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 sentance "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, ethnicities, 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 focussed on Europe here, because I live here and I know about the middle age witch hunts. Would be even better to inlcude all victims worldwide in all times). In my opinion, this is worthy to be mentioned in the introduction. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2a00:6020:17ec:fc00:df3:9ac4:4056:d694 (talk) 08:22, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

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)

Please don't edit others' comments (WP:TALKO guideline). User:10mmsocket undid those changes. DMacks (talk) 21:03, 24 October 2021 (UTC)

When talking about something that is imagined to exist, I think a pretty good approach is to say, "According to belief system X, A is B" or "In belief system X, A is B". For example, the article for Mary, mother of Jesus begins, "According to the gospels of Matthew and Luke in the New Testament, Mary was a first-century Jewish woman of Nazareth."

Yesterday this article began, "Witchcraft is the practice of what the practitioner ("witch") believes to be supernatural skills and abilities, such as the casting of spells and the performance of magical rituals." But if that were true, then witchcraft would be objectively real, since some people really do believe they are using supernatural skills and abilities. What this article needs to capture is the idea that witchcraft is a phenomenon that exists according to certain worldviews.

I've changed the first line to: "According to various cultural worldviews, witchcraft is the use of supernatural powers, usually to do harm. Someone accused of witchcraft is called a witch."

I avoided saying "According to various cultural worldviews, witchcraft is the use of supernatural powers by a witch, usually to do harm" because that would define witchcraft using the word witch, which is circular. I also think it is very important to mention that, according to the European way of thinking about witches, witches are typically women (with many exceptions). The word "witch" comes from wicce, "female sorcerer" in Old English.[1] Singh notes that the correlates of European witchcraft in other cultures (which also get called 'witchcraft' these days by some anthropologists) are not as gendered: "I did not find strong evidence that witches [across the cultures he studied] are more frequently women than men" ("Magic, Explanations, and Evil", p. 5).

I admit I don't love the phrase "cultural worldviews." However, "According to various cultures" doesn't seem exactly right, and "According to various worldviews" doesn't register that these beliefs span whole cultures. Omphaloscope talk 14:48, 1 November 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 [2] and [3] 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 [4] 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.[5] 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).[6] 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)

Note that "popular culture" and "pop culture" differ in connotation. 19th-century folk music is a typical example of popular culture (culture made by the working class, not the elites) but pop culture is typically commercial cultural products made by powerful companies for mass consumption. I don't think Wiccanism is mainstream enough to count as "pop culture", though it might count as popular culture or folk culture. Omphaloscope talk 14:57, 1 November 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)

The first rule of witchcraft is: you do not talk about witchcraft. The second rule of witchcraft is: you DO NOT talk about witchcraft! Nosferattus (talk) 18:23, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

Edits to introduction

CorbieVreccan mentioned that some key information has been deleted from the introduction and suggested that we discuss this here. I did remove some information so let me explain my thinking. Here is the main edit that removed material: [7].

Deleted concepts and themes:

• casting of spells: I think this is already sufficiently contained in the idea of harming people by supernatural means. Of course it's definitely worth mentioning spells but we do so later in the article.
• Difficulty of defining the term: We can, and do, define the term by explaining that it includes a wide range of practices, and the term has changed meaning over time. The term is not easy to define but I doubt this worth mentioning in the introduction. What old word is not afflicted by similar difficulties? I think it is worth mentioning this challenge only if we elaborate, which Russell (the author originally cited) does by giving a diagram of how the extension of witchcraft overlaps with religion and science.
• Historically, the most common meaning is the use of supernatural means to cause harm to the innocent; this remains the meaning in most traditional cultures worldwide: I looked in the page history and saw that this claim had been significantly altered without changing the references, so I doubted that the references really supported it. At any rate, the meaning of 'people who supernaturally harm the innocent' is already mentioned.
• notably the Indigenous cultures of Africa and the African diaspora, Asia, Latin America, and Indigenous Nations in the Americas. This article and Singh's article make clear that something analogous to witchcraft can be found in a very large number of cultures on all continents, so I didn't see the need to list all of the cultures here. "Many other cultures" seems enough. I wasn't sure what the "indigenous cultures of the African diaspora" were since 'indigenous' means "originating or occurring naturally in a particular place".
• Belief in witchcraft is often present within societies and groups whose cultural framework includes a magical world view. On reflection this is worth saying and I have restored it.
• But this reversal in nomenclature is primarily a modern, Western, and pop culture phenomenon, most prevalent among Western youth and adherents of modern Pagan traditions like Wicca. This sentence didn't add much that wasn't already said in the previous sentence, "In the modern era, some may use witchcraft to refer to benign, positive, or neutral metaphysical practices, such as divination, meditation, or self-help techniques found in the modern Pagan and New Age movements." The deleted sentence calls this a "reversal" in nomenclature (but I'm not sure that's quite true) and a "pop culture" phenomenon (I'm not sure that is true either).

These are just my opinions, and though I've tried to explain my thinking, they are somewhat subjective. My intuitions may be faulty. If you disagree with any of my revisions, or if I said anything incorrect, please of course feel free to edit the article. Omphaloscope talk 20:52, 1 November 2021 (UTC)

I agree that most of these changes are improvements, as the previous lead was rather wordy and convoluted. The new version reads more smoothly and doesn't feel as cobbled together. I made a few minor changes, which I hope are further improvements. It would also be good to review the referencing in the lead since the wording has changed a lot over the years. For example, I don't think the Toronto Star article is still acting as a useful citation. Nosferattus (talk) 04:55, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you, Nosferattus. A small suggestion: you've changed 'today' to 'modern' to avoid relative time. However, 'modern' is also used earlier in the introduction to mean 'the period from 1600 to the present'. Maybe we could be more specific and say around when this started? Do you happen to know if it was around 1950 with the birth of Wicca? Maybe "in the second half of the 20th century" is specific enough, if it's hard to put a finger on exactly when the positive meaning of 'witchcraft' caught on. Omphaloscope talk 11:16, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

Good catch. I changed "modern" to "contemporary", since contemporary history generally means the end of WWII until today. Nosferattus (talk) 15:00, 2 November 2021 (UTC)

There should be some mention of the terms 'black magic' (which overlaps with witchcraft) vs 'white magic', and 'witch' vs 'cunning folk/white witch'. As the article makes clear, 'witchcraft' traditionally meant doing harm by magic or supernatural means. Given this, I think we should briefly mention the other side of the coin: the belief that magic could also be used to do the opposite, to help. This important distinction and parallel belief is mentioned in the main body, but not in the lead. It could also be noted that some cunning folk were accused of witchcraft.

Per MOS:INTRO, the lead should also briefly mention witchcraft practices, and the result of witchcraft accusations (witch hunts, witch trials and executions), both of which have their own sections and which make up a significant part of the article. ~Asarlaí 20:46, 5 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes, but according to our article, there was never a strong distinction between "witches" and "cunning folk" (except perhaps in folklore). Medieval European Christians made little to no distinction between "black" magic and "white" magic, as these are modern terms and concepts. They were more concerned with what was heretical and what was not heretical. (For example, some renaissance philosophers argued that natural magic was not heretical and thus should not be persecuted by the church.) In the modern world, self-identified witches may practice both black magic and white magic. I'm not opposed to mentioning cunning folk in the lead, but they should not be presented as a simple opposite to witches, as the relationship is complicated by context and time period. Nosferattus (talk) 00:02, 6 November 2021 (UTC)

Re the sentence, "European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions - almost always of women who did not practice witchcraft." The bold part makes sense, and should be kept, as long as we also explain that the term 'witchcraft' can refer to certain rituals that are thought of as witchcraft by their participants. Currently, the article defines witchcraft as the use of supernatural forces to do harm - i.e., something that does not really happen, but is only thought to happen. Since witchcraft cannot really happen, then there is no point in saying that most of the accused women did not practice it. This needs to be cleared up. I suggest introducing the idea earlier in the article that there were in fact witchcraft-like rituals in early modern Europe, and then to change the bolded clause to read "only a small number of whom were involved in witchcraft-like rituals". Another approach is to remove this new information from the introduction since it is covered well enough in the body of the article. Omphaloscope talk 22:22, 27 November 2021 (UTC)

Section on contemporary depictions

I think a brief mention of Harry Potter is appropriate, but surely this article cannot address every allusion to witches in popular music, politics, etc. The section seems to have been copied in from another source (a paper for school)? I would invite the author to significantly condense this section, maybe to one paragraph. Omphaloscope talk 20:08, 30 November 2021 (UTC)

Harm

There seems to be a perennial issue on this article with the introduction and the use of the word "harm". Let me start by saying that I don't disagree with the definition, nor do I want to see this article become muddled in historical revision or anachronism, but it's obviously an incomplete summary of the article's subject, as read from the body. Even outside of 20th century "Wicca" witch, there has always been a broader definition which included healing and fortune-telling. It says so in Malleus Maleficarum and other anti-witch treaties. As the article goes into length to discuss it, I think it should be reflected in the first line. I propose "witchcraft is the use of magic or supernatural powers, usually to harm others, but also as a form of folk-remedies or divination" or even softer still. I believe there are sufficient sources in the body to support this broader definition and I'd even be willing to bet that the current sources in the first sentence elaborate on this further without the need to find others (although I don't have access to them). If possible, the first sentence can go into greater length to differentiate the pejorative and folk meanings, but they are both there and are both the subject of this article. Please let me know your thoughts. 24.251.106.103 (talk) 19:17, 9 December 2021 (UTC)

I find this persuasive and I changed the definition to "the use of magic, usually to harm but sometimes to heal." User:Asarlaí has suggested that this should be changed: "This article is primarily about the traditional meaning, which is harmful magic in all cultures that use the term; we shouldn't mix up the traditional meaning with Wicca" (edit summary). I agree that the article is primarily about the traditional meaning, but I think the anonymous commenter's point stands, that there were 'good witches' even according to the Renaissance meaning. In fact, the definition of witchcraft at the beginning of this article cites the historian Keith Thomas, who wrote: "'At this day', wrote Reginald Scot **in 1584, 'it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, "she is a witch" or "she is a wise woman".'** Nevertheless, it is possible to isolate that kind of 'witchcraft' which involved the employment (or presumed employment) of some occult means of doing harm to other people in a way which was generally disapproved of. In this sense the belief in witchcraft can be defined as the attribution of misfortune to occult human agency. A witch was a person of either sex (but more often female) who could mysteriously injure other people." This historian "isolates" the negative meaning, while acknowledging that the term in fact covered both harm and healing. So in fact it is not only in deference to Wicca that the concept of healing should perhaps be mentioned at the start of the article. - Omphaloscope talk 23:45, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

I only restored the long-standing wording, I haven't suggested changing anything. As you say, this article is primarily about the traditional and most common meaning of "witchcraft". The academic sources note that the traditional meaning is "harmful magic", and that it is still the most common meaning in English, no matter what culture. We cite experts like Ronald Hutton, who says the standard definition of a 'witch' is "someone who causes harm to others by mystical means", and says this is the "established scholarly consensus" among historians, anthropologists etc.
Both Hutton and Thomas say that churchmen sometimes lumped together any 'magic-workers' and 'healers' as 'witches' – but as a way of smearing them. Reginald Scot (1584) also lumped together 'witches' and other 'magic-workers', for a different reason: he was against the belief in witchcraft and magic, wanted to disprove it and to stop witchcraft prosecutions. He says on the same page "sometimes a murtherer with poison is called a witch ... sometimes they are called witches in common speech that are old, lame, curst, or melancholike, as a nickname". I haven't seen any sources that folk healers were widely called 'witches'. Hutton says some healers were denounced as witches, but "seem to have made up a minority of the accused in any area studied", while Thomas says "generally speaking, the cunning folk and the maleficent witches were believed to be two separate species".

Beginning by saying "witchcraft means both harmful and helpful magic" gives too much prominence to a new, minority, re-definition used by some Wiccans and some of the entertainment industry. The lead already notes that some Wiccans call their healing practices 'witchcraft' (which comes from the witch-cult hypothesis). This article touches on Wicca, but that's not what it's all about. The vast majority of it is about the traditional meaning. Wicca has its own article.

Unfortunately, sometimes anonymous editors do a drive-by and change the wording without any discussion, usually to bring it in line with their religious views. This kind of thing happens on many hot-topic articles. Maybe that could be solved with an editnotice or giving the article some light protection? (CorbieVreccan?). ~Asarlaí 15:05, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I was also thinking we might want to semi the article. Or more? Taking suggestions, and co-signing Asarlaí's points about the focus and content. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:51, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

OK, I hadn't seen the latest IP disruption. Checking the protection logs, the last semi was for three months, so I've semi-protected the page for six months. (As I also edit here, if anyone has issues with me pushing the button, feel free to take it up with us here, or at WP:RFPP.) Let's see how that goes. It will stop the IP disruption, but some of the recent disruptive editors still have access. Sourcing and consensus are clearly against merging neopagan, western, and pop culture content into the main body or lede of this article. There is a hidden notice there now, but an editnotice might be better. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 22:00, 14 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm persuaded by Asarlai's argument. Thanks to both of you for being on top of this. – Omphaloscope talk 19:38, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Fairies are real and only the identification of them as demons is wrong?

In a similar vein to the top thread on this page (as of the time of my writing), can we reword Many English "witches" convicted of consorting with demons may have been cunning folk whose fairy familiars had been demonised;[45] to not sound like fairies are real things that cunning folk actually consorted with? (Just like it would be inappropriate to if an article said something like Many people were convicted of witchcraft because the Martians they communicated with were regarded as demons, as if Martians were real.) Maybe ...folk whose supposed fairy familiars had...? -sche (talk) 20:39, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

(This would be less of an issue if the section established prior to that sentence that the people only thought they were communicating with fairies; maybe the sentence Some of those who described themselves as contacting fairies... was formerly higher up?) -sche (talk) 20:42, 13 January 2022 (UTC)