Reacting against the increasingly inclusive use of the term was Pagan Witches who instead characterised their practices as forms of Traditional Witchcraft . Many Pagan Witches who considered themselves to be Traditional Witches exhibited an us @-@ and @-@ them mentality against Gardnerianism and allied traditions , for whom they reserved the term Wicca . Doyle White suggest that they had done so in order to distance themselves from the increasing influence of the New Age movement over the Wiccan mainstream with its " iconographical emphasis on white light " , instead embracing the traditional European view that associated witchcraft with darkness . Historian Ronald Hutton state that he knew of three Wiccan covens founded in the 1980s who began to describe themselves as Traditional Witches in the 1990s .