Oh, I know that it was accepted and unquestioned. Doesn't mean the scholarship was particularly good. I don't know if standards have gotten more rigorous or something, but the articles by Gimbutas I've read wouldn't have passed muster if I'd handed them in for my bachelor's thesis.

It wasn't until I realized that the myth of original matriarchy was just a myth that I realized what I really wanted from Wicca, and that I did in fact actually want it. I didn't see value in it because the neat stories were or needed to be true. I saw stuff in there worth doing, regardless of whether the stories were actual history.