Robert Cochrane (witch)

As noted by Michael Howard, "factual details about Cochrane's early life are scant".[1] He was born in an area between Hammersmith and Shepherd's Bush in West London into a family of eight children.[2] He later described it as a "slum", though this has been refuted by family members, who considered it a "respectable working class area".[2] There, he lived through the Blitz.[2] Some of his family emigrated to Australia, while he went to art school, living a bohemian lifestyle.[2] His aunt would later claim that he first took an interest in occultism after attending a talk of the Society for Psychical Research in Kensington.[3]

During the early 1950s, he joined the army as a part of his national service, but went absent without leave; as punishment, he was sentenced to 90 days imprisonment in a military prison in Colchester.[2] He admitted to having a violent temper in his youth, but calmed after meeting Jane, whom he would later marry.[2] For a time he worked for London Transport as a blacksmith in a foundry; one potential reason why he adopted the blacksmith Tubal Cain as a part of the mythos for his tradition.[5] He and Jane later worked as bargees transporting coal around the English Midlands, taking an interest in the folklore of the Bargee community, later believing that it contained traces of the "Old Faith".[5] By the start of the 1960s, he was living with Jane and their son on a London County Council-run council estate near to Slough, Berkshire; he did not like the neighbours, considering them "the biggest load of monkeys there have been trained since the Ark."[3] He worked as a typographical draughtsman in an office, but disliked his job.[3] He founded a witches' coven, but it soon broke up as one member died and he fell out with another.[3]

Later, in the 1960s, he claimed that members of his family had been practitioners of an ancient pagan witch-cult since at least the 17th century, and that two of them had been executed for it.[6] Claiming that his great-grandfather had been "the last Grand Master of the Staffordshire witches",[6] he said that his grandparents had abandoned the Craft and converted to Methodism, for which his great-grandfather had cursed them. He said that his father had practised witchcraft, but that he kept it a secret, and made his wife promise to not tell his son, Robert. Despite her oath, according to Cochrane, after his father's death, her mother did in fact tell him, at which he embraced his heritage.[6] He asserted that his Aunt Lucy actually taught him all about the faith.[6] However, these claims would later be denounced by members of his own family. His nephew, Martin Lloyd, has refuted that the family were ever Witches, insisting that they were Methodists,[7] while his wife Jane also later asserted that Cochrane's claims to have come from a hereditary Witch-Cult were bogus.[8]

Cochrane formed his second coven, which provided the basis for the Clan of Tubal Cain, in the early 1960s.[3] Searching for members, he placed an advert in the Manchester Guardian requesting that anyone interested in Graves' The White Goddess contact him; he received a response from the schoolteacher Ronald Milland White, known to his friends as "Chalky".[3] White then introduced him to George Arthur Stannard (also known as George Winter), who ran a betting shop near Kings Cross in Central London.[3] White and Stannard joined this nascent coven, the latter taking up the position of Summoner.[3] Describing his creation of his Witchcraft tradition, later Maid of the Clan Shani Oates remarked that "Like any true craftsman, he was able to mold raw material into a magical synthesis, creating a marvelous working system, at once instinctively true and intrinsically beautiful."[9]

The group performed their rituals either at Cochrane's house, or, more often, at Burnham Beeches, though they also performed rituals at the South Downs, after which they would stay the night at Doreen Valiente's flat in Brighton.[10]

Cochrane arose to public prominence in November 1963, when he published an article titled "Genuine Witchcraft is Defended" in Psychic News, a weekly Spiritualist publication. In it, he outlined his beliefs regarding Witchcraft, and first publicly made the claim that he came from a hereditary line of Witches.[15]

In 1964, further individuals joined the Clan. Among these was Evan John Jones, who would later become the Magister of The Clan of Tubal Caine, and an accomplished author upon the subject of witchcraft. Jones had met Cochrane through his wife Jane, as they both worked at the same company.[10]

Valiente described Cochrane as "a remarkable man",[33] asserting that he "had something" which could be termed "magical power, charisma or what you will. He may have been devious; but he was no charlatan."[34]

According to Jonathan Tapsell, Cochrane was "an unsung giant of modern Wicca" due to the fact that he "gave inspiration to those who came later to escape the narrow confines of Gardner's philosophy".[35] Michael Howard considered him to be "one of the most fascinating, enigmatic and controversial figures of the modern Craft revival".[36] John of Monmouth claimed that Cochrane was "the man behind, what is now called, 'Traditional Witchcraft '".[37] Historian Ethan Doyle White asserted that Cochrane left behind "an ever-expanding legacy", noting that by the 21st century, he had become an "almost tutelary figure" within the Traditional Witchcraft movement, and warrants the title of "Father of Traditional Witchcraft" more than any other occultist.[38] Elsewhere, Doyle White asserted that Cochrane had been "without doubt the most influential" of Gardner's rivals in the mid-20th century nmoWiccan movement.[39]

Following Cochrane's death, the Mantle of Magister of the Clan of Tubal Cain was given to Evan John Jones.[40] Another of Cochrane's initiates, Evan John Jones wrote a book, Witchcraft: A Tradition Renewed (a collaboration with Doreen Valiente)[41] outlining his version of the Cochrane tradition. Whilst there was no objective way to validate Cochrane's claim to be a hereditary witch, the experience of being in his coven was that of being one of "Diana's darling crew" (Jones, cited in Clifton, 2006).

A group called The Regency was formed by Ronald "Chalky" White and his friend, George Winter, to preserve and continue Cochrane's tradition; it eventually disbanded in 1978 but recently a website has been set up to preserve The Regency memory.[42]

Following correspondence with Cochrane in the mid 1960s, an American named Joseph Wilson founded a tradition called the 1734 Tradition, based on his teachings circa 1974.[40][31]

A similarly Cochrane-inspired tradition was the Roebuck,[43] an inner mystery of the godhead whose lore is also used by the "Ancient Keltic Church".[44]

There are currently two groups operating under the title of Clan of Tubal Cain. Each has its own interpretation and expression of the legacy of Robert Cochrane, although they may not necessarily completely agree with each other.[45]

Cochrane did not write any books in his lifetime,[1] though some of his collected writings and letters have been assembled since his death:

• The Roebuck in the Thicket: An Anthology of the Robert Cochrane Witchcraft Tradition, Capall Bann Publishing, 2001
• The Robert Cochrane Letters: An Insight into Modern Traditional Witchcraft, Capall Bann Publishing, 2002

Other works have been published about Cochrane based upon his teachings, and on his Craft, or based upon his ideas

• Sacred Mask, Sacred Dance by Evan John Jones with Chas S. Clifton, Llewellyn, 1997
• Witchcraft, A Tradition Renewed, by Evan John Jones with Doreen Valiente, Hale, 1989
• " The Star Crossed Serpent Vol One by Evan John Jones, Edited by Shani Oates, Mandrake of Oxford 2011
• " The Star crossed Serpent Vol Two by Shani Oates, Mandrake of Oxford, 2012
• " The People of Goda by Shani Oates, Create Space, 2012
• " Tubelo's Green Fire by Shani Oates, Mandrake of Oxford, 2010
• " The Arcane Veil by Shani Oates, Mandrake of Oxford, 2011

• Robert Cochrane, from controverscial.com (Retrieved 2007-02-08).
• Phillips, Julia History of Wicca in England: 1939 to the Present Day 2004 revised edition (Retrieved 2007-02-08).
• Semple, Gavin W., A Poisoned Chalice (Reineke Verlag, 2004) gives a scrupulously researched account of Bowers' suicide from contemporary documents.
• Clifton, Chas C., Evan John Jones 1936–2003, Letter from Hardscrabble Creek. Letter from Hardscrabble Creek: Evan John Jones 1936-2003 (Retrieved 2008-05-05)
• Clifton, Chas C., Her Hidden Children: The Rise of Wicca and Paganism in America (Altamira Press, 2006)
• Oates, Shani., "The People of Goda" (Create Space, 2012)