1963 Letter from Patricia Kopinski to Gerald Gardner - Transcription

Dated 5th of September 1963, this is a transcription of the only known letter written from Patricia Kopinski to Gerald Gardner. It mentions the initiation of Alex Sanders, Sylvia Tatham and Kopinski by 'Medea'. The original letter is in the archives  Richard and Tamarra James of the Wiccan Church of Canada How to cite: 1963 Letter from Patricia Kopinski to Gerald Gardner.  Alexandrian Witchcraft Timeline & Archive. https://alexandrianwitchcraft.org/archive/1963-letter-from-patricia-kopinski-to-gerald-gardner

Pat Kopinski, 19, Rutland Ave. Toton, Beeston, Notts. 5. 9. 63. Dear Dr. Gerald, I have just had a letter from Alex Sanders who I gather has been writing to you recently. He said you sent me your love. Thank you for that. I was let down very badly by those people in Sheffield, and for a time I seriously though of forgetting there was such a thing as the Craft. When I was first initiated I was very happy to think I had found something I could really believe in, but as time went by that feeling grew less and less. Instead of having a faith, and rites to perform in honour of the Goddess, I found that these rites were degenerating into nothing more than a tenth-rate farce, and and un-funny one at that. I never learned anything, if I a asked questions or wanted to learn the rites so that I could do them without fumbling I was told to mind my own business. I was given nothing except a slightly crude rite for the morning. I had no book - except an empty one - and the high priestess would never give me even the ordinary rites which were performed by the whole coven, in spite of the fact that the oath we all took states that we will not deny the secrets of the Craft to our brother and sister witches. I was treated like dirt by her in spite of all I did to help them. She accused me of heaven knows what except when I was working to help them. All I got was backbiting, petty jealousy and intrigue. I was told I had no humility simply because I was proud of the fact that my father's family was one of the oldest and noblest in Ireland. Pride in that family was all he left me, and it is mine by right of birth. She despised me because I had no worldly wealth. None of that bothered me, what did hurt me was the way I was denied all knowledge of the Craft, and the backbiting and contempt I recieved from someone whom I had regarded as my friend. Then i heard she had taken two people into the coven with whom I could not possibly work. One of them had been the moving force behind the Aldreley Edge incident last year, the other, the less said about him the better, except that it would be against all my natural instincts to have anything to do with that type of man. She hadn't even the decency or courage to ask me to leave the coven, she used an eight month old newspaper clipping and accused me of being involved in the Alderley Edge incident. I didn't even know such a place existed until you showed me the newspaper cuttings. So I did the only thing I could do under the circumstances, have nothing more to do with them. Alex wrote to me several times but I ignored him until the accusations about (next page of the letter)
the newspaper cuttings. I sent a letter playing hell with him and eventually [he?] [came?] to see me bringing with him the whole press story, including the piece I had recieved from Sheffield. That turned out to be part of the same newspaper and not as I had been told from one [published a few weeks before]. I gathered that they had been lying about that as they had about other things. Such as their table-rapping which I knew was a fake as I had several times given them false information which was faithfully reproduced at later meetings. I don't know what they have told you, but it is quite untrue, I'm sure of that. My witch-name is not Medea. That is the name of the Derbyshire high-priestess. I told them that in Sheffield, so she has told you another lie. I had a girl-friend and her fiancé who were interested in the Craft, but after showing them the letters I got from Sheffield, they refused even to meet Thelema and Alestair. Eventually they met someone who introduced them to Medea and brought her over to see me. We wanted to have a coven here as it was easy for us to meet quite often. Medea had already initiated my friend Sylvia and I asked her if I could be made high priestess so we could continue with our meetings. When I told her I had originally been taken into the Sheffield coven she was horrified and refused point-blank. She said she would have nothing to do with anyone concerned with that "crowd of charlatans" as she c called them. She said that the witches she had met in different parts of the county refused to associate themselves with anyone from Sheffield. I showed her the letter I had recieved and after explaining things to her, I managed to persuade her to th[ink] it over. When Alex came over he met her and told her the whole story of the Alderl[ey] Edge business and she finally made up her mind to initiate him on the 9th of Mar[ch] with me as his sponsor. On the 10th she made me high priestess and Sylvia the Maid[en.] I gather that Medea and her husband came from Shropshire and they have been in th[is] area since the war. The other two members of their coven live in Northampton, but I only met them once. Medea's husband died last April and she has now gone to live with her sister in Dorset. I gather she has decided to resign as high priestess, sh[e] is around 50 and she said she would give up her position. She put me through the pentacle and gave me the secret names. But we shall do not have all the rites. We have to manage as best we can. I have five members in my coven at the moment, counting Alex who comes now and then again. We only have two women, but we may have a third if she is suitable. Sylvia is very good, she always gets excellent results from her work, including her latest when she helped one of the women in her office to get great relief from the rathe[r] crippling arthritis she has suffered from fro years, and she did it without this [Page 3] woman's knowledge. She is a bit impulsive but she will but she will learn, and she loves the Craft[.] It has given her a new meaning in life. She has not had too happy a life recently, her brother whom she loved dearly committed suicide a few years ago and it left a great shadow on her but since she has been in my coven that shadow has been lifted and she is much happier and has much more peace of mind. She has a very great love for the Goddess. Mostly we have been working for other people's health and we seem to have had some success. We worked for my son to pass his G. C. E. in biology and we were successful there. I was wondering if you would like to come and spend a week or so here with us, then you could meet the new coven. They are all longing to see you as they have all heard so much about you. I would love to have you here for a visit. I have a friend who is a lecturer in psychology at the University, although he is actually a historian. He is a member of the Society for Psychical Research and he is writing a book at the moment on 19th century hauntings and so on. He is waiting for some letters that were written by a man whose biography he is incorporating in his book. He is als[o] interested in witchcraft and he has a very good collection of these books including some 16th and 17th century editions. He would like to meet you if you can come over so that he can ask you something about our beliefs etc.. He has read your books on the Craft and enjoyed them. Now he says he would like to meet the author. He is preparing a lecture on poltergeists which I think he is giving either this week or next. He has actually had experience of one. He loans me some of his books and lets me go to his flat to type out anything I need from the more valuable ones. But there are so many I never know where to begin. I don't know if he will ever want to join the coven, he has said nothing about it yet, although I would like him to. I would like him for my high priest, but of course I cannot ask him to join or try to persuade him in any way, that must come from him. All I can do is hope that he will get a bit interested in me then perhaps he will come to us. Sylvia suggests we work a love charm on him, but we are rather vague as to what to do. We found one in one of his books, but that was written in the days when men wore garters. I was hoping to come to Castletown this year, but I haven't been able to afford it, and I've been suffering from recurring bronchitis off and on since last December. I hope that you have kept in good health, last winter was shocking. I think that's about all the news I can give you about our new coven. Please come and see us if you can. We all would dearly love to see you. Please keep this letter under your hat and don't mention it to the people from Sheffield. I've had enough trouble from them. All we want to do is to be allowed to practise our religion in peace without a lot of mud-slinging and backbiting from them. Write back to me if you have the time. [In handwriting:] My love to you & the five fold kiss. Blessed Be ! Pat Kopinski