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Gerald B Gardner
According to Gerald B Gardner, he was initiated as a witch in 1939 into a British coven. In 1954, after the 1951 repealing of the British Witchcraft Acts of 1735, he published Witchcraft Today. In his book, he purported that witchcraft was alive and well and had been for centuries, surviving the "Burning Times" of the witch hysteria in Europe. Needless to say, Gardner was embraced and is considered by many to have had the greatest influence upon modern-day Wicca.
Gardner, too, has had many detractors. Some even say that he created a new religion rather than reviving an old religion. Regardless, many modern covens, many modern rituals, and many modern Wiccan and witchcraft writers are Gardner-based and influenced.
Wiccan traditions today
Like many religions, there are differences amongst various sects. Wicca is no different. Today, there are Dianic/feminist, Scandinavian, Germanic, Celtic, Fairy/faery/Tuatha de Danaan, Druidic, Gardnerian, Alexandrian, Italian Strega, and so on, and so on.
The books considered to be most seminal with regards to current-day Wicca and witchcraft are Margot Adler's Drawing Down the Moon {her doctoral dissertation}, Justine Glass' Witchcraft, the Sixth Sense, and Starhawk's The Spiral Dance: a Rebirth of the Ancient Religion of the Great Goddess. Other authors that should be read are Isaac Bonewits, Raymond Buckland, Janet and Stewart Ferrar, and Raven Grimassi - and that's just a few - please see my Bibliography.
Indo-European word roots of "wicca"
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