Lives and legends

Doreen Valiente

1922 to 1999

Who was Doreen Valiente, and what is truly known of them?

What is known

English writer, born Doreen Dominy in south London, who did war work as a translator at Bletchley Park. In 1953 Gerald Gardner initiated her, and as high priestess of his coven she rewrote much of his ritual book, cutting passages he had taken from Crowley and writing the prose Charge of the Goddess still spoken in Wicca. She left him in 1957 over his courting of the press, worked with other groups, and wrote plain books on the craft, among them An ABC of Witchcraft (1973) and The Rebirth of Witchcraft (1989). In the 1980s she traced the birth and death records of Dorothy Clutterbuck. She died in Brighton.

The teaching

Taught from her own books, above all Witchcraft for Tomorrow (1978) and The Rebirth of Witchcraft (1989), and the rites she wrote.

The Charge of the Goddess

Valiente's best known teaching is the Charge, the words of the Goddess to her people. She found in Gardner's book a charge that joined lines from Leland's Aradia to passages from Crowley, and rewrote it so that the Goddess speaks in the craft's own voice, first in prose and then in verse. The Goddess of the Charge is the mother of all living, who asks no sacrifice; she calls her people to meet when the moon is full, to be free, to sing, feast, dance, make music and love in her presence; and she tells them that whoever does not find what they seek within will never find it without. The Charge's place in the rites is taught on the protection art's branch Wicca and the modern craft.

The Rede

The rule that witches now take for their one law was first given in public by her, in a speech of 1964: eight words in the old style, which say that whatever harms none may be done freely. She read it as freedom and burden at once. Anything may be done that harms no one, oneself included, and so every act must first be weighed; and no working may be done against another person's will or good.

The Witches' Rune

For the circle she wrote, with Gardner, the Witches' Rune, the chant danced round the ring to raise power. It calls on the night and the shining moon, names the four quarters in turn, east, then south, then west, then north, and the tools of the craft, and quickens as the dance quickens until the power is sent. It is still among the most used of the craft's chants.

The craft for the one alone

Her later teaching opened the craft to those who have no coven. In Witchcraft for Tomorrow she held that no one needs another's leave to worship the old gods: a sincere person may dedicate themselves to the Goddess and the God alone, and she gave a rite for doing it and a short book of shadows of her own to begin with, its circle, its calls to the elements and its festivals. The coven and its degrees remain one way among others, not the only gate into the craft.

Natural magic

Her magic is close to the ground. She teaches the phases of the moon as the old tides of the work, the waxing for increase and drawing in, the waning for banishing and letting go, the full for power; the lore of herbs and stones, of the weather and the seasons, of knots, mirrors and fires; and the customs of the country people of Sussex, from whom she gathered tales and charms. The house adds the plain caution that the herbs of the old lore are for knowing and for the garden, not for swallowing on the strength of a charm.

The truth about the sources

She held that the craft must tell the truth about itself. In her history of its rebirth she sets out which words were hers, which were Gardner's, and which were borrowed from Crowley, Leland, the Key of Solomon and Kipling, and she says what is not known as plainly as what is. A religion, she argued, needs no false pedigree: the craft's worth lies in what its people find in it, the divine in nature and in themselves, and a living faith is free to grow and change.

Orders and memberships

Initiated into Gerald Gardner’s coven at midsummer 1953; later a member of Robert Cochrane’s Clan of Tubal Cain, about 1964, and of the Coven of Atho. Her own papers also show that for about eighteen months in the early 1970s she belonged to the National Front, a far-right party, and left it. No Masonic or older order is recorded.

The legend

That the words Wiccans speak are centuries old. Much of the wording now in use was written by her in the 1950s, as she said herself, and she was among the first to list what Gardner had borrowed. She kept an open mind on whether an older coven had stood behind him.

Their works

The Charge of the GoddessLiturgy, about 1957
The words of the Goddess to her followers, which she wrote in prose and verse for Gardner’s coven to replace passages taken from Crowley. It is still spoken in Wicca. It is her own writing, not of great age.
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An ABC of WitchcraftBook, 1973
An encyclopaedia of witchcraft past and present, arranged by letter, from folk charms and old trials to the modern covens she knew. It is plain and careful, and says where a tale is only a tale. It is one of her best known books.
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Where Witchcraft LivesBook, 1962
Her first book, on the folklore of witchcraft in Sussex, where she lived for most of her life. It draws on local tales, old records and the people she spoke with. It shows the love of folk tradition that ran through all her work.
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Natural MagicBook, 1975
A book on the folk magic of herbs, stones, the weather and the seasons, written for the ordinary reader. It is drawn from her wide reading and her own practice. Like her other books, it describes what people have believed and done.
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Witchcraft for TomorrowBook, 1978
A book giving her own rites for those who wished to practise the craft alone or to found a coven of their own, without waiting for an initiation. It includes a book of shadows she wrote herself. It helped to make solitary practice common.
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The Search for Old DorothyEssay, 1984
Her account of tracing the records of Dorothy Clutterbuck, the woman Gardner named as his initiator. It showed that such a woman had lived. It was printed in a book by Janet and Stewart Farrar.
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The Rebirth of WitchcraftBook, 1989
Her history of modern Wicca, from Gardner to her own day, told by one who was there. It is frank about what was borrowed and what was new. It is a key source for the history of the craft.
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How the house tells a life

This life is told from the record, with what is documented, what is legend and what was forged kept apart. A membership in an order is stated only where documents show it. A person’s chart explains none of their deeds.

The arts it feeds

Magic and protection Orders and mystery schools

Lives near it in time