Grab,

I don't think there's a big problem with claiming that there are traditions that developed since the 1950s. eg: "we have a tradition in my family of singing at the holidays" often just means for the last ten years or so. "Traditional" in the folk music world has specific connotations that it may not have elsewhere. But even in folk music, you're apt to hear that Cropredy is a tradition, for example.

It's true that much of Wiccan belief and practice is newfangled. Most Wiccans are very honest about this, but some make claims to greater antiquity than is warranted for various of their practices. Many are more interested in the spirituality of it than in the history, so thay haven't done the research to know what is truly old and what is new. Much of the early research on what was called the "witch cult" of ancient and medieval Europe wasn't really that convincing anyway. In this sense, you could say "it's all a load of bollocks."

But I'm always puzzled why members of other religions are so disparaging of newer ones. "It can't be a tradition, it's too young" is only the mildest form of this disparagement. The more stringent form is PP's, above. Why do you folks have to pee on other people's campfires?

Gargoyle's is, of course, the paranoid, Urban-Legend version, in which neo-pagans sacrifice humans. (You should read Jeff Victor's book "Satanic Panic" on this, Garg.)