Witchcraft

Witchcraft, in various historical, religious and mythical contexts, is the use of certain kinds of supernatural or magical powers. A witch is a person (often just a woman) who engages in witchcraft.

The term witchcraft (and witch) is a controversial one with a complicated history. Witchcraft is viewed differently in different cultures around the globe. Used with entirely different contexts, and within entirely different cultural references, it can take on distinct and often contradictory meanings.

Overview

Each culture has its own particular body of concepts dealing with magic, religion, benevolent and harmful spirits, and ritual; and these ideas do not find obvious equivalents in other cultures.

Sometimes witchcraft is used to refer, broadly, to the practice of magic, and has a connotation similar to sorcery. Depending on the values of the community, witchcraft in this sense may be regarded with varying degrees of suspicion and hostility, or with ambivalence, being neither intrinsically good nor evil. Members of some religions have applied the term witchcraft in a pejorative sense to refer to all magical or ritual practices other than those sanctioned by their own doctrines, though this has become less common, at least in the Western world. According to some religious doctrines, all forms of magic are labeled witchcraft, and are either proscribed or treated as superstitious. Such religions consider their own ritual practices to be not at all magical, but rather simply variations of prayer.

Witchcraft is also used to refer, narrowly, to the practice of magic in an exclusively inimical sense. If the community accepts magical practice in general, then there is typically a clear separation between witches (in this sense) and the terms used to describe legitimate practitioners. This use of the term is most often found in accusations against individuals who are suspected of causing harm in the community by way of supernatural means. Belief in witches of this sort have been common among the indigenous populations of the world, including Africa, Asia and the Americas. On occasion such accusations have led to witch hunts.

Under the monotheistic religions of the Levant (primarily Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), witchcraft came to be associated with heresy, rising to a fever pitch among the Catholics, Protestants, and secular leadership of the European Late Medieval/Early Modern period. Throughout this time, the concept of witchcraft came increasingly to be interpreted as a form of Devil worship. Accusations of witchcraft were frequently combined with other charges of heresy against such groups as the Cathars and Waldensians.

In the modern Western world, witchcraft accusations have often accompanied the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria. Such accusations are a counterpart to blood libel of various kinds, which may be found throughout history across the globe.

Recently, witchcraft has taken on a distinctly positive connotation among Wiccans and other Neopagans as the ritual element of their religious beliefs.

A great deal of confusion and conflict has arisen from attempts by one group or another to canonize their particular definition of the term.

Practices typically considered to be witchcraft

Practices to which the witchcraft label have been historically applied are those which influence another person's body or property against his or her will, or which are believed, by the person doing the labeling, to undermine the social or religious order.

Some modern commentators, especially neopagan ones, consider the malefic nature of witchcraft to be a Christian projection.

Influencing another person's body or property

The concept of a magic-worker influencing another person's body or property against his or her will was clearly present in many cultures before the introduction of monotheism, as there are traditions in both folk magic and religious magic that have the purpose of countering witchcraft or identifying witches from those times. Many examples can be found in ancient texts, such as those from Egypt and Babylonia. Where witchcraft is believed to have the power to influence the body or possessions, witches can become a credible cause for disease, sickness in animals, bad luck, sudden death, impotence and other such misfortunes. Folk magic of a more benign and socially acceptable sort may then be employed to turn the malevolence aside, or identify the supposed witch so that punishment may be carried out. The folk magic used to identify or protect against witches is often indistinguishable from that used by the witches themselves.

There has also existed in popular belief the concept of white witches and white witchcraft, which is strictly benevolent. Many neopagan witches identify with this concept, and profess strong ethical codes that prevent them from attempting magic on someone without that person having requested it or at least given permission.

Witchcraft practices (in the common, malefic sense) are typically forbidden by law where belief in them exists (as well as being hated and feared by the general populace) while 'folk magic' is tolerated or even accepted wholesale by the people, even if the orthodox establishment objects to it.

Conjuring the dead

Necromancy, the conjuring of the spirits of the dead, is also regarded as a typical witchcraft practice; the Biblical 'Witch' of Endor is supposed to have performed it, and it is among the witchcraft practices condemned by Aelfric.

"Yet fares witches to where roads meet, and to heathen burials with their phantom craft and call to them the devil, and he comes to them in the dead man's likeness, as if he from death arises, but she cannot cause that to happen, the dead to arise through her wizardry."
Source: Aelfric's Homilies

Spell Casting

Probably the most obvious characteristic of a witch is their ability to cast spells. Spells can be cast by many methods, including meditation, burning of candles, chanting or reciting incantations, performing physical rituals and making herbal preparations. Sometimes quite simple and mundane actions can constitute the physical casting of a spell, and it is a common belief amongst modern witches that the intention behind the actions is at least as important as the actions themselves. Methods are many and differ from witch to witch.

List of other practices associated with Witchcraft

Meditation
Talking to plants
The manipulation of energy
Seeing auras
Conducting séances; using ouija boards
Chanting mantras
Healing
Divination - by tarot, runes, etc.
Astrology, reading of horoscopes
Use of poppets

Etymology

The origins of the term witch are highly disputed. That the word derives directly from Old English is hard to doubt, but the origins of the Old English words are more problematic. Contraction of witega ('wise man, prophet') is possible. Low German contains wicker (soothsayer). Other possible connections include the Old English wigle (divination), the Proto-Germanic wikkjaz (necromancer), the Gothic weihs (holy), and the English words victim (in its original meaning for someone killed in a religious ritual) and wicked. Many neo-pagan sources assert that because the root wik- is associated with words meaning "to bend", the original meaning of the word was "one who bends the natural order" (by using magic).

Colloquially, the term witch is applied almost exclusively to women, although in earlier English the term was applied to men too. Most people would call male witches sorcerers, wizards, or warlocks; however, modern self-identified witches and Wiccans continue to use the term witch for all who practice witchcraft.

Theories of Neopagan Witchcraft

Some neopagans believe that witchcraft should be used for good, and eschew any evil usages. Their belief is sometimes very similar to the belief of Christians in prayer, that the Divine will acknowledge and grant answers to a ritual given in a Deity's name.

Some subscribe to the idea that all of reality is at some level interconnected, forming a single universal 'self' or 'oneness', and that by becoming conscious of this connection people can directly influence things around them. This view also implies ethical considerations, for harming another is, at a certain level, harming oneself.

Others believe instead that the power of witchcraft comes about primarily through psychological and psychosomatic effects, rather than any divine or paranormal means.

Many neopagan witches subscribe to a model of three parts of the self, or three aspects of consciousness. Wiccan author Starhawk, in her book Spiral Dance, describes these as the Talking Self (the conscious mind), the Younger Self (the unconscious mind) and the Higher Self (the soul, also called the Divine Self); the unconscious (Younger Self) is non-verbal and does not understand speech, but understands and responds to symbolism. Many similar models exist in the fields of psychology and magic, such as the ego, id and superego of Freud, or the Qabalistic concept of three parts of the self, being the Ruach (intellect and ego), the Nephesch (body, lower instinct and subconscious) and the Neschamah (the highest divine self).

This is also similar to the Eastern Christian trichotomy of the Greek words σώμα (soma), ψυχή (psyche), and νους (nous), wherein the soma is the living body, psyche is the "mind" as we normally use the term, and nous is the faculty capable of apprehending the Divine. It differs from Starhawk's model in that it assigns a place for the physical body in and of itself as part of a "whole" human being's spiritual existence.

A common theme amongst philosophies that describe three aspects of self is the idea that the unconscious acts as an intermediary between the consciousness and the superconsciousness. Thus, to affect change on a higher, spiritual level, a practitioner may employ rituals and symbolism that speak to the 'lower' mind.

For neopagans who take a purely psychological approach to witchcraft, the power of a ritual is in the way its symbolism speaks to the unconscious mind. Psychology and medical research have shown that beliefs have an effect on one's perception of reality, and that beliefs and perception appear to effect behaviorial and other quantifiable physical changes; one well known example is the placebo effect.

Not all Witches (people who practice witchcraft) consider themselves Wiccan or Neopagan, and vice versa.