The word ‘witch' comes from the Saxon ‘wicca', wicce, meaning “wise woman.” Since the 13th century the word "witch" has come more and more to denote a woman who has formed a compact with the Devil or with evil spirits, by whose aid she is able to cause all sorts of injury to living beings and to things. The term "witchcraft" means in modern English the arts and practices of such women.
In ancient times there existed among Babylonians, Egyptians, etc a class of persons which were the equivalent of modern day witches. We would call them today magicians or sorcerers. They had superhuman power over living creatures including man, and also over Nature and natural objects.
The Bible prohibits witchcraft. Exodus 22 v 18 says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Sorcery was punishable by death in the Old Testament because it was a crime against God himself. To invoke evil powers violated the first commandment "to have no other gods." Sorcery was rebellion against God and his authority.
Sorcery is also forbidden in Deuteronomy 18 v10-11 where it is written: "No one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery, casts spells, consults a medium or familiar spirit, or inquires of the dead."
Later, the Hebrews used the oracle Urim and Thummim to get divine guidance. The use of Urim and Thummim had divine sanction; however divination by such as the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28 v7) did not.
The Council of Frankfurt in 794 was called by Charlemagne, as a meeting of the important churchmen of the Frankish realm. When the issue of witch trials arose at the council, Charlemagne had his bishops call the belief in witchcraft superstitious, ordering death penalties for anyone who burned witches.
Pope Gregory IX's association of cats with witchcraft led to the wholesale slaughter of the moggies, and some scholars believe believe that by the 1300’s, Europe’s cat numbers were sufficiently depleted to prevent them from killing rats and mice, allowing the bubonic plague to spread.
On December 5, 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
Two years later, Pope Innocent VIII authorized the German anti-witchcraft tract, the Malleus Maleficarum, (Hammer of the Witches). The work condoned the use of torture in gaining confessions from witches and accepting evidence from unreliable sources. The document's publication led to the (often-exaggerated) witch-hunting from the 1500s onward. Hordes of people throughout Europe who were accused of being witches were executed without even the examination of witnesses.
In 1590 King James VI of Scotland attended the North Berwick Witch Trials in which several people were convicted of having used witchcraft to create a storm in an attempt to sink the ship on which James and Queen Anne had been travelling. This made the king very concerned about the threat that witches and witchcraft were posing to himself and the country. The trials ran for two years and implicated over seventy people.
Having personally investigated the North Berwick Witch Trials, King James wrote a dissertation titled Daemonologie that was first sold in 1597. Within three short books, James wrote a philosophical dissertation in the form of a Socratic dialogue for the purpose of making arguments and comparisons between magic, sorcery and witchcraft. Because of the interest this raised, many females were tried and put to death for witchcraft.
In 16th and 17th-century Europe an estimated 60,000 people were put to death for witchcraft.
In England, convicted witches were hanged; in Scotland and the rest of Europe, they were burnt at the stake, sometimes after being strangled.
Matthew Hopkins (c.1620-August 12, 1647), was England's Witchfinder General. He and his assistants were paid at a rate of £5 per witch detected. In one year alone, Hopkins managed to hang over 100 suspected witches on the premise that if a suspected woman floats after being thrown into the water, she is a witch, if she drowns, she isn't.
So conscientious was Hopkins in discharging his duties that legend has it that he became a suspect himself. The story goes that his guilt was tested by his own methods and when he floated the Witchfinder General was hung as a sorcerer. However, it is more likely that he died of pleural tuberculosis.
Alse Young was a woman who lived in Windsor, Connecticut in the 1600s. She was accused of witchcraft by her neighbors, who claimed that she had caused them harm. Young was tried and convicted of witchcraft, and she was hanged on May 27, 1647. Her execution was the first in a series of witch trials that would take place in the American colonies.
Nineteen people were hanged as witches in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. It is still not known where they were buried.
Jane Wenham was condemned to death for witchcraft in 1712 after the jury went against the judge's advice in finding her guilty (though she was later reprieved). At one point in the trial the judge defended her by saying there is no law against flying.
The last alleged witches hanged in England were Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth. She told authorities that she and 9-year-old Elizabeth had sold their souls to the devil. They were hanged for witchcraft at Huntingdon on July 28, 1716.
Janet Horne was burnt to death in Scotland in 1727 making her the last Briton to be condemned to death for being a witch.
The Witchcraft Act was passed in 1736 by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain banning pagans from openly practicing.
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| Witches by Hans Baldung (woodcut), 1508 |
HISTORY
The Bible prohibits witchcraft. Exodus 22 v 18 says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Sorcery was punishable by death in the Old Testament because it was a crime against God himself. To invoke evil powers violated the first commandment "to have no other gods." Sorcery was rebellion against God and his authority.
Sorcery is also forbidden in Deuteronomy 18 v10-11 where it is written: "No one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire, practices divination or conjury, interprets omens, practices sorcery, casts spells, consults a medium or familiar spirit, or inquires of the dead."
Later, the Hebrews used the oracle Urim and Thummim to get divine guidance. The use of Urim and Thummim had divine sanction; however divination by such as the Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28 v7) did not.
 |
| Witch of Endor by Nikolai Ge, 1857. |
The Council of Frankfurt in 794 was called by Charlemagne, as a meeting of the important churchmen of the Frankish realm. When the issue of witch trials arose at the council, Charlemagne had his bishops call the belief in witchcraft superstitious, ordering death penalties for anyone who burned witches.
Pope Gregory IX's association of cats with witchcraft led to the wholesale slaughter of the moggies, and some scholars believe believe that by the 1300’s, Europe’s cat numbers were sufficiently depleted to prevent them from killing rats and mice, allowing the bubonic plague to spread.
On December 5, 1484 Pope Innocent VIII issued the papal bull Summis desiderantes affectibus, giving Dominican Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer explicit authority to prosecute witchcraft in Germany.
Two years later, Pope Innocent VIII authorized the German anti-witchcraft tract, the Malleus Maleficarum, (Hammer of the Witches). The work condoned the use of torture in gaining confessions from witches and accepting evidence from unreliable sources. The document's publication led to the (often-exaggerated) witch-hunting from the 1500s onward. Hordes of people throughout Europe who were accused of being witches were executed without even the examination of witnesses.
 |
| Inquisition Scene by Francisco Goya. |
In 1590 King James VI of Scotland attended the North Berwick Witch Trials in which several people were convicted of having used witchcraft to create a storm in an attempt to sink the ship on which James and Queen Anne had been travelling. This made the king very concerned about the threat that witches and witchcraft were posing to himself and the country. The trials ran for two years and implicated over seventy people.
Having personally investigated the North Berwick Witch Trials, King James wrote a dissertation titled Daemonologie that was first sold in 1597. Within three short books, James wrote a philosophical dissertation in the form of a Socratic dialogue for the purpose of making arguments and comparisons between magic, sorcery and witchcraft. Because of the interest this raised, many females were tried and put to death for witchcraft.
In 16th and 17th-century Europe an estimated 60,000 people were put to death for witchcraft.
In England, convicted witches were hanged; in Scotland and the rest of Europe, they were burnt at the stake, sometimes after being strangled.
 |
| Execution of alleged witches in Central Europe, 1587 |
Matthew Hopkins (c.1620-August 12, 1647), was England's Witchfinder General. He and his assistants were paid at a rate of £5 per witch detected. In one year alone, Hopkins managed to hang over 100 suspected witches on the premise that if a suspected woman floats after being thrown into the water, she is a witch, if she drowns, she isn't.
So conscientious was Hopkins in discharging his duties that legend has it that he became a suspect himself. The story goes that his guilt was tested by his own methods and when he floated the Witchfinder General was hung as a sorcerer. However, it is more likely that he died of pleural tuberculosis.
Alse Young was a woman who lived in Windsor, Connecticut in the 1600s. She was accused of witchcraft by her neighbors, who claimed that she had caused them harm. Young was tried and convicted of witchcraft, and she was hanged on May 27, 1647. Her execution was the first in a series of witch trials that would take place in the American colonies.
Nineteen people were hanged as witches in 1692 in Salem, Massachusetts. It is still not known where they were buried.
 |
| Examination of a Witch by T. H. Matteson, inspired by the Salem witch trials |
Jane Wenham was condemned to death for witchcraft in 1712 after the jury went against the judge's advice in finding her guilty (though she was later reprieved). At one point in the trial the judge defended her by saying there is no law against flying.
The last alleged witches hanged in England were Mary Hicks and her daughter Elizabeth. She told authorities that she and 9-year-old Elizabeth had sold their souls to the devil. They were hanged for witchcraft at Huntingdon on July 28, 1716.
Janet Horne was burnt to death in Scotland in 1727 making her the last Briton to be condemned to death for being a witch.
The Witchcraft Act was passed in 1736 by the Parliament of the Kingdom of Great Britain banning pagans from openly practicing.
The last conviction under the Witchcraft Act 1735 was in 1944. Medium Helen Duncan had revealed the sinking of HMS Barham during a séance, and the government was concerned she would leak information about D-Day the same way. It was repealed in 1951.
The last European witch to be executed, Anna Göldi, was decapitated in Switzerland on June 13, 1782. Göldi had begun working as a maid for the Tschudi family in 1780. After Jakob Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means, Göldi was arrested. Under torture, she admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. Göldi withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced to execution by decapitation.
In 2008, a court in Switzerland cleared the name of Anna Göldi,
The government of Nazi Germany memorialized the victims of European witch trials of the 16th to 18th centuries, as they thought witchcraft represented the remnant of an indigenous "Aryan" religion untainted by the Judaic influence of Christianity.
In 1951 The Witchcraft Act was repealed which legalised the activities of 20,000 British witches.
During the 20th century, interest in witchcraft in English-speaking and European countries began to increase, inspired particularly by Margaret Murray's anthropological book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Her theory of a pre-Christian pan-European witch-cult, originally published in 1921, has since been discredited by further historical research.
Interest in witchcraft was intensified, by Gerald Gardner (June 13, 1884– February 12, 1964), an English civil servant and amateur anthropologist. In 1949 he was initiated into a New Forest coven which he believed to be a survival of the pre-Christian witch-cult discussed in the works of Margaret Murray, He supplemented the coven's rituals with a concoction influenced by Masonic ritual, the world of the occult and the writings of Aleister Crowley, to form the Gardnerian tradition of Wicca.
Wicca is effectively repackaged witchcraft for Millennial consumption so that it is no longer considered satanic and demonic. Instead as author Julie Roys writes in The Christian Post, it’s a ‘pre-Christian tradition’ that promotes ‘free thought’ and ‘understanding of earth and nature.’”
Wicca is among the fastest-growing religions in the USA. Almost half a million people practice it across the country.
The term pagan is from the Latin paganus, meaning 'rural', 'rustic' or 'of the country.'
In the 2011 census, more than 11,000 Britons put their religion down as Wicca, 56,000 as Pagan and 4,000 as Druid.
In Saudi Arabia, witchcraft and sorcery can still be punished by the death penalty.
In Canada it is illegal to pretend to practice witchcraft. However, it is completely legal to practice witchcraft.
Medieval witchcraft involved drugs such as belladonna and datura and the mystical ride through the sky on a broomstick probably refers to such an experience.
Witches were commonly depicted with red or orange skin until the 1939 Wizard of Oz film. The Wicked Witch of the West was not described as green in the book, and she was only made green in the movie because it looked really good in technicolor.
In 2013, a Swazi civil aviation official announced that it was illegal for witches to fly broomsticks at a height above 150 metres.
Only one of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth is named: she is called Hecate. Hecate was the Greek goddess of witchcraft.
Sources Daily Express, Daily Mail, Biblestudytools
The last European witch to be executed, Anna Göldi, was decapitated in Switzerland on June 13, 1782. Göldi had begun working as a maid for the Tschudi family in 1780. After Jakob Tschudi reported her for having put needles in the bread and milk of one of his daughters, apparently through supernatural means, Göldi was arrested. Under torture, she admitted to entering in a pact with the Devil, who had appeared to her as a black dog. Göldi withdrew her confession after the torture ended, but was sentenced to execution by decapitation.
In 2008, a court in Switzerland cleared the name of Anna Göldi,
 |
| Anna Göldi By Patrick Lo Giudice |
The government of Nazi Germany memorialized the victims of European witch trials of the 16th to 18th centuries, as they thought witchcraft represented the remnant of an indigenous "Aryan" religion untainted by the Judaic influence of Christianity.
In 1951 The Witchcraft Act was repealed which legalised the activities of 20,000 British witches.
WICCA
During the 20th century, interest in witchcraft in English-speaking and European countries began to increase, inspired particularly by Margaret Murray's anthropological book The Witch-Cult in Western Europe. Her theory of a pre-Christian pan-European witch-cult, originally published in 1921, has since been discredited by further historical research.
Interest in witchcraft was intensified, by Gerald Gardner (June 13, 1884– February 12, 1964), an English civil servant and amateur anthropologist. In 1949 he was initiated into a New Forest coven which he believed to be a survival of the pre-Christian witch-cult discussed in the works of Margaret Murray, He supplemented the coven's rituals with a concoction influenced by Masonic ritual, the world of the occult and the writings of Aleister Crowley, to form the Gardnerian tradition of Wicca.
 |
| Gerald Gardner |
Wicca is effectively repackaged witchcraft for Millennial consumption so that it is no longer considered satanic and demonic. Instead as author Julie Roys writes in The Christian Post, it’s a ‘pre-Christian tradition’ that promotes ‘free thought’ and ‘understanding of earth and nature.’”
Wicca is among the fastest-growing religions in the USA. Almost half a million people practice it across the country.
FUN WITCHCRAFT FACTS
The term pagan is from the Latin paganus, meaning 'rural', 'rustic' or 'of the country.'
In the 2011 census, more than 11,000 Britons put their religion down as Wicca, 56,000 as Pagan and 4,000 as Druid.
In Saudi Arabia, witchcraft and sorcery can still be punished by the death penalty.
In Canada it is illegal to pretend to practice witchcraft. However, it is completely legal to practice witchcraft.
Medieval witchcraft involved drugs such as belladonna and datura and the mystical ride through the sky on a broomstick probably refers to such an experience.
Witches were commonly depicted with red or orange skin until the 1939 Wizard of Oz film. The Wicked Witch of the West was not described as green in the book, and she was only made green in the movie because it looked really good in technicolor.
In 2013, a Swazi civil aviation official announced that it was illegal for witches to fly broomsticks at a height above 150 metres.
Only one of the three witches in Shakespeare's Macbeth is named: she is called Hecate. Hecate was the Greek goddess of witchcraft.
Sources Daily Express, Daily Mail, Biblestudytools
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