The Reclaiming community of witches was founded in 1979 in San Francisco by the Jewish author Starhawk. Their name refers to the spirituality re-claimed from ancient Paganism and goddess worship in order to heal estrangement from Biblical religion. Believing that Western culture suffers from severe social and spiritual disease because its founding religions deny such major aspects of the nature of reality as divine immanence and ecological/magical interdependence. From this stance, feminist witches have created the compassionate alternative known as Wicca.

The Reclaiming community of witches was founded in 1979 in San Francisco by the Jewish author Starhawk. Their name refers to the spirituality re-claimed from ancient Paganism and goddess worship in order to heal estrangement from Biblical religion. Believing that Western culture suffers from severe social and spiritual disease because its founding religions deny such major aspects of the nature of reality as divine immanence and ecological/magical interdependence. From this stance, feminist witches have created the compassionate alternative known as Wicca.