Doreen Valiente was one of the key figures in the development of modern Wicca, and a well-respected witch. She was born in London and later lived in Sussex with her husband Casimiro Valiente, a refugee from the Spanish Civil War (d. 1972). Aware of her clairvoyant abilities, Doreen Valiente read Dion Fortune (see Fortune, Dion) and Aleister Crowley (see Crowley, Aleister) before meeting Gerald Gardner (see Gardner, Gerald) in 1952. She was initiated by Gardner in 1953 and worked with him as his High Priestess in the New Forest Coven. Over time, she revised his Book of Shadows to remove extensive passages written by Crowley, re-writing the Charge of the Goddess to which she added the Charge of the God much later, in 1997. She thus acted as an influential force in the formation of Gardnerian Wicca, but Gardner's increasing seeking after publicity as the 1950s drew on and his attempt to impose self-authored 'Laws' of the craft eventually led to mutiny in the coven; Valiente and other members left and went their separate ways in 1957.
After Gardner's death in 1964, Valiente met Robert Cochrane who claimed to be a hereditary witch, and worked with his Clan of Tubal Cain coven. She broke with Cochrane in 1966 having become disillusioned by his fabrications and annoyed by his attacks on Gardnerian witches through the Pentagram, journal of the short-lived Witchcraft Research Association formed in 1964.
Valiente periodically withdrew from the public face of witchcraft, but was consistent in her support for what she called the 'Old Religion'. In 1964 she gave the inaugural speech at the launch of the Pentagram, and in 1971 she was a founder member of the Pagan Front, which later became the Pagan Federation. In November 1998, just ten months before her death, she spoke at the annual Pagan Federation conference in London. Her life within Wicca, witchcraft and Paganism is documented in her books The Rebirth of Witchcraft, Witchcraft for Tomorrow, and Witchcraft: A Tradition Renewed (with Evan Jones).