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
Church and School of Wicca wife Yvonne was an American with a background in Spiritualism. He then claimed to have been initiated into a Wiccan group in St. Louis, Missouri. When living in St. Louis they developed a correspondence course through which to teach others about Wicca, advertising these courses as the "School of Wicca". They argued that by spreading their religious teaching in the form of a correspondence course, they were reaching a wider range of people than initiatory-based forms of Wicca, and that this would be necessary in order for the religion to become a "strong religious force". They believed strongly that Wicca