History of Wicca hypothesized secret religion. Many Wiccans, particularly those of the early decades, believed that their religion was a continuation of the witch-cult. It was only during the 1980s and 1990s that some Wiccans began to see the idea of the Witch-Cult as a creation myth rather than as historical fact. For instance, in 1998, Wiccan Jenny Gibbons stated that: Another hypothesis that would have major influence on Wicca during its development was the idea of primitive matriarchal religions, which derived from the work of the Swiss lawyer Johann Jakob Bachofen, was popular in Gardner's day, both among academics (e.g., Erich Neumann,
Church and School of Wicca Seminar", in which workshops, rituals, and lectures took place, primarily for students of their correspondence course. In 1996 they relocated to Hinton, West Virginia. In 1985 the Church of Wicca were involved in the "Dettmer v. Landon" case, during which the District Court of Virginia ruled that Wicca constituted a legitimate religion under U.S. law. The Virginia prison authorities appealed the case, and in 1986 Judge J. Butzner of the Federal Appeals Court upheld the original decision. This made the Church of Wicca the only federally recognised Wiccan church to have its status as a religion upheld in a federal