Biographical information
- Civil name: Frederic Lamond
- Craft name: Robert
- Born: 5 July 1931
- Gardnerian initiation: 2 February 1957 (probable)
- Died: 24 May 2020
Life and contribution to the Craft
Frederic Lamond joined the Bricket Wood coven in 1957 and was initiated while Dayonis was active in its ritual leadership. His firsthand experience with Gerald Gardner and other members produced valuable recollections of the group and its changes during the 1950s. Lamond remained involved in Pagan networks and interfaith dialogue and contributed to discussions of Wiccan religion. In Fifty Years of Wicca (2004), he combined personal memoir with a critical assessment of the tradition’s development. His account is particularly useful for reconstructing the coven’s everyday practices, internal disagreements, and transmission.
Heselton’s biographical account places Lamond’s religious experience within a wider intellectual background. Born in 1931, he spent part of his childhood in French-speaking Switzerland with his maternal grandmother, studied Economics at Cambridge and Planning at the University of Chicago. He later worked in computing, but in the mid-1950s he was a market researcher and a member of the Progressive League, an association associated with pacifism, progressive education, naturism, and personal liberty. Reading Witchcraft Today, after exploring writing on sexuality and witchcraft history, prompted him to contact Gardner.
Frederic first met Gardner in June 1956. With his friend Jacqueline, also a member of the Progressive League, he attended social gatherings with coven members that autumn, though they departed before the rituals. They were accepted in December and initiated, probably on 2 February 1957, in the Witches’ Cottage at Bricket Wood. His later account of the ceremony emphasizes his sense of having found a religious and spiritual community to which he belonged.
Only weeks later, the coven split. Lamond remained with Gardner and Dayonis, whom he regarded as particularly important to his initiation, while Doreen Valiente, Ned Grove, and Derek Boothby departed. Heselton drew on his recollections to reconstruct not only the split but also the ordinary conduct of rituals, magical practices, use of the Witches’ Cottage, and the community’s subsequent changes. Lamond published his own reflections in Fifty Years of Wicca.
References consulted
- HUTTON, Ronald. The Triumph of the Moon. Oxford University Press.
- ARANTES, Flávio Lopes. Raízes da Wicca Gardneriana.
- Biographical and historical material.
- HESELTON, Philip. Witchfather: A Life of Gerald Gardner. Vol. 2: From Witch Cult to Wicca. Loughborough: Thoth Publications, 2012, pp. 525–528, 533–534, 540–541.