Michael Streeter - Witchcraft: A Secret History
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- Year:2020
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A SECRET HISTORY
MICHAEL STREETER
Witchcraft has been controversial throughout history. The very mention of the word excites strong emotions. For some people it conjures up the rather folksy image of the storybook elderly witch with her pointy hat, broomstick, black cat, and crooked smile. For others, all witches are evil, devil-worshipping enemies of society, whose very existence is a danger to our young people.
T he popularity of witchcraft has never been greater, especially among young people, who are taking up the challenges of the craft in ever increasing numbers. Yet the current image of witchcraft, despite its popularity and all the cozy images of the commercialized Halloween, is still not particularly positive.
That, of course, should surprise no one. Throughout history witches have been badly represented by different societies; sometimes harmlessly, but more often with fatal results.
Witchcraft: A Secret History looks behind the scenes of this historyfrom Babylonian gods to King Solomon, from the Roman Empire to Puritan New Englandto explain how and why witches got the reputation they have. Along the way it will chart how they have had to fight for their survival and for their identity. And it will reveal the story of how one elderly man sparked a revival that has made Witchcraft what it is todayone of the fastest-growing religions in North America and the rest of the Western world.
But just what do we mean by witchcraft or witch? This is not an easy question to answer for the simple reason that in the course of history different layers of meanings have been attached to the words. Indeed, the word witch has been loaded with so many negative meanings for so long it is often impossible for people to react to it in any other way than badly. For many, the words evil and witch go together like ham and eggs.
Let us begin by looking at some of the alternative meanings of witchcraft. One is that it is simple sorceryin other words, the use of magic in casting spells, healing, telling the future, or influencing the weather. These spells may be used for good purposes or for bad, depending on the person who casts them.
This kind of sorcery, folk magic, or witchcraft has existed in just about all known societies at all times, though this book is concerned with the traditions that have helped shape witchcraft in Western culture. In English-speaking societies such people have been known as cunning folk or wise women/men. They have existed since time immemorial, and such people still exist today. For them witchcraft is simply a craft, a use of magic for specific ends. Magic can be defined as using ones will to change consciousness and reality. Simple sorcery has no connections with religion.
liphas Lvis 1855 illustration of Baphomet, a Pagan deity revived in the nineteenth century as a figure of occultism and Satanism.
Another definition of witchcraft is the one that developed in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, and which dominated Western culture for perhaps 250 years: witchcraft as the worship of the Devil. This definition arose out of Christian thinking and was part of the late medieval Churchs obsessions with heresy. The reasoning was quite simple.
The world was divided between Good and Evil, God and the Devilthough God, of course, had the upper hand. The Devil had helpers in the form of spirits called demons, so anyone who invoked spirits other than in the Christian context was naturally in league with demons and thus the Devil. As people who performed magic (i.e. witches) often invoked spirits, this meant that witches were the Devils allies. As this idea developed, much of the late medieval world considered that witches entered a formal pact with the Devil, had sex with him or his demons, and tried to oppose Gods will. Therefore, they were the worst kind of heretics and had to be burned. This accounts for the large number of witch trials and executions in North America and particularly Europe from around 1450 to 1700. A few of those burned may have been simple sorcerers, as in our first definition; most had no connection with magic at all. None actually worshipped the Devil.
The idea of diabolical witches was an invention of its time, but one that has survived among many conservative Christiansthanks in part to misleading translations of the Bible.
The third definition is that used by many modern witches. In this, Witchcraft is a religion with a capital W; it is a mystery religion, which believes in one ultimate deity, but puts special emphasis on the female aspect of that deity in the form of the Goddess, and it reveres gods from the old pagan religions. At the same time, Witchcraft uses magicwhich witches believe is part of the natural world around them and not something remote or supernaturalas part of their spiritual development and identity as witches.
Incidentally, modern witches reject the suggestion of Satanic associations on the understandable grounds that Satan/the Devil is a Christian concept; and witches worship neither the Christian God nor its Devil. Yet, to avoid the negative value still attached to Witchcraft, many practitioners refer to it as Wicca and to themselves as Wiccansboth words are revivals of the Old English term for witch.
This, then, is the definition of witchcraft broadly adopted by A Secret History, though the word is also used in historical context to mean what people said it meant at that time.
It should also be pointed out that, just as there is no evidence that witches worshipped the Devil in the late Middle Ages, there is equally no evidence that witches worshipped the old pagan gods then, either.
The modern religion of Wicca can thus be seen as a fusion of folk magic or sorcery with pagan worship, plus borrowings from ceremonial magic dating back to Egypt and Ancient Judaea.
This book ends with a close look at how this dramatic revival of Witchcraft occurred and how witches have been able to emerge slowly from the shadows where they have been forced to hide. Witchcraft now appears to have a bright future. To understand how it has got there, we first need to consider its secret, and often dark, history.
Most societies in the world have a tradition of witchcraft. Many societies also revered goddesses such as Ishtar and Isis, who were linked with magic and witchcraft. Meanwhile, the Hebrews developed the idea of an evil god or devil, which in turn came to be identified in Western culture with anyone who performed witchcraft.
The use of magicin which the force of a persons will harnesses natural forces to influence events or outcomesis common to most cultures in the world. At its most basic, such magic is not part of a religion, but could be referred to as simple magic in which certain acts are carried out to produce defined effects. This might be sticking a pin in the image of someone to cause harm to that person; or having sex in a newly sown wheat field to ensure that the coming harvest is a good one.
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