Witch-cult hypothesis
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The witch-cult hypothesis is a discredited theory that the witch trials of the Early Modern period were an attempt to suppress a pagan religion that had survived the Christianization of Europe. Accord
Francisco de Goya's Witches' Sabbath (1789), which depicts the Devil flanked by Satanic witches. The witch-cult hypothesis states that such stories are based upon a real-life pagan cult that revered a horned deity.
1899 cover of Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches
Bust of Murray held in the library of the UCL Institute of Archaeology.
The Devil on horseback. Nuremberg Chronicle (1493).
Wicca
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Wicca is a modern pagan, syncretic, Earth-focused type of religion. Considered a new religious movement by scholars of religion, the path evolved from Western esotericism, developed in England during
Witch-cult hypothesis
…witch-cult hypothesis has influenced literature, being adapted into fiction in works by John Buchan, Robert Graves, and others. It greatly influenced Wicca, a new religious movement of modern Paganism that emerged in mid-twentieth-century Britain and represented itself as a survival of the pagan witch cult…
Altar statues of the Horned God and Mother Goddess crafted by Bel Bucca and owned by the "Mother of Wicca", Doreen Valiente
Sculpture of the Horned God of Wicca found in the Museum of Witchcraft in Boscastle, Cornwall
Athame, ritual knife or dagger used in Wiccan practices
Painted Wheel of the Year at the Museum of Witchcraft, Boscastle, Cornwall, displaying all eight of the Sabbats