Editing Gerald Gardner (section)

===The New Forest coven: 1939–1944===
{{main article|New Forest coven}}

Although sceptical of the Rosicrucian Order, Gardner got on well with a group of individuals inside the group who were "rather brow-beaten by the others, kept themselves to themselves."{{Sfn|Heselton|2012a|p=198}} Gardner's biographer Philip Heselton theorised that this group consisted of [[Edith Woodford-Grimes]] (1887–1975), Susie Mason, her brother Ernie Mason, and their sister Rosetta Fudge, all of whom had originally come from [[Southampton]] before moving to the area around Highcliffe, where they joined the Order.{{Sfn|Heselton|2012a|p=198}}

According to Gardner, "unlike many of the others [in the Order], [they] had to earn their livings, were cheerful and optimistic and had a real interest in the occult". Gardner became "really very fond of them", remarking that he "would have gone through hell and high water even then for any of them."{{Sfn|Bracelin|1960|p=165}} In particular he grew close to Woodford-Grimes, being invited over to her home to meet her daughter, and the two helped each other with their writing, Woodford-Grimes probably assisting Gardner edit ''A Goddess Arrives'' prior to publication. Gardner would subsequently give her the nickname "Dafo", for which she would become better known.{{Sfn|Heselton|2012a|pp=199–200, 205}}

[[File:Latimers.jpg|thumb|left|The Mill House in Highcliffe, where Gardner was supposedly initiated into the Craft]]
According to Gardner's later account, one night in September 1939, they took him to a large house owned by [[Dorothy Clutterbuck|"Old Dorothy" Clutterbuck]], a wealthy local woman, where he was made to strip naked and taken through an initiation ceremony. Halfway through the ceremony, he heard the word "Wicca (Male)" and "Wicce (Female)", and he recognised it as an [[Old English]] word for "witch".

He was already acquainted with [[Margaret Murray]]'s theory of the [[witch-cult hypothesis|Witch-cult]], and that "I then knew then that which I had thought burnt out hundreds of years ago still survived."{{sfn|Heselton|2012a|pp=207–215}} This group were the [[New Forest coven]], and he portrayed them as one of the few surviving [[coven]]s of an ancient, pre-Christian Witch-Cult religion. Murray's theory of a pagan 'witch-cult' has been discredited. Later research by the likes of Hutton and Heselton has shown that the New Forest coven was probably only formed in the mid-1930s, based upon Murray's discredited theories and works on folk magic.{{sfn|Heselton|2012a|pp=225–228}}

Gardner only ever described one of their rituals in depth, and this was an event that he termed "Operation Cone of Power". According to his own account, it took place in 1940 in a part of the New Forest and was designed to ward off the Nazis from invading Britain by magical means. Gardner wrote that a "Great Circle" was erected at night, with a "great cone of power" – a form of magical energy – being raised and sent to Berlin with the command of "you cannot cross the sea, you cannot cross the sea, you cannot come, you cannot come".{{sfnm|Bracelin|1960|1p=167|Heselton|2012a|2pp=237–251}}