The result of the 1946 Cabinet mission to India was the now famous '10 Years to Dominion' plan, authored by Lord Pethwick-Lawrence. The plan envisioned a constitutional convention, local elections, the gradual phasing out of the black laws, the patriation and nativisation of domestic policy, followed by the creation of a federal and sovereign Dominion of India.
October 1949- Mao Zedong proclaims the creation of the People's Republic of China.
February 1950- The Tibetan government, fearful of a Chinese invasion, accepts the British offer of military advisors.
December 1952- The three-party talks concerning the status of Tibet break down. The British feel confident in their position, given their recent testing of nuclear weapons. MI6 approves a series of new operations, including an investigation into occult beliefs in China and Tibet.
March 1953- Cecil Williamson is appointed to head the newly-created Tibetan Witchcraft Research Center in Tibet, filling a similar role he held in WWII. This appointment is later brought up in a 1964 parliamentary inquiry as an example of the lack of professionalism that characterised MI6 operations in the Far East.
July 1953- Cecil Williamson arrives in Lhasa with his friend Gerald Gardner and Gardner's 'protegee' Doreen Valiente.
1953-1956- Gardner and Valiente, impressed by the use of the pentagram in Tibetan shamanism, expand on the Murray 'Witch-cult hypothesis' to include all of Eurasia. It is during this time that he is thought to have written Witchcraft Today, in which he explores the supposed Tibetan connection and other ideas. Valiente initiates several of their Tibetan acquaintances into the 'White Mountain Coven'.
August 1956- The Tibetan Witchcraft Research Institute is disbanded following Indian independence and a thaw in Sino-British relations.
June 1957- Both Gardner's Witchcraft Today and Williamson's Mission to Tibet are published. Williamson's book later becomes the basis for the 1981 James Bond film of the same name.
1958-1968- Witchcraft, now sometimes called 'Wiccanism', grows extensively in the UK. The combination of English folk traditions and pseudo-Tibetan mysticism proves irresistible to the New Age hippie set.
May 1969- The British-Tibetan Craft Organization is created. An office in Lhasa is set up, along with annual retreats in the Himalayas.
May 1971- Doreen Valiente reconnects with members of her 'White Mountain Coven' during her retreat. They set about translating Gardner's Book of Shadows and Witchcraft Today into Tibetan.
1972-79- Gardner's books prove an unexpected hit with students at the newly-established Lhasa University. There is a brief craze for witchcraft and shamanism in Tibet's rising middle class. Many Tibetan Wiccans believe, wrongly, that the religion is based on Tibetan traditions and that their practice is a form of nationalism. They also tend not to think of Wiccanism as conflicting with Tibetan Buddhism.
1999- Some 200,000 Tibetans, or about 5% of the population report having undergone Wiccan initiation, the most of any country. It is difficult however, to label Tibetans as Wiccan or Buddhist and so the 'actual' number of Tibetan Wiccans remains unknown.
