Margaret Murray is the mother of
witches
that never was. A noted Egyptologist, archaeologist, anthropologist,
folklorist, and first wave feminist, she is now best-known for a series
of books on
witchcraft that profoundly shaped the modern
Wicca
faith. Today, her work has been thoroughly debunked and disproved. So
how did Margaret Murray go from being the world's foremost authority on
witchcraft to a footnote in its history, and why doesn't anyone talk
about her work anymore?
Murray believed that witchcraft did exist, and that it was an organized
religion—a fertility cult that worshipped a horned god. In 1921, she expanded on the witch-cult theory in her book,
The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (which can be read for free at
Project Gutenberg).
Based almost entirely on witch trial documents from the 16th and 17th
century, Murray's hypothesis was that witchcraft pre-dated Christianity
and was eventually absorbed into it, the horned god becoming an avatar
for Satan. Murray was the first to use the word 'coven' to mean a
gathering of witches; she insisted that covens met in groups of 13,
writing in detail about 'sabbaths,' specific witches' meetings that
involved elaborate rituals (including
group sex and the occasional blood sacrifice). This was, at the time, revolutionary information.
The
book was met with widespread acclaim and some incredulity. In 1929, she
wrote the Encyclopedia Brittanica entry for 'witchcraft', which stayed
in print in one version or another for 40 years. For years, she was
considered the only authoritative voice on the subject. Aldous Huxley
was a fan. Despite being a non-believer who only wanted to write about
witchcraft to strip away its supernatural reputation,
The Witch-Cult in Western Europe would
become a cornerstone of a newly-emergent religion when it was picked in
up by founding father Gerald Gardner and built on in his 1954 book,
Witchcraft Today.
Gardner took Murray's witch-cult theory and used it as a framework on
which to hang his other influences— Aleister Crowley's writings, his own
personal occult experiences, Freemasonry—to formulate a contemporary
pagan religion. We now know it as Wicca.
There was just one problem. Margaret Murray was wrong.
Margaret Murray in 1933. Image courtesy of the Petrie Museum, University College London
Today, Wiccans still debate over the importance of her work. A director of the
Centre for Pagan Studies, Ashley Mortimer is also a trustee of the
Doreen Valiente Foundation
(Valiente was Gardner's initiate, and a powerful figure in her own
right). He is also a media spokesman and representative for a number of
other pagan organizations. "I think we have to accept the position as it
stands: we simply cannot accept, in the face of the evidence, that the
witch-cult survived intact through the centuries and was passed on to
Gerald Gardner, who merely breathed new life into it during the 20th
century," he says. "Neither, however, can we accept that it never
existed in the first place, or that some threads [...] of it have not
survived."
Murray was born in 1863 in Calcutta, India, into a middle class
family of British heritage. India was then a British colony, and career
prospects for women like her were few: Volunteer, charity or mission
work. Her mother, also named Margaret, had served as a missionary before
she was married, traveling the country by herself in a period when it
was unusual to do so. This would be a formative influence on Murray.
Murray
was unconcerned by the idea that the confessions and trial documents
that formed the basis of her theory could have been made under threat of
torture.
When she was seven, she and her sister were
sent to England to stay with her uncle John, who was a vicar. He
believed that women were naturally inferior and should be morally and
physically spotless. John Murray's views were pretty normal for
Victorian England, and he thought it was a good idea to quote Bible
verse supporting that at his prepubescent niece. In her memoirs, Murray
called her uncle a 'Dominant Male,' which was probably her own polite
shorthand for 'Rampaging Sexist'. Her uncle did influence her profoundly
in one aspect, though. He introduced her to archaeology.
Despite
no formal education, and after returning to Calcutta and working as a
nurse for several years, Murray decided, in her 30s, to pursue her
childhood passion. With her mother's encouragement, she moved to London
and started studying egyptology under pioneering archaeologist Flinders
Petrie. Her ascent was steep—in 1898 she became the first female
lecturer in archaeology in the United Kingdom. She took part in several
archaeological digs in Egypt and published multiple papers and books on
the subject. In 1908, she unwrapped a mummy in front of an audience of
over 500 people—again, the first women to do so. Murray was successful
and well-respected by her peers. She was a member of Emmeline
Pankhurst's WSPU, and marched to secure women's right to vote. And then
World War I happened.
Murray unwrapping a mummy in front of a packed audience. Photo courtesy of the Manchester Museum
In
1914, Murray and her colleagues were unable to return to Egypt to
continue their archaeological digs. Murray volunteered as a nurse for
the war effort, but became sick and was sent to recuperate in a small
town in Somerset—Glastonbury—to recuperate. Glastonbury was the
legendary home of King Arthur's Holy Grail, and a nexus point for folk
tales of the occult. Murray, seeing parallels with her Egyptology work,
started digging through documents, and in 1917 she published
"Organizations of Witches in Great Britain" in the
Folklore Journal. That dry-sounding paper became her book,
The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, and kickstarted a vein of research that would fundamentally change the face of witchcraft as we know it.
At
that time, scholarly writing on witches in Western Europe was close to
zero, and two schools of thought existed. Either witches did exist,
regardless of whether they could cast spells or not, and they were
Satan-worshipping, baby-eating, broom-riding villains, or the women
convicted of witchcraft were all innocent victims of public hysteria who
made confessions under threat of torture. Murray, seeing room for a
middle ground, proposed a witch-cult theory that occupied the wide
schism between those polar opposite perceptions.
When
her work fell from favor, however, it was not gently phased out as
obsolete but ridiculed and denounced as a travesty of the study of
history.
But her methodologies were faulty. "Many people
are ready to criticise Margaret Murray's work, perhaps in some respects
with justification," says Mortimer, "and they also criticise Gerald's
credulity in being taken in by her, citing his desire for her findings
to be true as his blind spot." Mortimer is being generous. There was no
written evidence to suggest that witchcraft was an organized religious
movement, and no writings that tie witchcraft to the idea of a sabbath
meeting. Even the origins of the word 'coven' was suspect (Murray
thought it specifically referred to a witch—it probably came from the
word 'covent' and referred to any kind of meeting, not just a
supernatural one). She could only find one testimony that stated covens
should be made up of 13 members, from a Scottish witch-trial testimony.
Murray was unconcerned by the idea that the confessions and trial
documents that formed the basis of her theory could have been made
under threat of torture. She posited that torture was illegal at that
time, so it obviously never happened—a stance that is hopelessly naive
by contemporary standards. However, no research existed to contradict
her. She was an expert by default.
By
the 1990s, new historical evidence and diverse scholarship in pagan
studies meant that her work was almost entirely discredited. Writing in
2004 for
The Pomegranate, an academic journal of pagan studies,
Catherine Noble notes, "When her work fell from favor, however, it was
not gently phased out as obsolete but ridiculed and denounced as a
travesty of the study of history, an abuse of evidence coupled with
academic ignorance of her subject." Though she lived to be 100, Margaret
Murray faded into obscurity soon after her death in 1963. All that
remains of her legacy are two busts in University College London.
Regardless
of their opinions on Murray, most Wiccans would concede that her work
may not have been accurate, but it did facilitate the popularity and
legitimacy of their belief system.
The Witch-Cult of Western Europe had
a catalyzing effect. It brought witches—real witches, not
devil-worshippers or victims of circumstance—into the public realm. Like
some Christians, who read the Bible as a creation myth and not as
historical fact, many Wiccans now embrace the spirit of Murray's
findings, not the fallacy.
"It actually does not matter whether,
or to what extent, Murray was right or wrong or that Gerald Gardner made
it up or not," says Mortimer. "The system that was developed works for
its purpose, which is religious and spiritual development. And that, in
itself, is enough."
