Witchcraft Many religions have been misunderstood by people. Sometimes their ignorance and beliefs cannot be opened up to the truth. Witchcraft is one of those religions. The majority of people have sometimes compared Witchcraft to Satanism or any religion dealing with the occult. In fact, Witchcraft is sometimes referred to as the "Old Religion", and is completely different from the misconceptions of people. It is certainly one of the most misunderstood religions. It will continue to remain to be misunderstood if people insist on keeping a closed mind on the subject and believe the stories and rumors that have been misconstrued over the years. Witchcraft is considered to be one of the oldest religions dating back to Pre-historic times. Its practices were found painted on the walls of caves long before Christianity was established. Witchcraft had all but disappeared until an Englishman by the name of Gerald Gardner revived it in the 1940's. While on a trip to Asia he became overwhelmed by magic and the worship of the Mother Goddess. In 1939 he was initiated into witchcraft by a woman named Old Dorothy Clutterbuck, the heir to the ancient tradition. When he returned to England he began a coven, and from this coven he wrote rituals and published books on Witchcraft, his grimoire, or bible, is still in existence and is located in the Ripley's collection in Toronto. Gardner soon became a part of many covens and spiritualist organizations. He was influenced by a man named Aleister Crowley, an earlier occultist who styled himself as "The Great Beast". Crowley was a part of an occultist group named the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an occult that Gardner would later join. Gardner took the complicated rit... ... middle of paper ... ... Religion Factor: An Introduction to How Religion Matters. Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1996. Lehmann, Arthur C., and James E. Myers. Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: An Anthropological Study of the Supernatural. Chico, California: Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997. Russell, Jeffrey B. A History of Witchcraft: Sorcerers, Heretics, and Pagans. New York: Thames and Hudson, 1991. "A Real Witch..." http://www.oro.net/~remmus/modern.html (18 Nov. 1998). "The Do's and Don'ts of Witches." The Witches' League for Public Awareness 1997. http://www.celticcrow.com/basics/doos.html (12 Oct. 1998). "One Witch's View. The Witches' League for Public Awareness 1997. http://www.celticcrow.com/basics/witchview.html (12 Oct. 1998). "Witchcraft: Crash Course." http://www.eccentrica.org/untouched/witchcraft101.html (18 Nov. 1998).
Witchcraft was relentlessly thought as the work of the devil with only sinful and immoral intentions. Julio Caro Baroja explains in his book on Basque witchcraft that women who were out casted from society and unable to fulfill their womanly duties became witches as a way to compensate for her failed life. They were thought to be a threat to society as they dwindled in evil magic. This misunderstanding may have originated from the literary works of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, in their published book, “Malleus Maleficarum”. Accusations of being adulterous, liars and dealing with the devil materialized because of the...
Witchcraft had always fascinated many people and been a very controversial topic in North America during (seventeenth) 17th century. Many People believe that witchcraft implies the ability to injure or using supernatural power to harm others. People believed that a witch represents dark side of female present and were more likely to embrace witchcraft than men. There are still real witches among us in the Utah whom believe that witchcraft is the oldest religion dealing with the occult. However the popular conception of a witch has not changed at least since the seventeenth century; they still caused panic, fear and variety of other emotions in people…………………….
Witchcraft is a term which sprouts many different meanings. As stated above, it is attributed to witches. But what is a witch? Probably an evil haggish-like women who has signed a pact with the devil if we think of it in the English sense. So witchcraft must be evil doings; putting curses on people to make their life miserable, using wicked spells to transform humans to frogs etc. But does this hold true to everyone's idea of what witchcraft is.People's believes on the subject of witchcraft might differ between different cultures.
Witchcraft first emerged in Renaissance Europe and consisted of, “the individual’s making, for whatever reason and to whatever end, a pact or covenant with the Devil, thereby gaining the power to manipulate supernatural forces for anti-social and un-Christian ends.” (Currie 8). Obviously, witchcraft is not something that is done out of love for God, so this statement from Currie would be true because the witches were doing supernatural things and
Wicca is an old religion, having begun “more than thirty-five thousand years ago” as stated by Starhawk, a Wiccan (qtd in Allen 18). Even though it had started long before him and many events involving witchcraft had happened, research has shown that a man named Gerald Gardner was the one who brought the religion of Wicca to the public eye in the 1950s (Allen 19). Gardner said it was thought to be the pre-Christian religion of Europe called the “old religion” (Adler 637). ...
Over time the world and society have both changed tremendously and one thing that has changed with that is the idea of Witchcraft. Witchcraft has never been prosperous but has been around ever since society has had any written records of time. Different societies and areas all experienced Witchcraft and were driven by the same motives like naivety and fear. Society has a very different view on witchcraft from 35,000 BC compared to present present day because things change over time. Witchcraft has never really been socially acceptable in most countries but the view and ideas about Witchcraft has definitely changed over time. Witches, depending on the country and time period, were characterized with specific traits and appearance
What images come to mind when you think of witches? Many people immediately imagine a black pointy hat, bubbling cauldron, green warty skin, and Halloween. Usually the image that comes to mind is something scary and evil. Real witches do exist. Most modern witches go by the label Wiccan now. Wiccans practice Wicca, which is a nature-based religion with many different branches or denominations. The basic tenant of all Wicca is called the Three Fold Law. The Three Fold Law states that whatever you do will come back to you times three, good or bad, so do not cause harm or, in other words, “harm none”. It is kind of like the concept of karma in one lifetime. There is debate over how old the religion actually is with some saying that it is an ancient religion that pre-dates Christianity and some saying it is more modern, starting in the 1950’s with Gerald Gardener. Regardless of how old the religion is, Hollywood’s portrayal of witches often does have some kernel of truth, albeit sometimes it is hard to find.
As we may already know, the town of Salem was subject to an epidemic of the accusations of witchcraft that lasted over ten months. Witchcraft of this time period was not taken lightly. In England alone over 40,000-60,000 people were killed after being found guilty of witchcraft. Needless to say the people found witchcraft as a virus that infected the town. The first cases started off with the daughters of Samuel Parris, the town minister, accusing his slave, Tituba, of being a witch. She claimed that she and others in the town were witches and there was even a wizard. The town broke out in hysteria in further months. Over 100 people were put in jail because of accusations. The council that were to find these people’s innocence or guilt were corrupted as well because to claim innocence meant you were guilty and if you were to claim guilt you could be redeemed. Many of the items found incriminating were pins and voodoo dolls. Many of these people faced the psychological terror of being pressured into claiming guilt to a crime, you didn’t commit in front of a committee and scared the community to death that they were going to be subjected to. Many of the witnesses to these trials were said to have undergone physical distress or act inhumanly. Many historians say to these records that since their body was put under so much strain and fear of the witchcraft that surrounded them all the time, their bodies going through strange changes such as paralysis or temporary blindness with no real cause rather than stress. But many historians also believe the witnesses were voluntarily acting and committing fraud against the others. But why was this such an enigma to understand why this small town in New England was all of a sudden becoming a cen...
In Jw.org it states that thousands of people in European colonies died and millions of others suffered from torture, arrest, interrogation, hate, guilt, or fear. Also there was well over seventy percent of the people accused of witchcraft was women especially the poor, and or elderly. Therefore no one was safe not even the men, rich or poor. In the case of being accused of being a witch it state that if you are going to be blessed which means to be thrown into deep water that if you were to float then you were to be hanged on the spot but if you sunk then you were deemed as innocent so you do not get hung you get pulled out. Also another way to be deemed as a witch is to look for the devils mark which consist of a complete inspection of the body. Therefore modern day witchcraft did exist all over the world and thousands of people were accused of witchcraft and thousands also lost their lives due to scapegoating.
...ches and witchcraft have been passed down through generations to generations. From way back to the 1200’s to today in the present times, that is how long witches have been around. As of the history of witches and witchcraft, stories were used to keep the history alive inside the stories written in ancient mythology to Walt Disney’s movies. Check your family history. What and who were they. Were they witch hunters or were they a witch? There’s more to the story of Halloween or All Hallows Eve than meets the eye. What story or legend will come next?
Early colonization of America led to the merging and changing in the ideas of witchcraft by the Europeans, Native Americans, Spanish, and British. These ideas took the lives of many, but they shaped the past so the present may be as it is today.
...se, destroy and threaten the survival of the Christian world. However, the threats to the Church were economic and sociopolitical and not witchcraft. The Church was struggling with internal conflicts, rebellions, social changes as a result of the breakdown of the feudal system and they were reflected in terms of religious dissatisfaction that demanded religious reform. These threats were treated as heresy rather than political dissent and its response was to frame the motives and practices of heretics in terms of satanism. Witchcraft threatened Christianity because it provided an alternative values system compared to the established patriarchal institutions and questioned male power. Witch beliefs represented the inverse of the positive values in medieval patriarchal society and the stereotype of the witch is the negative standard for women.
Lehmann A. C. & Myers J. E. Magic, Witchcraft and Religion – An anthropological Study of the Supernatural (Fourth Edition) (Mayfield Publishing Company, 1997)
In general witchcraft is sorcery, the magical manipulation of the supernormal forces through the use of spells, and the conjuring or invoking of spirits. Wicca is the most common witchcraft. During the middle ages and the renaissance, it was defined as evil magic. This is the very reason Joan of Arc was burned at the stake; she was accused of being a witch. Although many think that it is a religion that worships the devil, Wicca does not have anything to do with worshiping the devil or Christianity. The most common form of witchcraft is done with the use of spells. To set a spell, the person doing it will set up an altar/table in which to place the candles and symbols on. The spells consist of words that can either be chanted or inscribed in something. The candles are used to direct the spell towards a specific purpose, such as: pink-love, white-healing and peace, and black-death. These colors can be used for different meanings; however, these are the standard meanings. There are many other colors out there with their own unique meanings, like if a spell was being set on a person; a candle that was their favorite color could be used. The symbols used consist of charms, pictures, flowers and belongings depending on the spell being set. These symbols must represent the spell and they cannot just be anything done quickly without thought. For example, if the person were trying to make their friend heal from a sickness a picture of the person or something that represents them would work.
Pratt, S.A.M., 1915. The Attitude of the Catholic Church towards Witchcraft and the Allied Practices of Sorcery and Magic, Washington D.C.: National Capital Press, Inc.