Wicca Murray's explanations into his own tradition. The witch-cult theory represented "the historical narrative around which Wicca built itself", with the early Wiccans claiming to be the survivors of this ancient pagan religion. Other influences upon early Wicca included various Western esoteric traditions and practices, among them ceremonial magic, Aleister Crowley and his religion of Thelema, Freemasonry, Spiritualism, and Theosophy. To a lesser extent, Wicca also drew upon folk magic and the practices of cunning folk. It was further influenced both by scholarly works on folkloristics, particularly James Frazer's "The Golden Bough", as well as romanticist writings like Robert Graves' "The
Wicca the churches, which they regard as a lot of man-made dogma". The religious studies scholar Graham Harvey noted that "the popular and prevalent media image [of Wicca] is mostly inaccurate". In the United States, a number of legal decisions have improved and validated the status of Wiccans, especially "Dettmer v. Landon" in 1986. However, Wiccans have encountered opposition from some politicians and Christian organisations, including former president of the United States George W. Bush, who stated that he did not believe Wicca to be a religion. In 2007 the United States Department of Veterans Affairs after years of dispute added