Wicca collective community of Pagan Witches as "the Wica" (with one "c"). As a name for the religion, "Wicca" developed in Britain during the 1960s. It is not known who precisely invented the term "Wicca" in reference to the religion, although one possibility is that it might have been Gardner's rival Charles Cardell, who was referring to it as the "Craft of the Wiccens" by 1958. The first recorded use of the word "Wicca" appears in 1962, and it had been popularised to the extent that several British practitioners founded a newsletter called "The Wiccan" in 1968. Although pronounced differently, the
History of Wicca this was a form of "minority empowerment". For a long time, Wicca was seen as being simply a minor sect, or cult. However, with the rise of solitary practitioners describing themselves as Wiccans, the faith went from becoming simply a mystery cult to becoming a public religion. Groups were formed to represent the Wiccan community, such as the Covenant of the Goddess, which was founded in 1975. Wiccans began to appear on various British television documentaries, including "The Heaven & Earth Show" and "Desperately Seeking Something". In the USA, the court case of Dettmer v. Landon in 1986 established that