History of Pagan Magic - Witchcraft

Hi everyone! Today we're going to talk about a minor history of Paganism and Witchcraft, so you may want to bookmark this for your Book of Shadows.

When you first think of the word "Witchcraft", what's your first thought? Mine's the Wicked Witch of the West from the Wizard of Oz. I think of warts, green skin, an old woman hunched over a black pot and stirring a dark liquid. Where does that come from? By using some information from Obsidian's Book of Shadows, we'll understand that today.

Pagan religions dated back about 25,000 years.  In England it became heretical to be a Witch in 1320, and Illegal in 1541.  In 1448 a document called the Malleus Malificarum was commissioned and was used as a sort of handbook for Witch-hunters for over 250 years.  It is estimated that between 1400 and 1700 100,000 people were executed for the crime of Witchcraft.  As horrible as the “Burning times”  (A term for the times in which Witches were put to death for their beliefs) were for Witches, I feel more sorry for the hundreds (Probably thousands) of people who were tried and executed for Witchcraft, who were not actually Witches.  A lot of the supposed Witches were simply people who had upset a neighbor or had coincidences which led to their prosecution for Witchcraft.  Apparently The Church and all the people associated with the trials got paid for each Witch caught, and the neighbors given first dibs on their land.  So it was in their best interests to accuse innocent people of Witchcraft.

I believe this was mostly due to fear on the part of the Christians.  Fear of the unknown.  Pagan religions tend to be very female centered   They worship a Female deity, revere their women as sacred and wise.  Christians (Due to Eve) had a negative image of women, they considered women to be easily persuaded by the devil and to be unclean sinful creatures.  Surely finding religions which worshiped a female deity would have gone against the social norms of the Christians, and I believe this also aided the fear and persecution of Witches.  I have also heard that at the time of the start to the burning times, a lot of prominent figureheads were assassinated by poisoning.  As many of the Witches were healers and had herbal knowledge, they were among the first people to become suspects.

The phrase “Thou shalt not suffer a Witch to live” is apparently a misquote, as the Hebrew “witch” meant prisoner (I have heard Poisoner).  I have heard that the main reason for the beginning of the Witch Hunts was because a lot of influential people were being murdered, poisoned.... and the focus then went to anyone capable of creating herbal potions.... Witches.  This could explain the Witch-poisoner meaning.

Although Witches were thought to have formed an alliance with the Devil, in reality the Devil did not exist until the Christian Church created it.  The Pagan God “The Horned God” is a half man-half goat figure, but does not represent evil of any form.  Witches were said to have a mark, a Devil’s mark, so that the Devil could pick out his followers.  This mark was searched for during Witch trials.  But any wart, birthmark, mole or blemish could be considered to be a Devil’s Mark, and I do not know a person who does not have at least 1 blemish on their skin.   I won’t go into detail about the tests and torture methods used.  Suffice it to say, many people were tortured and killed because they chose to believe in the “old ways”.

When the Christians started converting people, they soon realized that one of the large parts of the Pagan religions was their celebrations.  So they adopted parts of the Pagan ceremonies into their own religious holidays.  Christmas for example is not the actual birth date for Jesus (If you believe he existed of course).  The Christians admit that they moved the date closer to the Pagan’s Yule celebrations.  You’ll also find Pagans have Ostara  and Christians have Easter, Pagans have All Hallow’s Eve (Samhain) and Christians have All Saint’s Eve, Pagans have Imbolc and Christians have Candlemas.  They formed their own religious holidays around Pagan ones to make the transition to Christianity a bit easier.

I feel almost every bit upset about this, though it has to be said that there are Christians that did not do this to innocent people, instead they might have stood by or just didn't know it was happening at all.Still, it hurts; people died because the world wasn't ready for something different, and they destroyed the flower instead of allowing it to blossom and grow.

On my next post, we'll talk about the Elements and their meaning. Blessed be!