Witch
The word witch comes from the Old English wicca (male) and wicce (female).
From his study of African witchcraft, the anthropologist E. E. Evans Pritchard distinguished witchcraft from sorcery: Witches are physically born as such while a person may become a sorcerer later in life.
Both are traditionally associated with evil.
In legend witches use magical spells and potions to work their malice. Legends also tell of good “white witches,” as found in shamanism or fairy tales.
European witch hysteria became so pronounced in the 14th century that mass witch trials began in 1397 in Lucerne.
In 1326 Pope John XXII responded to Dominican pressure by proclaiming witchcraft a heresy.
In 1486 two Dominican monks wrote the Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches or Witches Hammer). The book was a grisly, perverse ‘manual’ on how to identify and force confessions out of suspected witches, who in most cases were deemed guilty before their arrest.
Statistics reveal that in Essex of Southwest England 91% of the 271 accused of sorcery from 1560 – 1680 were women.
The Church could legally claim the land and economic holdings of convicted witches. Some believe that in convicting so-called witches, perverse clergy were more interested in worldly than spiritual gain. Most of the condemned were vulnerable women and therefore scapegoats–the poor, the single and those deemed unattractive or different.
In this regard, Carl Jung says the persecution of witches in Europe and North America was a mass projection of the shadow.
Witchcraft today has become a complicated phenomenon.
Many recognize it as an alternative religion. Aspiring women witches join covens and many practice what they believe is white magic.
A variety of commercial occult products has grown alongside the modern practice of witchcraft.
The idea of the ethically ambiguous witch has also been popularized and, to some degree, normalized through film and TV productions, such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
In the TV version of Buffy, the character Willow originally uses witchcraft for the good but becomes consumed by a quest for magical power and eventually allows evil to dominate her.
Although many religious fundamentalists might deplore such an apparently ‘evil’ program, the TV series closes with Willow regaining her humility (and humanity) by allowing love to enter into her life again.
» Ancestor Cults, Archetypal Image, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Glamour, Haensel and Gretel, Latin, Lewis (C. S.), Macbeth, Madness, Neo-Paganism, Odyssey, Psychosis, Scholarship, Walker (Barbara G.)
On the Web:
John Paul II revived the Inquisition» http://jp2m.blogspot.com/2006/11/john-paul-ii-revived-inquisition.html
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[...] study of African witchcraft, the anthropologist E. E. Evans Pritchard distinguished witchcraft frohttp://earthpages.wordpress.com/2008/07/22/witch/Wicca – by William SchnoebelenWilliam Schnoebelen thought wicca was a harmless nature-worshipping [...]