There is much imagined and written down by people who in recent times, have made incredible assumptions, often showing complete ignorance of recorded history of what pertains to witchcraft, and what does not.  The question is, was this done out of ignorance, or was it done intentionally?  In the case of Gerald Gardner, probably mostly the former and partly the latter.  I've hinted at this before, but it would seem that he wanted to wash Lucifer out of Leland's Aradia, and yet to use the book to create a ritualistic dogma which does not exist within Aradia.  Aradia is about a slave class of people who have broken free, live apart, and view mainstream society and anyone affluent as their enemy.  Gardner of course, could not have that in his new improved Wicca.

Okay so the obvious question here would be, do any other similar historical records of witchcraft exist which could corroborate this idea?  In particular, since Gardner was looking for evidence of British witchcraft, yet Aradia is about Italian witchcraft.  Well, yes there are. Let's start by ignoring the testimonies of alleged 'witches' were forced to make under duress by the very oppressive church, who through pain and threat of death could make people admit to anything.  Sure, we can gleam some things from them, but in the main we know how flawed that is as an historical resource.

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