Witchcraft

Witchcraft is a term, originally derogatory, for the practice of forms of magic that are not sanctioned by society. When used before the 20th century, the term invariably has a connotation of malice or wrongdoing. Modern sources have reimagined both witches and witchcraft and consequently the term has lost much of its negative connotation, especially in neopagan quarters.

The belief in the existence and efficacy of witchcraft has been held by European Christians in the medieval era, some conservative Christians today, Neopagans, and many African religions (past and present), among many others, although the concept and its portrayal have varied widely.

This article will examine witchcraft in its historical and anthropological contexts. For witchcraft in the modern Western world as practised by neopagans, see articles on The Craft and Wicca.

Witchcraft and Folk Magic

Folk magic and witchcraft are not identical, though observers often find it hard to distinguish between the two. Practices to which the 'witchcraft' label are applied are those which influence another person's body or property against his or her will, or which are believed to undermine the social or religious order. For this reason, witchcraft practices are typically forbidden by law where belief in them exists, while folk magic is tolerated or even accepted wholesale.

Where witchcraft is believed to have the power to influence the body or possessions, witches become a credible cause for disease, sickness in animals, bad luck, sudden death, impotence and other such misfortunes. Folk magic of a more benign and socially acceptable sort may then be employed to turn the witchcraft aside, or identify the supposed witch so that punishment may be carried out. In England, the provision of this curative magic was the job of a witch doctor, also known as a cunning man or white witch.

Some modern commentators, especially neopagan ones, consider the malefic nature of witchcraft to be a Christian projection. However, the concept of a magic-worker influencing another person's body or property against his or her will is much older than Christianity, as are the traditions of folk magic that have the purpose of countering or identifying such menaces. Many examples can be found in ancient Pagan texts, such as those from Egypt and Babylonia.

Etymology

Colloquially, the term witch is applied almost exclusively to women, although in earlier English the term was applied to men too. Most people would call male witches sorcerers, wizards, or warlocks; however, modern self-identified witches and Wiccans continue to use the term witch for all who practice witchcraft.

European witchcraft

"In the world of late antiquity or the early Middle Ages, it is impossible to define someone as a witch (as opposed, for example, to an amateur herbalist, a heretic or a scold), and none of the legislation of the time attempted to do so. Offenders were designated offenders by virtue of their performing various actions or wearing certain objects declared by the legislation to be condemned or forbidden. For all practical purposes, the 'witch' had not yet been invented. There were only practitioners of various kinds of magic, both male and female, who might belong to any rank of ecclesiastical or lay society, and whose actions might, or might not, bring them within the compass of canon or secular law, depending on external factors which were usually local but could, from time to time, be more general."

^{Source: P.G. Maxwell-Stewart, The Emergence of the Christian Witch}

During the Christianization of Norway, King Olaf Trygvasson had male völvas (sejdmen) tied and left on a skerry at ebb. A terrible and long wait for death.

The earliest written reference to witches, from Aelfric's homilies, ^[1] portrays witches as malign. The tendency to perceive them as healers begins with Jules Michelet whose novel La Sorciere, published in 1862, first postulated a benign witch. ^[2]

The characterization of the witch in Europe is not derived from a single source. Popular neopagan beliefs suggest that witches were female shamans who were made into malicious figures by Christian propaganda. This is an erroneous oversimplification and presumes that a recognizable folklore figure must derive from a single historical precedent (a female, maligned magic-worker). The familiar witch of folklore and popular superstition is a combination of numerous influences.

The characterization of the witch, rather than being a caricature of a Pagan priestess, developed over time. ^[3] The advent of Christianity suggests that potential Christians, comfortable with the use of magic as part of their daily lives, expected Christian clergy to work magic of a form superior to the old Pagan way. While Christianity competed with Pagan religion, this concern was paramount, only lessening in importance once Christianity was the dominant religion in most of Europe. In place of the old Pagan magic methodology, the Church placed a Christian methodology involving saints and divine relics — a short step from the old Pagan techniques of amulets and talismans.

It was in the Church's interest to suppress competing Pagan methodologies of magic. This could only be done by presenting a cosmology in which Christian miracles were legitimate and credible, whereas non-Christian ones were "of the devil". Hence the following law:

"We teach that every priest shall extinguish heathendom, and forbid wilweorthunga (fountain worship), and licwiglunga (incantations of the dead), and hwata (omens), and galdra (magic), and man worship, and the abominations that men exercise in various sorts of witchcraft, and in frithspottum (peace-enclosures) with elms and other trees, and with stones, and with many phantoms."

^{Source: 16th Canon Law enacted under King Edgar, 10th century A.D.}

While the common people were aware of the difference between witches, who they considered wholly evil and cunning folk to whom they turned for help, the Church attempted to blot out the distinction. In much the same way that culturally distinct non-Christian religions were all lumped together and termed merely "Pagan", so too was all magic lumped together as equally sinful and abhorrent. The Demonologie of James I explicitly condemns all magic-workers as equally guilty of the same crime against God. The long-term result of this amalgamation of distinct types of magic-worker into one is considerable present-day confusion as to what witches actually did, whether they harmed or healed, what role (if any) they had in the community, whether they can be identified with the "witches" of other cultures and even whether they existed as anything other than a projection. Present-day beliefs about the witches of history attribute to them elements of the folklore witch, the charmer, the cunning man or wise woman, the diviner and the astrologer.

See for example:

• Malleus Maleficarum
• witchhunts
• witchcraft trials
• flying ointments

Witches are usually reputed to fly on broomsticks or distaffs. There is a legend in Scandinavia about the sorceress Maran who causes pain by riding at night on people or horses; she flies to her victim by broomstick. Some believe that supposed visitations of Maran were actually a heart disease, causing the victim to awake in a panic.

Witches in modern culture

Today, few people believe in witches that curse enemies, change shapes or can fly. However, since the emergence of the witchcraft-inspired religion of Wicca in the 1940s a growing number of people have called themselves witches, and while most of western culture continues to assign negative connotations to the word, to a Wiccan it is not a derogatory term, nor do they associate it with Satanism. In fact, many Wiccans wish to claim the term "witch" and assign positive meanings to it.

In 1968, a group of radical politically active women formed a protest organization in the City of New York called W.I.T.C.H., standing for "Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy From Hell". This was a short-lived group that did not have any noticeable impact on the modern development of witchcraft, except possibly Dianic craft, but is often cited because of its colourful acronym.

Witches are iconically associated with Halloween, although Wiccans generally prefer to celebrate Samhain. Both dates are the same, and are at least metaphorically similar in meaning. This is not coincidence. Christianity had a basic contempt for the supernatural overtones of the festival. The association between "witches" and Halloween most certainly came from vilification of practitioners of the Celtic celebration of the last harvest.

Witches also appear as villains in many 19th- and 20th-century fairy tales, folk tales and children's stories, such as "Snow White", "Hansel and Gretel", "Sleeping Beauty", and many other stories recorded by the Brothers Grimm. Such folktales typically portray witches as either remarkably ugly hags or remarkably beautiful young women. In the classic story The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum the villain is a bad witch but two good witches play important roles as well.

Witches have come into the mainstream in the last decade as well as common pop-culture figures. Teenage and young adult witches have been the focus or appeared in the movies "The Craft," "Practical Magic," and "Blair Witch Project 2" (the sequel to The Blair Witch Project), as well as the television programs "Bewitched," "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," "Charmed," "Sabrina the Teenage Witch," and some episodes of "The X-Files." Such neo-Gothic portrayals bear little relationship to Wicca, or even a Christian view of witches. In almost all cases witches portrayed in movies and TV shows today are attractive women who have supernatural powers. In J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter books, a witch is a female with magical powers.

Recent research does not, however, support the media's portrayal of witchcraft and Wicca. In Witchcraft out of the Shadows (2004), Leo Ruickbie presents findings that demonstrate that Wicca and other forms of modern Witchcraft religion are not exclusively female nor teenage.

White witchcraft

The term "white witch" was used to signify a cunning man or wise woman who sold charms and other services to ward off the effects of witchcraft. These people made a very clear distinction between themselves and witches per se, who were almost universally seen as malevolent. These people often did not refer to themselves as witches and objected to the accusation that they were such. While the ordinary person simply believed in witches, the cunning folk believed that they were able to thwart them with their magic. Many folk magic practices are intended to oppose or remove the effects of witchcraft. Ordinary people thus turned to cunning folk for relief from supposed witches, a tendency which the Christian clergy condemned but was not able to prevent. [4]

Cunning folk were also called witch doctors, that is, persons qualified to diagnose and treat maladies caused by witchcraft. The term was in use in England before it came to be associated with Africa.

"In the north of England, the superstition lingers to an almost inconceivable extent. Lancashire abounds with witch-doctors, a set of quacks, who pretend to cure diseases inflicted by the devil... The witch-doctor alluded to is better known by the name of the cunning man, and has a large practice in the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham."

^{Source: Charles Mackay, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds}

In more recent times, the concept of a white witch has been disparaged, as more and more people have self-identified as witches and claimed that there are no such things as black and white witchcraft.

The Canon Episcopi and witchcraft

The attitude of the Christian church to witchcraft and the belief therein is far from constant. Its definition has varied from century to century. For several centuries it was dismissed altogether as a delusion caused by the Devil.

The Canon Episcopi of circa 900 AD (alleged to date from 314 AD) stated that witchcraft did not exist and that to believe in it was heretical. ^[5] The Church of the time, rather than opposing witchcraft, opposed what it saw as the foolish and backward belief in witchcraft. To believe that witchcraft could possibly have any power was to deny the supreme power of God.

"It is also not to be omitted that some unconstrained women, perverted by Satan, seduced by illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that, in the dead of night, they ride upon certain beasts with the pagan goddess Diana, with a countless horde of women, and in the silence of the dead of the night to fly over vast tracts of country, and to obey her commands as their mistress, and to be summoned to her service on other nights. But it were well if they alone perished in their infidelity and did not draw so many others into the pit of their faithlessness. For an innumberable multitude, deceived by this false opinion, believe this to be true and, so believing, wander from the right faith and relapse into pagan errors when they think that there is any divinity or power except the one God."

^{Source: the Canon Episcopi}

The Canon Episcopi remained authoritative until the 13th century, when it was superseded.

Middle-eastern witchcraft

Ancient middle-eastern and near-eastern beliefs

The belief in witchcraft and its practice seem to have been widespread in the past. Both in ancient Egypt and in Babylonia it played a conspicuous part, as existing records plainly show. It will be sufficient to quote a short section from the Code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.). It is there prescribed,

If a man has laid a charge of witchcraft and has not justified it, he upon whom the witchcraft is laid shall go to the holy river; he shall plunge into the holy river and if the holy river overcome him, he who accused him shall take to himself his house.

Witchcraft in the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible, Old Testament)

In the Bible references to witchcraft are frequent, and the strong condemnations of such practices which we read there do not seem to be based so much upon the supposition of fraud as upon the "abomination" of the magic in itself. (See Deuteronomy 18:11-12; Exodus 22:18, "wizards thou shalt not suffer to live" - A.V. "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live".) The whole narrative of Saul's visit to the witch of En Dor (I Samuel 28) implies belief in the reality of the witch's evocation of the shade of Samuel; and from Leviticus 20:27: "A man or woman in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying let them die: they shall stone them: Their blood be upon them", we should naturally infer that the divining spirit was not believed to be a mere imposture.

Witchcraft in the New Testament

The prohibitions of sorcery in the New Testament leave the same impression (Galatians 5:20, compared with Revelations 21:8; 22:15; and Acts 8:9; 13:6). Supposing that the belief in witchcraft were held to be an idle superstition, it would be strange that the suggestion should nowhere be made that the evil of these practices only lay in the pretending to the possession of powers which did not really exist.

There is some debate, however, as to whether the word used in Galatians and Revelations, Pharmakeia, is properly translated as "sorcery," as the word was commonly used to describe malicious use of drugs as in poisons, contraceptives, and abortifacients.

Jewish views of witchcraft

Almost all modern day Jews view the practice of witchcraft as idolatry, a serious theological offense in Judaism. Jews believe that the practices associated with witchcraft and magic are in vain, as such magic and supernatural forces don't actually exist. The only supernatural belief Jews still maintain is the belief in God. It should be noted that a small number of Orthodox Jews who study Kabbalah (Jewish esoteric mysticism) do believe in magic; their practices use terminology that varies greatly from witchcraft, but the basic ideas (using supernatural forces to effect results in the physical world) are identical. Most Jews find such ideas ludicrous; since the Enlightenment, most Jewish people have abandoned a belief in the Kabbalah.

Some Neopagans study and practice forms of magery based on a syncretism between classical Jewish mysticism and modern witchcraft. A reference on this subject is Ellen Cannon Reed's book "The Witches Qabala: The Pagan Path and the Tree of Life".

See also: Christian views on witchcraft

African witchcraft

Unsurprisingly, Africans have a wide range of views of traditional religions. African Christians typically accept Christian dogma as their counterparts in Latin America and Asia. The term witch doctor, often attributed to African inyanga, has been misconstrued to mean "a healer who uses witchcraft" rather than its original meaning of "one who diagnoses and cures maladies caused by witches". Combining Roman Catholic beliefs and practices and traditional West African religious beliefs and practices are several syncretic religions in the Americas, including Voudun, Obeah, Candomblé, Santería.

In Southern African traditions, there are three classifications of somebody who uses magic. The thakathi is usually translated into English as "witch", and is a spiteful person who operates in secret to harm others. The sangoma is a diviner, somewhere on a par with a fortune teller, and is employed in detecting illness, predicting a person's future (or advising them on which path to take), or identifying the guilty party in a crime. She also practices some degree of medicine. The inyanga is often translated as "witch doctor" (though many Southern Africans resent this implication, as it perpetuates the mistaken belief that a "witch doctor" is in some sense a practitioner of witchcraft). The inyanga's job is to heal illness and injury and provide customers with magical items for everyday use. Of these three categories the thakatha is almost exclusively female, the sangoma is usually female, and the inyanga is almost exclusively male.

Witchcraft and the paranormal

It is not easy to draw a clear distinction between magic and witchcraft. Both are concerned with the producing of effects beyond the natural powers of man by agencies other than the Divine (occultism). Traditional European witchcraft beliefs, such as those typified in the confessions of the Pendle Witches, commonly involve a diabolical pact or at least an appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil[6]. In such cases, this supernatural aid is usually invoked either to compass the death of some obnoxious person, or to awaken the passion of love in those who are the objects of desire, or to call up the dead, or to bring calamity or impotence upon enemies, rivals, and fancied oppressors. This is not an exhaustive enumeration, but these represent some of the principal purposes that witchcraft has been believed to serve at nearly all periods of the world's history.

In the traditional European belief, not only of the dark ages, but of post-Reformation times, the witches or wizards addicted to such practices were alleged to enter into a compact with Satan, adjure Jesus and the sacraments, observe "the witches' sabbath" - performing infernal rites which often took the shape of a parody of the Mass or the offices of the Church - pay Divine honour to the Prince of Darkness, and in return receive from him preternatural powers, such as those of riding through the air on a broomstick, assuming different shapes at will, and tormenting their chosen victims. It was believed that an imp or "familiar spirit" was placed at their disposal, able and willing to perform any service that might be needed to further their nefarious purposes.

Another belief is that those who practice witchcraft are being vague and deceptive. This view holds that while those who practice witchcraft may have the intention of helping people, in the end they are working against the will of God. Both "good" and "bad" witchcraft are condemned. In addition, one who practices witchcraft need not necessarily contact any supernatural beings. They may simply be using moods, lighting, and manipulating the situation to give the appearance of contact with the dead. They may even use ventriloquism to make it seem as if a being has entered a room. An example cited is the biblical story of the witch of En Dor (I Samuel 28) who, when she was successful in bringing up Samuel from the dead, screamed out in surprise and fear. Some use this passage to imply that the witch did not really expect a being to appear and was shocked and afraid when a being did appear. The conclusion is that in the past she had simply faked the appearances.

Today, witchcraft is still a religion for some people. Instead of devil worship, neopagans practice earth-based religion, with little to no connections to the above Middle Ages practices. The term "Witchcraft" can be used to describe the Dark Ages version, or certain neopagan beliefs.

Additional Reading

Listed by date of publication:

• Nathaniel J. Harris, Witcha: A Book of Cunning. Mandrake of Oxford, 2004.
• Leo Ruickbie, Witchcraft Out of the Shadows: A Complete History. Robert Hale, 2004.
• Ray Abrahams, Witchcraft in contemporary Tanzania. Cambridge, 1994.
• Gerina Dunwich, Wicca Craft. Citadel Press, 1991.
• Bengt Ankarloo/Gustav Henningsen, Early Modern European Witchcraft. Centres and Peripheries. Oxford, 1990.
• Wolfgang Behringer, Hexen und Hexenprozesse in Deutschland. Munich, 1988.
• Ariadne Rainbird, David Rankine, Magick Without Peers - A Course in Progressive Witchcraft.Capall Bann, 1997
• Rae Beth, Hedgewitch: A Guide to Solitary Witchcraft. Robert Hale, 1990.
• Gustav Henningsen/John Tedeschi, The Inquisition in Early Modern Europe. Studies on Sources and Methods. Dekalb, 1986.
• Alan C. Kors/Edward Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 1100-1700. A Documentary History. Philadelphia, 1972.
• Joseph Hansen, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Hexenwahns und der Hexenverfolgung im Mittelalter. Bonn, 1901.
• Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World, Boston, 1692
• Robert Calef, More wonders of the Invisible World, London, 1700

See also

• Witchhunt
• Witchcraft trial
• Catalan mythology about witches
• Witches (Discworld)
• Familiar
• Flying ointment
• Hedgewitch
• Lysa Hora (paranormal)
• Osculum infame
• Seid (shamanic magic)
• Wyrd
• List of Wiccans
• List of fictional witches