Raymond Howard (Wiccan)

Raymond Howard was an English practitioner of the modern Pagan new religious movement of Wicca. He promoted his tradition, known as the Coven of Atho, through a correspondence course established in the early part of the 1960s.

In the late 1950s, Howard lived in Charlwood, Surrey, where he worked for the psychologist and Wiccan Charles Cardell. After the pair fell out, Howard assisted a journalist from the London Evening News in spying on a nocturnal ritual carried out by Cardell and his coven. In the early 1960s, he established his own correspondence course, the Coven of Atho, through which he provided instruction on his own variant of Wicca, which drew upon that of Cardell and other sources. By the latter part of that decade he was running an antiques shop in Field Dalling, Norfolk, where he stored a wooden carving of the Wiccan Horned God, known as the "Head of Atho". He attracted press attention for the Head, informing both journalists and other Wiccans that it had been passed down to him by pre-existing Witches, although his son later revealed it to be a forgery created by Howard himself. In April 1967 the head was stolen, perhaps by Cardell, and never recovered.

In the late 1950s, Howard lived with his first wife in Ricketts Wood Cottages in Charlwood, Surrey. This was located near to Dumbledene, the country house of Charles Cardell, a stage conjuror and psychologist for whom Howard worked as a handyman. Cardell and 'Mary Cardell' — a woman whom he erroneously claimed was his sister — ran a company called Dumblecott Magick Productions through which they sold magical potions and related paraphernalia. They were known to prominent British Wiccans like Gerald Gardner and Doreen Valiente, and they had placed an advertisement in the esoteric magazine Light encouraging fellow practitioners of the "Craft of the Wiccens" to contact them.

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