pages are each devoted to Margaret Murray and others. Then toward the end he waives off all of that in a page or two by simply asserting that it has been disproved. He provides nothing close to supporting data to demonstrate that claim. A few years ago I attended a workshop by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowikci (21 books and other publications listed on Amazon) where she described in detail her study of an actual pagan village that kept itself hidden since the Norman invasion, and which had written records of village life since that time. According to Nowicki the village was finally over run by urban sprawl in 1990 but most of the residents have relocated to a new hidden village that still follows pre-christian pagan traditions. Nowicki says that her mother was born in the pagan village. Either Nowicki was lying to everyone who has attended her workshops describing the pagan village, or Hutton's scholarship that "disproved" the survival of actual pagan villages is sadly lacking. I have also researched or become aware of several other pieces of information that leads me to believe 1) that some of the historical witch trials and hangings were in fact people whom modern pagans would recognize as pagan witches, and 2) that some family tradition witches were actually surviving pagan witches. Hutton asserts that all claims to any pagan survival have been disproved, and in fact are not possible, but he offers no proof and provides no data. A widely published author, Initiate Wiccan HPS, and leader of a Ceremonial Magick society in the UK such as Ashcroft-Nowicki cannot be waived off by assertion without some evidence that her claims are false. My own family admitted to being witches at the Salem trials, but their stories have been deleted from current histories rather than researched and discounted. You won't find their names on lists of witch trial victims published in the last half century. Today's historians would rather claim that all the witch trial victims were really Christians. That's not scholorship, that's just avoiding the disagreable facts. On the positive side Hutton does provide a lot of information about Gardner and subsequent Wiccan history. His observations about the state of Wicca today are interesting. I was especially fascinated by the discussion trying to fit Wicca into anyone's scholarly classification system for religions and religious branches. Wicca, it seems, doesn't fit any classification system and religious scholars don't know what even to call it. I would recommend the book to all Wiccans and interested parties, but keep in mind that it's not the last word on a lack of pagan roots.

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