Talk:Witchcraft

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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)

Actually, Abrahamic religions hold that witches don't exist. The Catholic Church during the Witch Hunts, for example, excommunicated anyone who participated though since almost everyone participating was Protestant that had little effect. Also, the article does specify things such as Wicca as well as pre-Enlightenment Europe. What article does fail at, however, is that it claims that mostly women were accused of witchcraft when in actuality the victims of witch hunts were mostly men. Though, it may be intended to refer to most of the people thought to be witches by their local communities were women whereas most of the people targeted by organized witch hunts were men (as part of the scam to steal their land and possessions). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.180.196.32 (talk) 04:50, 24 January 2022 (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)

Keep in mind to separate the women thought to be witches by their local communities from the men who were the primary targets of the organized witch hunts to steal the mens' possessions and any land they had. It was "popular" enough that local nobles or officials sometimes hired "witch hunters" to target men in their community to seize what those men had for themselves post-mortem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.180.196.32 (talk) 04:51, 24 January 2022 (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: [1].

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)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 January 2022

From the witching community, this article seriously needs editing. Please remove, 'witchcraft is usually used to harm others ' then remove protections or hand them over to someone that knows what witchcraft is and isn't stereotyping, discriminating or outright lying. If this was done on the christian pages, I'm sure there would be an uproar.

If you would like to educate yourselves, add kitchen witch, hedge witch, green witch, divination and practices most witches do use. 92.3.20.72 (talk) 17:30, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done - You can also read the rest of the lede which guides the reader to the Wicca article which discusses the modern form of witchcraft. McMatter ^(talk)/_(contrib) 17:44, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

The lead is strongly biased towards traditional definitions of witchcraft, rather than the witchcraft practiced as a religion by over a million modern pagans. In fact, it seems to largely dismiss modern ideas about witchcraft, saying only that that "some Modern Pagans and New Agers... use the term witchcraft". The IP is correct that if any other religious practice were treated as such on Wikipedia, there would be an uproar. This also goes against Wikipedia policy, as WP:NPOV requires that an article cover all aspects of a topic in proportion (as far as possible) to their coverage in reliable sources. I believe there are vastly more books about the modern practices of witchcraft, Wicca, neopaganism, etc. than there are books about historical witchcraft. At the very least, the article should be balanced between the two aspects. Nosferattus (talk) 20:30, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

I tweaked the last paragraph of the lead slightly so that it doesn't sound as dismissive of modern witchcraft. I agree though that it should also be mentioned in the lead sentence, or at the very least somewhere in the lead paragraph. It doesn't make sense that you have to go down to the fourth paragraph before modern witchcraft is even mentioned. This is a disservice to our readers. Nosferattus (talk) 21:02, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

 Not done This is not the Modern Paganism or Wicca article. The lede addresses the global view - including that of Indigenous, African and other traditional cultures. We should not bias the lede to the white American/Western pop culture view preferred by Nosferattus and the IP. Biasing to pop culture is a disservice to those cultures, who have more solid sourcing and standing than the neopagan ones. Sure, there are tons of mass-market paperbacks out there cashing in on the newage and neopagan market. That doesn't change that the redefinition is recent and neither universal nor global. Go to a village in Africa and declare yourself a Witch. Or onto a reserve. Additionally, there are modern Pagan groups of Euro background - notably the revivalist, ethnic traditions - that use traditional, cultural terms and also strongly reject the term "witch" and "witchcraft", for the same reasons as do the Indigenous groups. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:08, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Your characterization of positive witchcraft as simply "pop culture" is misinformed and offensive. Pop culture witchcraft is a recent effect of the widespread reclaiming of witchcraft by neopagan groups who are both sincere in their beliefs and are a sizable religious community worldwide. And yes, it is global. There are numerous Wiccan and neopagan groups in Latin America, the Caribbean, and even Africa. And the literature for and about neopaganism consists of far more than mass-market paperbacks. Nosferattus (talk) 16:26, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

It is worth emphasizing that it's not the stance of this article that witchcraft is inherently harmful. It's an encyclopedia entry that is trying to neutrally describe how witchcraft is conceived by various cultures. Like the article on God, it describes something that exists according to various belief systems. That article begins, "In monotheistic thought, God is usually conceived of as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith" (my italics). Or compare the start of Satan: "Satan, also known as the Devil, ... is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood" (my italics). The introduction of this article ought (I think) to convey roughly this idea: "In various traditional belief systems, witchcraft is normally conceived of as the supernatural infliction of harm, this remains the meaning of the term in anthropology, and in some modern Western belief systems, it is conceived as benevolent." It would be seriously misleading about the history of the concept of witchcraft to construe the term as positive from the get-go. I don't think any contemporary Wiccans should take issue with that - am I wrong? An interesting contrast is with the article on the term Queer. That term has also undergone a significant shift in meaning from negative to positive, and so the article focuses on the positive meaning from the get-go while explaining the evolution ("Queer is an umbrella term for people who are not heterosexual or are not cisgender. Originally meaning "strange" or "peculiar", queer came to be used pejoratively against those with same-sex desires or relationships in the late 19th century. Beginning in the late 1980s, queer activists, such as the members of Queer Nation, began to reclaim the word..."). The difference with "Queer" is that the transformation has already occurred and the positive meaning is the dominant one in the English-speaking world (or at least, the article reflects this assumption). But "witchcraft" in nearly all non-Wiccan contexts still has a negative meaning. People making dictionaries and encyclopedias have a responsibility to accurately describe this usage. I would prefer if the article began with something like "Witchcraft in many cultures is" or "In many Western belief systems beginning in the Middle Ages, witchcraft is" to make utterly clear that this article is just describing other people's belief systems. "Witchcraft traditionally means..." doesn't quite stress this clearly enough if you ask me, but I'll let others change it if they agree. - Omphaloscope talk 12:38, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I do think Nosferattus raises an important issue - how to balance the article between historic negative and contemporary negative and positive uses? Moreover, does the Wiccan community deserve a little more say here given that this is a term they apply to themselves? I'm comparing "witchcraft" with the word queer. A case could be made that the term "queer" is historically negative and continues to be negative in much of the English-speaking world, but the fair point could be made that the queer community's own conception of what the word means deserves prominence. This is not just yet another word in their vocabulary, it's part of their self-conception. Could an analogous case be made for the positive Wiccan use of "witchcraft"? That perspective might at least motivate slightly expanding the discussion of the positive meaning in the lede, making the rest of the lede more concise so that the Wicca section doesn't seem like an afterthought (my preference), or signaling a little more clearly in the beginning that this is a contested term with different meanings across space and time. It seems that there are two important values here: (1) neutrally describing the issue in a way that does not privilege the contemporary West over other perspectives, and (2) respectfully describing a term that is part of a marginalized group's self-understanding. There is, I think, a way to balance these two needs. - Omphaloscope talk 12:48, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the article needs to clarify the context of each definition and emphasize that different valid definitions exist from the beginning of the article (as the Encyclopedia Britannica article on witchcraft does). Simply saying "traditionally" and then mentioning contemporary witchcraft in a single sentence at the end is a very skewed presentation. Nosferattus (talk) 16:52, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Saying that modern pagans are involved in the "reclaiming of witchcraft" makes me wonder if you've even read the sources. That modern usage is a redefinition, not a reclaiming, no matter what ahistoricism those groups engage in. (And yes, I'm quite familiar with their beliefs.) You can't reclaim something that never meant that in the first place. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:48, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

See Reclaiming (Neopaganism) as well as Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco. If you're not aware of the political context of Wicca as a reclamation of witchcraft, I'm not sure I can believe your statement that you are "quite familiar with their beliefs". See also Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers and Witches, Sluts, Feminists. Nosferattus (talk) 20:31, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Do you have any thoughts on the 'queer'-'witchcraft' analogy? - Omphaloscope talk 23:34, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The only comparison I'd make is that the usage of "queer" as a positive or neutral descriptor, started as in-group then became pop culture. Usage by those outside the relevant communities is not as comfortable as many think. Many younger people, and straight people, who lack the historical understanding mistakenly believe it's a neutral word. Lacking context, many don't understand that in some places it's still a killing slur. It also lacks global context for many English-only speakers. Aside from that, it's not the best comparison. Let's focus on this topic and the global sources relevant to it. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Hi Nosferattus, please see my comment in the discussion under "Harm". I agree with CorbieVreccan that we shouldn't mix up the traditional and most common meaning with the Wiccan alternative meaning. Wicca has its own article. The lead of Witchcraft mentions Wicca at the top ("For the modern pagan religion, see Wicca") and at the bottom. But, if editors think that's not enough, then I wouldn't be against mentioning Wicca very briefly at the end of the first paragraph aswell. I would be against including it in the first couple of lines, as that's not what this article is about. ~Asarlaí 12:24, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

When the lede is read as a whole, right now Wicca is the last thing mentioned before the first sentence, and the last thing mentioned before the body text. It sandwiches the entire lede. I really think that's sufficient. Any more would be undue weight. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 19:31, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Asarlaí and CorbieVreccan: While the "harmful magic" definition is likely the most common, I disagree that our current lead properly reflects the balance of competing definitions used in current academic sources (especially if you are including religious studies and feminist studies). Ronald Hutton, Professor of History at the University of Bristol, who has written several books about witchcraft, presents a good overview of the tension between the different definitions, which I think would be useful for informing our discussion here:

The standard scholarly definition of [a witch] was summed up in 1978 by a leading expert in the anthropology of religion, Rodney Needham, as 'someone who causes harm to others by mystical means.' ... That usage has persisted till the present among anthropologists and scholars of extra-European peoples ... That is, however, only one current usage of the word. In fact, Anglo-American senses of it now take at least four different forms, although the one discussed above seems to still be the most widespread and frequent. The others define the witch figure as any person who uses magic (although those who employ it for beneficial purposes are often popularly distinguished as 'good' or 'white' witches); or as the practitioner of a particular kind of nature-based Pagan religion; or as a symbol of independent female authority and resistance to male domination. All have validity in the present, and to call anybody wrong for using any one of them would be to reveal oneself as bereft of general knowledge and courtesy, as well as scholarship ... Although the latter two are distinctively modern senses of the word, rooted in the nineteenth century but flowering in the late twentieth, the others are both many centuries old.

— Hutton, The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present, Yale University Press, 2018

We need to present all these conflicting definitions with proper context, not awkwardly shoe-horn the subject into one definition which doesn't reflect actual usage in the balance of sources. A hatnote and brief sentence about Wicca at the end barely scratches the surface. And as Hutton argues, the idea of witchcraft as simply the practice of magic (regardless of whether it is harmful, neutral, or beneficial) isn't a modern, pop-culture invention. This definition has been around for many centuries, it just happens to be quite popular at the moment. Nosferattus (talk) 19:45, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

All of these perspectives are already covered in the article, from a variety of angles. What's not here is linked to via other WP articles. Hutton is not the sole source or authority on the issue, especially as he's a participant observer in the communities he writes about. I suggest you WP:DROPTHESTICK. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:37, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Are you suggesting that Ronald Hutton is a witch or practices witchcraft? Nosferattus (talk) 00:11, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

I think Nosferattus is making an interesting point about the opening paragraph. Even if the more positive meanings of 'witchcraft' are covered in other articles, or in the body of the article, it still may well be that the opening paragraph is skewed and inaccurate; I would like to know more. As I see it, we don't need to take a stand on the issue, but should neutrally record a number of positions, at least those in widely respected academic scholarship. It wouldn't be especially neutral to frame the meaning of 'witch' in a way that contradicts Hutton. Better to remain agnostic, and if his position is well respected, to simply cite him, and perhaps other participants in the debate. I'd be glad to continue discussing the matter. Omphaloscope talk 20:08, 16 February 2022 (UTC)