History of Wicca Book of Shadows, adding further degrees of initiation which were required before members could found their own covens. Interest outstripped the ability of the mostly British-based covens to train and propagate members; the beliefs of the religion spread faster by the printed word or word of mouth than the initiatory system was prepared to handle. Also in the 1960s, non-Gardnerian forms of Witchcraft (which are sometimes viewed as Wicca, or sometimes as "Traditional Witchcraft") made their way to the USA. The American Joseph Bearwalker Wilson corresponded with the English Robert Cochrane prior to Cochrane's ritual suicide in 1966, and from
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