Whipping boy

“Britain´s Wicca Man” (or "A Very British Witchcraft") is a surprisingly sober, even boring, documentary about Gerald Gardner, the controversial founder of the Neo-Pagan religion known as Wicca. As a teenager, I read about Gardner´s exploits in Poul Fersling´s book “Naturligt Övernaturligt”. Fersling didn´t seem to like the old man, and I believe he described him as a “sadist, masochist and voyeur”. For years afterwards, I wondered what the hell a “voyeur” might be! 

This documentary goes much too far in the other direction, never mentioning the ritual sex and only hinting at the sado-masochistic element (here called “flagellation”, a more respectable term apparently). Perhaps this pro-Wiccan approach was needed to make Wiccans come out of the woodwork and be interviewed. A bizarre detail is that one of the non-Wiccans featured looks like Dumbledore from “Harry Potter”, while a male Wiccan talking about Gardner *looks like Gardner himself*! 

While “Britain´s Wicca Man” does contain some interesting material, including Gardner´s classical appearance on BBC´s Panorama, it really only skims the surface. The name Margaret Murray is never mentioned, and we are left pretty much in the dark about the exact nature of the folk magic and shamanism Gardner supposedly draw from for his new religion, described as “the only originally English faith” (which seems to be correct – unless you count the Church of England, LOL). I also found the British accents bloody annoying, but that´s me. 

Ultimately, this production (available on YouTube) is mostly a kind of teaser trailer. I admit that I find it difficult to take “feminists” being whipped by a horned (and horny) god in the forest difficult to take seriously, so I probably won´t be reading up on this subject any time soon, though. Oh, and “voyeur” means…never mind.