liddell's claims have received a mixed response from the british wiccan community. score championed them in private letters to his correspondents, declaring that they proved that the gardnerian tradition had historical origins predating gardner. his successor as editor of "the wiccan", leonora james, was intrigued by liddell's claims and investigated the original records pertaining to pickingill's life; however, by the 1980s she had concluded that liddell's claims were spurious. in her 1978 book "witchcraft for tomorrow", the wiccan doreen valiente – who had been gardner's high priestess in the bricket wood coven during the 1950s—stated that she had an "east anglian source" from essex who claimed that many of liddell's assertions were correct. in particular, the informant championed liddell's claims that crowley had been an initiate of one of pickingill's covens. by the time of her 1989 book "the rebirth of witchcraft", valiente was more sceptical of liddell's claims, noting that any supporting evidence was "still sadly lacking".