Comments an 'The Law"
                    Don Wildgrube, HP, Coven of Arcady

The Laws are given for information only and are not to be considered as "The
Law". I have had a problem with most of them since I had first seen them. I
felt that the paranoia, the sexism and other dubious statements were not
anything that belonged in Witchcraft. There are several laws that are just
wrong, such as #71, "pyre". Most Witches were hung, not burned. Burnings
were common only in Scotland.

	So read them, keep them, throw them away or do as you like. They are
presented here because some Witches, notably the Gardnarians and the
Alexandrians, keep them in their Books of Shadows. My feelings about the
"Laws" were justified when I read an account about "The Law" from The 
Rebirth of Witchcraft, pages 69 thru 72 by Doreen Valiente. Following are her
comments:
	'What happened was that two different factions had begun to form within
the min coven, which was now holding most of its meting on the land near St.
Albans upon which Gerald had re-erected the 'witch's cottage' which he had
purchased from W.S.M. Ward, as I described in Chapter 4. The cottage was
surrounded by woodland and was a delightful little place, though rather hard
to get to. These two factions might be roughly described as being pro- and
anti-publicity.

	The pro-publicity faction was headed by same comparative newcomers,
notably the late Jack Bracelin and his girlfriend, whom I will call Amanda
because that is the name she was given in the newspapers. Jack Bracelin is
the man who later appeared as the author of Gerald's biography, Gerald
Gardner: Witch, though I am told that the book was actually ghost-written 
by another friend of Gerald's who was associated with the Octagon Press, who
published it in 1960.

	The anti-publicity faction was headed by myself and same of the older
members of the coven We pointed out to Gerald pretty forcibly that we had 
had enough of these continual outbursts of silly publicity-seeking on his part,
which were only adding fuel to the fire of the national press witch-hunt.
'Answer them in your book,' we said. 'And in the man time, just don't talk
to them. You know they only distort anything you say. Or, at least, if you
want to give an interview to someone, tell us about it first.' The pro-
publicity faction, however, scouted all this and encouraged Gerald to ignore
our protests. They too had got the publicity bug by this time and were
contacting reporters on their own account. I cannot account for their
attitude, except by sheer big-headedness; but retribution was to follow.

	We feared the worst and prepared for a spit in the coven. As a last
resort, we drew up a set of proposals, entitled 'Proposed Rules for the
Craft'. There were thirteen clauses in these rules, the min purpose of which
was to ensure that secrecy to which we had all been solemnly sworn when we
were initiated - a fact which same people now seemed to remember or forget
just as they pleased. (This document has recently surfaced in the USA among
the papers which Ripley's purchased from Gerald's heirs when his museum
collection which he had entrusted to them was sold.) If these rules had been
accepted and acted upon, a great deal of the subsequent trouble and heart-ache
would have been avoided. But Gerald prevaricated as long as he could - and
then did something which completely astounded us!

	He had been up at his museum in the Isle of Man while all this was going
on. From there he now sent us a long document, with a message saying that there 
was not need for our proposed rules, because a set of 'Laws of the Craft' 
already existed. These were set out in the accompanying document couched in 
mock-archaic language and ornamented with awesome threats of 'So be it ardane' 
(meaning 'ordained') and invocations of 'the Curse of the Goddess' upon anyone 
who dared to transgress them.

	We were apparently supposed to be overawed. our actual reaction was to
be extremely skeptical. None of us had ever set eyes on these alleged 'Laws
before, though we noticed that they incorporated a preliminary passage from 
the 'Book of Shadows' commencing: 'Keep a book in your won hand of write...' 
(This passage is reproduced in Gerald's book Witchcraft Today.) If these 'Laws'
were so ancient and authoritative, why had Gerald never given them to us before? 
We discussed these matters, realizing that the question had become, by Gerald's 
own actions, one of confidence in him - and the more we examined the alleged 
'Laws', the less confidence we had in either him or them.

	One section of them I for one totally rejected. The word 'sexist' was
not in use in those days, but sexist was exactly what this pronouncement 
was. It set forth that 'The Gods love the brethren of Wicca as a man loveth a
woman, by mastering her.' It went on further to say that the High Priestess
had to recognize that youth is necessary to the representative of the Goddess.
So will she gracefully retire in favor of a younger woman, should the coven 
so decide in council.'

	Had anyone dared to suggest that Old Dorothy 'gracefully retire' in favor 
of same nubile young thing? And what about the High Priest? There was no 
suggestion that he had to retire. Apparently High Priestesses were expendable 
but the High Priest went on for ever, or as long as he liked. Now this was not 
witchcraft as I knew it; but it was very reminiscent of the practices of 
Aleister Crowley, who had initiated and then cast aside a whole series of 
'Scarlet Women', as his High Priestesses were called. It was also a very good 
way of getting rid of High Priestesses who refused to be 'Mastered' and 
continued to remind people of the significance of their initiation oath of
secrecy - in other words, high Priestess who wanted to take witch craft
seriously instead or regarding it as something to serve one's own vanity and
exhibitionism.

	Of course, Gerald had to come up with something. Half of his coven was
in a state of mutiny, led by my friend Ned and myself. It was Ned who had been 
mainly responsible for the 'Proposed Rules', and I believe he wrote back to 
Gerald and told him that we regarded the alleged 'Laws" as 'an ad hoc invention 
of your own'. There was much heated correspondence but no real conclusion. The 
best we could get out of Gerald was a solemn promise that before he gave any 
more interviews to the popular media he would tell us about what he was going to 
do and get our agreement. There were to be no more nasty shocks whenever the 
Sunday papers arrived on the mat and no more having to explain to a new initiate 
that, yes, they had just taken a solemn oath of secrecy and, no, we didn't know 
why Gerald was giving all this stuff to the papers and posing for photographs."