Published by a British Wiccan after twenty years of coven practice, Wicca Unveiled: The Complete Rituals of Modern Witchcraft by J. Philip Rhodes is another interesting glimpse, (much like Gail Duff’s The Wheel of the Wiccan Year, 2002, Rhodes also calls the Autumn Sabbat “Mabon”), at that transitional time period before “British Traditional Wiccans” became consciously aware of how much the religion’s development in America had come to effect its general character, and subsequently got wise to the potential benefits of attempting to re-brand the religion as “indigenously British” in a hostile “post-colonial” political atmosphere. While emphasizing that Wicca is a religion of initiation, Rhodes is none-too-particular about the authority by which these initiations are to be conducted, other than presumably somehow stumbling across someone who will conduct rituals that resemble the ones he presents in his book. As Rhodes writes in Chapter One: “The Craft of Wicca”: “Though some covens still identify as ‘Gardnerian’ or ‘Alexandrian’, the old divisions seem less important today, and the ritual system elucidated here draws on both traditions.”
Twenty-four years after the publication of his book, the reader is left to wonder if Mr. Rhodes’ previous twenty years as a Wiccan in the ‘80s and ‘90s would now be “vouched for” by any members of either of these traditions, as the Gardnerian tradition at least, has now become firmly defined by a particular understanding of initiation as a kind of apostolic succession, the qualifications for which Mr. Rhodes may not have actually met.
Rhodes’ book, by contrast, is a reminder of the time when Wiccans were both increasingly self-dedicated, yet still actively seeking out other Wiccans for religious companionship—making Wiccan initiation a matter of the process of being brought into an already existing coven, rather than a process of seeking out a subculture’s permission to found a supposedly autonomous coven in the first place. While Rhodes acknowledges how many Wiccans at that time were solitary, due to circumstances or inclination, (not “clicking” with other Wiccans you’ve met at a pub moot is of course no less likely than a couple of Christians not liking one another well enough to pray together)—he of course also claims, (as was common at that time), that anyone who has not undergone ceremonies at least very similar to those presented in his book is not a “true Wiccan”. Why anyone would care what Mr. Rhodes thinks another person’s “Wiccan-ness”, however, is as unclear as what would prevent a person who has never undergone these rituals themselves from performing them for someone else. The Farrars’ in A Witch’s Bible Compleat (the 1987 omnibus edition of Eight Sabbats for Witches, 1981 and The Witches’ Way, 1984) had already provided a rite of self-initiation to facilitate autonomous coven formation—although their failure to declare the founding of a new Wiccan tradition when doing so left them open to criticism by Gardnerians and Alexandrians (and others) who do not recognize this understanding of initiation as valid to begin with. Therefore, like the Farrars’ “Bible”, it is hard to determine the intended audience for this book, although the back cover clearly advertises itself to those who, “want to establish your own coven”. Eight Sabbats for Witches (1981) had at least provided Doreen Valiente (who had already provided a rite of self-initiation in her Liber Umbrarum in 1978), a platform in which to set the historical record straight in regard to her liturgical and theological contributions to the emerging Wiccan religion. This is also what Buckland had praised about the publication of Aidan Kelly’s Crafting the Art of Magic in 1991, writing in his review of Kelly’s book:
At long last we have a book that is a thorough, deeply-researched, scholarly examination of the origins of Gardnerian Witchcraft. And at last we have a book that recognizes the contributions of Doreen Valiente to what has become a world-wide religion.
And if the historical importance of the first edition of Kelly’s controversial book is still in any doubt, be aware that it was still in the recommended reading of British Gardnerian Philip Heselton as recently as 2003 in Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration.
Wicca Unveiled, written under the assumption that Solomonic magic is essential to Wicca—and that the Priestess has only whatever power the Priest decides to give her—is essentially a “Book of Shadows” for the man who for whatever reason cannot access a Gardnerian or Alexandrian coven, but who may wish to start the semblance of one anyway. As some may have awkwardly attempted to use Buckland’s Book of Saxon Witchcraft (2005) in this way, I would humbly suggest this book as an alternative resource far more useful toward such an aim.
Lincoln Green 