History of Wicca the Gospel of the Witches" by Charles Godfrey Leland and the practices of ceremonial magic. The original material in the rituals brought to light by Gardner is not cohesive, and mostly takes the form of substitutions or expansions within unoriginal material. Roger Dearnaley, in "An Annotated Chronology and Bibliography of the Early Gardnerian Craft", describes it as a "patchwork". One element that is apparently distinctive is the use of ritual scourging and binding as a method of attaining an ecstatic trance for magical working. Hutton argues strongly that this practice in Wicca does not reflect sado-masochistic sexuality (he refers in
Wicca practice of magic, though it is not always necessary. Scholars of religious studies classify Wicca as a new religious movement, and more specifically as a form of modern Paganism. Cited as the largest, best known, most influential, and most extensively academically studied form of Paganism, within the movement it has been identified as sitting on the former end of the eclectic to reconstructionist spectrum. Several academics have also categorised Wicca as a form of nature religion, a term that is also embraced by many of the faith's practitioners. However, given that Wicca also incorporates the practice of magic, several scholars