Philip Heselton
A retired British conservation officer, a Wiccan initiate, and a writer on the subjects of Wicca, Paganism, and Earth mysteries. He is best known for two books, Wiccan Roots: Gerald Gardner and the Modern Witchcraft Revival and Gerald Gardner and the Cauldron of Inspiration, which gather historical evidence surrounding the New Forest coven and the origins of Gardnerian Wicca.
Publications
In 1954 a book was published which claimed that witches were not just some historical oddity but that the author, retired civil servant, Gerald Gardner, had been initiated into a witch coven in the New Forest, Hampshire, England in 1939.
It has long been rumoured that on the eve of August 1940, a coven of witches gathered in the New Forest to create an immense surge of magical forces to aid Britain's fight in WWII.