Talk:Witchcraft

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Foxx Molinari (article contribs). Peer reviewers: Mooddan2, Coovmich. This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 6 May 2019 and 30 August 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): RachSea99 (article contribs). This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 19 August 2019 and 20 December 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Salcid01 (article contribs). This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 2 February 2021 and 14 May 2021. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Roder.chap (article contribs).

Intro should more clearly state that witchcraft is a belief

The introduction reads as if any of those things that are mentioned are real, e.g. "...those who use supernatural means to communicate with spirits, deities or ancestors." This sounds like there actually are supernatural mean that can be used and like one could really communicate with spirits or gods, not to speak of that also the existence of spirits and gods is only a belief. This also applies to the very first sentence "Witchcraft (or witchery) is the practice of magical skills, spells, and abilities." There are no such things as magical skills, spells, and abilities... I understand that witchcraft is a very important part in many religions, cultures, ethnicity, and throughout history, and that many people believe in it. I also understand that it is a very important topic. But in my opinion the article should not suggest that one can actually e.g. use supernatural powers to talk to dead ancestors. I'm speaking of the introduction here not of the following chapters. Also, let's not forget that tens of thousands of people have been killed in fight of an imaginary evil in the middle ages in Europe alone (I just focused on Europe here, because I live here and I know about the middle age witch hunts. Would be even better to include all victims worldwide in all times). In my opinion, this is worthy to be mentioned in the introduction.

The article reads just fine and does not require additional subtext to reaffirm that is is in fact, a belief or religious following, as most readers have made this determination themselves before reading the article. The addition to any of this just deteriorates the article itself and should not be added. (Also added spelling corrections to above post.) --Sovereign Rob (talk) 18:00, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

Pop culture claim

In regards to "positive" witchcraft, the lead currently says that "this reversal in nomenclature is primarily a modern, Western, popular culture phenomenon." which is cited to "Ankarloo & Clark, 2001" (with no page number). There are two problems with this:

1. Ankarloo & Clark 2001 is an academic book about the ancient history of witchcraft. The book has nothing to say about modern witchcraft and neither "pop culture" nor "popular culture" appear anywhere within the book.
2. The claim that the nomenclature of "positive" witchcraft is primarily a pop culture phenomenon seems dubious as it discounts the entire neopagan religious movement. Such a strong claim requires strong evidence and sourcing. It seems more likely that the change in nomenclature is primarily due to the neopagan rehabilitation of witchcraft, which has in turn influenced popular culture.

It would probably be safer to just simplify the sentence to say "this reversal in nomenclature is primarily a modern, Western phenomenon", which should be uncontroversial. The citation to Ankarloo & Clark 2001 should be removed either way. Nosferattus (talk) 06:37, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

The proposed phrasing is correct, but there has also been a surge in use of the term "witch" in pop culture. I don't have the book on hand so can't check it; but it is WP policy to WP:AGF about published cites unless there is good reason to believe it was accidentally added, or added with intent to deceive. I'll see about adding a different cite, to be certain. ETA: I thought we had pop culture stuff in this article. Looks like not. Let me see what other articles have. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:10, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

@CorbieVreccan: There is some brief discussion of popular culture in the article but I don't think our current lead summarizes it well. What about something like:

"...this reversal in nomenclature is primarily a modern, Western phenomenon. Positive depictions of witchcraft in popular media have led to growing interest in witchcraft and Neopagan religions among Western youth."

You could either cite the last sentence to [1] and [2] or leave it uncited as it is an accurate reflection of the cited text in the body. I'm going to take another look at Ankarloo & Clark 2001 and see if I can find anything of relevance. I have a PDF of the entire book. I can probably send you a copy if you need it. Nosferattus (talk) 20:31, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I don't need to see it. If you can find a cite please just go ahead and add it. Thanks. ETA: Though I think I would tweak the phrasing a bit to be more along the lines of: "...this reversal in nomenclature is primarily a modern, Western phenomenon. Recent depictions in popular culture of "witchcraft" as positive magic (and "witches" as positive or neutral figures) have led to a growing interest in Neopagan religions and occult practice among Western youth." - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:34, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Maybe a bit wordy, but sounds OK to me. By the way, I skimmed through Ankarloo & Clark again, especially the introduction which is where I suspected any mention of modern witchcraft or popular culture might lurk. Unfortunately it is bone dry and has nothing to say about modern Western witchcraft, neopagan religions, or popular culture. The only thing I could find was this passing mention on page xiv:

"A society where magic is prevalent is always open to borrowing new procedures from other societies, as it is always the next spell or ritual that is potentially the most effective. This observation may help to explain the heavy dependence on orientalism of our Western magical lore from Madame Blavatsky to the New Age."

So it definitely fails verification. This led me to investigate the history of the citation being added. I tracked it back to [3] where it is given as a citation for the sentence "The belief in and the practise of magic has been present since the earliest human cultures and continues to have an important religious and medicinal role in many cultures today." Clearly the citation was meant to support the first half of that sentence, not the second half, as Ankarloo & Clark is a definitive source on the ancient pre-history of magic and witchcraft. Eventually, the first half of the sentence disappeared from the article entirely and the second half morphed into something completely different. Nosferattus (talk) 21:26, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I updated the lead per your suggested wording. The only change I made was to drop the scare quotes, as they seemed unnecessary. (I don't think many people would assume that Harry Potter is an accurate depiction of the practice of witchcraft.) Thanks for the constructive feedback. Nosferattus (talk) 02:25, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

@CorbieVreccan: This edit seems to make things more confusing. First it says that in the modern era positive witchcraft is a concept that is used by "popular culture authors". Then it says that the concept is primarily used by "Western youth" and "adherents of modern Pagan traditions", which seems to contradict the first sentence, or at least what the first sentence implies (that the change is mainly within the realm of pop culture). I also feel that the new wording is chronologically backwards, as it mentions neopagan religions last and pop culture first. The reclamation of witchcraft by neopagan religions happened first (largely in the 50s and 60s thanks to the 1951 repeal of the Witchcraft Act of 1735), then spilled into the New Age movement (through books like The Spiral Dance). These ideas were then recycled into 1990s and 2000s pop culture, which in turn caused a resurgence of interest in neopagan religions. Nosferattus (talk) 06:08, 13 April 2021 (UTC)

We have sourcing for pop culture in the body; I've added those sources to the lede. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:09, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

@CorbieVreccan: Please read my comments above, which have nothing to do with sourcing. I've never argued that positive witchcraft is not perpetuated and popularized by pop culture or that we lack sources to that effect. My objection is that the wording gives undue weight to pop culture and makes it sound like positive witchcraft is originally or primarily a pop culture phenomenon, which isn't accurate. Positive witchcraft is the central component of Wicca, which has about a million practitioners in the US alone.[4] That's at least 10 times more people than were executed in the entire history of witch-hunting. And as the Daily Mail breathlessly exclaims "Witches now outnumber Presbyterians in America" (which is probably an exaggeration, but not by much).[5] And while a lot of people believe that modern witchcraft is mostly attributable to J. K. Rowling, its true history is a lot bigger and more complex (and predates its rise in pop culture by 50 years). I don't object to having a sentence about pop culture in the lead, but it should appear after discussion of neopaganism and the New Age movement and should not imply that positive witchcraft originated in pop culture. I also feel like the article as a whole does not give sufficient weight to modern witchcraft, given its prominence in modern religious practice. I would love to hear your thoughts on these issues. Nosferattus (talk) 21:21, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

The lede is only meant to touch on all of these things. The body of the article is where readers go to see details about numbers and history. I think the current phrasing is fine and anyone who finds it confusing can simply read the article. If they find the lede confusing the way it stands, they're going to have comprehension problems we can't fix by shifting wording. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:06, 22 April 2021 (UTC)

Missing perspectives: Unjust persecution of witches through the centuries; and fiction versus nonfiction

The demonization of witchcraft by organized religions seems to get fairly short shrift in the article. There are mentions about how all the abrahamic religions tell their followers to hate on witches, up to and including advocacy of murdering them; and the sections about individual countries discuss various "witch-hunts" that resulted in the ignorant organized religious people killing many people accused of witchcraft. But there is no text that ties it all together, or that calls the suppression and murder of the believers in witchcraft as an unjust and intolerant mass movement, akin to modern genocides.

Similarly, the article draws no distinction between people who actually believe in supernatural powers (such as indigenous people, Middle Ages peasantry before the Age of Enlightenment, or modern Wiccans), versus fictional works (like Harry Potter, Dracula, or Sword-and-sorcery novels) in which the author themself does not believe in witchcraft, but their writings use the fictional idea of witchcraft as an element of the plot. It seems to me that the use of witchcraft in fiction is far more prevalent today than a literal belief in it, but this is also not apparent in the article. Gnuish (talk) 07:49, 1 May 2021 (UTC)

All due respect, this sounds like the Witch-cult hypothesis, a discredited neo-Pagan anachronism that holds 'witches' were at some point an existing and oppressed group. There's little to no historic evidence to support that there was ever an endonymic group of 'witches' or that the victims of witch-hunts were anything more than ordinary people who never considered themselves to be 'witches', except under duress. I think using the term 'genocide' here is incredibly disrespectful to both the victims of witch hunts, and to the victims of actual genocides. 2600:8800:2396:1B00:45E2:11C9:290B:57B (talk) 17:00, 21 October 2021 (UTC)

Support for Witches and Literary Stereotypes of Women

Greetings Wiki Community,

I am contacting you regarding the contribution of information relating to the United Kingdom subcategory found within this Wiki page. Evidence surrounding witchcraft literature during the 19th and 20th centuries from Ronald Hutton’s research on Witches and Cunning Folk in British Literature (1800–1940) may add ample documentation toward the subject at hand. Hutton is a published author and credible professor at the University of Bristol, specializing in paganism and British folk customs.

Hutton’s study provides several examples of literature spanning imagery of the witch figure labeled as heroine, victim, and villain. I plan to add examples from the work of the Brothers Grimm and German author Wilhelm Meinhold in demonstration of the punishment by injury or death of the “witch villain” within popular British folkloric tales. I will add literary examples of torture toward witches as illustrated by the works of Friedrich Spee and John Gaule demonstrating the witch as a victim of social cruelties. Finally, I will add information using female liberation as a metaphor in support of the witch portrayed as a heroine using Stella Benson’s scholarly work Living Alone.

I believe these examples of evidence will contribute to the Wiki article on Witchcraft in a meaningful way, supplementing information to a current webpage with room for additional research, data, and material to fully explain the subject. Altogether my contribution will span about 200-300 words!

If anyone would like to comment on these changes, please let me know on this Talk Page or on my Talk Page. Roder.chap (talk) 22:44, 14 May 2021 (UTC)

@Roder.chap: The United Kingdom section is already the longest section in the entire article. Adding 300 words to it would cause the article to be unbalanced, in my opinion. Instead, why don't you create a new section of the article called "Witches in literature" (similar to the existing "Witches in art" section). After all, it sounds like you are only dealing with fiction, while the existing United Kingdom section is non-fiction based. Also you mentioned you would be incorporating material from Germany as well, so it would not be solely focus on the U.K. Nosferattus (talk) 19:18, 15 May 2021 (UTC)

rules of witchcraft

does any one know anything about it or if someone knows a site that I can go to to look it up? Andrewp83 (talk) 02:28, 24 July 2021 (UTC)