Beginning inside 1908 he was a rubber planter, first around Borneo and then in Malaya. When 1923 he held civil service posts as a government inspector in Malaya. Around 1936, at the age of 52, he retired to England. He published an authoritative text, Keris and other Malay Weapons (1936), based on his field the food and drug administration into sou'-east Asian weapons and magical practices.

Apparently in medical advice, he took higher naturism on his return to Engl&, and too pursued his interest in the occult. Through the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship he claims to have met the personal of traditional witches. A leading local witch Dorothy Clutterbuck, he says, initiated him into the craft inside 1939. Notwithstanding, these are more likely that he invented his form of witchery, which he known as "Wica" or even "Wicca", using a likely assist of Dafo (his first wizardly working partner), Doreen Valiente, and/or others. Inside 1964, after suffering the heart attack, Gardner died mazed in the ship giving from either Lebanon. He was buried on the shore of Tunisia.

He published ii works of fiction, A Goddess Arrives (1939) and ''High Magic's Aid (1949). These were followed by his purportedly-factual works, Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft'' (1959).