Pierre C. Davis (aka Pete "Pathfinder" Davis) established the Aquarian Tabernacle Church (ATC) in Index, Washington, on November 1, 1979.
Davis was born on March 22, 1937, in Jersey City, New Jersey, to Joseph A. Davis, a Catholic, and Adele Claveloux Davis, a self-proclaimed Pagan, during a period when there was no prominent Pagan movement in the United States (1940s).
The ATC is still headquartered in Index, Washington, where it built the Moon Stone Circle, an outdoor circle of tall standing stones behind the church buildings amid a forest of tall old cedar trees.
Davis was initiated into the Craft for the first time on August 14, 1974, in Paterson, New Jersey, into the Dorpat tradition, a tiny, restricted, and highly clandestine ‘tradition.
After moving to Seattle, Washington, he was initiated into the Kingstone branch of British Traditional Wicca (see Wicca) on September 21, 1983.
Although his initial intention was to establish a small Wiccan retreat in the mountains near Seattle for local area Pagans to worship without interference, it quickly became his goal to establish a Wiccan church with federal government recognition, tax-exempt status, and tolerance—if not acceptance—by local mainstream religious bodies.
The Goddess, on the other hand, had a far bigger picture in mind, and the ATC was officially recognized by the US government on November 12, 1988.
Through this ‘group exemption, every ‘congregation that the ATC recognizes as an associated organization in the United States gets immediate recognition as a tax-exempt church.
The ATC was recognized in Canada on November 15, 1993, and was registered and recognized in Australia in 1994 via its affiliate there (which received its original recognition in 1984).
The church was founded in Ireland on February 24, 1999, by Janet Farrar and Stewart Farrar, and was later recognized by the Irish government as the first (and only) legally Wiccan/Pagan church in October 2001, thanks to the work of the Reverend Barbara Lauderdale, presiding elder.
The ATC was officially recognized by the South African government in August 1998, and was consecrated on December 29, 1984, by twenty-nine Wiccans who traveled from three states for the ritual, which took place amid a blinding blizzard.
