liddell's claims regarding pickingill are self-contradictory. liddell explained this by stating that the information contained in his articles had been passed on to him by three separate sources, all of which had decided to use him as a mouthpiece for their own claims. the first were the members of a hereditary tradition of pagan witchcraft, while the second were the practitioners of a similar yet separate tradition of pagan witchcraft which, liddell alleged, had been greatly influenced by pickingill in the nineteenth century. the third source cited by liddell was his own experiences gained from being born into a witchcraft family and subsequently being initiated into both of the aforementioned traditions and a separate "cunning lodge". he claimed that most of the information that he was publishing came from "elders", or older members, involved in the first two of these traditions, and that as such he could not vouch for its accuracy, going so far as to state that he doubted the veracity of much of it.