So how far do the roots of Wicca go back?

[Anonymous]

*Sigh*  
 
If you can find the following, read it....  
 
TITLE:.......................................The Philosophy of Witchcraft  
AUTHOR:...................................Ian Ferguson  
DATE OF PUBLICATION:............1926  
 
The above-mentioned text refers to an alternative philosophy identified by the author as "the Religion of the Witches."  If you read the book, taking all of the references (overt, and subtle) to this "religion" and lumping them together to form a rough outline of what that 'religion" might look like as a functional ideology, it looks a great deal like Gardner's "Wicca"---some thirteen years before the "initiation" with Clutterbuck-and-Company, and some twenty-three years before High Magic's Aid (written as a fictional work, it has been said, due to "The Fraudulent Mediums and Witchcraft Act" still being in force)...and even a longer stretch to Witchcraft Today....
 
As for these maddening insinuations of Wicca having "very long roots,"  my beliefs are that those roots probably go back into the mid-to-latter years of the Nineteenth century, at most.
 
Gee...I always thought it was "a really good deal" to "get in on the ground floor" of something, especially being a part of an up-and-coming philosophy during its inceptional years.  To me, Wicca is still a toddler---and those who are a part of it have the rare opportunity of being a part of its "growing up;" its "formative years."  Wicca was still pretty much "an infant in diapers" when Gardner died, when compared to the more established belief-systems....