Frost, Gavin (1930-)

Gavin Frost, cofounder of the Church and School of Wicca, was born in Stratfordshire, England. During his childhood years his Welsh family took him on trips to the homeland, where he was introduced to magical folklore and awakened to what became a lifelong interest. He attended London University from which he received his B.S. in mathematics in 1953. He later earned a doctorate in math. In the 1960s he moved to Canada to continue a career in the aerospace industry. By this time he had become involved in Witchcraft. He moved on to Anaheim, California, where he met his future wife, Yvonne Wilson. She was a Spiritualist, and together they began to study psychic development at a Spiritualist center. They moved to St. Louis, Missouri, and while there they were formally initiated into the Craft.

They began to write up the material they had received in their occult training but had difficulty finding a publisher. They decided to reorganize the material into lessons for a correspondence course. They organized a "School of Wicca" and advertised the lesson in various occult periodicals. Shortly thereafter the Church of Wicca was also formed. In the midst of these developments, in 1970 Gavin married Yvonne.

In the early 1970s the school found a level of response from youthful seekers and in 1972 Gavin quit his job to devote full time to its development. In 1974, they relocated their headquarters to New Bern, North Carolina. By the middle of the decade it had become one of the largest groups within the emerging Wiccan community, and the publication of their original book in 1975 as The Witch's Bible was met with a high level of criticism from other Wiccans. They complained that the book implied that it spoke for all Wiccans (a fact that Frost denied), but were most upset over the lack of emphasis upon the Goddess. The controversy was soon resolved as each side agreed to disagree.

Through the 1970s and 1980s Frost led the church and school as its archbishop. With Yvonne, he wrote a number of books on Witchcraft and magic. The school has maintained an enrollment of approximately 5,000. Toward the end of the 1990s, Frost retired and passed along the leadership of the school to his lieutenants. The headquarters has since moved to West Virginia.

Sources:

Frost, Gavin, and Yvonne Frost. The Magic Power of Witchcraft. West Nyack, N.Y.: Parker Publishing, 1976.

——. Meta-Psychometry: Key to Power and Abundance. West Nyack, N.Y.: Parker Publishing, 1978.

——. Power Secrets from a Sorcerer's Private Magnum Arcanum. West Nyack, N.Y.: Parker Publishing, 1980.

——. Who Speaks for the Witch. New Bern, N.C.: Godolphin House, 1991.

——. The Witch's Bible. New York: Berkley Books, 1975.

——. A Witch's Guide to Life. Cottonwood, Ariz.: Esoteric Publishing, 1978.