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.It read, We the undersigned, present mem-bers of the New York Coven, do swear allegiance to our new High Priestess,the Lady Theos. It was signed by the Third-Degree members Robat (Ray-mond Buckland), Phoenix (Theos s husband), Ea (Ed Fitch), and Sea, as wellas the First-Degree members Gillis, Retep, Puck, and Tanith.Theos and Phoenix took over responsibility for the New York Covenwith great enthusiasm, moved the covenstead to their home in Commack,New York, and quickly rebuilt the group.It is a great distance from Manhat-tan to Commack in Suffolk County, Long Island, but the coven s membersseem to have made that trek happily at least once a month many made itabout once a week.At first, the Bucklands remained as Elders in the coven, but they becameless active in the group when their marriage crumbled and they became sepa-rated.When Theos and Phoenix realized that Lady Rowen would soon beunavailable to answer questions because of her retirement, they debriefed heron everything she knew about oral traditions and about how the coven actu-ally operated.From this information they created the longest single docu-ment in the current Gardnerian Book of Shadows, the Notes and Guide-lines, apparently intended to be just that, mere guidelines.However, overthe years the notes and guidelines hardened into rules and regulations.In1973, Lady Rowen, Robat, Lady Theos, Phoenix, Ea, and Sea, as the actualElders of the Gardnerian movement in America, signed the new materialsthey added to the First-Degree Book of Shadows, thus certifying it as authen-tic and authoritative.At this juncture, having been forced to retire as High Priest of his origi-nal coven and needing a High Priestess to form a new coven, Raymond Buck-land raised Deirdre to Third Degree by himself, as was allowed under the pro-cedural rules in effect at the time.However, for some years Theos andPhoenix refused to recognize Deirdre s elevation or any of her initiations be-cause one of the new guidelines (Theos learned from Rowen) stated thatvalid initiations could be carried out only in a circle cast by a Third-DegreeHigh Priestess.This rejection of his Priestess led Buckland to found Seax-Wica a form of the Craft that did not suffer from the drawbacks he per-ceived in the Gardnerian model.xxx INTRODUCTIONWhen Deirdre moved to Louisville, Kentucky, to teach at a university,she and her consort, Modred, began the Coven of the Silver Trine; covensdescended from the Silver Trine are known collectively as the KentuckyLineage. At first, the Kentucky Lineage covens were treated by the NewYork Coven as heretical and schismatic.However, Theos later persuadedDeirdre to accept a re-initiation by the procedures of the New York Coven,thus grafting the two lineages together and healing the schism.The numberof Gardnerian covens in North America in 1973 was not more than two orthree dozen.Although no list of members is likely to be available in the near future, itcan be estimated that Lady Theos and Phoenix elevated many people toThird Degree during their tenure as heads of the Gardnerian movement inAmerica.(In fact, Raymond Buckland expressed some criticism of the free-dom with which they elevated people in the second edition of his Witchcraftfrom the Inside.) One of the most important of these initiations was the eleva-tion of Athena and Dagda to Third Degree in 1974; their California Coven(later named Our Lady of the Hills) thus became the first officially Gardner-ian coven in California, and several California lineages sprang from it.Deirdre and Modred in Louisville were training initiates too, and theCraft expanded rapidly from that base of operations.In 1977, they began TheHidden Path as a journal for Gardnerians only, and it continues to be the in-house Gardnerian newsletter.In 1985, Deirdre resigned as Queen of the Ken-tucky Line, bestowing her Queenship equally on her three daughters (Priest-esses), who continue to oversee the Kentucky Lineage jointly.Lady Morda and her consort in Chicago, Illinois, also were training initi-ates in their Gardnerian line, the source of which could be traced back to En-gland (via a route different from that of Lady Rowen).Morda worked in En-gland in 1969 with Madge Worthington and Arthur Edmonds, two ofEleanor Bone s initiates, and was raised to Second Degree by them.Mordawas also close friends with Lois Bourne, who succeeded Doreen Valiente asHigh Priestess of the original London coven.Morda then brought the Gard-nerian Craft to Chicago, teamed up with Herman Enderle and GinnieBrubaker, adapted Ed Fitch s new Pagan Way materials as an Outer Court,and thus helped create the Temple of the Pagan Way as an eclectic traditionwith a Gardnerian core.Theos again solved an institutional problem by pay-ing Morda s expenses to come to Long Island to be initiated and elevated ac-cording to New York Coven procedures, again grafting two lines together.Covens that descend from the Temple of the Pagan Way are Gardnerian byseveral different definitions.Other non Long Island lineages descend from Frederick Folter s Covenof Artemis Orthia, active in British Columbia in the early 1970s; from CarolBulzone s Enchantments covens, which were imported from England by aroute independent of Long Island; and from a coven in Nova Scotia that ap-parently predates Lady Olwen.During the last two decades of the twentieth century, some large fractionof these Third-Degree Witches turned out initiates and, in turn, these third-xxxi INTRODUCTIONgeneration, Third-Degree Witches turn out yet more initiates, resulting inextremely rapid growth of the Craft.It would be difficult indeed to documentthe historical details of every Gardnerian coven in America today.Almost all official Gardnerians in America are descendants of the NewYork Coven, and they maintain their identity by ensuring a strict apostolicsuccession of High Priestesses who trace their initiation back to Lady Theos,Lady Rowen (Rosemary Buckland), and Lady Olwen (Monique Wilson)
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