WITCHCRAFT
INTRODUCTION
Witchcraft (also called witchery or spellcraft) broadly means the practice of, and belief in, magical skills and abilities that are able to be exercised by individuals and certain social groups. Witchcraft is a complex concept that varies culturally and societally; therefore, it is difficult to define with precision and cross-cultural assumptions about the meaning or significance of the term should be applied with caution. Witchcraft often occupies a religious, divinatory or medicinal role, and is often present within societies and groups whose cultural framework includes a magical world view. Although witchcraft can often share common ground with related concepts such as sorcery, the paranormal, magic, superstition,
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Such people described their contacts with fairies, spirits often involving out-of-body experiences and travelling through the realms of an "other-world". Beliefs of this nature are implied in the folklore of much of Europe, and were explicitly described by accused witches in central and southern Europe.
CONTEMPORARY WITCHCRAFT
Modern practices identified by their practitioners as "witchcraft" have grown dramatically since the early 20th century. Generally portrayed as revivals of pre-Christian European ritual and spirituality, they are understood to involve varying degrees of magic, shamanism, folk medicine, spiritual healing, calling on elementals and spirits, veneration of ancient deities and archetypes, and attunement with the forces of nature.
The first Neopagan groups to publicly appear, during the 1950s and 60s, were Gerald Gardner 's Bricket Wood coven and Roy Bowers ' Clan of Tubal Cain. They operated as initiatory secret societies. Other individual practitioners and writers such as Paul Huson also claimed inheritance to surviving traditions of
Telling fortunes, showing peoples faces in glasses, enchantments, and healing the sick are some of the things people who practiced witchcraft claimed to be able to do. New Englanders often turned to people who could do these things for favors and referred to them as "cunning folk" (pg.107). The New Englanders didn't see any harm in using their occult powers for there own good, when in fact these people were in contact with the devil. They did not see it that way but they were indeed risking being banished to hell.
The book Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage by Jeanne Favret-Saada is about witchcraft practiced in Bocage, an area of Western France. Since Bocage is a more rural area of France, Favret-Saada explains that the practice of witchcraft is unique here because, “…geographical and cultural ‘isolation’ are partly responsible for the ‘survival’ of ‘these’ (witchcraft) beliefs” (Favret-Saada 1980, 3). Throughout the book, Favret-Saada discusses problems within the realm of ethnography and how simply observing or writing about a practice is not the same as experiencing it. Thus, she argues that one does not understand Bocage witchcraft without experiencing it first-hand. Favret-Saada goes into detail about the experience of bewitchment and the
In America, .03% of Americans reportedly practice New Age Pagan religions, including the Neo-pagan Earth-centered Wiccan religion (PewResearch). Today “witch” and “witchcraft” has over a dozen different meanings. Witches are often depicted in movies, television or books as those who practice fantasy magic like author J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter or the powerful demon fighting witches on the television show Charmed. Christian religions and the Bible often cast witches and witchcraft as evil and associate it with Satan. However, Wicca is one of the fastest-growing religions within the United States.
The Witch of Wapping was a notorious case in its time. Like many trials of witches of the 1600’s, this one is thought to be based on revenge and cynicism rather than on a firm belief that the accused was actually practicing some form of witchcraft. Joan Peterson lived in East London and was tried and convicted of witchcraft in 1652, she was sentenced to be hanged in Tyburn that same year. Though it seems like a cut and dry case, suspicion looms around the details and the motives the accusers had when seeing to her imprisonment and eventual death.
The Case of Ann Hibbins, Executed for Witchcraft at Boston 1656 enforces a sense of realism towards The Witch because witchcraft is a supernatural subject dealt with in court. Declared guilty or not guilty of being a witch which will decide your fate. Actual
Prior to the 12th century in Scotland there were two distinctive types of witches that would fulfill different tasks in their society. White witches strived to help people around them. These witches believed that for every positive action that is completed, it shall be returned triple from what they have given. However, unlike the white witches, black witches would perform malicious acts that would cause danger to those around them. Black witches accomplish negative acts in order to abuse enemies that have that have more to contribute towards society.
On the other hand, when someone does something punishable, it is not taken lightly. In fact, that person suffers severe consequences because he or she is believed to be overtaken by evil spirits. To fully understand witchcraft amongst the Cherokee, one has to realize that using medicine, conjuring, and witchcraft have remained an integral part of Cherokee culture even up to the present day (Cherokee Indian Religion). They have used medication as a whole to help with healing people within their
Throughout Europe, more than hundreds of thousands of people were prosecuted due charges of witchcraft. Witchcraft conspiracies were escalated from large cities to small towns and rural areas. Witchcraft was seen as an existential cycle in the human race since simple sorcery was set out through the offering of the helpful spirits and throughout the use of charms, it was mostly used through traditional virtues in societies. Most people believed that there were hostile spirits, and through each person there was a purpose of their own, which would protect them from demons and harmful enemies that could only be fought throw magic. Even though, Western beliefs about witchcraft increased dramatically in the mythologies and folklore of ancient people, witches in ancient Egypt repeatedly use their
When you say you are a witch people laugh like it was not even a real thing or like if we were lunatics that thinks that have powers. That is frustrating, people have their minds so closed they are not even willing to talk about it and let us explain what witchcraft and magic really is. But fear is a reality also, even my husband when passing near to an offer that was placed by our house, with a red towel and drinks and flowers in a corner he passed very fast and made the sign of the cross. Even inside my own house, being myself a witch I have to deal with fear and preconcept…. I attribute that preconcept to TV, there is where this ignorant persons get all their information and to the knowledge passed by the fathers to the children and reinforced by
Long ago people thought women were bad luck, somehow they were thought to be involved in witchcraft and if you had anything to do with it, you were considered to be bad luck. They used to travel only by boat, as it was the easiest way to move from place to place. They traveled to another place to trade goods and clothes that other people made that they couldn’t because they did not have the materials. As men and women traveled on boat, men did not want the women on board with them. Because of the other people who didn’t believe that they were bad luck, they would send the women with men to get the goods and clothes from another country across the sea.
Similar to religions in our society, witchcraft provides solace for the Azande people. For example, it provides them with a definite and clear reason to explain sorrowful events such as death or other misfortunes and other tragedy. This can be followed by the famous Marx quote: ‘religion is the opiate of the masse’. For the Azande society and culture, witchcraft helps dull the painful and sorrowful emotions following misfortunes and also serving as a control on the Azande people - it helps them to discipline them by providing them with a socially-accepted avenue to channel their negative thoughts and
Many of these have owed their origin to Gardnerian initiates who started their own covens and performed their own initiations. Other popular forms of Wiccan practice have derived from self-initiated practitioners and mystics who have created their own forms of nature religion based on the original published materials from Gardner and others. Today several such lineages and derivations of Garderian Wicca are in widespread practice around the
As I said, what they possibly though were witchcraft back then could be something treatable by now. Unlike in 1690’s, they didn’t have proof to back their hypothesis that it was bewitching. But now that the reason behind the said incidents were already established and proved wrong by people who studied what might have happened back then. People might still believe witchcraft does exist in present time solely because they have no idea that it might just be an illness that they had no idea about. That the reaction of people around toward something can affect greatly on how things can be
Macbeth Vs. Witches When witches come together, nothing can go right. In Act 3 Scene 4, Macbeth says "I am in blood stepped so far that, should I wade no more, returning were as tedious as go o'er: strange things I have in head that will to hand, which must be acted ere they may be scanned.
During the seventeenth century, citizens of Europe conjured a prevalent idea of witchcraft. In Europe, witchcraft was typically blamed on women, suggesting that this activity was an intentional woman-hunt. Many force the question of gender and women toward the witchcraft debate. The discussion on why women were more susceptible than men infers the suggested role of women in the seventeenth century European society.