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
Central Valley Wicca offshoot or even a precursor of Gardnerian Wicca, while others suggest that the CVW share a common ancestor with what later became Gardnerian Wicca. According to their original custom, an initiate of Central Valley Wicca was not told who their initiator's initiator was; therefore, the identity of the person who first brought Wicca to the Central Valley remains a mystery. What is known is that she had ties to England and had most likely lived there; she was either British or had close connection to a British subject prior to settling in California. At that time, individual names for "traditions"