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Gavin Bone (born 19 January 1964) is an English author and lecturer in the fields of magic, Neopagan witchcraft, Wicca and Neo-Paganism, and an organizer in the Neo-Pagan community. He was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire in England, in 1964.
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Gavin Bone (born 19 January 1964) is an English author and lecturer in the fields of magic, Neopagan witchcraft, Wicca and Neo-Paganism, and an organizer in the Neo-Pagan community. He was born in Portsmouth, Hampshire in England, in 1964.
He was born on 19 January 1964 and was brought up in Portsmouth, Hampshire. His mother regularly visited mediums and tarot readers, which was a major influence in his occult interest. He attended several conferences and events in Portsmouth on the unexplained, which made him become interested in everything from UFOs to the Surrey Puma, ghosts, and the Bermuda Triangle.
Firstly he wanted to pursue a career in the British Army, but was unable to go into regular service and served in 219 Wessex General Hospital RAMC (V) instead. Then he left because of his political beliefs. He became involved with groups such as Greenpeace from 1981. He became interested in Wicca during the same period, having previously explored Buddhism, Hinduism and Taoism. He also started to train as a spiritual healer, after he had attended The Joseph Carey Spiritualist Centre. He practised solitary from 1982 before finding his first magical group in 1985 working from the Fifth Dimension Occult store, Eastney, Portsmouth. His group was eclectic and included earth healing practices as well as High Magic. It was from this group that the first coven he joined emerged, which was based on Buckland's Seax Wicca. He was later initiated into a Gardnerian based tradition.
He has trained as a registered nurse and has studied complementary healing methods such as reflexology. He was initiated into Seax-Wica in 1986, and was involved in the revival of British/Anglo-Saxon traditional shamanism in the late 1980s through a web site called PaganLink. He is currently developing the theory that Wicca may have some roots in tribal shamanistic healing traditions, as opposed to medieval ritual magic. [1]
Bone first met Janet Farrar and Stewart Farrar in 1989 at a Pagan camp at Groby, near Leicester, where they became friends. He accompanied them on a tour to the United States in 1992, and after their return he moved to Ireland and became their business partner. He joined the Farrars as part of a "polyfidelitous relationship", [2] and they continued their personal and professional relationship since Stewart's death on 7 February 2000. He co-authored several books with the Farrars, and he is the production manager for their videos. He also set up their website in 1996, which has become the “Pagan Information Network”, a contact network for Pagans across the Republic and Northern Ireland, for which Bone and Janet Farrar are the primary coordinators.
Bone and Janet Farrar are currently active members in the Aquarian Tabernacle Church of Ireland, and have links with several covens in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and Europe. They ran a progressive coven in Ireland called Coven Na Callaighe until early 2009 which was part of Teampall Na Callaighe, which once included an open worship group Clan Na Callaighe.
Janet Farrar and Gavin Bone handfasted in Ireland, May 2001. They have legally been married since March 2014.
Following attending Link-Up '89 (September 1989) in Groby, Leicester, Gavin became involved in Pagan Link as a contact and facilitator for Portsmouth, with his wife Tania Andrade. They regularly held moots in Portsmouth, in the Milton area, and from this a small coven naturally developed of no specific tradition. He later became a contact for the Pagan Federation as it expanded its contact network. He and his wife also became part of Clan Bran, which is a clan of eclectic practitioners. It was based in Abbots Bromley, Leicestershire before it moved to the Republic of Ireland.
Gardnerian Wicca, or Gardnerian witchcraft, is a tradition in the neopagan religion of Wicca, whose members can trace initiatory descent from Gerald Gardner. The tradition is itself named after Gardner (1884–1964), a British civil servant and amateur scholar of magic. The term "Gardnerian" was probably coined by the founder of Cochranian Witchcraft, Robert Cochrane in the 1950s or 60s, who himself left that tradition to found his own.
Wicca is a modern neo-pagan syncretic religion. Scholars of religion categorize it as both a new religious movement and as part of occultist Western esotericism. It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century and was introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner, a retired British civil servant. Wicca draws upon a diverse set of ancient pagan and 20th-century hermetic motifs for its theological structure and ritual practices.
A coven is a group or gathering of witches. The word "coven" remained largely unused in English until 1921 when Margaret Murray promoted the idea that all witches across Europe met in groups of thirteen which they called "covens".
An athame or athamé is a ceremonial blade, generally with a black handle. It is the main ritual implement or magical tool among several used in ceremonial magic traditions, and by other neopagans, witchcraft, as well as satanic traditions. A black-handled knife called an arthame appears in certain versions of the Key of Solomon, a grimoire dating to the Renaissance.
A Book of Shadows is a book containing religious text and instructions for magical rituals found within the Neopagan religion of Wicca. Since its conception in the 1970s, it has made its way into many pagan practices and paths. The most famous Book of Shadows was created by the pioneering Wiccan Gerald Gardner sometime in the late 1940s or early 1950s, and which he utilised first in his Bricket Wood coven and then in other covens which he founded in following decades. The Book of Shadows is also used by other Wiccan traditions, such as Alexandrian Wicca and Mohsianism, and with the rise of books teaching people how to begin following non-initiatory Wicca in the 1970s onward, the idea of the Book of Shadows was then further propagated amongst solitary practitioners unconnected to earlier, initiatory traditions.
Alexandrian Wicca or Alexandrian Witchcraft is a tradition of the Neopagan religion of Wicca, founded by Alex Sanders who, with his wife Maxine Sanders, established the tradition in the United Kingdom in the 1960s. Alexandrian Wicca is similar in many ways to Gardnerian Wicca, and receives regular mention in books on Wicca as one of the religion's most widely recognized traditions.
Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente was an English Wiccan who was responsible for writing much of the early religious liturgy within the tradition of Gardnerian Wicca. An author and poet, she also published five books dealing with Wicca and related esoteric subjects.
Raymond Buckland, whose craft name was Robat, was an English writer on the subject of Wicca and the occult, and a significant figure in the history of Wicca, of which he was a high priest in both the Gardnerian and Seax-Wica traditions.
Frank Stewart Farrar was an English screenwriter, novelist and prominent figure in the Neopagan religion of Wicca, which he devoted much of his later life to propagating with the aid of his seventh wife, Janet Farrar, and then his friend Gavin Bone as well. A devout communist in early life, he worked as a reporter for such newspapers as the Soviet Weekly and the Daily Worker, and also served in the British army during the Second World War. He was responsible for writing episodes for such television series as Dr. Finlay's Casebook, Armchair Theatre and Crossroads, and for his work in writing radio scripts won a Writer's Guild Award. He also published a string of novels, written in such disparate genres as crime, romance and fantasy.
Janet Farrar is a British teacher and author of books on Wicca and Neopaganism. Along with her two husbands, Stewart Farrar and Gavin Bone, she has published "some of the most influential books on modern Witchcraft to date". According to George Knowles, "some seventy five percent of Wiccans both in the Republic and Northern Ireland can trace their roots back to the Farrars."
Alex Sanders, born Orrell Alexander Carter, who went under the craft name Verbius, was an English occultist and High Priest in the modern Pagan religion of Wicca, responsible for founding, and later developing with Maxine Sanders, the tradition of Alexandrian Wicca, also called Alexandrian Witchcraft, during the 1960s.
What Witches Do is a book by Stewart Farrar, and is an eye-witness account of Wiccan practices, namely that of the Alexandrian coven run by Alex Sanders and his wife Maxine Sanders.
Robert Cochrane, who was born as Roy Bowers, was an English occultist who founded the tradition of Witchcraft known as The Clan of Tubal Cain.
Mastering Witchcraft: A Practical Guide for Witches, Warlocks and Covens is a book written by Paul Huson and published in 1970 by G.P. Putnams- the first mainstream publisher to produce a do-it-yourself manual for the would-be witch or warlock.
The history of Wicca documents the rise of the Neopagan religion of Wicca and related witchcraft-based Neopagan religions. Wicca originated in the early 20th century, when it developed amongst secretive covens in England who were basing their religious beliefs and practices upon what they read of the historical witch-cult in the works of such writers as Margaret Murray. It also is based on the beliefs from the magic that Gerald Gardner saw when he was in India. It was subsequently founded in the 1950s by Gardner, who claimed to have been initiated into the Craft – as Wicca is often known – by the New Forest coven in 1939. Gardner's form of Wicca, the Gardnerian tradition, was spread by both him and his followers like the High Priestesses Doreen Valiente, Patricia Crowther and Eleanor Bone into other parts of the British Isles, and also into other, predominantly English-speaking, countries across the world. In the 1960s, new figures arose in Britain who popularized their own forms of the religion, including Robert Cochrane, Sybil Leek and Alex Sanders, and organizations began to be formed to propagate it, such as the Witchcraft Research Association. It was during this decade that the faith was transported to the United States, where it was further adapted into new traditions such as Feri, 1734 and Dianic Wicca in the ensuing decades, and where organizations such as the Covenant of the Goddess were formed.
Wiccan views of divinity are generally theistic, and revolve around a Goddess and a Horned God, thereby being generally dualistic. In traditional Wicca, as expressed in the writings of Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, the emphasis is on the theme of divine gender polarity, and the God and Goddess are regarded as equal and opposite divine cosmic forces. In some newer forms of Wicca, such as feminist or Dianic Wicca, the Goddess is given primacy or even exclusivity. In some forms of traditional witchcraft that share a similar duotheistic theology, the Horned God is given precedence over the Goddess.
In the neopagan religion of Wicca a range of magical tools are used in ritual practice. Each of these tools has different uses and associations and are commonly used at an altar, inside a magic circle.
Neopagan witchcraft is a description used by some neo-pagans for their practices. These traditions began in the mid-20th century and were influenced by the witch-cult hypothesis; a now-rejected theory that persecuted witches had actually been followers of a surviving pagan religion. Religious studies scholars class these various neopagan witchcraft traditions under the broad category of Wicca, although not all practitioners self-identify as Wiccan.
Many Neo-pagan religions such as Wicca, Druidry and Celtic Polytheism have active followings in Ireland, although the number of declared adherents is likely quite small.
In Modern English, the term Wicca refers to Wicca, the religion of contemporary Pagan witchcraft. It is used within the Pagan community under competing definitions. One refers to the entirety of the Pagan Witchcraft movement, while the other refers explicitly to traditions included in what is now called British Traditional Wicca.
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