The Modern Witch and the Use of Witchcraft
"I'll get you my pretty, and your little dog too!" The Wicked Witch of the West...
One of the most notorious and stereotypical witches in all literature.
She had green skin, a big wart- covered nose, and a wide-brimmed black hat. She summoned a legion of monsters, stirred evil brews in her black cauldron, and generally made life difficult for the fun-loving citizens of Oz. She, and her fellow "hags" tend to be seen in a rather comic light, despite their appearance, and are usually seen around Halloween. They are one of the two ideas that most people hold of who witches are and what they do. The other is that of the "devil's whore" of Medieval Europe and Colonial Salem who were charged with killing babies, celebrating "black masses," and having sex orgies with Satan. The modern Wiccan; a practitioner of the religion known as Wicca, Witchcraft, or simply The Craft; resembles these "Witches" as much as a straw broom resembles the Dirt Devil Upright. The Craft is a religion based on the worship of a supreme divine creator, the practice of magic, and a reverence for the earth and all her inhabitants.
Deity Concepts and Worship Practices
"All religions are structures built on reverence of Deity. Wicca is no exception. The Wicca acknowledge a supreme divine power, unknowable, ultimate, from which the entire universe sprang," (Cunningham, 9). This is a Witch's concept of the Divine. However, it is a distant, powerful image that is not easily understood. For the purpose of worship, the Wicca recognize the duality of this power. It is both male and female, good and evil, and therefore is worshipped in the form of a Goddess and a God. These are the primeval gods o...
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...everence for nature--define the modern witch. Witchcraft is not devil worship or a cult of sex orgies and drug abuse, but is simply "...a way of life for hundreds of thousands--perhaps millions--of well adjusted adults who simply share a view of nature that is different from that of the majority," (Cunningham, xi). This is who witches are and what they do. Witches are good, moral, law-abiding people. Even those from the west.
Works Cited
Cunningham, Scott. The Truth About Witchcraft Today. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1994.
Cunningham, Scott. Wicca: A Guide of the Solitary Practitioner. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1988.
Moura, Ann. Green Witchcraft. St. Paul, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 1996.
Walker, Barbra G. The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. San Francisco: HarperCollins Publishers, 1988.
Witchcraft is the most illogical and despised practices involving the supernatural power. “It implies the ability to injure others. A witch usually acquires his power through an inherent physical factor or through the power of another witch. Witch possess a special organ called mangu, located somewhere behind the sternum or attached to the liver.”[11] Woman/man may become a witch through the influence of another witch or contact with another witch. Witches do not intend to do harm; they are as much the victims of witchcraft as those upon whom they practice it. They have innate power and often don’t know what they are doing. The belief in witchcraft helps people explain the causes of illness, death and misfortune experienced by a person or a group when no other explanations can be found. Most of the time when witches create injury and calamity, they were punished by death, sometimes by exile. They also were forced into admission of guilt by torture, fear, or the hope for lighter punishment. “Most witches work by night, are capable of covering long distances very rapidly, tem...
Defined by Margot Adler, writer for Reader’s Companion to U.S. Women’s History, “Wicca is the term commonly used to describe several different traditions of contemporary Paganism—an earth-centered religion that reveres nature; celebrates seasonal and lunar cycles; and worships a goddess, or many goddesses, or sometimes a goddess and a god” (637-638). It is a religion that focuses on worshipping an earth god or goddess, using their power and the earth’s elements for good. For a misunderstood religion it has much history behind it and a deep core belief system.
Technology is everywhere; in the home, office, restaurant and the classroom. As teachers, we need to begin to embrace this technology and apply it to our students’ lives. But this begins with the teacher’s attitude and according to Johnson,
Evaluate the role of gender in early modern witch-hunting. During the early modern period Europe experienced a phase of vicious prosecution of the people accused of the crime of ‘Witchcraft.’ There has been an estimated death toll of up to 50,000 people during these Witch-hunt crazes, although the exact figures are unknown. What is known is that overall 75-80% of those accused were women, although this varies in different states.
Witchcraft has been in practice for centuries upon centuries, having been traced back to the beginning of mankind, where it was seen as a religious practice that instilled magical rights upon the user (Witchcraft). Prehistoric art exemplifies this, with inscriptions detailing magical rites that were used to ensure that their hunting was successful (Wiccan One’s Universe). Witches were commonplace all over the world with different stigmas and stereotypes attached to them from each respectful culture that contained them. The belief in magic predated Christianity, Judaism, and recorded history, and over time magic became mainly associated with one group - Witches (Erzulie). This could have been due to the fading out of many other ancient religions as well as the growing popularity that Witchcraft gained from incorporating man...
What do you think when someone calls someone a witch? What comes to mind? Do you think of the movie, ‘Hocus Pocus’ or do you think of the black pointed hats and the long black, slit ended dresses? What about witchcraft? Does the term “Devil worshiper” ever cross your mind? Do you think of potions and spells? For many, many generations, we have underestimated what the true meaning of a witch and what witchcraft really is. What is the history that hides behind it? Witches and witchcraft have been in our history since the ancient times. There is a little bit more than the ghost stories told on Halloween, the movies shown on TV and dressing up on Halloween.
First, Wicca, the formal organization of witchcraft, is a mystery religion. Each practitioner is considered a witch, and practitioner of The Craft, which contains several different beliefs concerning theology and divinity depending on an individual because of their freedom to study what they seek. Members may choose to be solitary, or part of a coven, which is a group of Wiccans that share beliefs and conduct rituals together. Though different groups of Wicca may differ in certain viewpoints, there are few unambiguous attributes of the religion. These explain that “deity is inspiring, and immanent; Humans are a part of nature; Divinity is manifested in all things and is the central part of nature; God and Goddess images are recognized as higher forms of divinity.” (Church and School of Wicca). The main rule that the Wiccans abide by is the Wiccan Rede, which preaches: “An ye harm none, do what ye will.” (Church and School of Wicca). Magic plays a huge part in the Wiccan religion, with spells, rituals, ceremonies, healings, and divination, etc., among the fundamental practices.
Witchcraft is said to be the most widespread cultural phenomenon in existence today and throughout history. Even those who shun the ideas of witchcraft cannot discount the similarities in stories from all corners of the globe. Witchcraft and its ideas have spread across racial, religious, and language barriers from Asia to Africa to America. Primitive people from different areas in the world have shockingly similar accounts of witchcraft occurrences. In most cases the strange parallels cannot be explained and one is only left to assume that the tales hold some truth. Anthropologists say that many common elements about witchcraft are shared by different cultures in the world. Among these common elements are the physical characteristics and the activities of supposed witches. I will go on to highlight some of the witch characteristic parallels found in printed accounts from different parts of the world and their comparisons to some famous fairytales.
Relief in the existence of witches and witchcraft has existed for centuries. There existed a time when people would blame all their troubles and problems on anyone they thought to be a witch. Between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, roughly 50,000 people, especially women, were accused of witchcraft and executed in Scotland. People prosecuted were accused by the government and Catholic Church of crimes such as heresy, satanic worship, natural disasters, crimes against the Church, and even the misfortune of their neighbors or stillborn children. Along with these crimes, they were also falsely accused with ridiculous things because it was the best way to blame someone. A neighbors misfortune, odd behavior from animals, all were put onto these innocent people who were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
All throughout American history there have been numerous dark spots that have plagued us and our land. We’ve faced bombings, wars, terrorism and persecution of innocents. Most people can confirm that one of the original dark spots would have to be the witch trials of our past. Now we see these people who were slaughtered as innocents who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But what is witchcraft. Is like Harry Potter with short incantations, potions and flying broomsticks, or is it demon worship with sacrifices and a goat's blood. For many people they believe it is make believe and just part of another story, with no structure or rules upon themselves. But sadly life itself isn’t a story and in real life witchcraft follows rules.
Iris recognition is very accurate and distinctive because iris has a complex texture that can produce a substantial amount of information to identify a person. Furthermore, the iris remains almost unchanged from childhood, only minuscule variations are presented. The biometric data is captured using a small and high definition camera that is able to recognize different characteristics of the iris. Moreover, the system can detect the use of contact lens with a fake iris and can realize with the natural movement of the eye if the sample object is a living being. Although initially iris recognition systems were expensive and complex to use, new technology developments have improved these weaknesses.
Closing the digital divide involves many components, starting with the education program and teachers. While schools are integrating new technologies into their programs, teachers are supposed to keep up with the latest technologies and use them in their curriculum to teach students. According to a U.S. Department of Education Report (1999), only 24 percent of new teachers felt sufficiently prepared to integrate technology into the curriculum they were using (Brogan, 2000). The problem is, many teachers did not grow up with computers and are not receiving the training they need to operate them (Brogan, 2000). Starting work as early as 7 a.m. and leaving school as late as 5 p.m. to go home and do even more work, leaves teachers lacking the time to learn new technological skills. Many schools offer training programs for teachers. For example, the Palm Beach County, Florida school district teaches Web basics for teachers at middle schools and magnet schools (Brogan, 2000). This is a great idea because it is giving teachers the opportunity to learn about technology and it is showing that the school district is interested in helping its employees become better at what they do.
Human face detection and face image analysis have become one of the most important research topics in the world of pattern recognition and computer vision. The eye is the most important feature in a human face. The facial feature detection techniques aim to extract specific features such as, pupil, corners of the eyes, nostrils, lip corners, etc. Major applications of face detection consist of topics such as, face recog...
Mundy, M., Kupczynski, L. and Kee, R. 2012, “Teacher's Perceptions of Technology Use in the Schools”, SAGE Open, pp. 1-8, viewed 15 Jan 2014, retrieved from Sage Online Article.
As facilitators of learning, our classrooms are filled with students who are comprised of generation X’ers and Millenial’s. We must be conscious to structure our lessons and approaches so that we can present content in the most effective manner. Technology, in regards to principles of teaching, challenges the teacher to not only learn what the technology is all about, but to learn to integrate it effectively within the context of their individual classrooms. Teachers in classrooms across the nation struggle with computer technology, the many features, and the never-ending cycle of new devices that are bought into their classrooms daily. Because of the lack of training and severe levels of discomfort, teachers have developed a negative disposition towards the use of technology when it applying it to principle. Recognizing the noted factors, it can be resolved that we do live in an interactive world. Our job is to effectively integrate the technology in such a way that it supports, guides, and enhances learning for all parties involved.