I INTRODUCTION
Witchcraft, practice of magic or sorcery by those outside the religious mainstream of a society;
the term is used in different ways in various historical and social contexts.
Many people participating in the contemporary revival of witchcraft, known as the neopagan
revival, identify themselves as benign witches. Therefore, the practice of witchcraft should not be associated with evil or
the infliction of harm, nor with diabolism (the invocation of Devils). In addition, many accusations of malicious witchcraftespecially
in some primal societies and in early modern Europe and North Americahave been unfounded and have sprung from irrational fears
and social anxieties.
This article discusses witchcraft under three main headings: sorcery, with reference primarily
to witchcraft in primal and ancient societies; diabolical witchcraft, with a focus on the persecution of alleged witches in
Europe and the United States and on the social pathologies that accompanied this persecution; and modern witchcraft, dealing
with contemporary witchcraft in the neopagan revival. These are different phenomena, and perceptions of witchcraft drawn from
one arena cannot be applied indiscriminately to another.
II SORCERY
Simple sorcery, or the use of magic accessible to ordinary people, such as setting out offerings
to helpful spirits or using charms, can be found in almost all traditional societies. Although the distinctions are often
blurred, practices such as these differ both from religion, in which gods are worshiped in awe or implored through prayer
to help, and from the sophisticated arts of alchemists and ceremonial magicians. Sorcery is intended to force results rather
than achieve them through entreaty, and it is worked by simple and ordinary means.
From a sociological point of view, the widespread practice of sorcery within
a tribe or peasant community serves to reinforce and consolidate beliefs about the supernatural world and the relation of
humans to that world. Psychologically, sorcery provides a means of establishing a sense of control over nature and thus mitigates
the anxieties caused by disease, uncertain seasons, and natural disasters. When such eventualities occur despite preventive
measures, they can be interpreted as the result of malicious witchcraft, and the alleged perpetrators may then be sought out
and driven from the community. The function of the so-called witch doctor or medicine man in many societies is to counter
the power of evil witchcraft through good magic. Shamans may also heal through comparable means by performing rites that expel
pestilential spirits or by retrieving lost and stolen souls. Characteristically, they do this with the aid of helping spirits
or gods invoked through incantations and rites.
Practices such as these were known to the ancient Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans.
In the Old Testament, the apocryphal book of Tobit contains an account in which, at the instruction of an angel, an evil spirit
is expelled from a bridal chamber by the odor of a smoldering fish heart and liver (Tobit 6:14-18). Nevertheless, the Bible
also contains injunctions against witchcraft, such as You shall not permit a witch to live (Exodus 22:18), a command that
was used to justify the persecution of witches in medieval Europe. The Greco-Roman world was permeated by belief in witchcraft.
Roman poet Horace refers to hags who clawed the earth to invoke spirits of the underworld, and philosopher and novelist Apuleius
mentions the practice of nailing owls over doors with wings outspread to deflect storms. After the Christianization of the
Mediterranean world in the 4th century, countless customs like theseas well as comparable practices in northern Europewere
perpetuated as folk magic or were superficially Christianized in such practices as inscribing the Lords Prayer on a piece
of paper and keeping it in ones shoe as an amulet against bewitchment. Certain local sages or wise women were experts in popular
witchcraft or sorcery, which often represented remnants of pre-Christian religion.
III DIABOLICAL WITCHCRAFT
The Witches Sabbath Beginning in the 15th century the leaders of the Spanish Inquisition
tried and executed thousands of alleged witches for their supposed heretical practices and beliefs. Some of these reputed
witches were thought to hold ceremonies called Sabbath or Sabbat, which parodied the Christian mass.
In
the early Christian centuries, the church was relatively tolerant of magical practices. Those who were proved to have engaged
in witchcraft were required only to do penance. But in the late Middle Ages (13th century to 14th century) opposition to alleged
witchcraft hardened as a result of the growing belief that all magic and miracles that did not come unambiguously from God
came from the Devil and were therefore manifestations of evil. Those who practiced simple sorcery, such as village wise women,
were increasingly regarded as practitioners of diabolical witchcraft. They came to be viewed as individuals in league with
Satan.
Nearly all those who fell under suspicion of witchcraft were women, evidently regarded by
witch-hunters as especially susceptible to the Devils blandishments. A lurid picture of the activities of witches emerged
in the popular mind, including covens, or gatherings over which Satan presided; pacts with the Devil; flying broomsticks;
and animal accomplices, or familiars. Although a few of these elements may represent vestiges of pre-Christian religion, the
old religion probably did not persist in any organized form beyond the 14th century. The popular image of witchcraft, perhaps
inspired by features of occultism or ceremonial magic as well as by theology concerning the Devil and his works of darkness,
was given shape by the inflamed imagination of inquisitors and was confirmed by statements obtained under torture.
" ...anything supernatural and not of God must be due to commerce with Satan or his
minions ."
The late medieval and early modern picture of diabolical witchcraft can be attributed to
several causes. First, the churchs experience with such dissident religious movements as the Albigenses and Cathari, who believed
in a radical dualism of good and evil, led to the belief that certain people had allied themselves with Satan. As a result
of confrontations with such heresy, the Inquisition was established by a series of papal decrees between 1227 and 1235. Pope
Innocent IV authorized the use of torture in 1252, and Pope Alexander IV gave the Inquisition authority over all cases of
sorcery involving heresy, although most actual prosecution of witches was carried out by local courts.
At the same time, other developments created a climate in which alleged witches were stigmatized
as representatives of evil. Since the middle of the 11th century, the theological and philosophical work of scholasticism
had been refining the Christian concepts of Satan and evil. Theologians, influenced by Aristotelian rationalism, increasingly
denied that natural miracles could take place and therefore alleged that anything supernatural and not of God must be due
to commerce with Satan or his minions (see Aristotle). Later, the Reformation, the rise of science, and the emerging modern
worldall challenges to traditional religioncreated deep anxieties in the orthodox population. At the dawn of the Renaissance
(15th century to 16th century) some of these developments began to coalesce into the witch craze that possessed Europe from
about 1450 to 1700. During this period, thousands of people, mostly innocent women, were executed on the basis of proofs or
confessions of diabolical witchcraftthat is, of sorcery practiced through allegiance to Satanobtained by means of cruel tortures.
A major impetus for the hysteria was the papal bull Summis Desiderantes issued by Pope Innocent
VIII in 1484. It was included as a preface in the book Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches), published by two Dominican
inquisitors in 1486. This work, characterized by a distinct antifeminine tenor, vividly describes the satanic and sexual abominations
of witches. The book was translated into many languages and went through many editions in both Catholic and Protestant countries,
outselling all other books except the Bible.
In the years of the witch-hunting mania, people were encouraged to inform against one another.
Professional witch finders identified and tested suspects for evidence of witchcraft and were paid a fee for each conviction.
The most common test was pricking: All witches were supposed to have somewhere on their bodies a mark, made by the Devil,
that was insensitive to pain; if such a spot was found, it was regarded as proof of witchcraft. Other proofs included additional
breasts (supposedly used to suckle familiars), the inability to weep, and failure in the water test. In the latter, a woman
was thrown into a body of water; if she sank, she was considered innocent, but if she stayed afloat, she was found guilty.
The persecution of witches declined about 1700, banished by the Age of Enlightenment, which
subjected such beliefs to a skeptical eye. One of the last outbreaks of witch-hunting took place in colonial Massachusetts
in 1692, when belief in diabolical witchcraft was already declining in Europe. Twenty people were executed in the wake of
the Salem witch trials, which took place after a group of young girls became hysterical while playing at magic and it was
proposed that they were bewitched. The subsequent witch hunt took place in the context of deep divisions between the church
and a controversial minister. Personal differences were exacerbated in a small, isolated community in which religious beliefsincluding
belief in the reality of diabolical witchcraftwere deeply held. By the time the hysteria had run its course, little enthusiasm
for the persecution of witches remained in Massachusetts or elsewhere.
Belief in traditional witchcraft, in the sense of sorcery, remains alive in India, Africa,
Latin America and elsewhere. A belief in the possibility of something akin to diabolical witchcraft can still be found among
some conservative Christians.
IV MODERN WITCHCRAFT
"In the second half of the 20th century, a self-conscious revival of pre-Christian paganism
occurred "
In the second half of the 20th century, a self-conscious revival of pre-Christian paganism
occurred in the United States and Europe. The foundation of this revival was witchcraft, or wicca (said to be an early Anglo-Saxon
word for witchcraft). Wicca is interpreted simply as the nature and fertility religion of pre-Christian Europe, which has
been explored in books such as Charles Lelands Aradia: The Gospel of the Witches (1899), Margaret Murrays The Witch-Cult in
Western Europe (1921), and Robert Gravess The White Goddess (1948). Although they are now considered unreliable by scholars,
such books gave inspiration to some people seeking spiritual alternatives. The writings of Englishman Gerald Gardner, who
in his book Witchcraft Today (1954) claimed that he was a witch initiated by a surviving coven, imparted much of the alleged
lore and rituals of English witches. Although his claims have been questioned, covens of modern witches sprang up under Gardners
inspiration and spread to the United States in the 1960s. This form of witchcraftwith its feeling for nature, its colorful
rituals, and its challenge of conventional religion and societyharmonized well with the countercultural mood of the 1960s
and grew rapidly during that decade.
Modern witchcraft continued to prosper during the subsequent decades. Many followers of the
ecological and feminist movements found in Wicca a religion with congenial themes. Wiccans emphasized the sacred meaning of
nature and its cycles and the coequal role of gods and goddesses and of priests and priestesses. Some Wiccan groups, called
Dianic (after the goddess Diana), include only women and worship the goddess exclusively. Closely related neopagan religions
have also appeared in revivals of ancient Egyptian, Celtic, Greek, and Nordic religions.
further reading:
These sources provide additional information on Witchcraft.
Wicca perceives itself as a religion based on the broad themes of ancient pre-Christian paganism,
although it is not drawn directly from paganismfor example, Wicca shuns some features of the old paganism, such as animal
sacrifice. Increasingly, Wicca draws from many pagan traditions, with the result that the distinctions between witchcraft,
occultism, neopaganism, and various strands thereof have become blurred. Modern witchcraft is entirely different from Satanism
or the diabolical witchcraft imagined by the persecutors of past centuries. Major Wiccan themes include love of nature, equality
of male and female, appreciation of the ceremonial, a sense of wonder and belief in magic, and appreciation of the symbolism
and psychological realities behind the gods and goddesses of antiquity.
