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TWICHERY   |   Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others.[1][2] A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have attacked their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished, if found guilty or simply believed to be guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions. In some regions, many of those accused of witchcraft were folk healers or midwives.[3][4] European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment.

Contemporary cultures that believe in magic and the supernatural often believe in witchcraft.[5][6] Anthropologists have applied the term witchcraft to similar beliefs and occult practices described by many non-European cultures, and cultures that have adopted the English language will often call these practices "witchcraft", as well.[6][7][8][9] As with the cunning-folk in Europe, Indigenous communities that believe in the existence of witchcraft define witches as the opposite of their healers and medicine people, who are sought out for protection against witches and witchcraft.[10][11][12] Modern witch-hunting is found in parts of Africa and Asia.

A theory that witchcraft was a survival of a European pagan religion (the witch-cult hypothesis) gained popularity in the early 20th century, but has since been discredited.

In contemporary Western culture, most notably since the growth of Wicca from the 1950s, some modern pagans and new agers self-identify as witches, and use the term witchcraft for their self-help, healing and divination rituals.[13][14][10][15]
Contents

    1Concept
    2Etymology and definitions
    3Practices
        3.1Spell casting
        3.2Necromancy (conjuring the dead)
    4White witches in Britain and Europe
    5Thwarting witchcraft
        5.1Accusations of witchcraft
        5.2European witch-hunts and witch-trials
        5.3Modern witch-hunts
    6Wicca
        6.1Witchcraft, feminism, and media
        6.2Traditional witchcraft
        6.3Stregheria
    7Witchcraft and Satanism
    8Historical and religious perspectives
        8.1Near East beliefs
        8.2Abrahamic religions
            8.2.1Hebrew Bible
            8.2.2New Testament
            8.2.3Judaism
            8.2.4Islam
    9By region
        9.1Africa
            9.1.1Cameroon
            9.1.2Central African Republic
            9.1.3Democratic Republic of the Congo
            9.1.4Ghana
            9.1.5Kenya
            9.1.6Malawi
            9.1.7Nigeria
            9.1.8Sierra Leone
            9.1.9Tanzania
            9.1.10Zulu
        9.2Americas
            9.2.1British America and the United States
            9.2.2Latin America
            9.2.3Navajo
        9.3Asia
            9.3.1India
            9.3.2Nepal
            9.3.3Japan
            9.3.4Philippines
            9.3.5Saudi Arabia
            9.3.6Islamic State
        9.4Europe
            9.4.1Britain
            9.4.2Italy
            9.4.3Spain
        9.5Oceania
            9.5.1Cook Islands
            9.5.2Papua New Guinea
        9.6Slavic Russia
            9.6.1Spells
            9.6.2Societal view of witchcraft
            9.6.3Russian witch trials
    10Witches in art
    11Witches in fiction
    12See also
    13Footnotes
    14References
    15Referenced works
    16Further reading
    17External links

Concept

The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse, 1886

The concept of witchcraft and the belief in its existence have persisted throughout recorded history. It has been found at various times and in many forms among cultures worldwide,[6][16] and continues to have an important role in some cultures today.[17] Most societies have believed in, and feared, an ability by some individuals to cause supernatural harm and misfortune to others. This may come from mankind's tendency "to want to assign occurrences of remarkable good or bad luck to agency, either human or superhuman".[18] Witchcraft is seen by historians and anthropologists as one ideology for explaining misfortune, which has manifested in diverse ways.[19] Some cultures have feared witchcraft much less than others, because they instead believed that strange misfortune was usually caused by gods, spirits, demons or fairies, or by other humans who have unwittingly cast the 'evil eye'.[18]

Ronald Hutton outlined five key characteristics ascribed to witches and witchcraft by most cultures that believe in the concept. Traditionally, witchcraft was believed to be the use of magic to cause harm or misfortune to others; it was used by the witch against their own community; it was seen as immoral and often thought to involve communion with evil beings; powers of witchcraft were believed to have been acquired through inheritance or initiation; and witchcraft could be thwarted by defensive magic, persuasion, intimidation or physical punishment of the alleged witch.[20]

Historically, the predominant concept of witchcraft in the Western world derives from Old Testament laws against witchcraft, and entered the mainstream when belief in witchcraft gained Church approval in the Early Modern Period. It is a theosophical conflict between good and evil, where witchcraft was generally evil and often associated with the Devil and Devil worship. This culminated in deaths, torture and scapegoating (casting blame for misfortune),[21][22] and many years of large scale witch-trials and witch hunts, especially in Protestant Europe, before largely ceasing during the European Age of Enlightenment. Christian views in the modern day are diverse and cover the gamut of views from intense belief and opposition (especially by Christian fundamentalists) to non-belief, and even approval in some churches. From the mid-20th century, witchcraft – sometimes called contemporary witchcraft to clearly distinguish it from older beliefs – became the name of a branch of modern paganism. It is most notably practiced in the Wiccan and modern witchcraft traditions, and it is no longer practiced in secrecy.[23]

The Western mainstream Christian view is far from the only societal perspective about witchcraft. Many cultures worldwide continue to have widespread practices and cultural beliefs that are loosely translated into English as "witchcraft", although the English translation masks a very great diversity in their forms, magical beliefs, practices, and place in their societies. During the Age of Colonialism, many cultures across the globe were exposed to the modern Western world via colonialism, usually accompanied and often preceded by intensive Christian missionary activity (see "Christianization"). In these cultures beliefs that were related to witchcraft and magic were influenced by the prevailing Western concepts of the time. Witch-hunts, scapegoating, and the killing or shunning of suspected witches still occur in the modern era.[24]

Suspicion of modern medicine due to beliefs about illness being due to witchcraft also continues in many countries to this day, with serious healthcare consequences. HIV/AIDS[25] and Ebola virus disease[26] are two examples of often-lethal infectious disease epidemics whose medical care and containment has been severely hampered by regional beliefs in witchcraft. Other severe medical conditions whose treatment is hampered in this way include tuberculosis, leprosy, epilepsy and the common severe bacterial Buruli ulcer.[27][28]
Etymology and definitions
Further information: Witch (word)

The word is over a thousand years old: Old English formed the compound wiccecræft from wicce ('witch') and cræft ('craft').[29] Witch was also spelled wicca or wycca in Old English, and was originally masculine.[30] Folk etymologies link witchcraft "to the English words wit, wise, wisdom [Germanic root *weit-, *wait-, *wit-; Indo-European root *weid-, *woid-, *wid-]", so 'craft of the wise.'[31][self-published source?]

The word witch in the English language (a Germanic language) is used generally for women. In other languages such as Neo-Latin languages (languages that evolved from Latin) ​​the word can be translated as bruxa in Portuguese, bruja in Spanish, sorcière in French and strega in Italian. In these languages these words have masculine inflected counterparts with the same etymological origin, being respectively, bruxo (Portuguese), brujo (Spanish), sorcier (French) and stregone (Italian). When translated to English the preferred translation by Anglophones is "wizard", or less commonly, "warlock".

In anthropological terminology, witches differ from sorceresses in that they don't use physical tools or actions to curse; their maleficium is perceived as extending from some intangible inner quality, and one may be unaware of being a witch, or may have been convinced of their nature by the suggestion of others.[32] This definition was pioneered in a study of central African magical beliefs by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who cautioned that it might not correspond with normal English usage.[33]

Historians of European witchcraft have found the anthropological definition difficult to apply to European witchcraft, where witches could equally use (or be accused of using) physical techniques, as well as some who really had attempted to cause harm by thought alone.[7]
Practices

Preparation for the Witches' Sabbath by David Teniers the Younger. It shows a witch brewing a potion overlooked by her familiar spirit or a demon; items on the floor for casting a spell; and another witch reading from a grimoire while anointing the buttocks of a young witch about to fly upon an inverted besom

Where belief in malicious magic practices exists, practitioners are typically forbidden by law as well as hated and feared by the general populace, while beneficial magic is tolerated or even accepted wholesale by the people — even if the orthodox establishment opposes it.[34]
Spell casting
See also: Magic (supernatural)

Probably the best-known characteristic of a witch is her ability to cast a spell – a set of words, a formula or verse, a ritual, or a combination of these, employed to do magic.[35] Spells traditionally were cast by many methods, such as by the inscription of runes or sigils on an object to give that object magical powers; by the immolation or binding of a wax or clay image (poppet) of a person to affect them magically; by the recitation of incantations; by the performance of physical rituals; by the employment of magical herbs as amulets or potions; by gazing at mirrors, swords or other specula (scrying) for purposes of divination; and by many other means.[36][37][38]
Necromancy (conjuring the dead)

Strictly speaking, necromancy is the practice of conjuring the spirits of the dead for divination or prophecy, although the term has also been applied to raising the dead for other purposes. The biblical Witch of Endor performed it (1 Samuel 28th chapter), and it is among the witchcraft practices condemned by Ælfric of Eynsham:[39][40][41] "Witches still go to cross-roads and to heathen burials with their delusive magic and call to the devil; and he comes to them in the likeness of the man that is buried there, as if he arises from death."[42]
White witches in Britain and Europe
Main article: Cunning folk
Further information: Folk religion, Magical thinking, and Shamanism

A painting in the Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, condemning witchcraft and traditional folk magic

Traditionally, the terms "witch" and "witchcraft" had negative connotations. Most societies that have believed in harmful witchcraft or 'black' magic have also believed in helpful or 'white' magic.[43] In these societies, practitioners of helpful magic provided services such as breaking the effects of witchcraft, healing, divination, finding lost or stolen goods, and love magic.[44] In Britain they were commonly known as cunning folk or wise people.[44] Alan McFarlane writes, "There were a number of interchangeable terms for these practitioners, 'white', 'good', or 'unbinding' witches, blessers, wizards, sorcerers, however 'cunning-man' and 'wise-man' were the most frequent".[45] Ronald Hutton prefers the term "service magicians".[44] Often these people were involved in identifying alleged witches.[43]

Hostile churchmen sometimes branded any magic-workers "witches" as a way of smearing them.[44] Englishman Reginald Scot, who sought to disprove witchcraft and magic, wrote in The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), "At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, 'she is a witch' or 'she is a wise woman'".[46] Folk magicians throughout Europe were often viewed ambivalently by communities, and were considered as capable of harming as of healing,[8] which could lead to their being accused as "witches" in the negative sense. Many English "witches" convicted of consorting with demons may have been cunning folk whose supposed fairy familiars had been demonised;[47] many French devins-guerisseurs ("diviner-healers") were accused of witchcraft,[48] over half the accused witches in Hungary seem to have been healers,[49] and the "vast majority" of Finland's accused witches were folk healers.[50] Hutton, however, says that "Service magicians were sometimes denounced as witches, but seem to have made up a minority of the accused in any area studied".[43]
Thwarting witchcraft

A witch bottle, used as counter-magic against witchcraft

Societies that believed in witchcraft also believed that it could be thwarted in various ways. One common way was to use protective magic or counter-magic, of which the cunning folk were experts.[43] This included charms, talismans and amulets, anti-witch marks, witch bottles, witch balls, and burying objects such as horse skulls inside the walls of buildings.[51] Another believed cure for bewitchment was to persuade or force the alleged witch to lift their spell.[43] Often, people would attempt to thwart the witchcraft by physically punishing the alleged witch, such as by banishing, wounding, torturing or killing them. "In most societies, however, a formal and legal remedy was preferred to this sort of private action", whereby the alleged witch would be prosecuted and then formally punished if found guilty.[43] This often resulted in execution.
Accusations of witchcraft

Alleged witches being accused in the Salem witch trials

Éva Pócs writes that reasons for accusations of witchcraft fall into four general categories:[19]

    A person was caught in the act of positive or negative sorcery
    A well-meaning sorcerer or healer lost their clients' or the authorities' trust
    A person did nothing more than gain the enmity of their neighbors
    A person was reputed to be a witch and surrounded with an aura of witch-beliefs or Occultism

She identifies three kinds of witch in popular belief:[19]

    The "neighborhood witch" or "social witch": a witch who curses a neighbor following some dispute.
    The "magical" or "sorcerer" witch: either a professional healer, sorcerer, seer or midwife, or a person who has through magic increased her fortune to the perceived detriment of a neighboring household; due to neighborhood or community rivalries, and the ambiguity between positive and negative magic, such individuals can become branded as witches.
    The "supernatural" or "night" witch: portrayed in court narratives as a demon appearing in visions and dreams.[52]

"Neighborhood witches" are the product of neighborhood tensions, and are found only in village communities where the inhabitants largely rely on each other. Such accusations follow the breaking of some social norm, such as the failure to return a borrowed item, and any person part of the normal social exchange could potentially fall under suspicion. Claims of "sorcerer" witches and "supernatural" witches could arise out of social tensions, but not exclusively; the supernatural witch often had nothing to do with communal conflict, but expressed tensions between the human and supernatural worlds; and in Eastern and Southeastern Europe such supernatural witches became an ideology explaining calamities that befell whole communities.[53]

The historian Norman Gevitz has written:

    [T]he medical arts played a significant and sometimes pivotal role in the witchcraft controversies of seventeenth-century New England. Not only were physicians and surgeons the principal professional arbiters for determining natural versus preternatural signs and symptoms of disease, they occupied key legislative, judicial, and ministerial roles relating to witchcraft proceedings. Forty six male physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries are named in court transcripts or other contemporary source materials relating to New England witchcraft. These practitioners served on coroners' inquests, performed autopsies, took testimony, issued writs, wrote letters, or committed people to prison, in addition to diagnosing and treating patients.[54]

European witch-hunts and witch-trials
Main articles: Witch-hunt and Witch trials in the early modern period

A 1613 English pamphlet showing "Witches apprehended, examined and executed"

In Christianity, sorcery came to be associated with heresy and apostasy and to be viewed as evil. Among the Catholics, Protestants, and secular leadership of the European Late Medieval/Early Modern period, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. The key century was the fifteenth, which saw a dramatic rise in awareness and terror of witchcraft, culminating in the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum but prepared by such fanatical popular preachers as Bernardino of Siena.[55] In total, tens or hundreds of thousands of people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women, though in some regions the majority were men.[56][57] In early modern Scots, the word warlock came to be used as the male equivalent of witch (which can be male or female, but is used predominantly for females).[58][59][60]

The Malleus Maleficarum, (Latin for 'Hammer of The Witches') was a witch-hunting manual written in 1486 by two German monks, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. It was used by both Catholics and Protestants[61] for several hundred years, outlining how to identify a witch, what makes a woman more likely than a man to be a witch, how to put a witch on trial, and how to punish a witch. The book defines a witch as evil and typically female. The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which even cautioned against relying on The Work.[62] It is likely that this caused witch mania to become so widespread. It was the most sold book in Europe for over 100 years, after the Bible.[63]

European witch-trials reached their peak in the early 17th century, after which popular sentiment began to turn against the practice. Friedrich Spee's book Cautio Criminalis, published in 1631, argued that witch-trials were largely unreliable and immoral.[64] In 1682, King Louis XIV prohibited further witch-trials in France. In 1736, Great Britain formally ended witch-trials with passage of the Witchcraft Act.[65]
Modern witch-hunts
Main article: Modern witch-hunts

Belief in witchcraft continues to be present today in some societies and accusations of witchcraft are the trigger for serious forms of violence, including murder. Such incidents are common in countries such as Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal and Tanzania. Accusations of witchcraft are sometimes linked to personal disputes, jealousy, and conflicts between neighbors or family members over land or inheritance. Witchcraft-related violence is often discussed as a serious issue in the broader context of violence against women.[66][67][68][69][70] In Tanzania, about 500 old women are murdered each year following accusations of witchcraft or accusations of being a witch.[71] Apart from extrajudicial violence, state-sanctioned violence also occurs in some jurisdictions. For instance, in Saudi Arabia practicing witchcraft and sorcery is a crime punishable by death and the country has executed people for this crime in 2011, 2012 and 2014.[72][73][74]

Children who live in some regions of the world, such as parts of Africa, are also vulnerable to violence that is related to witchcraft accusations.[75][76][77][78] Such incidents have also occurred in immigrant communities in the UK, including the much publicized case of the murder of Victoria Climbié.[79][80]
Wicca
Main article: Wicca

During the 20th century, interest in witchcraft in English-speaking and European countries began to increase, inspired particularly by Margaret Murray's theory of a pan-European witch-cult originally published in 1921, since discredited by further careful historical research.[81] Interest was intensified, however, by Gerald Gardner's claim in 1954 in Witchcraft Today that a form of witchcraft still existed in England. The truth of Gardner's claim is now disputed too.[82][83][84][85][86]

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[13] also claimed inheritance to surviving traditions of witchcraft.[14]

The Wicca that Gardner initially taught was a witchcraft religion having a lot in common with Margaret Murray's hypothetically posited cult of the 1920s.[87] Indeed, Murray wrote an introduction to Gardner's Witchcraft Today, in effect putting her stamp of approval on it. These Wiccan witches do not adhere to the more common definition of Witchcraft, and generally define their practices as a type of "positive magic." Various forms of Wicca are now practised as a religion of an initiatory secret society nature with positive ethical principles, organised into autonomous covens and led by a High Priesthood. There is also a large "Eclectic Wiccan" movement of individuals and groups who share key Wiccan beliefs but have no initiatory connection or affiliation with traditional Wicca. Wiccan writings and ritual show borrowings from a number of sources including 19th and 20th-century ceremonial magic, the medieval grimoire known as the Key of Solomon, Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis and pre-Christian religions.[88][89][90] A survey published in November 2000 cited just over 200,000 people who reported practicing Wicca in the United States.[91]
Witchcraft, feminism, and media

Wiccan and Neo-Wiccan literature has been described as aiding the empowerment of young women through its lively portrayal of female protagonists. Part of the recent growth in Neo-Pagan religions has been attributed to the strong media presence of fictional pop culture works such as Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Harry Potter series with their depictions of "positive witchcraft", which differs from the historical, traditional, and Indigenous definitions.[10] Based on a mass media case study done, "Mass Media and Religious Identity: A Case Study of Young Witches", in the result of the case study it was stated the reasons many young people are choosing to self-identify as witches and belong to groups they define as practicing witchcraft is diverse; however, the use of pop culture witchcraft in various media platforms can be the spark of interest for young people to see themselves as "witches".[15] Widespread accessibility to related material through internet media such as chat rooms and forums is also thought to be driving this development. Which is dependent on one's accessibility to those media resources and material to influence their thoughts and views on religion.[15]

Wiccan beliefs, or pop culture variations thereof, are often considered by adherents to be compatible with liberal ideals such as the Green movement, and particularly with some varieties of feminism, by providing young women with what they see as a means for self-empowerment, control of their own lives, and potentially a way of influencing the world around them.[92][93] This is the case particularly in North America due to the strong presence of feminist ideals in some branches of the Neopagan communities and the long tradition of women-led and women-only groups such as in Dianic Wicca.[10] The 2002 study Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco suggests that some branches of Wicca include influential members of the second wave of feminism, which has also been redefined as a religious movement.[92]
Traditional witchcraft
Main article: Traditional witchcraft

Traditional witchcraft is a term used to refer to a variety of contemporary forms of witchcraft. Pagan studies scholar Ethan Doyle White described it as "a broad movement of aligned magico-religious groups who reject any relation to Gardnerianism and the wider Wiccan movement, claiming older, more "traditional" roots. Although typically united by a shared aesthetic rooted in European folklore, the Traditional Craft contains within its ranks a rich and varied array of occult groups, from those who follow a contemporary Pagan path that is suspiciously similar to Wicca to those who adhere to Luciferianism".[94] According to British Traditional Witch Michael Howard, the term refers to "any non-Gardnerian, non-Alexandrian, non-Wiccan or pre-modern form of the Craft, especially if it has been inspired by historical forms of witchcraft and folk magic".[95] Another definition was offered by Daniel A. Schulke, the current Magister of the Cultus Sabbati, when he proclaimed that traditional witchcraft "refers to a coterie of initiatory lineages of ritual magic, spellcraft and devotional mysticism".[96] Some forms of traditional witchcraft are the Feri Tradition, Cochrane's Craft and the Sabbatic craft.[97]
Stregheria
Main article: Stregheria

Modern Stregheria closely resembles Charles Leland's controversial late-19th-century account of a surviving Italian religion of witchcraft, worshipping the Goddess Diana, her brother Dianus/Lucifer, and their daughter Aradia. Leland's witches do not see Lucifer as the evil Satan that Christians see, but a benevolent god of the Sun.[98]

The ritual format of contemporary Stregheria is roughly similar to that of other Neopagan witchcraft religions such as Wicca. The pentagram is the most common symbol of religious identity. Most followers celebrate a series of eight festivals equivalent to the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, though others follow the ancient Roman festivals. An emphasis is placed on ancestor worship and balance.[99]
Witchcraft and Satanism
See also: Deal with the devil and Devil in Christianity

Demonic associations in general may sometimes implicate witchcraft with the Devil, as conceived variously across different cultures and religious traditions. The character of Satan influenced all Abrahamic religions, and accusations of witchcraft were routinely associated with Satanism. Sometimes under the guise of Lucifer, a more noble characterization developed as a rebellious counterpart to Christ.[100] In Europe after the Enlightenment, influential works such as Milton's Paradise Lost were described anew by Romantics suggesting the biblical Satan as an allegory representing crisis of faith, individualism, free will, wisdom, and spiritual enlightenment.

In the 20th century, other works presented Satan in a less negative light, such as Letters from the Earth. The 1933 book The God of the Witches by Margaret Murray influenced Herbert Arthur Sloane, who connected the horned god with Satan (Sathanas), and founded the Ophite Cultus Satanas in 1948.[101] Sloane also corresponded with his contemporary Gerald Gardner, founder of modern Wicca, and implied that his views of Satan and the horned god were not necessarily in conflict with Gardner's approach. However, he did believe that, while gnosis referred to knowledge, and Wicca referred to wisdom, modern witches had fallen away from the true knowledge, and instead had begun worshipping a fertility god, a reflection of the creator god. He wrote that "the largest existing body of witches who are true Satanists would be the Yezedees". Sloane highly recommended the book The Gnostic Religion, and sections of it were sometimes read at ceremonies.[102]

Anton LaVey treated Satan not as a literal god, but rather an evocative namesake for The Church of Satan, which he founded in 1966.[103][104] The Church incorporates magic in their practice, distinguishing between Lesser and Greater forms.[105] LaVey published The Compleat Witch in 1971, subsequently republished as The Satanic Witch. While the Church and other atheistic Satanists use Satan as a symbolic embodiment of certain human traits, there are also theistic Satanists who venerate Satan as a supernatural deity.[106] Contemporary Satanism is mainly an American phenomenon,[107] although it began to reach Eastern Europe in the 1990s around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union.[108][109]

In the 21st century, witchcraft may still be erroneously associated with ideas of "devil worship" and potentially conflated with contemporary Satanism. Estimates suggest up to 100,000 Satanists worldwide in 2006 (twice the number estimated in 1990).[110] Satanic beliefs have been largely permitted as a valid expression of religious belief in the West.[111][112] Founded in 2013, the Satanic Temple avoids the practice of magic, claiming "beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world."[113][114]

Luciferianism developed on principles of independence and human progression, a symbol of enlightenment.[115][116] Madeline Montalban was an English witch who adhered to the veneration of Lucifer, or Lumiel, whom she considered a benevolent angelic being who had aided humanity's development. Within her Order, she emphasised that her followers discover their own personal relationship with the angelic beings, including Lumiel.[117] Although initially seeming favourable to Gerald Gardner, by the mid-1960s she had become hostile towards him and his Gardnerian tradition, considering him to be "a 'dirty old man' and sexual pervert."[118] She also expressed hostility to another prominent Pagan Witch of the period, Charles Cardell, although in the 1960s became friends with the two Witches at the forefront of the Alexandrian Wiccan tradition, Alex Sanders and his wife, Maxine Sanders, who adopted some of her Luciferian angelic practices.[119] In contemporary times Luciferian witches exist within traditional witchcraft.[94]
Historical and religious perspectives
Near East beliefs

The belief in sorcery and its practice seem to have been widespread in the ancient Near East and Nile Valley. It played a conspicuous role in the cultures of ancient Egypt and in Babylonia. The latter tradition included an Akkadian anti-witchcraft ritual, the Maqlû. A section from the Code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.) prescribes:

    If a man has put a spell upon another man and it is not justified, he upon whom the spell is laid shall go to the holy river; into the holy river shall he plunge. If the holy river overcome him and he is drowned, the man who put the spell upon him shall take possession of his house. If the holy river declares him innocent and he remains unharmed the man who laid the spell shall be put to death. He that plunged into the river shall take possession of the house of him who laid the spell upon him.[120]

Abrahamic religions

Christianity
Hebrew Bible
Main article: Witchcraft and divination in the Hebrew Bible

According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:

    In the Holy Scripture references to sorcery are frequent, and the strong condemnations of such practices found there do not seem to be based so much upon the supposition of fraud as upon the abomination of the magic in itself.[121]


Saul and the Witch of Endor (1828) by William Sidney Mount.

The King James Version uses the words witch, witchcraft, and witchcrafts to translate the Masoretic כָּשַׁף‎ kāsháf (Hebrew pronunciation: [kɔˈʃaf]) and קֶסֶם‎ (qésem);[122] these same English terms are used to translate φαρμακεία pharmakeia in the Greek New Testament. Verses such as Deuteronomy 18:11–12[123] and Exodus 22:18 ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"[124]) thus provided scriptural justification for Christian witch hunters in the early modern period (see Christian views on magic).

The precise meaning of the Hebrew כָּשַׁף‎, usually translated as witch or sorceress, is uncertain. In the Septuagint, it was translated as pharmakeía or pharmakous. In the 16th century, Reginald Scot, a prominent critic of the witch trials, translated כָּשַׁף‎, φαρμακεία, and the Vulgate's Latin equivalent veneficos as all meaning 'poisoner', and on this basis, claimed that witch was an incorrect translation and poisoners were intended.[125] His theory still holds some currency, but is not widely accepted, and in Daniel 2:2[126] כָּשַׁף‎ is listed alongside other magic practitioners who could interpret dreams: magicians, astrologers, and Chaldeans. Suggested derivations of כָּשַׁף‎ include 'mutterer' (from a single root) or herb user (as a compound word formed from the roots kash, meaning 'herb', and hapaleh, meaning 'using'). The Greek φαρμακεία literally means 'herbalist' or one who uses or administers drugs, but it was used virtually synonymously with mageia and goeteia as a term for a sorcerer.[127]

The Bible provides some evidence that these commandments against sorcery were enforced under the Hebrew kings:

    And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit,[a] and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?[128]

New Testament
See also: Christian views on magic

The New Testament condemns the practice as an abomination, just as the Old Testament had.[129] The word in most New Testament translations is sorcerer/sorcery rather than witch/witchcraft.
Judaism
See also: Witchcraft and divination in the Hebrew Bible

Jewish law views the practice of witchcraft as being laden with idolatry and/or necromancy; both being serious theological and practical offenses in Judaism. Although Maimonides vigorously denied the efficacy of all methods of witchcraft, and claimed that the Biblical prohibitions regarding it were precisely to wean the Israelites from practices related to idolatry. It is acknowledged that while magic exists, it is forbidden to practice it on the basis that it usually involves the worship of other gods. Rabbis of the Talmud also condemned magic when it produced something other than illusion, giving the example of two men who use magic to pick cucumbers.[130] The one who creates the illusion of picking cucumbers should not be condemned, only the one who actually picks the cucumbers through magic.

However, some of the rabbis practiced "magic" themselves or taught the subject. For instance, Rava (amora) created a golem and sent it to Rav Zeira, and Hanina and Hoshaiah studied every Friday together and created a small calf to eat on Shabbat.[131] In these cases, the "magic" was seen more as divine miracles (i.e., coming from God rather than "unclean" forces) than as witchcraft.

Judaism does make it clear that Jews shall not try to learn about the ways of witches[132] and that witches are to be put to death.[133]

Judaism's most famous reference to a medium is undoubtedly the Witch of Endor whom Saul consults, as recounted in 1 Samuel 28.
Islam
Main article: Islam and magic
See also: Islam and astrology and Superstitions in Muslim societies

Divination and magic in Islam encompass a wide range of practices, including black magic, warding off the evil eye, the production of amulets and other magical equipment, evocation, casting lots, and astrology.[134]

Legitimacy of practising witchcraft is disputed. Most of Islamic traditions distinguishes magic between good magic and black magic. al-Razi and Ibn Sina, describe that magic is merely a tool and only the outcome determines whether or not the act of magic was legitimate or not.[135] Al-Ghazali, although admitting the reality of magic, regards learning all sorts of magic as forbidden.[135] Ibn al-Nadim argues that good supernatural powers are received from God after purifying the soul, while sorcerers please devils and commit acts of disobedience and sacrifes to demons.[136] Whether or not sorcery is accessed by acts of piety or disobedience is often seen as an indicator whether magic is licit or illicit.[137] Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, a disciple of Ibn Taimiyya, who became the major source for Wahhabism, disregards magic, including exorcisms, entirely as superstition.[138] Ibn Khaldun brands sorcery, talismans, and prestidigitation as forbidden and illegal.[139] Tabasi did not subscribe to the rationalized framework of magic of most Ash'arite theologians, but only offered a wide range of rituals to perform sorcery. Yet he agrees that only magic in accordance with sharia is permissible.[135] Most of Islamic traditions distinguishes magic between good magic and black magic. Miracles belong to licit magic and are considered gifts of God.

The reality of magic is confirmed by the Quran. The Quran itself is said to bestow magical blessings upon hearers and heal them, based on al-Isra.[140] Solomon had the power to speak with animals and jinn, and command devils, which is only given to him with God's permission.[Quran 27:19][141] Surah Al-Falaq is used as a prayer to God to ward off black magic and is, according to hadith-literature, revealed to Muhammad to protect him against Jann the ancestor of the jinn[142] Muhammad was falsely accused of being a magician by his opponents.[Quran 10:2][143] The idea that devils teach magic is confirmed in Al-Baqara. A pair of fallen angels named Harut and Marut is also mentioned to tempt people into learning sorcery.

Scholars of the history of religion have linked several magical practises in Islam with pre-Islamic Turkish and East African customs. Most notable of these customs is the Zār.[144][145]
By region
    
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Africa
Further information: Witchcraft accusations against children in Africa
See also: Azande witchcraft

The Kolloh-Man[146]

Much of what witchcraft represents in Africa has been susceptible to misunderstandings and confusion, thanks in no small part to a tendency among western scholars since the time of the now largely discredited Margaret Murray to approach the subject through a comparative lens vis-a-vis European witchcraft.[147]

While some colonialists tried to eradicate witch hunting by introducing legislation to prohibit accusations of witchcraft, some of the countries where this was the case have formally recognized the reality of witchcraft via the law. This has produced an environment that encourages persecution of suspected witches.[148]
Cameroon

In eastern Cameroon, the term used for witchcraft among the Maka is djambe[149] and refers to a force inside a person; its powers may make the proprietor more vulnerable. It encompasses the occult, the transformative, killing and healing.[150]
Central African Republic

Every year, hundreds of people in the Central African Republic are convicted of witchcraft.[151] Christian militias in the Central African Republic have also kidnapped, burnt and buried alive women accused of being 'witches' in public ceremonies.[152]
Democratic Republic of the Congo

As of 2006, between 25,000 and 50,000 children in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, had been accused of witchcraft and thrown out of their homes.[153] These children have been subjected to often-violent abuse during exorcisms, sometimes supervised by self-styled religious pastors. Other pastors and Christian activists strongly oppose such accusations and try to rescue children from their unscrupulous colleagues.[154] The usual term for these children is enfants sorciers ('child witches') or enfants dits sorciers ('children accused of witchcraft'). In 2002, USAID funded the production of two short films on the subject, made in Kinshasa by journalists Angela Nicoara and Mike Ormsby.

In April 2008, in Kinshasa, the police arrested 14 suspected victims (of penis snatching) and sorcerers accused of using black magic or witchcraft to steal (make disappear) or shrink men's penises to extort cash for cure, amid a wave of panic.[155]

According to one study, the belief in magical warfare technologies (such as "bulletproofing") in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo serves a group-level function, as it increases group efficiency in warfare, even if it is suboptimal at the individual level.[156] The authors of the study argue that this is one reason why the belief in witchcraft persists.[156]

Complimentary remarks about witchcraft by a native Congolese initiate:

    From witchcraft [...] may be developed the remedy (kimbuki) that will do most to raise up our country.[157] Witchcraft [...] deserves respect [...] it can embellish or redeem (ketula evo vuukisa)."[158] The ancestors were equipped with the protective witchcraft of the clan (kindoki kiandundila kanda). [...] They could also gather the power of animals into their hands [...] whenever they needed. [...] If we could make use of these kinds of witchcraft, our country would rapidly progress in knowledge of every kind.[159] You witches (zindoki) too, bring your science into the light to be written down so that [...] the benefits in it [...] endow our race.[160]

Ghana
Main article: Witchcraft in Ghana

In Ghana, women are often accused of witchcraft and attacked by neighbours.[161] Because of this, there exist six witch camps in the country where women suspected of being witches can flee for safety.[162] The witch camps, which exist solely in Ghana, are thought to house a total of around 1000 women.[162] Some of the camps are thought to have been set up over 100 years ago.[162] The Ghanaian government has announced that it intends to close the camps.[162]

Arrests were made in an effort to avoid bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by mobs.[163] While it is easy for modern people to dismiss such reports, Uchenna Okeja argues that a belief system in which such magical practices are deemed possible offer many benefits to Africans who hold them. For example, the belief that a sorcerer has "stolen" a man's penis functions as an anxiety-reduction mechanism for men suffering from impotence, while simultaneously providing an explanation that is consistent with African cultural beliefs rather than appealing to Western scientific notions that are tainted by the history of colonialism (at least for many Africans).[164]
Kenya

It was reported that a mob in Kenya had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft in 2008.[165]
Malawi

In Malawi it is also common practice to accuse children of witchcraft and many children have been abandoned, abused and even killed as a result. As in other African countries both African traditional healers and their Christian counterparts are trying to make a living out of exorcising children and are actively involved in pointing out children as witches.[166] Various secular and Christian organizations are combining their efforts to address this problem.[167]

According to William Kamkwamba, witches and wizards are afraid of money, which they consider a rival evil. Any contact with cash will snap their spell and leave the wizard naked and confused, so placing cash, such as kwacha around a room or bed mat will protect the resident from their malevolent spells.[168]
Nigeria

In Nigeria, several Pentecostal pastors have mixed their evangelical brand of Christianity with African beliefs in witchcraft to benefit from the lucrative witch finding and exorcism business—which in the past was the exclusive domain of the so-called witch doctor or traditional healers. These pastors have been involved in the torturing and even killing of children accused of witchcraft.[169] Over the past decade,[when?] around 15,000 children have been accused, and around 1,000 murdered. Churches are very numerous in Nigeria, and competition for congregations is hard. Some pastors attempt to establish a reputation for spiritual power by "detecting" child witches, usually following a death or loss of a job within a family, or an accusation of financial fraud against the pastor. In the course of "exorcisms", accused children may be starved, beaten, mutilated, set on fire, forced to consume acid or cement, or buried alive. While some church leaders and Christian activists have spoken out strongly against these abuses, many Nigerian churches are involved in the abuse, although church administrations deny knowledge of it.[170]

In May 2020, fifteen adults, mostly women, were set ablaze after being accused of witchcraft, including the mother of the instigator of the attack, Thomas Obi Tawo, a local politician.[148]
Sierra Leone

Among the Mende (of Sierra Leone), trial and conviction for witchcraft has a beneficial effect for those convicted. "The witchfinder had warned the whole village to ensure the relative prosperity of the accused and sentenced ... old people. ... Six months later all of the people ... accused, were secure, well-fed and arguably happier than at any [previous] time; they had hardly to beckon and people would come with food or whatever was needful. ... Instead of such old and widowed people being left helpless or (as in Western society) institutionalized in old people's homes, these were reintegrated into society and left secure in their old age ... Old people are 'suitable' candidates for this kind of accusation in the sense that they are isolated and vulnerable, and they are 'suitable' candidates for 'social security' for precisely the same reasons."[171] In Kuranko language, the term for witchcraft is suwa'ye[172] referring to 'extraordinary powers'.
Tanzania

In Tanzania in 2008, President Kikwete publicly condemned witchdoctors for killing albinos for their body parts, which are thought to bring good luck. 25 albinos have been murdered since March 2007.[173] In Tanzania, albinos are often murdered for their body parts on the advice of witch doctors in order to produce powerful amulets that are believed to protect against witchcraft and make the owner prosper in life.[174]
Zulu

Native to the Zulu people, witches called sangoma protect people against evil spirits. They usually train for about five to seven years. In the cities, this training could take only several months.

Another type of witch are the inyanga, who are actual witch doctors that heal people with plant and animal parts. This is a job that is passed on to future generations. In the Zulu population, 80% of people contact inyangas.[175]
Americas
British America and the United States

Massachusetts

Examination of a Witch by T. H. Matteson, inspired by the Salem witch trials

In 1645, Springfield, Massachusetts, experienced America's first accusations of witchcraft when husband and wife Hugh and Mary Parsons accused each other of witchcraft. At America's first witch trial, Hugh was found innocent, while Mary was acquitted of witchcraft but sentenced to be hanged for the death of her child. She died in prison.[176] From 1645 to 1663, about eighty people throughout England's Massachusetts Bay Colony were accused of practicing witchcraft. Thirteen women and two men were executed in a witch-hunt that lasted throughout New England from 1645 to 1663.[177] The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–93. These witch trials were the most famous in British North America and took place in the coastal settlements near Salem, Massachusetts. Prior to the witch trials, nearly 300 men and women had been suspected of partaking in witchcraft, and 19 of these people were hanged, and one was "pressed to death".[178]

Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover. The best known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town.[179][citation needed][180] The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93.

Maryland

In Maryland, there is a legend of Moll Dyer, who escaped a fire set by fellow colonists only to die of exposure in December 1697. The historical record of Dyer is scant as all official records were burned in a courthouse fire, though the county courthouse has on display the rock where her frozen body was found. A letter from a colonist of the period describes her in most unfavourable terms. A local road is named after Dyer, where her homestead was said to have been. Many local families have their own version of the Moll Dyer affair, and her name is spoken with care in the rural southern counties.[181]

Pennsylvania

Margaret Mattson and another woman were tried in 1683 on accusations of witchcraft in the Province of Pennsylvania. They were acquitted by William Penn after a trial in Philadelphia. These are the only known trials for witchcraft in Pennsylvania history.

Some of Margaret's neighbors claimed that she had bewitched cattle.[182] Charges of practicing witchcraft were brought before the Pennsylvania Provincial Council in February 1683 (under Julian calendar).[183] This occurred nineteen years after the Swedish territory became a British common law colony and subject to English Witchcraft Act 1604. [184] Accused by several neighbors, as well as her own daughter in law, Mattson's alleged crimes included making threats against neighbors, causing cows to give little milk,[185] bewitching and killing livestock and appearing to witnesses in spectral form. On February 27, 1683, charges against Mattson and a neighbor Gertro (a.k.a. Yeshro) Jacobsson, wife of Hendrick Jacobsson, were brought by the Attorney General before a grand jury of 21 men overseen by the colony's proprietor, William Penn. The grand jury returned a true bill indictment that afternoon, and the cases proceeded to trial.[183] A petit jury of 12 men was selected by Penn and an interpreter was appointed for the Finnish women, who did not speak English.[186] Penn barred the use of prosecution and defense lawyers, conducted the questioning himself, and permitted the introduction of unsubstantiated hearsay.[185] Penn himself gave the closing charge and directions to the jury, but what he told them was not transcribed. According to the minutes of the Provincial Council, dated February 27, 1683, the jury returned with a verdict of "Guilty of having the Comon Fame of a Witch, but not Guilty in manner and Forme as Shee stands Endicted."[185][187]

Thus Mattson was found guilty of having the reputation of a witch, but not guilty of bewitching animals. Neither woman was convicted of witchcraft. "Hence the superstitious got enough to have their thinking affirmed. Those less superstitious, and justice minded, got what they wanted."[188] The accused were released on their husbands posting recognizance bonds of 50 pounds and promising six months' good behavior.[189][183]

A popular legend tells of William Penn dismissing the charges against Mattson by affirming her legal right to fly on a broomstick over Philadelphia, saying "Well, I know of no law against it."[185] The record fails to show any such commentary, but the story probably reflects popular views of Penn's socially progressive Quaker values.[190]

Tennessee

Accusations of witchcraft and wizardry led to the prosecution of a man in Tennessee as recently as 1833.[191][192][193]
Latin America
Main article: Witchcraft in Latin America

When Franciscan friars from New Spain arrived in the Americas in 1524, they introduced Diabolism - belief in the Christian concept of The Devil - to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.[194] Bartolomé de las Casas believed that human sacrifice was not diabolic, in fact far off from it, and was a natural result of religious expression.[194] Mexican Indians gladly took in the belief of Diabolism and still managed to keep their belief in creator-destroyer deities.[195]

Witchcraft was an important part of the social and cultural history of late-Colonial Mexico, during the Mexican Inquisition. Spanish Inquisitors viewed witchcraft as a problem that could be cured simply through confession. Yet, as anthropologist Ruth Behar writes, witchcraft, not only in Mexico but in Latin America in general, was a "conjecture of sexuality, witchcraft, and religion, in which Spanish, indigenous, and African cultures converged."[196] Furthermore, witchcraft in Mexico generally required an interethnic and interclass network of witches.[197] Yet, according to anthropology professor Laura Lewis, witchcraft in colonial Mexico ultimately represented an "affirmation of hegemony" for women, Indians, and especially Indian women over their white male counterparts as a result of the casta system.[198]

The presence of the witch is a constant in the ethnographic history of colonial Brazil, especially during the several denunciations and confessions given to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of Bahia (1591–1593), Pernambuco and Paraíba (1593–1595).[199]

Brujería, often called a Latin American form of witchcraft, is a syncretic Afro-Caribbean tradition that combines Indigenous religious and magical practices from Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao in the Dutch Caribbean, Catholicism, and European witchcraft.[200] The tradition and terminology is considered to encompass both helpful and harmful practices.[201] A male practitioner is called a brujo, a female practitioner, a bruja.[201] Healers may be further distinguished by the terms kurioso or kuradó, a man or woman who performs trabou chikí ("little works") and trabou grandi ("large treatments") to promote or restore health, bring fortune or misfortune, deal with unrequited love, and more serious concerns. Sorcery usually involves reference to an entitiy referred to as the almasola or homber chiki.[202]
Navajo

The yee naaldlooshii is the type of witch known in English as a skin-walker. They are believed to take the forms of animals in order to travel in secret and do harm to the innocent.[203] In the Navajo language, yee naaldlooshii translates to 'with it, he goes on all fours'.[203] While perhaps the most common variety seen in horror fiction by non-Navajo people, the yee naaldlooshii is one of several varieties of Navajo witch, specifically a type of 'ánti'įhnii.[203]

Corpse powder or corpse poison (Navajo: áńt'į́, literally 'witchery' or 'harming') is a substance made from powdered corpses. The powder is used by witches to curse their victims.[9]

Traditional Navajos usually hesitate to discuss things like witches and witchcraft with non-Navajos.[204]
Asia
Main article: Asian witchcraft
India

Belief in the supernatural is strong in all parts of India, and lynchings for witchcraft are reported in the press from time to time.[205] Around 750 people were killed as witches in Assam and West Bengal between 2003 and 2008.[206] Officials in the state of Chhattisgarh reported in 2008 that at least 100 women are maltreated annually as suspected witches.[207] A local activist stated that only a fraction of cases of abuse are reported.[208] In Indian mythology, a common perception of a witch is a being with her feet pointed backwards.
Nepal
Main article: Witch-hunts in Nepal

In Nepali language, witches are known as Boksi (Nepali: बोक्सी). Apart from other types of Violence against women in Nepal, the malpractice of abusing women in the name of witchcraft is also prominent. According to the statistics in 2013, there was a total of 69 reported cases of abuse to women due to accusation of performing witchcraft. The perpetrators of this malpractice are usually neighbors, so-called witch doctors and family members.[209] The main causes of these malpractices are lack of education, lack of awareness and superstition. According to the statistics by INSEC,[210] the age group of women who fall victims to the witchcraft violence in Nepal is 20–40.[211]
Japan

Okabe – The cat witch, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

In Japanese folklore, the most common types of witch can be separated into two categories: those who employ snakes as familiars, and those who employ foxes.[212] The fox witch is, by far, the most commonly seen witch figure in Japan. Differing regional beliefs set those who use foxes into two separate types: the kitsune-mochi, and the tsukimono-suji. The first of these, the kitsune-mochi, is a solitary figure who gains his fox familiar by bribing it with its favourite foods. The kitsune-mochi then strikes up a deal with the fox, typically promising food and daily care in return for the fox's magical services. The fox of Japanese folklore is a powerful trickster in and of itself, imbued with powers of shape changing, possession, and illusion. These creatures can be either nefarious; disguising themselves as women in order to trap men, or they can be benign forces as in the story of "The Grateful foxes".[213] By far, the most commonly reported cases of fox witchcraft in modern Japan are enacted by tsukimono-suji families, or 'hereditary witches'.[214]
Philippines
Main article: Philippine witches

In the Philippines, as in many of these cultures, witches are viewed as those opposed to the sacred. In contrast, anthropologists writing about the healers in Indigenous Philippine folk religions either use the traditional terminology of these cultures, or broad anthropological terms like shaman.[11]

Philippine witches are the users of black magic and related practices from the Philippines. They include a variety of different kinds of people with differing occupations and cultural connotations which depend on the ethnic group they are associated with. They are completely different from the Western notion of what a witch is, as each ethnic group has their own definition and practices attributed to witches. The curses and other magics of witches are often blocked, countered, cured, or lifted by Philippine shamans associated with the Indigenous Philippine folk religions.[12][215]
Saudi Arabia
Main articles: Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia, Freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia, and Human rights in Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia continues to use the death penalty for sorcery and witchcraft.[216] In 2006 Fawza Falih Muhammad Ali was condemned to death for practicing witchcraft.[217] There is no legal definition of sorcery in Saudi, but in 2007 an Egyptian pharmacist working there was accused, convicted, and executed. Saudi authorities also pronounced the death penalty on a Lebanese television presenter, Ali Hussain Sibat, while he was performing the hajj (Islamic pilgrimage) in the country.[218]

In 2009, the Saudi authorities set up the Anti-Witchcraft Unit of their Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice police.[219] In April 2009, a Saudi woman Amina Bint Abdulhalim Nassar was arrested and later sentenced to death for practicing witchcraft and sorcery. In December 2011, she was beheaded.[220] A Saudi man has been beheaded on charges of sorcery and witchcraft in June 2012.[221] A beheading for sorcery occurred in 2014.[74]
Islamic State
See also: Human rights in ISIL-controlled territory

In June 2015, Yahoo reported: "The Islamic State group has beheaded two women in Syria on accusations of 'sorcery', the first such executions of female civilians in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday."[222]
Europe
Main articles: European witchcraft and Witch trials in Early Modern Europe

Witchcraft in Europe between 500 and 1750 was believed to be a combination of sorcery and heresy. While sorcery attempts to produce negative supernatural effects through formulas and rituals, heresy is the Christian contribution to witchcraft in which an individual makes a pact with the Devil. In addition, heresy denies witches the recognition of important Christian values such as baptism, salvation, Christ and sacraments.[223] The beginning of the witch accusations in Europe took place in the 14th and 15th centuries; however as the social disruptions of the 16th century took place, witchcraft trials intensified.[224]

A 1555 German print showing the burning of witches. Current scholarly estimates of the number of people executed for witchcraft in Europe vary between 40,000 and 100,000.[225] The number of witch trials in Europe known to have ended in executions is around 12,000.[226]

In Early Modern European tradition, witches were stereotypically, though not exclusively, women.[56][227] European pagan belief in witchcraft was associated with the goddess Diana and dismissed as "diabolical fantasies" by medieval Christian authors.[228] Throughout Europe, there were an estimated 110,000 witchcraft trials between 1450 and 1750 (with 1560 to 1660 being the peak of persecutions), with half of the cases seeing the accused being executed.[229] Witch-hunts first appeared in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries. The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670.[230]

It was commonly believed that individuals with power and prestige were involved in acts of witchcraft and even cannibalism.[231] Because Europe had a lot of power over individuals living in West Africa, Europeans in positions of power were often accused of taking part in these practices. Though it is not likely that these individuals were actually involved in these practices, they were most likely associated due to Europe's involvement in things like the slave trade, which negatively affected the lives of many individuals in the Atlantic World throughout the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.[231]

Early converts to Christianity looked to Christian clergy to work magic more effectively than the old methods under Roman paganism, and Christianity provided a methodology involving saints and relics, similar to the gods and amulets of the Pagan world. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, its concern with magic lessened.[232]

The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft, such as those typified in the confessions of the Pendle witches, commonly involves a diabolical pact or at least an appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil. The witches or wizards engaged in such practices were alleged to reject Jesus and the sacraments; observe "the witches' sabbath" (performing infernal rites that often parodied the Mass or other sacraments of the Church); pay Divine honour to the Prince of Darkness; and, in return, receive from him preternatural powers. It was a folkloric belief that a Devil's Mark, like the brand on cattle, was placed upon a witch's skin by the devil to signify that this pact had been made.[233]
Britain
Further information: Witch trials in early modern Scotland

    In the north of England, the superstition lingers to an almost inconceivable extent. Lancashire abounds with witch-doctors, a set of quacks, who pretend to cure diseases inflicted by the devil ... The witch-doctor alluded to is better known by the name of the cunning man, and has a large practice in the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham.[234]

Historians Keith Thomas and his student Alan Macfarlane study witchcraft by combining historical research with concepts drawn from anthropology.[235][236][237] They argued that English witchcraft, like African witchcraft, was endemic rather than epidemic. Old women were the favorite targets because they were marginal, dependent members of the community and therefore more likely to arouse feelings of both hostility and guilt, and less likely to have defenders of importance inside the community. Witchcraft accusations were the village's reaction to the breakdown of its internal community, coupled with the emergence of a newer set of values that was generating psychic stress.[238]

Illustration of witches, perhaps being tortured before James VI, from his Daemonologie (1597)

Wales

In Wales, fear of witchcraft mounted around the year 1500. There was a growing alarm of women's magic as a weapon aimed against the state and church. The Church made greater efforts to enforce the canon law of marriage, especially in Wales where tradition allowed a wider range of sexual partnerships. There was a political dimension as well, as accusations of witchcraft were levied against the enemies of Henry VII, who was exerting more and more control over Wales.[239] In 1542, the first of many Witchcraft Acts was passed defining witchcraft as a crime punishable by death and the forfeiture of property.[240]

The records of the Courts of Great Sessions for Wales, 1536–1736 show that Welsh custom was more important than English law. Custom provided a framework of responding to witches and witchcraft in such a way that interpersonal and communal harmony was maintained. Even when found guilty, execution did not occur.[241]

Scotland and England

Becoming king in 1567, James VI and I brought to England and Scotland continental explanations of witchcraft. His goal was to divert suspicion away from male homosociality among the elite, and focus fear on female communities and large gatherings of women. He thought they threatened his political power so he laid the foundation for witchcraft and occultism policies, especially in Scotland. The point was that a widespread belief in the conspiracy of witches and a witches' Sabbath with the devil deprived women of political influence. Occult power was supposedly a womanly trait because women were weaker and more susceptible to the devil.[242]

Lord Chief Justice of England Sir John Holt by Richard van Bleeck, c. 1700. Holt greatly influenced the end of prosecutions for witchcraft in England. National Portrait Gallery, London.[243]

The last persons known to have been executed for witchcraft in England were the so-called Bideford witches in 1682. The last person executed for witchcraft in Great Britain was Janet Horne, in Scotland in 1727.[244] The Witchcraft Act 1735 abolished the penalty of execution for witchcraft, replacing it with imprisonment. This act was repealed by the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951.

Current

Today in the United Kingdom children believed to be witches or seen as possessed by evil spirits can be subject to severe beatings, traumatic exorcism, and/or other abuse. There have even been child murders associated with witchcraft beliefs. The problem is particularly serious among immigrant or former immigrant communities of African origin but other communities, such as those of Asian origin are also involved. Step children and children seen as different for a wide range of reasons are particularly at risk of witchcraft accusations.[245] Children may be beaten or have chilli rubbed into their eyes during exorcisms.[246] This type of abuse is frequently hidden and can include torture.[247] A 2006 recommendation to record abuse cases linked to witchcraft accusations centrally has not yet been implemented. Lack of awareness among social workers, teachers and other professionals dealing with at risk children hinders efforts to combat the problem.[248]

    The Metropolitan Police said there had been 60 crimes linked to faith in London so far [in 2015]. It saw reports double from 23 in 2013 to 46 in 2014. Half of UK police forces do not record such cases and many local authorities are also unable to provide figures. The NSPCC said authorities "need to ensure they are able to spot the signs of this particular brand of abuse". London is unique in having a police team, Project Violet, dedicated to this type of abuse. Its figures relate to crime reports where officers have flagged a case as involving abuse linked to faith or belief. Many of the cases involve children. (...) An NSPCC spokesman said: "While the number of child abuse cases involving witchcraft is relatively small, they often include horrifying levels of cruelty. "The authorities which deal with these dreadful crimes need to ensure they are able to spot the signs of this particular brand of abuse and take action to protect children before a tragedy occurs."[248]

There is a 'money making scam' involved. Pastors accuse a child of being a witch and later the family pays for exorcism. If a child at school says that his/her pastor called the child a witch that should become a child safeguarding issue.[248]
Italy
Main articles: Witchcraft in Italy and Witch trials in Italy

A particularly rich source of information about witchcraft in Italy before the outbreak of the Great Witch Hunts of the Renaissance are the sermons of Franciscan popular preacher, Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444), who saw the issue as one of the most pressing moral and social challenges of his day and thus preached many a sermon on the subject, inspiring many local governments to take actions against what he called "servants of the Devil."[249] As in most European countries, women in Italy were more likely suspected of witchcraft than men.[250] Women were considered dangerous due to their supposed sexual instability, such as when being aroused, and also due to the powers of their menstrual blood.[251]

In the 16th century, Italy had a high portion of witchcraft trials involving love magic.[252] The country had a large number of unmarried people due to men marrying later in their lives during this time.[252] This left many women on a desperate quest for marriage leaving them vulnerable to the accusation of witchcraft whether they took part in it or not.[252] Trial records from the Inquisition and secular courts discovered a link between prostitutes and supernatural practices. Professional prostitutes were considered experts in love and therefore knew how to make love potions and cast love related spells.[251] Up until 1630, the majority of women accused of witchcraft were prostitutes.[250] A courtesan was questioned about her use of magic due to her relationship with men of power in Italy and her wealth.[253] The majority of women accused were also considered "outsiders" because they were poor, had different religious practices, spoke a different language, or simply from a different city/town/region.[254] Cassandra from Ferrara, Italy, was still considered a foreigner because not native to Rome where she was residing. She was also not seen as a model citizen because her husband was in Venice.[255]

From the 16th-18th centuries, the Catholic Church enforced moral discipline throughout Italy.[256] With the help of local tribunals, such as in Venice, the two institutions investigated a woman's religious behaviors when she was accused of witchcraft.[250]
Spain
Main articles: Witch trials in Spain and Akelarre

Galicia in Spain is nicknamed the "Land of the Witches" due to its mythological origins surrounding its people, culture and its land.[257] The Basque Country also suffered persecutions against witches, such as the case of the Witches of Zugarramurdi, six of which were burned in Logroño in 1610 or the witch hunt in the French Basque country in the previous year with the burning of eighty supposed witches at the stake. This is reflected in the studies of José Miguel de Barandiarán and Julio Caro Baroja. Euskal Herria retains numerous legends that account for an ancient mythology of witchcraft. The town of Zalla is nicknamed "Town of the Witches".[258]
Oceania
Cook Islands

In pre-Christian times, witchcraft was a common practice in the Cook Islands. The native name for a sorcerer was tangata purepure (a man who prays).[259] The prayers offered by the ta'unga (priests)[260] to the gods worshiped on national or tribal marae (temples) were termed karakia;[261] those on minor occasions to the lesser gods were named pure. All these prayers were metrical, and were handed down from generation to generation with the utmost care. There were prayers for every such phase in life; for success in battle; for a change in wind (to overwhelm an adversary at sea, or that an intended voyage be propitious); that his crops may grow; to curse a thief; or wish ill-luck and death to his foes. Few men of middle age were without a number of these prayers or charms. The succession of a sorcerer was from father to son, or from uncle to nephew. So too of sorceresses: it would be from mother to daughter, or from aunt to niece. Sorcerers and sorceresses were often slain by relatives of their supposed victims.[262]

A singular enchantment was employed to kill off a husband of a pretty woman desired by someone else. The expanded flower of a Gardenia was stuck upright—a very difficult performance—in a cup (i.e., half a large coconut shell) of water. A prayer was then offered for the husband's speedy death, the sorcerer earnestly watching the flower. Should it fall the incantation was successful. But if the flower still remained upright, he will live. The sorcerer would in that case try his skill another day, with perhaps better success.[263]

According to Beatrice Grimshaw, a journalist who visited the Cook Islands in 1907, the uncrowned Queen Makea was believed to have possessed the mystic power called mana, giving the possessor the power to slay at will. It also included other gifts, such as second sight to a certain extent, the power to bring good or evil luck, and the ability already mentioned to deal death at will.[264]
Papua New Guinea

A local newspaper informed that more than 50 people were killed in two Highlands provinces of Papua New Guinea in 2008 for allegedly practicing witchcraft.[265] An estimated 50–150 alleged witches are killed each year in Papua New Guinea.[266]
Slavic Russia

Among the Russian words for witch, ведьма (ved'ma) literally means 'one who knows', from Old Slavic вѣдъ 'to know'.[267]
Spells

Pagan practices formed a part of Russian and Eastern Slavic culture; the Russian people were deeply superstitious. The witchcraft practiced consisted mostly of earth magic and herbology; it was not so significant which herbs were used in practices, but how these herbs were gathered. Ritual centered on harvest of the crops and the location of the sun was very important.[268] One source, pagan author Judika Illes, tells that herbs picked on Midsummer's Eve were believed to be most powerful, especially if gathered on Bald Mountain near Kiev during the witches' annual revels celebration.[269] Botanicals should be gathered, "During the seventeenth minute of the fourteenth hour, under a dark moon, in the thirteenth field, wearing a red dress, pick the twelfth flower on the right."[270]

Spells also served for midwifery, shape-shifting, keeping lovers faithful, and bridal customs. Spells dealing with midwifery and childbirth focused on the spiritual wellbeing of the baby.[270] Shape-shifting spells involved invocation of the wolf as a spirit animal.[271] To keep men faithful, lovers would cut a ribbon the length of his erect penis and soak it in his seminal emissions after sex while he was sleeping, then tie seven knots in it; keeping this talisman of knot magic ensured loyalty.[272] Part of an ancient pagan marriage tradition involved the bride taking a ritual bath at a bathhouse before the ceremony. Her sweat would be wiped from her body using raw fish, and the fish would be cooked and fed to the groom.[273]

Demonism, or black magic, was not prevalent. Persecution for witchcraft, mostly involved the practice of simple earth magic, founded on herbology, by solitary practitioners with a Christian influence. In one case investigators found a locked box containing something bundled in a kerchief and three paper packets, wrapped and tied, containing crushed grasses.[274] Most rituals of witchcraft were very simple—one spell of divination consists of sitting alone outside meditating, asking the earth to show one's fate.[275]

While these customs were unique to Russian culture, they were not exclusive to this region. Russian pagan practices were often akin to paganism in other parts of the world. The Chinese concept of chi, a form of energy that often manipulated in witchcraft, is known as bioplasma in Russian practices.[276] The western concept of an "evil eye" or a "hex" was translated to Russia as a "spoiler".[277] A spoiler was rooted in envy, jealousy and malice. Spoilers could be made by gathering bone from a cemetery, a knot of the target's hair, burned wooden splinters and several herb Paris berries (which are very poisonous). Placing these items in sachet in the victim's pillow completes a spoiler. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the ancient Egyptians recognized the evil eye from as early as 3,000 BCE; in Russian practices it is seen as a sixteenth-century concept.[278]
Societal view of witchcraft

The dominant societal concern about those practicing witchcraft was not whether it was effective, but whether it could cause harm.[274] Peasants in Russian and Ukrainian societies often shunned witchcraft, unless they needed help against supernatural forces. Impotence, stomach pains, barrenness, hernias, abscesses, epileptic seizures, and convulsions were all attributed to evil (or witchcraft). This is reflected in linguistics; there are numerous words for a variety of practitioners of paganism-based healers. Russian peasants referred to a witch as a chernoknizhnik (a person who plied his trade with the aid of a black book), sheptun/sheptun'ia (a 'whisperer' male or female), lekar/lekarka or znakhar/znakharka (a male or female healer), or zagovornik (an incanter).[279]

Ironically enough, there was universal reliance on folk healers – but clients often turned them in if something went wrong. According to Russian historian Valerie A. Kivelson, witchcraft accusations were normally thrown at lower-class peasants, townspeople and Cossacks. People turned to witchcraft as a means to support themselves. The ratio of male to female accusations was 75% to 25%. Males were targeted more, because witchcraft was associated with societal deviation. Because single people with no settled home could not be taxed, males typically had more power than women in their dissent.[274]

The history of Witchcraft had evolved around society. More of a psychological concept to the creation and usage of Witchcraft can create the assumption as to why women are more likely to follow the practices behind Witchcraft. Identifying with the soul of an individual's self is often deemed as "feminine" in society. There is analyzed social and economic evidence to associate between witchcraft and women.[280]
Russian witch trials
Main article: Witch trials in Russia

Witchcraft trials frequently occurred in seventeenth-century Russia, although the "great witch-hunt" is believed[by whom?] to be a predominantly Western European phenomenon. However, as the witchcraft-trial craze swept across Catholic and Protestant countries during this time, Orthodox Christian Europe indeed partook in this so-called "witch hysteria." This involved the persecution of both males and females who were believed to be practicing paganism, herbology, the black art, or a form of sorcery within and/or outside their community. Very early on witchcraft legally fell under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical body, the church, in Kievan Rus' and Muscovite Russia.[281] Sources of ecclesiastical witchcraft jurisdiction date back as early as the second half of the eleventh century, one being Vladimir the Great's first edition of his State Statute or Ustav, another being multiple references in the Primary Chronicle beginning in 1024.[281]

Goya's drawing of result of a presumed witch's trial: " [so she must be a witch]"[282]

The sentence for an individual who was found guilty of witchcraft or sorcery during this time, as well as in previous centuries, typically included either burning at the stake or being tested with the "ordeal of cold water" or judicium aquae frigidae.[281] The cold-water test was primarily a Western European phenomenon, but it was also used as a method of truth in Russia both prior to, and post, seventeenth-century witchcraft trials in Muscovy. Accused persons who submerged were considered innocent, and ecclesiastical authorities would proclaim them "brought back", but those who floated were considered guilty of practicing witchcraft, and they were either burned at the stake or executed in an unholy fashion. The thirteenth-century bishop of Vladimir, Serapion Vladimirskii, preached sermons throughout the Muscovite countryside, and in one particular sermon revealed that burning was the usual punishment for witchcraft, but more often the cold water test was used as a precursor to execution.[281][283]

Although these two methods of torture were used in the west and the east, Russia implemented a system of fines payable for the crime of witchcraft during the seventeenth century. Thus, even though torture methods in Muscovy were on a similar level of harshness as Western European methods used, a more civil method was present. In the introduction of a collection of trial records pieced together by Russian scholar Nikolai Novombergsk, he argues that Muscovite authorities used the same degree of cruelty and harshness as Western European Catholic and Protestant countries in persecuting witches.[281] By the mid-sixteenth century the manifestations of paganism, including witchcraft, and the black arts—astrology, fortune telling, and divination—became a serious concern to the Muscovite church and state.[281]

Tsar Ivan IV (reigned 1547–1584) took this matter to the ecclesiastical court and was immediately advised that individuals practicing these forms of witchcraft should be excommunicated and given the death penalty.[281] Ivan IV, as a true believer in witchcraft, was deeply convinced[citation needed] that sorcery accounted for the death of his wife, Anastasiia in 1560, which completely devastated and depressed him, leaving him heartbroken.[281] Stemming from this belief, Ivan IV became majorly concerned with the threat of witchcraft harming his family, and feared he was in danger. So, during the Oprichnina (1565–1572), Ivan IV succeeded in accusing and charging a good number of boyars with witchcraft whom he did not wish to remain as nobles. Rulers after Ivan IV, specifically during the Time of Troubles (1598–1613), increased the fear of witchcraft among themselves and entire royal families, which then led to further preoccupation with the fear of prominent Muscovite witchcraft circles.[281]

After the Time of Troubles, seventeenth-century Muscovite rulers held frequent investigations of witchcraft within their households, laying the groundwork, along with previous tsarist reforms, for widespread witchcraft trials throughout the Muscovite state.[281] Between 1622 and 1700 ninety-one people were brought to trial in Muscovite courts for witchcraft.[281] Although Russia did partake in the witch craze that swept across Western Europe, the Muscovite state did not persecute nearly as many people for witchcraft, let alone execute a number of individuals anywhere close to the number executed in the west during the witch hysteria.
Witches in art

Albrecht Dürer circa 1500: Witch riding backwards on a goat

Louhi, a powerful and wicked witch queen of the land known as Pohjola in the Finnish epic poetry Kalevala, attacking Väinämöinen in the form of a giant eagle with her troops on her back. (The Defense of the Sampo, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1896)

Witches have a long history of being depicted in art, although most of their earliest artistic depictions seem to originate in Early Modern Europe, particularly the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Many scholars attribute their manifestation in art as inspired by texts such as Canon Episcopi, a demonology-centered work of literature, and Malleus Maleficarum, a "witch-craze" manual published in 1487, by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.[284]

Canon Episcopi, a ninth-century text that explored the subject of demonology, initially introduced concepts that would continuously be associated with witches, such as their ability to fly or their believed fornication and sexual relations with the devil. The text refers to two women, Diana the Huntress and Herodias, who both express the duality of female sorcerers. Diana was described as having a heavenly body and as the "protectress of childbirth and fertility" while Herodias symbolized "unbridled sensuality". They thus represent the mental powers and cunning sexuality that witches used as weapons to trick men into performing sinful acts which would result in their eternal punishment. These characteristics were distinguished as Medusa-like or Lamia-like traits when seen in any artwork (Medusa's mental trickery was associated with Diana the Huntress's psychic powers and Lamia was a rumored female figure in the Medieval ages sometimes used in place of Herodias).[285]

One of the first individuals to regularly depict witches after the witch-craze of the medieval period was Albrecht Dürer, a German Renaissance artist. His famous 1497 engraving The Four Witches, portrays four physically attractive and seductive nude witches. Their supernatural identities are emphasized by the skulls and bones lying at their feet as well as the devil discreetly peering at them from their left. The women's sensuous presentation speaks to the overtly sexual nature they were attached to in early modern Europe. Moreover, this attractiveness was perceived as a danger to ordinary men who they could seduce and tempt into their sinful world.[251] Some scholars interpret this piece as utilizing the logic of the Canon Episcopi, in which women used their mental powers and bodily seduction to enslave and lead men onto a path of eternal damnation, differing from the unattractive depiction of witches that would follow in later Renaissance years.[286]

Dürer also employed other ideas from the Middle Ages that were commonly associated with witches. Specifically, his art often referred to former 12th- to 13th-century Medieval iconography addressing the nature of female sorcerers. In the Medieval period, there was a widespread fear of witches, accordingly producing an association of dark, intimidating characteristics with witches, such as cannibalism (witches described as "[sucking] the blood of newborn infants"[251]) or described as having the ability to fly, usually on the back of black goats. As the Renaissance period began, these concepts of witchcraft were suppressed, leading to a drastic change in the sorceress' appearances, from sexually explicit beings to the 'ordinary' typical housewives of this time period. This depiction, known as the 'Waldensian' witch became a cultural phenomenon of early Renaissance art. The term originates from the 12th-century monk Peter Waldo, who established his own religious sect which explicitly opposed the luxury and commodity-influenced lifestyle of the Christian church clergy, and whose sect was excommunicated before being persecuted as "practitioners of witchcraft and magic".[251]

Subsequent artwork exhibiting witches tended to consistently rely on cultural stereotypes about these women. These stereotypes were usually rooted in early Renaissance religious discourse, specifically the Christian belief that an "earthly alliance" had taken place between Satan's female minions who "conspired to destroy Christendom".[287]

Another significant artist whose art consistently depicted witches was Dürer's apprentice, Hans Baldung Grien, a 15th-century German artist. His chiaroscuro woodcut, Witches, created in 1510, visually encompassed all the characteristics that were regularly assigned to witches during the Renaissance. Social beliefs labeled witches as supernatural beings capable of doing great harm, possessing the ability to fly, and as cannibalistic.[287] The urn in Witches seems to contain pieces of the human body, which the witches are seen consuming as a source of energy. Meanwhile, their nudity while feasting is recognized as an allusion to their sexual appetite, and some scholars read the witch riding on the back of a goat-demon as representative of their "flight-inducing [powers]". This connection between women's sexual nature and sins was thematic in the pieces of many Renaissance artists, especially Christian artists, due to cultural beliefs which characterized women as overtly sexual beings who were less capable (in comparison to men) of resisting sinful temptation.[251]
Witches in fiction

Witches in fiction span a wide array of characterizations. They are typically, but not always, female, and generally depicted as either villains or heroines.[288]

The classic fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" presents an example of the "witch villain" figure. The story involves a cannibalistic witch that eventually becomes outwitted by the children she tries to eat and is burned to death in her own oven. "Snow White" depicts a murderous, tempting magician for its main antagonist. The witch is labeled an evil queen and meets her demise after being forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes. "The Six Swans" includes a step-mother who magically turns her step-children into swans out of spite and jealousy. In retaliation, the figure labeled as witch is eventually burned at the stake. Such examples within the Brothers Grimm's works demonstrate not only evidence of the figure of "witch villain" but also exhibits their punishment by injury or violent death.[288]

Living Alone, published in 1919, uses the "witch heroine" as an agent in support of female liberation. Stella Benson's novel surrounds the musings of a female witch who functions as an anarchic force in the lives of middle-class Londoners. Her non-harmful magic aims to "shake the most downtrodden women out of complacency and normality" to meet a state of liberation.[288] The importance of such a heroine sheds light on the positive effects associated with magic and witchcraft, a change from the often brutalized and tortured illustrations found in early nineteenth century literature. Other examples of heroic witches in fictional literature include Glinda from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), Serafina Pekkala from His Dark Materials (1995–2000), and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series.
See also

    Witches Sabbath
    Feminist interpretations of the Early Modern witch trials
    Flying ointment
    Neoshamanism
    Kitchen witch

Footnotes

     The Hebrew word אֹב‎ (ob), rendered as familiar spirit in the translation, has a different meaning than the usual English sense of the phrase; namely, it refers to a spirit that the woman is familiar with, rather than to a spirit that physically manifests itself in the shape of an animal.

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     For a detailed description and analysis of Bernardino's anti-witchcraft sermons, see Chapter One (pp.52–108) of Franco Mormando's The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
     Martin, Ruth (1989). Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550–1650. Oxford, UK. p. 235.
     Black, Christopher F. (2001). Early Modern Italy: A Social History. London. p. 115.
     Kiekhefer, Richard (2001). European Witch Trials: Their Foundation in Popular and Learned Culture, 1300–1500. p. 57.
     Cohen, Elizabeth S. and Thomas V. (1993). Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 189–195.
     Schutte, Anne Jacobson (2008). Aspiring Saints: Pretense of Holiness, Inquisition, and Gender in the Republic of Venice, 1618–1750. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 99.
     Cohen, Elizabeth S. and Thomas V. (1993). Words and Deeds in Renaissance Rome: Trials before the Papal Magistrates. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. pp. 201–238.
     Ferraro, Joanne Marie. Nefarious Crimes, Contested Justice: Illicit Sex, and Infanticide in the Republic of Venice, 1557-1789. p. 3.
     "10 Fascinating Mysteries of the Ancient State of Galicia". 2017-02-21. Archived from the original on 2019-01-07. Retrieved 2019-01-06.
     "Entre brujas y ferrerias". El país. 27 July 2001. Archived from the original on 2 November 2019. Retrieved 2 November 2019.
     Jasper Buse (1995). Cook Islands Maori Dictionary. Cook Islands Ministry of Education. p. 372. ISBN 9780728602304. Archived from the original on 2016-08-08. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
     Jasper Buse (1995). Cook Islands Maori Dictionary. Cook Islands Ministry of Education. p. 471. ISBN 9780728602304. Archived from the original on 2016-08-08. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
     Jasper Buse (1995). Cook Islands Maori Dictionary. Cook Islands Ministry of Education. p. 156. ISBN 9780728602304. Archived from the original on 2016-08-08. Retrieved 2016-02-27.
     William Wyatt Gill (1892). "Wizards". The south Pacific and New Guinea, past and present; with notes on the Hervey group, an illustrative song and various myths. Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer. p. 21.
     William Wyatt Gill (1892). "Wizards". The south Pacific and New Guinea, past and present; with notes on the Hervey group, an illustrative song and various myths. Sydney: Charles Potter, Government Printer. p. 22.
     Beatrice Grimshaw (1908). "A Mystic Power". In the Strange South Seas. London: Hutchinson & Co. pp. 71–72.
     Woman suspected of witchcraft burned alive Archived 2009-04-29 at the Wayback Machine CNN.com. January 8, 2009.
     "Papua New Guinea's 'Sorcery Refugees': Women Accused of Witchcraft Flee Homes to Escape Violence Archived 2017-03-20 at the Wayback Machine". Vice News. January 6, 2015.
     See also Ryan, W.F. The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 524.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 252.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 847.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 623.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 797.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 705.
     Kivelson, Valerie A. (July 2003). "Male Witches and Gendered Categories in Seventeenth-Century Russia". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 45 (3): 606–631. doi:10.1017/S0010417503000276. JSTOR 3879463. S2CID 145811691.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 313.
     Janet and Stewart Farrar, A Witches Bible: The Complete Witches' Handbook (Washington, Phoenix Publishing, Inc.) 1984. Page 316.
     Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 586.
     Raymond Buckland, The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-Paganism (Detroit: Visible Ink) 2002. Page 160.
     Worobec, Christine D. (1995). "Witchcraft Beliefs and Practices in Prerevolutionary Russian and Ukrainian Villages". The Russian Review. 54 (2): 165–187. doi:10.2307/130913. JSTOR 130913.
     Peterson, Mark A. (March 1998). "Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England. By Elizabeth Reis. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997. xxii + 212 pp. $32.50 cloth". Church History. 67 (1): 192–194. doi:10.2307/3170836. JSTOR 3170836. S2CID 162208619.
     Zguta, Russell (1977). "Witchcraft Trials in Seventeenth-Century Russia". The American Historical Review. 82 (5): 1187–1207. doi:10.2307/1856344. JSTOR 1856344. PMID 11610147.
     Puigblanch, Antonio (1816-01-01). The Inquisition Unmasked: Being an Historical and Philosophical Account of that Tremendous Tribunal, Founded on Authentic Documents; and Exhibiting the Necessity of Its Suppression, as a Means of Reform and Regeneration, Written and Published at a Time when the National Congress of Spain was about to Deliberate on this Important Measure. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy.
     "Cold Water Ordeal". Infoplease.com. Archived from the original on 28 February 2017. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
     Simons, Patricia (September 2014). "The Incubus and Italian Renaissance art". Source: Notes in the History of Art. 34 (1): 1–8. doi:10.1086/sou.34.1.23882368. JSTOR 23882368. S2CID 191376143.
     Lorenzi, Lorenzo. Witches. Exploring the iconography of the sorceress and enchantress. (2005).
     Stumpel, Jeroen (2003). "The Foul Fowler Found out: On a Key Motif in Dürer's "Four Witches"". Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly for the History of Art. 30 (3/4): 143–160. doi:10.2307/3780914. JSTOR 3780914.
     Hoak, David (February 1981). "Witch-Hunting and Women in the Art of the Renaissance". History Today. 31 (2). Archived from the original on 2020-08-24. Retrieved 2021-03-28.
     Hutton, Ronald (2018-03-16). "Witches and Cunning Folk in British Literature 1800-1940". Preternature: Critical and Historical Studies on the Preternatural. 7 (1): 27. doi:10.5325/preternature.7.1.0027. hdl:1983/c91bdc34-80d8-49f6-92df-9147f2bef535. ISSN 2161-2188. S2CID 194795666. Archived from the original on 2021-05-18. Retrieved 2021-05-18.

Referenced works

    Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England, Psychology Press, 1999 (orig. 1970)
    University of Kansas Publications in Anthropology, No. 5 = John M Janzen and Wyatt MacGaffey: An Anthology of Kongo Religion: Primary Texts from Lower Zaïre. Lawrence, 1974.
    Studia Instituti Anthropos, Vol. 41 = Anthony J. Gittins: Mende Religion. Steyler Verlag, Nettetal, 1987.
    Thompson, David W. (2017). Sister Witch: The Life of Moll Dyer. Solstice Publishing. ISBN 978-1973105756.

Further reading

    Ashforth, Adam (2000). Madumo, A Man Bewitched. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-02971-9.
    Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds. The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, Volumes I and II. New York: Da Capo Press, 1977.
    Callow, John (2022). The Last Witches of England, A Tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-7883-1439-8.
    Easley, Patricia Thompson (August 2000). A Gobber Tooth, A Hairy Lip, A Squint Eye: Concepts of the Witch and the Body in Early Modern Europe (M.A. Thesis thesis). UNT Digital Library.
    Favret-Saada, Jeanne (December 1980). Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29787-5.
    Favret-Saada, Jeanne (2009). Désorceler. L'Olivier. ISBN 978-2-87929-639-5.
    Gaskill, Malcolm. "Masculinity and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-century England." In Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe, edited by Alison Rowlands, 171–190. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009.
    Geschiere, Peter (1997) [Translated from French Edition (1995 Karthala)]. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa = Sorcellerie Et Politique En Afrique — la viande des autres. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-1703-0.
    Ginzburg, Carlo; Translated by Raymond Rosenthal (June 2004) [Originally published in Italy as Storia Notturna (1989 Giulio Einaudi)]. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-29693-7.
    Goss, D. K. (2008). The Salem witch trials. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
    Gouges, Linnea de ''Witch Hunts and State Building in Early Modern Europe Nisus Publications, 2017.
    Hall, David, ed. Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-century New England: A Documentary History, 1638–1692. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991.
    Henderson, Lizanne, Witch-Hunting and Witch Belief in the Gàidhealtachd, Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland Eds. Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin and Joyce Miller. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007
    Hill, F. (2000). The Salem witch trials reader. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
    Hutton, Ronald (1999) The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, Oxford, OUP.
    Hyatt, Harry Middleton. Hoodoo, conjuration, witchcraft, rootwork: beliefs accepted by many Negroes and white persons, these being orally recorded among Blacks and whites. s.n., 1970.
    Kent, Elizabeth. "Masculinity and Male Witches in Old and New England." History Workshop 60 (2005): 69–92.
    Lindquist, Galina (2006). Conjuring Hope: Magic and Healing In Contemporary Russia. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-057-1. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
    Levack, Brian P. ed. The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (2013) excerpt and text search
    Moore, Henrietta L. and Todd Sanders 2001. Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa London: Routledge.
    Notestein, Wallace. A history of witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718. New York : Crowell, 1968
    Pentikainen, J (1978). "Marina Takalo as an Individual in Oral Repertoire and World View. An Anthropological study of Marina Takalo's Life History". F. F. Communications Turku. 93 (219): 58–76. INIST:12698358.
    Pentikainen, Juha. "The Supernatural Experience." F. Jstor. 26 February 2007.
    Pócs, Éva (1999). Between the Living and the Dead: A perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age. Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-9116-19-1.
    Ruickbie, Leo (2004) Witchcraft out of the Shadows: A History, London, Robert Hale.
    Stark, Ryan J. "Demonic Eloquence", in Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 115–45.
    Williams, Howard (1865). The Superstitions of Witchcraft. Project Gutenberg. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green.
    Worobec, Christine D. (1995). "Witchcraft Beliefs and Practices in Prerevolutionary Russian and Ukrainian Villages". The Russian Review. 54 (2): 165–187. doi:10.2307/130913. JSTOR 130913.

External links
Wikiquote has quotations related to Witchcraft.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Witchcraft.
Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Witchcraft".
Scholia has a topic profile for Witchcraft.

    Witchcraft on In Our Time at the BBC
    Kabbalah On Witchcraft – A Jewish view (Audio) chabad.org
    Jewish Encyclopedia: Witchcraft
    Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands, 1886, by John Linwood Pitts, from Project Gutenberg
    A Treatise of Witchcraft, 1616, by Alexander Roberts, from Project Gutenberg
    University of Edinburgh's Scottish witchcraft database
    'Witchcraft and Statecraft, A Materialist Analysis of the European Witch Persecutions'

    Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others.[1][2] A practitioner is a witch. In medieval and early modern Europe, where the term originated, accused witches were usually women who were believed to have attacked their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished, if found guilty or simply believed to be guilty. European witch-hunts and witch trials in the early modern period led to tens of thousands of executions. In some regions, many of those accused of witchcraft were folk healers or midwives.[3][4] European belief in witchcraft gradually dwindled during and after the Age of Enlightenment.

    Contemporary cultures that believe in magic and the supernatural often believe in witchcraft.[5][6] Anthropologists have applied the term witchcraft to similar beliefs and occult practices described by many non-European cultures, and cultures that have adopted the English language will often call these practices "witchcraft", as well.[6][7][8][9] As with the cunning-folk in Europe, Indigenous communities that believe in the existence of witchcraft define witches as the opposite of their healers and medicine people, who are sought out for protection against witches and witchcraft.[10][11][12] Modern witch-hunting is found in parts of Africa and Asia.

    A theory that witchcraft was a survival of a European pagan religion (the witch-cult hypothesis) gained popularity in the early 20th century, but has since been discredited.

    In contemporary Western culture, most notably since the growth of Wicca from the 1950s, some modern pagans and new agers self-identify as witches, and use the term witchcraft for their self-help, healing and divination rituals.[13][14][10][15]
    Contents
        1Concept
        2Etymology and definitions
        3Practices
            3.1Spell casting
            3.2Necromancy (conjuring the dead)
        4White witches in Britain and Europe
        5Thwarting witchcraft
            5.1Accusations of witchcraft
            5.2European witch-hunts and witch-trials
            5.3Modern witch-hunts
        6Wicca
            6.1Witchcraft, feminism, and media
            6.2Traditional witchcraft
            6.3Stregheria
        7Witchcraft and Satanism
        8Historical and religious perspectives
            8.1Near East beliefs
            8.2Abrahamic religions
                8.2.1Hebrew Bible
                8.2.2New Testament
                8.2.3Judaism
                8.2.4Islam
        9By region
            9.1Africa
                9.1.1Cameroon
                9.1.2Central African Republic
                9.1.3Democratic Republic of the Congo
                9.1.4Ghana
                9.1.5Kenya
                9.1.6Malawi
                9.1.7Nigeria
                9.1.8Sierra Leone
                9.1.9Tanzania
                9.1.10Zulu
            9.2Americas
                9.2.1British America and the United States
                9.2.2Latin America
                9.2.3Navajo
            9.3Asia
                9.3.1India
                9.3.2Nepal
                9.3.3Japan
                9.3.4Philippines
                9.3.5Saudi Arabia
                9.3.6Islamic State
            9.4Europe
                9.4.1Britain
                9.4.2Italy
                9.4.3Spain
            9.5Oceania
                9.5.1Cook Islands
                9.5.2Papua New Guinea
            9.6Slavic Russia
                9.6.1Spells
                9.6.2Societal view of witchcraft
                9.6.3Russian witch trials
        10Witches in art
        11Witches in fiction
        12See also
        13Footnotes
        14References
        15Referenced works
        16Further reading
        17External links
    Concept

    The Magic Circle by John William Waterhouse, 1886

    The concept of witchcraft and the belief in its existence have persisted throughout recorded history. It has been found at various times and in many forms among cultures worldwide,[6][16] and continues to have an important role in some cultures today.[17] Most societies have believed in, and feared, an ability by some individuals to cause supernatural harm and misfortune to others. This may come from mankind's tendency "to want to assign occurrences of remarkable good or bad luck to agency, either human or superhuman".[18] Witchcraft is seen by historians and anthropologists as one ideology for explaining misfortune, which has manifested in diverse ways.[19] Some cultures have feared witchcraft much less than others, because they instead believed that strange misfortune was usually caused by gods, spirits, demons or fairies, or by other humans who have unwittingly cast the 'evil eye'.[18]

    Ronald Hutton outlined five key characteristics ascribed to witches and witchcraft by most cultures that believe in the concept. Traditionally, witchcraft was believed to be the use of magic to cause harm or misfortune to others; it was used by the witch against their own community; it was seen as immoral and often thought to involve communion with evil beings; powers of witchcraft were believed to have been acquired through inheritance or initiation; and witchcraft could be thwarted by defensive magic, persuasion, intimidation or physical punishment of the alleged witch.[20]

    Historically, the predominant concept of witchcraft in the Western world derives from Old Testament laws against witchcraft, and entered the mainstream when belief in witchcraft gained Church approval in the Early Modern Period. It is a theosophical conflict between good and evil, where witchcraft was generally evil and often associated with the Devil and Devil worship. This culminated in deaths, torture and scapegoating (casting blame for misfortune),[21][22] and many years of large scale witch-trials and witch hunts, especially in Protestant Europe, before largely ceasing during the European Age of Enlightenment. Christian views in the modern day are diverse and cover the gamut of views from intense belief and opposition (especially by Christian fundamentalists) to non-belief, and even approval in some churches. From the mid-20th century, witchcraft – sometimes called contemporary witchcraft to clearly distinguish it from older beliefs – became the name of a branch of modern paganism. It is most notably practiced in the Wiccan and modern witchcraft traditions, and it is no longer practiced in secrecy.[23]

    The Western mainstream Christian view is far from the only societal perspective about witchcraft. Many cultures worldwide continue to have widespread practices and cultural beliefs that are loosely translated into English as "witchcraft", although the English translation masks a very great diversity in their forms, magical beliefs, practices, and place in their societies. During the Age of Colonialism, many cultures across the globe were exposed to the modern Western world via colonialism, usually accompanied and often preceded by intensive Christian missionary activity (see "Christianization"). In these cultures beliefs that were related to witchcraft and magic were influenced by the prevailing Western concepts of the time. Witch-hunts, scapegoating, and the killing or shunning of suspected witches still occur in the modern era.[24]

    Suspicion of modern medicine due to beliefs about illness being due to witchcraft also continues in many countries to this day, with serious healthcare consequences. HIV/AIDS[25] and Ebola virus disease[26] are two examples of often-lethal infectious disease epidemics whose medical care and containment has been severely hampered by regional beliefs in witchcraft. Other severe medical conditions whose treatment is hampered in this way include tuberculosis, leprosy, epilepsy and the common severe bacterial Buruli ulcer.[27][28]
    Etymology and definitions
    Further information: Witch (word)

    The word is over a thousand years old: Old English formed the compound wiccecræft from wicce ('witch') and cræft ('craft').[29] Witch was also spelled wicca or wycca in Old English, and was originally masculine.[30] Folk etymologies link witchcraft "to the English words wit, wise, wisdom [Germanic root *weit-, *wait-, *wit-; Indo-European root *weid-, *woid-, *wid-]", so 'craft of the wise.'[31][self-published source?]

    The word witch in the English language (a Germanic language) is used generally for women. In other languages such as Neo-Latin languages (languages that evolved from Latin) ​​the word can be translated as bruxa in Portuguese, bruja in Spanish, sorcière in French and strega in Italian. In these languages these words have masculine inflected counterparts with the same etymological origin, being respectively, bruxo (Portuguese), brujo (Spanish), sorcier (French) and stregone (Italian). When translated to English the preferred translation by Anglophones is "wizard", or less commonly, "warlock".

    In anthropological terminology, witches differ from sorceresses in that they don't use physical tools or actions to curse; their maleficium is perceived as extending from some intangible inner quality, and one may be unaware of being a witch, or may have been convinced of their nature by the suggestion of others.[32] This definition was pioneered in a study of central African magical beliefs by E. E. Evans-Pritchard, who cautioned that it might not correspond with normal English usage.[33]

    Historians of European witchcraft have found the anthropological definition difficult to apply to European witchcraft, where witches could equally use (or be accused of using) physical techniques, as well as some who really had attempted to cause harm by thought alone.[7]
    Practices

    Preparation for the Witches' Sabbath by David Teniers the Younger. It shows a witch brewing a potion overlooked by her familiar spirit or a demon; items on the floor for casting a spell; and another witch reading from a grimoire while anointing the buttocks of a young witch about to fly upon an inverted besom

    Where belief in malicious magic practices exists, practitioners are typically forbidden by law as well as hated and feared by the general populace, while beneficial magic is tolerated or even accepted wholesale by the people — even if the orthodox establishment opposes it.[34]
    Spell casting
    See also: Magic (supernatural)

    Probably the best-known characteristic of a witch is her ability to cast a spell – a set of words, a formula or verse, a ritual, or a combination of these, employed to do magic.[35] Spells traditionally were cast by many methods, such as by the inscription of runes or sigils on an object to give that object magical powers; by the immolation or binding of a wax or clay image (poppet) of a person to affect them magically; by the recitation of incantations; by the performance of physical rituals; by the employment of magical herbs as amulets or potions; by gazing at mirrors, swords or other specula (scrying) for purposes of divination; and by many other means.[36][37][38]
    Necromancy (conjuring the dead)

    Strictly speaking, necromancy is the practice of conjuring the spirits of the dead for divination or prophecy, although the term has also been applied to raising the dead for other purposes. The biblical Witch of Endor performed it (1 Samuel 28th chapter), and it is among the witchcraft practices condemned by Ælfric of Eynsham:[39][40][41] "Witches still go to cross-roads and to heathen burials with their delusive magic and call to the devil; and he comes to them in the likeness of the man that is buried there, as if he arises from death."[42]
    White witches in Britain and Europe
    Main article: Cunning folk
    Further information: Folk religion, Magical thinking, and Shamanism

    A painting in the Rila Monastery in Bulgaria, condemning witchcraft and traditional folk magic

    Traditionally, the terms "witch" and "witchcraft" had negative connotations. Most societies that have believed in harmful witchcraft or 'black' magic have also believed in helpful or 'white' magic.[43] In these societies, practitioners of helpful magic provided services such as breaking the effects of witchcraft, healing, divination, finding lost or stolen goods, and love magic.[44] In Britain they were commonly known as cunning folk or wise people.[44] Alan McFarlane writes, "There were a number of interchangeable terms for these practitioners, 'white', 'good', or 'unbinding' witches, blessers, wizards, sorcerers, however 'cunning-man' and 'wise-man' were the most frequent".[45] Ronald Hutton prefers the term "service magicians".[44] Often these people were involved in identifying alleged witches.[43]

    Hostile churchmen sometimes branded any magic-workers "witches" as a way of smearing them.[44] Englishman Reginald Scot, who sought to disprove witchcraft and magic, wrote in The Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), "At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, 'she is a witch' or 'she is a wise woman'".[46] Folk magicians throughout Europe were often viewed ambivalently by communities, and were considered as capable of harming as of healing,[8] which could lead to their being accused as "witches" in the negative sense. Many English "witches" convicted of consorting with demons may have been cunning folk whose supposed fairy familiars had been demonised;[47] many French devins-guerisseurs ("diviner-healers") were accused of witchcraft,[48] over half the accused witches in Hungary seem to have been healers,[49] and the "vast majority" of Finland's accused witches were folk healers.[50] Hutton, however, says that "Service magicians were sometimes denounced as witches, but seem to have made up a minority of the accused in any area studied".[43]
    Thwarting witchcraft

    A witch bottle, used as counter-magic against witchcraft

    Societies that believed in witchcraft also believed that it could be thwarted in various ways. One common way was to use protective magic or counter-magic, of which the cunning folk were experts.[43] This included charms, talismans and amulets, anti-witch marks, witch bottles, witch balls, and burying objects such as horse skulls inside the walls of buildings.[51] Another believed cure for bewitchment was to persuade or force the alleged witch to lift their spell.[43] Often, people would attempt to thwart the witchcraft by physically punishing the alleged witch, such as by banishing, wounding, torturing or killing them. "In most societies, however, a formal and legal remedy was preferred to this sort of private action", whereby the alleged witch would be prosecuted and then formally punished if found guilty.[43] This often resulted in execution.
    Accusations of witchcraft

    Alleged witches being accused in the Salem witch trials

    Éva Pócs writes that reasons for accusations of witchcraft fall into four general categories:[19]
        A person was caught in the act of positive or negative sorcery
        A well-meaning sorcerer or healer lost their clients' or the authorities' trust
        A person did nothing more than gain the enmity of their neighbors
        A person was reputed to be a witch and surrounded with an aura of witch-beliefs or Occultism

    She identifies three kinds of witch in popular belief:[19]
        The "neighborhood witch" or "social witch": a witch who curses a neighbor following some dispute.
        The "magical" or "sorcerer" witch: either a professional healer, sorcerer, seer or midwife, or a person who has through magic increased her fortune to the perceived detriment of a neighboring household; due to neighborhood or community rivalries, and the ambiguity between positive and negative magic, such individuals can become branded as witches.
        The "supernatural" or "night" witch: portrayed in court narratives as a demon appearing in visions and dreams.[52]

    "Neighborhood witches" are the product of neighborhood tensions, and are found only in village communities where the inhabitants largely rely on each other. Such accusations follow the breaking of some social norm, such as the failure to return a borrowed item, and any person part of the normal social exchange could potentially fall under suspicion. Claims of "sorcerer" witches and "supernatural" witches could arise out of social tensions, but not exclusively; the supernatural witch often had nothing to do with communal conflict, but expressed tensions between the human and supernatural worlds; and in Eastern and Southeastern Europe such supernatural witches became an ideology explaining calamities that befell whole communities.[53]

    The historian Norman Gevitz has written:

        [T]he medical arts played a significant and sometimes pivotal role in the witchcraft controversies of seventeenth-century New England. Not only were physicians and surgeons the principal professional arbiters for determining natural versus preternatural signs and symptoms of disease, they occupied key legislative, judicial, and ministerial roles relating to witchcraft proceedings. Forty six male physicians, surgeons, and apothecaries are named in court transcripts or other contemporary source materials relating to New England witchcraft. These practitioners served on coroners' inquests, performed autopsies, took testimony, issued writs, wrote letters, or committed people to prison, in addition to diagnosing and treating patients.[54]

    European witch-hunts and witch-trials
    Main articles: Witch-hunt and Witch trials in the early modern period

    A 1613 English pamphlet showing "Witches apprehended, examined and executed"

    In Christianity, sorcery came to be associated with heresy and apostasy and to be viewed as evil. Among the Catholics, Protestants, and secular leadership of the European Late Medieval/Early Modern period, fears about witchcraft rose to fever pitch and sometimes led to large-scale witch-hunts. The key century was the fifteenth, which saw a dramatic rise in awareness and terror of witchcraft, culminating in the publication of the Malleus Maleficarum but prepared by such fanatical popular preachers as Bernardino of Siena.[55] In total, tens or hundreds of thousands of people were executed, and others were imprisoned, tortured, banished, and had lands and possessions confiscated. The majority of those accused were women, though in some regions the majority were men.[56][57] In early modern Scots, the word warlock came to be used as the male equivalent of witch (which can be male or female, but is used predominantly for females).[58][59][60]

    The Malleus Maleficarum, (Latin for 'Hammer of The Witches') was a witch-hunting manual written in 1486 by two German monks, Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger. It was used by both Catholics and Protestants[61] for several hundred years, outlining how to identify a witch, what makes a woman more likely than a man to be a witch, how to put a witch on trial, and how to punish a witch. The book defines a witch as evil and typically female. The book became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe, but was not used by the Inquisition, which even cautioned against relying on The Work.[62] It is likely that this caused witch mania to become so widespread. It was the most sold book in Europe for over 100 years, after the Bible.[63]

    European witch-trials reached their peak in the early 17th century, after which popular sentiment began to turn against the practice. Friedrich Spee's book Cautio Criminalis, published in 1631, argued that witch-trials were largely unreliable and immoral.[64] In 1682, King Louis XIV prohibited further witch-trials in France. In 1736, Great Britain formally ended witch-trials with passage of the Witchcraft Act.[65]
    Modern witch-hunts
    Main article: Modern witch-hunts

    Belief in witchcraft continues to be present today in some societies and accusations of witchcraft are the trigger for serious forms of violence, including murder. Such incidents are common in countries such as Burkina Faso, Ghana, India, Kenya, Malawi, Nepal and Tanzania. Accusations of witchcraft are sometimes linked to personal disputes, jealousy, and conflicts between neighbors or family members over land or inheritance. Witchcraft-related violence is often discussed as a serious issue in the broader context of violence against women.[66][67][68][69][70] In Tanzania, about 500 old women are murdered each year following accusations of witchcraft or accusations of being a witch.[71] Apart from extrajudicial violence, state-sanctioned violence also occurs in some jurisdictions. For instance, in Saudi Arabia practicing witchcraft and sorcery is a crime punishable by death and the country has executed people for this crime in 2011, 2012 and 2014.[72][73][74]

    Children who live in some regions of the world, such as parts of Africa, are also vulnerable to violence that is related to witchcraft accusations.[75][76][77][78] Such incidents have also occurred in immigrant communities in the UK, including the much publicized case of the murder of Victoria Climbié.[79][80]
    Wicca
    Main article: Wicca

    During the 20th century, interest in witchcraft in English-speaking and European countries began to increase, inspired particularly by Margaret Murray's theory of a pan-European witch-cult originally published in 1921, since discredited by further careful historical research.[81] Interest was intensified, however, by Gerald Gardner's claim in 1954 in Witchcraft Today that a form of witchcraft still existed in England. The truth of Gardner's claim is now disputed too.[82][83][84][85][86]

    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[13] also claimed inheritance to surviving traditions of witchcraft.[14]

    The Wicca that Gardner initially taught was a witchcraft religion having a lot in common with Margaret Murray's hypothetically posited cult of the 1920s.[87] Indeed, Murray wrote an introduction to Gardner's Witchcraft Today, in effect putting her stamp of approval on it. These Wiccan witches do not adhere to the more common definition of Witchcraft, and generally define their practices as a type of "positive magic." Various forms of Wicca are now practised as a religion of an initiatory secret society nature with positive ethical principles, organised into autonomous covens and led by a High Priesthood. There is also a large "Eclectic Wiccan" movement of individuals and groups who share key Wiccan beliefs but have no initiatory connection or affiliation with traditional Wicca. Wiccan writings and ritual show borrowings from a number of sources including 19th and 20th-century ceremonial magic, the medieval grimoire known as the Key of Solomon, Aleister Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientis and pre-Christian religions.[88][89][90] A survey published in November 2000 cited just over 200,000 people who reported practicing Wicca in the United States.[91]
    Witchcraft, feminism, and media

    Wiccan and Neo-Wiccan literature has been described as aiding the empowerment of young women through its lively portrayal of female protagonists. Part of the recent growth in Neo-Pagan religions has been attributed to the strong media presence of fictional pop culture works such as Charmed, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Harry Potter series with their depictions of "positive witchcraft", which differs from the historical, traditional, and Indigenous definitions.[10] Based on a mass media case study done, "Mass Media and Religious Identity: A Case Study of Young Witches", in the result of the case study it was stated the reasons many young people are choosing to self-identify as witches and belong to groups they define as practicing witchcraft is diverse; however, the use of pop culture witchcraft in various media platforms can be the spark of interest for young people to see themselves as "witches".[15] Widespread accessibility to related material through internet media such as chat rooms and forums is also thought to be driving this development. Which is dependent on one's accessibility to those media resources and material to influence their thoughts and views on religion.[15]

    Wiccan beliefs, or pop culture variations thereof, are often considered by adherents to be compatible with liberal ideals such as the Green movement, and particularly with some varieties of feminism, by providing young women with what they see as a means for self-empowerment, control of their own lives, and potentially a way of influencing the world around them.[92][93] This is the case particularly in North America due to the strong presence of feminist ideals in some branches of the Neopagan communities and the long tradition of women-led and women-only groups such as in Dianic Wicca.[10] The 2002 study Enchanted Feminism: The Reclaiming Witches of San Francisco suggests that some branches of Wicca include influential members of the second wave of feminism, which has also been redefined as a religious movement.[92]
    Traditional witchcraft
    Main article: Traditional witchcraft

    Traditional witchcraft is a term used to refer to a variety of contemporary forms of witchcraft. Pagan studies scholar Ethan Doyle White described it as "a broad movement of aligned magico-religious groups who reject any relation to Gardnerianism and the wider Wiccan movement, claiming older, more "traditional" roots. Although typically united by a shared aesthetic rooted in European folklore, the Traditional Craft contains within its ranks a rich and varied array of occult groups, from those who follow a contemporary Pagan path that is suspiciously similar to Wicca to those who adhere to Luciferianism".[94] According to British Traditional Witch Michael Howard, the term refers to "any non-Gardnerian, non-Alexandrian, non-Wiccan or pre-modern form of the Craft, especially if it has been inspired by historical forms of witchcraft and folk magic".[95] Another definition was offered by Daniel A. Schulke, the current Magister of the Cultus Sabbati, when he proclaimed that traditional witchcraft "refers to a coterie of initiatory lineages of ritual magic, spellcraft and devotional mysticism".[96] Some forms of traditional witchcraft are the Feri Tradition, Cochrane's Craft and the Sabbatic craft.[97]
    Stregheria
    Main article: Stregheria

    Modern Stregheria closely resembles Charles Leland's controversial late-19th-century account of a surviving Italian religion of witchcraft, worshipping the Goddess Diana, her brother Dianus/Lucifer, and their daughter Aradia. Leland's witches do not see Lucifer as the evil Satan that Christians see, but a benevolent god of the Sun.[98]

    The ritual format of contemporary Stregheria is roughly similar to that of other Neopagan witchcraft religions such as Wicca. The pentagram is the most common symbol of religious identity. Most followers celebrate a series of eight festivals equivalent to the Wiccan Wheel of the Year, though others follow the ancient Roman festivals. An emphasis is placed on ancestor worship and balance.[99]
    Witchcraft and Satanism
    See also: Deal with the devil and Devil in Christianity

    Demonic associations in general may sometimes implicate witchcraft with the Devil, as conceived variously across different cultures and religious traditions. The character of Satan influenced all Abrahamic religions, and accusations of witchcraft were routinely associated with Satanism. Sometimes under the guise of Lucifer, a more noble characterization developed as a rebellious counterpart to Christ.[100] In Europe after the Enlightenment, influential works such as Milton's Paradise Lost were described anew by Romantics suggesting the biblical Satan as an allegory representing crisis of faith, individualism, free will, wisdom, and spiritual enlightenment.

    In the 20th century, other works presented Satan in a less negative light, such as Letters from the Earth. The 1933 book The God of the Witches by Margaret Murray influenced Herbert Arthur Sloane, who connected the horned god with Satan (Sathanas), and founded the Ophite Cultus Satanas in 1948.[101] Sloane also corresponded with his contemporary Gerald Gardner, founder of modern Wicca, and implied that his views of Satan and the horned god were not necessarily in conflict with Gardner's approach. However, he did believe that, while gnosis referred to knowledge, and Wicca referred to wisdom, modern witches had fallen away from the true knowledge, and instead had begun worshipping a fertility god, a reflection of the creator god. He wrote that "the largest existing body of witches who are true Satanists would be the Yezedees". Sloane highly recommended the book The Gnostic Religion, and sections of it were sometimes read at ceremonies.[102]

    Anton LaVey treated Satan not as a literal god, but rather an evocative namesake for The Church of Satan, which he founded in 1966.[103][104] The Church incorporates magic in their practice, distinguishing between Lesser and Greater forms.[105] LaVey published The Compleat Witch in 1971, subsequently republished as The Satanic Witch. While the Church and other atheistic Satanists use Satan as a symbolic embodiment of certain human traits, there are also theistic Satanists who venerate Satan as a supernatural deity.[106] Contemporary Satanism is mainly an American phenomenon,[107] although it began to reach Eastern Europe in the 1990s around the time of the fall of the Soviet Union.[108][109]

    In the 21st century, witchcraft may still be erroneously associated with ideas of "devil worship" and potentially conflated with contemporary Satanism. Estimates suggest up to 100,000 Satanists worldwide in 2006 (twice the number estimated in 1990).[110] Satanic beliefs have been largely permitted as a valid expression of religious belief in the West.[111][112] Founded in 2013, the Satanic Temple avoids the practice of magic, claiming "beliefs should conform to one's best scientific understanding of the world."[113][114]

    Luciferianism developed on principles of independence and human progression, a symbol of enlightenment.[115][116] Madeline Montalban was an English witch who adhered to the veneration of Lucifer, or Lumiel, whom she considered a benevolent angelic being who had aided humanity's development. Within her Order, she emphasised that her followers discover their own personal relationship with the angelic beings, including Lumiel.[117] Although initially seeming favourable to Gerald Gardner, by the mid-1960s she had become hostile towards him and his Gardnerian tradition, considering him to be "a 'dirty old man' and sexual pervert."[118] She also expressed hostility to another prominent Pagan Witch of the period, Charles Cardell, although in the 1960s became friends with the two Witches at the forefront of the Alexandrian Wiccan tradition, Alex Sanders and his wife, Maxine Sanders, who adopted some of her Luciferian angelic practices.[119] In contemporary times Luciferian witches exist within traditional witchcraft.[94]
    Historical and religious perspectives
    Near East beliefs

    The belief in sorcery and its practice seem to have been widespread in the ancient Near East and Nile Valley. It played a conspicuous role in the cultures of ancient Egypt and in Babylonia. The latter tradition included an Akkadian anti-witchcraft ritual, the Maqlû. A section from the Code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.) prescribes:

        If a man has put a spell upon another man and it is not justified, he upon whom the spell is laid shall go to the holy river; into the holy river shall he plunge. If the holy river overcome him and he is drowned, the man who put the spell upon him shall take possession of his house. If the holy river declares him innocent and he remains unharmed the man who laid the spell shall be put to death. He that plunged into the river shall take possession of the house of him who laid the spell upon him.[120]

    Abrahamic religions

    Christianity
    Hebrew Bible
    Main article: Witchcraft and divination in the Hebrew Bible

    According to the New Advent Catholic Encyclopedia:

        In the Holy Scripture references to sorcery are frequent, and the strong condemnations of such practices found there do not seem to be based so much upon the supposition of fraud as upon the abomination of the magic in itself.[121]


    Saul and the Witch of Endor (1828) by William Sidney Mount.

    The King James Version uses the words witch, witchcraft, and witchcrafts to translate the Masoretic כָּשַׁף‎ kāsháf (Hebrew pronunciation: [kɔˈʃaf]) and קֶסֶם‎ (qésem);[122] these same English terms are used to translate φαρμακεία pharmakeia in the Greek New Testament. Verses such as Deuteronomy 18:11–12[123] and Exodus 22:18 ("Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"[124]) thus provided scriptural justification for Christian witch hunters in the early modern period (see Christian views on magic).

    The precise meaning of the Hebrew כָּשַׁף‎, usually translated as witch or sorceress, is uncertain. In the Septuagint, it was translated as pharmakeía or pharmakous. In the 16th century, Reginald Scot, a prominent critic of the witch trials, translated כָּשַׁף‎, φαρμακεία, and the Vulgate's Latin equivalent veneficos as all meaning 'poisoner', and on this basis, claimed that witch was an incorrect translation and poisoners were intended.[125] His theory still holds some currency, but is not widely accepted, and in Daniel 2:2[126] כָּשַׁף‎ is listed alongside other magic practitioners who could interpret dreams: magicians, astrologers, and Chaldeans. Suggested derivations of כָּשַׁף‎ include 'mutterer' (from a single root) or herb user (as a compound word formed from the roots kash, meaning 'herb', and hapaleh, meaning 'using'). The Greek φαρμακεία literally means 'herbalist' or one who uses or administers drugs, but it was used virtually synonymously with mageia and goeteia as a term for a sorcerer.[127]

    The Bible provides some evidence that these commandments against sorcery were enforced under the Hebrew kings:

        And Saul disguised himself, and put on other raiment, and he went, and two men with him, and they came to the woman by night: and he said, I pray thee, divine unto me by the familiar spirit,[a] and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee. And the woman said unto him, Behold, thou knowest what Saul hath done, how he hath cut off those that have familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land: wherefore then layest thou a snare for my life, to cause me to die?[128]

    New Testament
    See also: Christian views on magic

    The New Testament condemns the practice as an abomination, just as the Old Testament had.[129] The word in most New Testament translations is sorcerer/sorcery rather than witch/witchcraft.
    Judaism
    See also: Witchcraft and divination in the Hebrew Bible

    Jewish law views the practice of witchcraft as being laden with idolatry and/or necromancy; both being serious theological and practical offenses in Judaism. Although Maimonides vigorously denied the efficacy of all methods of witchcraft, and claimed that the Biblical prohibitions regarding it were precisely to wean the Israelites from practices related to idolatry. It is acknowledged that while magic exists, it is forbidden to practice it on the basis that it usually involves the worship of other gods. Rabbis of the Talmud also condemned magic when it produced something other than illusion, giving the example of two men who use magic to pick cucumbers.[130] The one who creates the illusion of picking cucumbers should not be condemned, only the one who actually picks the cucumbers through magic.

    However, some of the rabbis practiced "magic" themselves or taught the subject. For instance, Rava (amora) created a golem and sent it to Rav Zeira, and Hanina and Hoshaiah studied every Friday together and created a small calf to eat on Shabbat.[131] In these cases, the "magic" was seen more as divine miracles (i.e., coming from God rather than "unclean" forces) than as witchcraft.

    Judaism does make it clear that Jews shall not try to learn about the ways of witches[132] and that witches are to be put to death.[133]

    Judaism's most famous reference to a medium is undoubtedly the Witch of Endor whom Saul consults, as recounted in 1 Samuel 28.
    Islam
    Main article: Islam and magic
    See also: Islam and astrology and Superstitions in Muslim societies

    Divination and magic in Islam encompass a wide range of practices, including black magic, warding off the evil eye, the production of amulets and other magical equipment, evocation, casting lots, and astrology.[134]

    Legitimacy of practising witchcraft is disputed. Most of Islamic traditions distinguishes magic between good magic and black magic. al-Razi and Ibn Sina, describe that magic is merely a tool and only the outcome determines whether or not the act of magic was legitimate or not.[135] Al-Ghazali, although admitting the reality of magic, regards learning all sorts of magic as forbidden.[135] Ibn al-Nadim argues that good supernatural powers are received from God after purifying the soul, while sorcerers please devils and commit acts of disobedience and sacrifes to demons.[136] Whether or not sorcery is accessed by acts of piety or disobedience is often seen as an indicator whether magic is licit or illicit.[137] Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyya, a disciple of Ibn Taimiyya, who became the major source for Wahhabism, disregards magic, including exorcisms, entirely as superstition.[138] Ibn Khaldun brands sorcery, talismans, and prestidigitation as forbidden and illegal.[139] Tabasi did not subscribe to the rationalized framework of magic of most Ash'arite theologians, but only offered a wide range of rituals to perform sorcery. Yet he agrees that only magic in accordance with sharia is permissible.[135] Most of Islamic traditions distinguishes magic between good magic and black magic. Miracles belong to licit magic and are considered gifts of God.

    The reality of magic is confirmed by the Quran. The Quran itself is said to bestow magical blessings upon hearers and heal them, based on al-Isra.[140] Solomon had the power to speak with animals and jinn, and command devils, which is only given to him with God's permission.[Quran 27:19][141] Surah Al-Falaq is used as a prayer to God to ward off black magic and is, according to hadith-literature, revealed to Muhammad to protect him against Jann the ancestor of the jinn[142] Muhammad was falsely accused of being a magician by his opponents.[Quran 10:2][143] The idea that devils teach magic is confirmed in Al-Baqara. A pair of fallen angels named Harut and Marut is also mentioned to tempt people into learning sorcery.

    Scholars of the history of religion have linked several magical practises in Islam with pre-Islamic Turkish and East African customs. Most notable of these customs is the Zār.[144][145]
    By region
        
    This section should specify the language of its non-English content, using {{lang}}, {{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and {{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriate ISO 639 code. Wikipedia's multilingual support templates may also be used. See why. (August 2021)
    Africa
    Further information: Witchcraft accusations against children in Africa
    See also: Azande witchcraft

    The Kolloh-Man[146]

    Much of what witchcraft represents in Africa has been susceptible to misunderstandings and confusion, thanks in no small part to a tendency among western scholars since the time of the now largely discredited Margaret Murray to approach the subject through a comparative lens vis-a-vis European witchcraft.[147]

    While some colonialists tried to eradicate witch hunting by introducing legislation to prohibit accusations of witchcraft, some of the countries where this was the case have formally recognized the reality of witchcraft via the law. This has produced an environment that encourages persecution of suspected witches.[148]
    Cameroon

    In eastern Cameroon, the term used for witchcraft among the Maka is djambe[149] and refers to a force inside a person; its powers may make the proprietor more vulnerable. It encompasses the occult, the transformative, killing and healing.[150]
    Central African Republic

    Every year, hundreds of people in the Central African Republic are convicted of witchcraft.[151] Christian militias in the Central African Republic have also kidnapped, burnt and buried alive women accused of being 'witches' in public ceremonies.[152]
    Democratic Republic of the Congo

    As of 2006, between 25,000 and 50,000 children in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, had been accused of witchcraft and thrown out of their homes.[153] These children have been subjected to often-violent abuse during exorcisms, sometimes supervised by self-styled religious pastors. Other pastors and Christian activists strongly oppose such accusations and try to rescue children from their unscrupulous colleagues.[154] The usual term for these children is enfants sorciers ('child witches') or enfants dits sorciers ('children accused of witchcraft'). In 2002, USAID funded the production of two short films on the subject, made in Kinshasa by journalists Angela Nicoara and Mike Ormsby.

    In April 2008, in Kinshasa, the police arrested 14 suspected victims (of penis snatching) and sorcerers accused of using black magic or witchcraft to steal (make disappear) or shrink men's penises to extort cash for cure, amid a wave of panic.[155]

    According to one study, the belief in magical warfare technologies (such as "bulletproofing") in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo serves a group-level function, as it increases group efficiency in warfare, even if it is suboptimal at the individual level.[156] The authors of the study argue that this is one reason why the belief in witchcraft persists.[156]

    Complimentary remarks about witchcraft by a native Congolese initiate:

        From witchcraft [...] may be developed the remedy (kimbuki) that will do most to raise up our country.[157] Witchcraft [...] deserves respect [...] it can embellish or redeem (ketula evo vuukisa)."[158] The ancestors were equipped with the protective witchcraft of the clan (kindoki kiandundila kanda). [...] They could also gather the power of animals into their hands [...] whenever they needed. [...] If we could make use of these kinds of witchcraft, our country would rapidly progress in knowledge of every kind.[159] You witches (zindoki) too, bring your science into the light to be written down so that [...] the benefits in it [...] endow our race.[160]

    Ghana
    Main article: Witchcraft in Ghana

    In Ghana, women are often accused of witchcraft and attacked by neighbours.[161] Because of this, there exist six witch camps in the country where women suspected of being witches can flee for safety.[162] The witch camps, which exist solely in Ghana, are thought to house a total of around 1000 women.[162] Some of the camps are thought to have been set up over 100 years ago.[162] The Ghanaian government has announced that it intends to close the camps.[162]

    Arrests were made in an effort to avoid bloodshed seen in Ghana a decade ago, when 12 alleged penis snatchers were beaten to death by mobs.[163] While it is easy for modern people to dismiss such reports, Uchenna Okeja argues that a belief system in which such magical practices are deemed possible offer many benefits to Africans who hold them. For example, the belief that a sorcerer has "stolen" a man's penis functions as an anxiety-reduction mechanism for men suffering from impotence, while simultaneously providing an explanation that is consistent with African cultural beliefs rather than appealing to Western scientific notions that are tainted by the history of colonialism (at least for many Africans).[164]
    Kenya

    It was reported that a mob in Kenya had burnt to death at least 11 people accused of witchcraft in 2008.[165]
    Malawi

    In Malawi it is also common practice to accuse children of witchcraft and many children have been abandoned, abused and even killed as a result. As in other African countries both African traditional healers and their Christian counterparts are trying to make a living out of exorcising children and are actively involved in pointing out children as witches.[166] Various secular and Christian organizations are combining their efforts to address this problem.[167]

    According to William Kamkwamba, witches and wizards are afraid of money, which they consider a rival evil. Any contact with cash will snap their spell and leave the wizard naked and confused, so placing cash, such as kwacha around a room or bed mat will protect the resident from their malevolent spells.[168]
    Nigeria

    In Nigeria, several Pentecostal pastors have mixed their evangelical brand of Christianity with African beliefs in witchcraft to benefit from the lucrative witch finding and exorcism business—which in the past was the exclusive domain of the so-called witch doctor or traditional healers. These pastors have been involved in the torturing and even killing of children accused of witchcraft.[169] Over the past decade,[when?] around 15,000 children have been accused, and around 1,000 murdered. Churches are very numerous in Nigeria, and competition for congregations is hard. Some pastors attempt to establish a reputation for spiritual power by "detecting" child witches, usually following a death or loss of a job within a family, or an accusation of financial fraud against the pastor. In the course of "exorcisms", accused children may be starved, beaten, mutilated, set on fire, forced to consume acid or cement, or buried alive. While some church leaders and Christian activists have spoken out strongly against these abuses, many Nigerian churches are involved in the abuse, although church administrations deny knowledge of it.[170]

    In May 2020, fifteen adults, mostly women, were set ablaze after being accused of witchcraft, including the mother of the instigator of the attack, Thomas Obi Tawo, a local politician.[148]
    Sierra Leone

    Among the Mende (of Sierra Leone), trial and conviction for witchcraft has a beneficial effect for those convicted. "The witchfinder had warned the whole village to ensure the relative prosperity of the accused and sentenced ... old people. ... Six months later all of the people ... accused, were secure, well-fed and arguably happier than at any [previous] time; they had hardly to beckon and people would come with food or whatever was needful. ... Instead of such old and widowed people being left helpless or (as in Western society) institutionalized in old people's homes, these were reintegrated into society and left secure in their old age ... Old people are 'suitable' candidates for this kind of accusation in the sense that they are isolated and vulnerable, and they are 'suitable' candidates for 'social security' for precisely the same reasons."[171] In Kuranko language, the term for witchcraft is suwa'ye[172] referring to 'extraordinary powers'.
    Tanzania

    In Tanzania in 2008, President Kikwete publicly condemned witchdoctors for killing albinos for their body parts, which are thought to bring good luck. 25 albinos have been murdered since March 2007.[173] In Tanzania, albinos are often murdered for their body parts on the advice of witch doctors in order to produce powerful amulets that are believed to protect against witchcraft and make the owner prosper in life.[174]
    Zulu

    Native to the Zulu people, witches called sangoma protect people against evil spirits. They usually train for about five to seven years. In the cities, this training could take only several months.

    Another type of witch are the inyanga, who are actual witch doctors that heal people with plant and animal parts. This is a job that is passed on to future generations. In the Zulu population, 80% of people contact inyangas.[175]
    Americas
    British America and the United States

    Massachusetts

    Examination of a Witch by T. H. Matteson, inspired by the Salem witch trials

    In 1645, Springfield, Massachusetts, experienced America's first accusations of witchcraft when husband and wife Hugh and Mary Parsons accused each other of witchcraft. At America's first witch trial, Hugh was found innocent, while Mary was acquitted of witchcraft but sentenced to be hanged for the death of her child. She died in prison.[176] From 1645 to 1663, about eighty people throughout England's Massachusetts Bay Colony were accused of practicing witchcraft. Thirteen women and two men were executed in a witch-hunt that lasted throughout New England from 1645 to 1663.[177] The Salem witch trials followed in 1692–93. These witch trials were the most famous in British North America and took place in the coastal settlements near Salem, Massachusetts. Prior to the witch trials, nearly 300 men and women had been suspected of partaking in witchcraft, and 19 of these people were hanged, and one was "pressed to death".[178]

    Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village (now Danvers), Salem Town, Ipswich, and Andover. The best known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town.[179][citation needed][180] The Crucible by Arthur Miller is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Massachusetts Bay Colony during 1692–93.

    Maryland

    In Maryland, there is a legend of Moll Dyer, who escaped a fire set by fellow colonists only to die of exposure in December 1697. The historical record of Dyer is scant as all official records were burned in a courthouse fire, though the county courthouse has on display the rock where her frozen body was found. A letter from a colonist of the period describes her in most unfavourable terms. A local road is named after Dyer, where her homestead was said to have been. Many local families have their own version of the Moll Dyer affair, and her name is spoken with care in the rural southern counties.[181]

    Pennsylvania

    Margaret Mattson and another woman were tried in 1683 on accusations of witchcraft in the Province of Pennsylvania. They were acquitted by William Penn after a trial in Philadelphia. These are the only known trials for witchcraft in Pennsylvania history.

    Some of Margaret's neighbors claimed that she had bewitched cattle.[182] Charges of practicing witchcraft were brought before the Pennsylvania Provincial Council in February 1683 (under Julian calendar).[183] This occurred nineteen years after the Swedish territory became a British common law colony and subject to English Witchcraft Act 1604. [184] Accused by several neighbors, as well as her own daughter in law, Mattson's alleged crimes included making threats against neighbors, causing cows to give little milk,[185] bewitching and killing livestock and appearing to witnesses in spectral form. On February 27, 1683, charges against Mattson and a neighbor Gertro (a.k.a. Yeshro) Jacobsson, wife of Hendrick Jacobsson, were brought by the Attorney General before a grand jury of 21 men overseen by the colony's proprietor, William Penn. The grand jury returned a true bill indictment that afternoon, and the cases proceeded to trial.[183] A petit jury of 12 men was selected by Penn and an interpreter was appointed for the Finnish women, who did not speak English.[186] Penn barred the use of prosecution and defense lawyers, conducted the questioning himself, and permitted the introduction of unsubstantiated hearsay.[185] Penn himself gave the closing charge and directions to the jury, but what he told them was not transcribed. According to the minutes of the Provincial Council, dated February 27, 1683, the jury returned with a verdict of "Guilty of having the Comon Fame of a Witch, but not Guilty in manner and Forme as Shee stands Endicted."[185][187]

    Thus Mattson was found guilty of having the reputation of a witch, but not guilty of bewitching animals. Neither woman was convicted of witchcraft. "Hence the superstitious got enough to have their thinking affirmed. Those less superstitious, and justice minded, got what they wanted."[188] The accused were released on their husbands posting recognizance bonds of 50 pounds and promising six months' good behavior.[189][183]

    A popular legend tells of William Penn dismissing the charges against Mattson by affirming her legal right to fly on a broomstick over Philadelphia, saying "Well, I know of no law against it."[185] The record fails to show any such commentary, but the story probably reflects popular views of Penn's socially progressive Quaker values.[190]

    Tennessee

    Accusations of witchcraft and wizardry led to the prosecution of a man in Tennessee as recently as 1833.[191][192][193]
    Latin America
    Main article: Witchcraft in Latin America

    When Franciscan friars from New Spain arrived in the Americas in 1524, they introduced Diabolism - belief in the Christian concept of The Devil - to the Indigenous peoples of the Americas.[194] Bartolomé de las Casas believed that human sacrifice was not diabolic, in fact far off from it, and was a natural result of religious expression.[194] Mexican Indians gladly took in the belief of Diabolism and still managed to keep their belief in creator-destroyer deities.[195]

    Witchcraft was an important part of the social and cultural history of late-Colonial Mexico, during the Mexican Inquisition. Spanish Inquisitors viewed witchcraft as a problem that could be cured simply through confession. Yet, as anthropologist Ruth Behar writes, witchcraft, not only in Mexico but in Latin America in general, was a "conjecture of sexuality, witchcraft, and religion, in which Spanish, indigenous, and African cultures converged."[196] Furthermore, witchcraft in Mexico generally required an interethnic and interclass network of witches.[197] Yet, according to anthropology professor Laura Lewis, witchcraft in colonial Mexico ultimately represented an "affirmation of hegemony" for women, Indians, and especially Indian women over their white male counterparts as a result of the casta system.[198]

    The presence of the witch is a constant in the ethnographic history of colonial Brazil, especially during the several denunciations and confessions given to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith of Bahia (1591–1593), Pernambuco and Paraíba (1593–1595).[199]

    Brujería, often called a Latin American form of witchcraft, is a syncretic Afro-Caribbean tradition that combines Indigenous religious and magical practices from Aruba, Bonaire, and Curaçao in the Dutch Caribbean, Catholicism, and European witchcraft.[200] The tradition and terminology is considered to encompass both helpful and harmful practices.[201] A male practitioner is called a brujo, a female practitioner, a bruja.[201] Healers may be further distinguished by the terms kurioso or kuradó, a man or woman who performs trabou chikí ("little works") and trabou grandi ("large treatments") to promote or restore health, bring fortune or misfortune, deal with unrequited love, and more serious concerns. Sorcery usually involves reference to an entitiy referred to as the almasola or homber chiki.[202]
    Navajo

    The yee naaldlooshii is the type of witch known in English as a skin-walker. They are believed to take the forms of animals in order to travel in secret and do harm to the innocent.[203] In the Navajo language, yee naaldlooshii translates to 'with it, he goes on all fours'.[203] While perhaps the most common variety seen in horror fiction by non-Navajo people, the yee naaldlooshii is one of several varieties of Navajo witch, specifically a type of 'ánti'įhnii.[203]

    Corpse powder or corpse poison (Navajo: áńt'į́, literally 'witchery' or 'harming') is a substance made from powdered corpses. The powder is used by witches to curse their victims.[9]

    Traditional Navajos usually hesitate to discuss things like witches and witchcraft with non-Navajos.[204]
    Asia
    Main article: Asian witchcraft
    India

    Belief in the supernatural is strong in all parts of India, and lynchings for witchcraft are reported in the press from time to time.[205] Around 750 people were killed as witches in Assam and West Bengal between 2003 and 2008.[206] Officials in the state of Chhattisgarh reported in 2008 that at least 100 women are maltreated annually as suspected witches.[207] A local activist stated that only a fraction of cases of abuse are reported.[208] In Indian mythology, a common perception of a witch is a being with her feet pointed backwards.
    Nepal
    Main article: Witch-hunts in Nepal

    In Nepali language, witches are known as Boksi (Nepali: बोक्सी). Apart from other types of Violence against women in Nepal, the malpractice of abusing women in the name of witchcraft is also prominent. According to the statistics in 2013, there was a total of 69 reported cases of abuse to women due to accusation of performing witchcraft. The perpetrators of this malpractice are usually neighbors, so-called witch doctors and family members.[209] The main causes of these malpractices are lack of education, lack of awareness and superstition. According to the statistics by INSEC,[210] the age group of women who fall victims to the witchcraft violence in Nepal is 20–40.[211]
    Japan

    Okabe – The cat witch, by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

    In Japanese folklore, the most common types of witch can be separated into two categories: those who employ snakes as familiars, and those who employ foxes.[212] The fox witch is, by far, the most commonly seen witch figure in Japan. Differing regional beliefs set those who use foxes into two separate types: the kitsune-mochi, and the tsukimono-suji. The first of these, the kitsune-mochi, is a solitary figure who gains his fox familiar by bribing it with its favourite foods. The kitsune-mochi then strikes up a deal with the fox, typically promising food and daily care in return for the fox's magical services. The fox of Japanese folklore is a powerful trickster in and of itself, imbued with powers of shape changing, possession, and illusion. These creatures can be either nefarious; disguising themselves as women in order to trap men, or they can be benign forces as in the story of "The Grateful foxes".[213] By far, the most commonly reported cases of fox witchcraft in modern Japan are enacted by tsukimono-suji families, or 'hereditary witches'.[214]
    Philippines
    Main article: Philippine witches

    In the Philippines, as in many of these cultures, witches are viewed as those opposed to the sacred. In contrast, anthropologists writing about the healers in Indigenous Philippine folk religions either use the traditional terminology of these cultures, or broad anthropological terms like shaman.[11]

    Philippine witches are the users of black magic and related practices from the Philippines. They include a variety of different kinds of people with differing occupations and cultural connotations which depend on the ethnic group they are associated with. They are completely different from the Western notion of what a witch is, as each ethnic group has their own definition and practices attributed to witches. The curses and other magics of witches are often blocked, countered, cured, or lifted by Philippine shamans associated with the Indigenous Philippine folk religions.[12][215]
    Saudi Arabia
    Main articles: Capital punishment in Saudi Arabia, Freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia, and Human rights in Saudi Arabia

    Saudi Arabia continues to use the death penalty for sorcery and witchcraft.[216] In 2006 Fawza Falih Muhammad Ali was condemned to death for practicing witchcraft.[217] There is no legal definition of sorcery in Saudi, but in 2007 an Egyptian pharmacist working there was accused, convicted, and executed. Saudi authorities also pronounced the death penalty on a Lebanese television presenter, Ali Hussain Sibat, while he was performing the hajj (Islamic pilgrimage) in the country.[218]

    In 2009, the Saudi authorities set up the Anti-Witchcraft Unit of their Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice police.[219] In April 2009, a Saudi woman Amina Bint Abdulhalim Nassar was arrested and later sentenced to death for practicing witchcraft and sorcery. In December 2011, she was beheaded.[220] A Saudi man has been beheaded on charges of sorcery and witchcraft in June 2012.[221] A beheading for sorcery occurred in 2014.[74]
    Islamic State
    See also: Human rights in ISIL-controlled territory

    In June 2015, Yahoo reported: "The Islamic State group has beheaded two women in Syria on accusations of 'sorcery', the first such executions of female civilians in Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Tuesday."[222]
    Europe
    Main articles: European witchcraft and Witch trials in Early Modern Europe

    Witchcraft in Europe between 500 and 1750 was believed to be a combination of sorcery and heresy. While sorcery attempts to produce negative supernatural effects through formulas and rituals, heresy is the Christian contribution to witchcraft in which an individual makes a pact with the Devil. In addition, heresy denies witches the recognition of important Christian values such as baptism, salvation, Christ and sacraments.[223] The beginning of the witch accusations in Europe took place in the 14th and 15th centuries; however as the social disruptions of the 16th century took place, witchcraft trials intensified.[224]

    A 1555 German print showing the burning of witches. Current scholarly estimates of the number of people executed for witchcraft in Europe vary between 40,000 and 100,000.[225] The number of witch trials in Europe known to have ended in executions is around 12,000.[226]

    In Early Modern European tradition, witches were stereotypically, though not exclusively, women.[56][227] European pagan belief in witchcraft was associated with the goddess Diana and dismissed as "diabolical fantasies" by medieval Christian authors.[228] Throughout Europe, there were an estimated 110,000 witchcraft trials between 1450 and 1750 (with 1560 to 1660 being the peak of persecutions), with half of the cases seeing the accused being executed.[229] Witch-hunts first appeared in large numbers in southern France and Switzerland during the 14th and 15th centuries. The peak years of witch-hunts in southwest Germany were from 1561 to 1670.[230]

    It was commonly believed that individuals with power and prestige were involved in acts of witchcraft and even cannibalism.[231] Because Europe had a lot of power over individuals living in West Africa, Europeans in positions of power were often accused of taking part in these practices. Though it is not likely that these individuals were actually involved in these practices, they were most likely associated due to Europe's involvement in things like the slave trade, which negatively affected the lives of many individuals in the Atlantic World throughout the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries.[231]

    Early converts to Christianity looked to Christian clergy to work magic more effectively than the old methods under Roman paganism, and Christianity provided a methodology involving saints and relics, similar to the gods and amulets of the Pagan world. As Christianity became the dominant religion in Europe, its concern with magic lessened.[232]

    The Protestant Christian explanation for witchcraft, such as those typified in the confessions of the Pendle witches, commonly involves a diabolical pact or at least an appeal to the intervention of the spirits of evil. The witches or wizards engaged in such practices were alleged to reject Jesus and the sacraments; observe "the witches' sabbath" (performing infernal rites that often parodied the Mass or other sacraments of the Church); pay Divine honour to the Prince of Darkness; and, in return, receive from him preternatural powers. It was a folkloric belief that a Devil's Mark, like the brand on cattle, was placed upon a witch's skin by the devil to signify that this pact had been made.[233]
    Britain
    Further information: Witch trials in early modern Scotland

        In the north of England, the superstition lingers to an almost inconceivable extent. Lancashire abounds with witch-doctors, a set of quacks, who pretend to cure diseases inflicted by the devil ... The witch-doctor alluded to is better known by the name of the cunning man, and has a large practice in the counties of Lincoln and Nottingham.[234]

    Historians Keith Thomas and his student Alan Macfarlane study witchcraft by combining historical research with concepts drawn from anthropology.[235][236][237] They argued that English witchcraft, like African witchcraft, was endemic rather than epidemic. Old women were the favorite targets because they were marginal, dependent members of the community and therefore more likely to arouse feelings of both hostility and guilt, and less likely to have defenders of importance inside the community. Witchcraft accusations were the village's reaction to the breakdown of its internal community, coupled with the emergence of a newer set of values that was generating psychic stress.[238]

    Illustration of witches, perhaps being tortured before James VI, from his Daemonologie (1597)

    Wales

    In Wales, fear of witchcraft mounted around the year 1500. There was a growing alarm of women's magic as a weapon aimed against the state and church. The Church made greater efforts to enforce the canon law of marriage, especially in Wales where tradition allowed a wider range of sexual partnerships. There was a political dimension as well, as accusations of witchcraft were levied against the enemies of Henry VII, who was exerting more and more control over Wales.[239] In 1542, the first of many Witchcraft Acts was passed defining witchcraft as a crime punishable by death and the forfeiture of property.[240]

    The records of the Courts of Great Sessions for Wales, 1536–1736 show that Welsh custom was more important than English law. Custom provided a framework of responding to witches and witchcraft in such a way that interpersonal and communal harmony was maintained. Even when found guilty, execution did not occur.[241]

    Scotland and England

    Becoming king in 1567, James VI and I brought to England and Scotland continental explanations of witchcraft. His goal was to divert suspicion away from male homosociality among the elite, and focus fear on female communities and large gatherings of women. He thought they threatened his political power so he laid the foundation for witchcraft and occultism policies, especially in Scotland. The point was that a widespread belief in the conspiracy of witches and a witches' Sabbath with the devil deprived women of political influence. Occult power was supposedly a womanly trait because women were weaker and more susceptible to the devil.[242]

    Lord Chief Justice of England Sir John Holt by Richard van Bleeck, c. 1700. Holt greatly influenced the end of prosecutions for witchcraft in England. National Portrait Gallery, London.[243]

    The last persons known to have been executed for witchcraft in England were the so-called Bideford witches in 1682. The last person executed for witchcraft in Great Britain was Janet Horne, in Scotland in 1727.[244] The Witchcraft Act 1735 abolished the penalty of execution for witchcraft, replacing it with imprisonment. This act was repealed by the Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951.

    Current

    Today in the United Kingdom children believed to be witches or seen as possessed by evil spirits can be subject to severe beatings, traumatic exorcism, and/or other abuse. There have even been child murders associated with witchcraft beliefs. The problem is particularly serious among immigrant or former immigrant communities of African origin but other communities, such as those of Asian origin are also involved. Step children and children seen as different for a wide range of reasons are particularly at risk of witchcraft accusations.[245] Children may be beaten or have chilli rubbed into their eyes during exorcisms.[246] This type of abuse is frequently hidden and can include torture.[247] A 2006 recommendation to record abuse cases linked to witchcraft accusations centrally has not yet been implemented. Lack of awareness among social workers, teachers and other professionals dealing with at risk children hinders efforts to combat the problem.[248]

        The Metropolitan Police said there had been 60 crimes linked to faith in London so far [in 2015]. It saw reports double from 23 in 2013 to 46 in 2014. Half of UK police forces do not record such cases and many local authorities are also unable to provide figures. The NSPCC said authorities "need to ensure they are able to spot the signs of this particular brand of abuse". London is unique in having a police team, Project Violet, dedicated to this type of abuse. Its figures relate to crime reports where officers have flagged a case as involving abuse linked to faith or belief. Many of the cases involve children. (...) An NSPCC spokesman said: "While the number of child abuse cases involving witchcraft is relatively small, they often include horrifying levels of cruelty. "The authorities which deal with these dreadful crimes need to ensure they are able to spot the signs of this particular brand of abuse and take action to protect children before a tragedy occurs."[248]

    There is a 'money making scam' involved. Pastors accuse a child of being a witch and later the family pays for exorcism. If a child at school says that his/her pastor called the child a witch that should become a child safeguarding issue.[248]
    Italy
    Main articles: Witchcraft in Italy and Witch trials in Italy

    A particularly rich source of information about witchcraft in Italy before the outbreak of the Great Witch Hunts of the Renaissance are the sermons of Franciscan popular preacher, Bernardino of Siena (1380–1444), who saw the issue as one of the most pressing moral and social challenges of his day and thus preached many a sermon on the subject, inspiring many local governments to take actions against what he called "servants of the Devil."[249] As in most European countries, women in Italy were more likely suspected of witchcraft than men.[250] Women were considered dangerous due to their supposed sexual instability, such as when being aroused, and also due to the powers of their menstrual blood.[251]

    In the 16th century, Italy had a high portion of witchcraft trials involving love magic.[252] The country had a large number of unmarried people due to men marrying later in their lives during this time.[252] This left many women on a desperate quest for marriage leaving them vulnerable to the accusation of witchcraft whether they took part in it or not.[252] Trial records from the Inquisition and secular courts discovered a link between prostitutes and supernatural practices. Professional prostitutes were considered experts in love and therefore knew how to make love potions and cast love related spells.[251] Up until 1630, the majority of women accused of witchcraft were prostitutes.[250] A courtesan was questioned about her use of magic due to her relationship with men of power in Italy and her wealth.[253] The majority of women accused were also considered "outsiders" because they were poor, had different religious practices, spoke a different language, or simply from a different city/town/region.[254] Cassandra from Ferrara, Italy, was still considered a foreigner because not native to Rome where she was residing. She was also not seen as a model citizen because her husband was in Venice.[255]

    From the 16th-18th centuries, the Catholic Church enforced moral discipline throughout Italy.[256] With the help of local tribunals, such as in Venice, the two institutions investigated a woman's religious behaviors when she was accused of witchcraft.[250]
    Spain
    Main articles: Witch trials in Spain and Akelarre

    Galicia in Spain is nicknamed the "Land of the Witches" due to its mythological origins surrounding its people, culture and its land.[257] The Basque Country also suffered persecutions against witches, such as the case of the Witches of Zugarramurdi, six of which were burned in Logroño in 1610 or the witch hunt in the French Basque country in the previous year with the burning of eighty supposed witches at the stake. This is reflected in the studies of José Miguel de Barandiarán and Julio Caro Baroja. Euskal Herria retains numerous legends that account for an ancient mythology of witchcraft. The town of Zalla is nicknamed "Town of the Witches".[258]
    Oceania
    Cook Islands

    In pre-Christian times, witchcraft was a common practice in the Cook Islands. The native name for a sorcerer was tangata purepure (a man who prays).[259] The prayers offered by the ta'unga (priests)[260] to the gods worshiped on national or tribal marae (temples) were termed karakia;[261] those on minor occasions to the lesser gods were named pure. All these prayers were metrical, and were handed down from generation to generation with the utmost care. There were prayers for every such phase in life; for success in battle; for a change in wind (to overwhelm an adversary at sea, or that an intended voyage be propitious); that his crops may grow; to curse a thief; or wish ill-luck and death to his foes. Few men of middle age were without a number of these prayers or charms. The succession of a sorcerer was from father to son, or from uncle to nephew. So too of sorceresses: it would be from mother to daughter, or from aunt to niece. Sorcerers and sorceresses were often slain by relatives of their supposed victims.[262]

    A singular enchantment was employed to kill off a husband of a pretty woman desired by someone else. The expanded flower of a Gardenia was stuck upright—a very difficult performance—in a cup (i.e., half a large coconut shell) of water. A prayer was then offered for the husband's speedy death, the sorcerer earnestly watching the flower. Should it fall the incantation was successful. But if the flower still remained upright, he will live. The sorcerer would in that case try his skill another day, with perhaps better success.[263]

    According to Beatrice Grimshaw, a journalist who visited the Cook Islands in 1907, the uncrowned Queen Makea was believed to have possessed the mystic power called mana, giving the possessor the power to slay at will. It also included other gifts, such as second sight to a certain extent, the power to bring good or evil luck, and the ability already mentioned to deal death at will.[264]
    Papua New Guinea

    A local newspaper informed that more than 50 people were killed in two Highlands provinces of Papua New Guinea in 2008 for allegedly practicing witchcraft.[265] An estimated 50–150 alleged witches are killed each year in Papua New Guinea.[266]
    Slavic Russia

    Among the Russian words for witch, ведьма (ved'ma) literally means 'one who knows', from Old Slavic вѣдъ 'to know'.[267]
    Spells

    Pagan practices formed a part of Russian and Eastern Slavic culture; the Russian people were deeply superstitious. The witchcraft practiced consisted mostly of earth magic and herbology; it was not so significant which herbs were used in practices, but how these herbs were gathered. Ritual centered on harvest of the crops and the location of the sun was very important.[268] One source, pagan author Judika Illes, tells that herbs picked on Midsummer's Eve were believed to be most powerful, especially if gathered on Bald Mountain near Kiev during the witches' annual revels celebration.[269] Botanicals should be gathered, "During the seventeenth minute of the fourteenth hour, under a dark moon, in the thirteenth field, wearing a red dress, pick the twelfth flower on the right."[270]

    Spells also served for midwifery, shape-shifting, keeping lovers faithful, and bridal customs. Spells dealing with midwifery and childbirth focused on the spiritual wellbeing of the baby.[270] Shape-shifting spells involved invocation of the wolf as a spirit animal.[271] To keep men faithful, lovers would cut a ribbon the length of his erect penis and soak it in his seminal emissions after sex while he was sleeping, then tie seven knots in it; keeping this talisman of knot magic ensured loyalty.[272] Part of an ancient pagan marriage tradition involved the bride taking a ritual bath at a bathhouse before the ceremony. Her sweat would be wiped from her body using raw fish, and the fish would be cooked and fed to the groom.[273]

    Demonism, or black magic, was not prevalent. Persecution for witchcraft, mostly involved the practice of simple earth magic, founded on herbology, by solitary practitioners with a Christian influence. In one case investigators found a locked box containing something bundled in a kerchief and three paper packets, wrapped and tied, containing crushed grasses.[274] Most rituals of witchcraft were very simple—one spell of divination consists of sitting alone outside meditating, asking the earth to show one's fate.[275]

    While these customs were unique to Russian culture, they were not exclusive to this region. Russian pagan practices were often akin to paganism in other parts of the world. The Chinese concept of chi, a form of energy that often manipulated in witchcraft, is known as bioplasma in Russian practices.[276] The western concept of an "evil eye" or a "hex" was translated to Russia as a "spoiler".[277] A spoiler was rooted in envy, jealousy and malice. Spoilers could be made by gathering bone from a cemetery, a knot of the target's hair, burned wooden splinters and several herb Paris berries (which are very poisonous). Placing these items in sachet in the victim's pillow completes a spoiler. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and the ancient Egyptians recognized the evil eye from as early as 3,000 BCE; in Russian practices it is seen as a sixteenth-century concept.[278]
    Societal view of witchcraft

    The dominant societal concern about those practicing witchcraft was not whether it was effective, but whether it could cause harm.[274] Peasants in Russian and Ukrainian societies often shunned witchcraft, unless they needed help against supernatural forces. Impotence, stomach pains, barrenness, hernias, abscesses, epileptic seizures, and convulsions were all attributed to evil (or witchcraft). This is reflected in linguistics; there are numerous words for a variety of practitioners of paganism-based healers. Russian peasants referred to a witch as a chernoknizhnik (a person who plied his trade with the aid of a black book), sheptun/sheptun'ia (a 'whisperer' male or female), lekar/lekarka or znakhar/znakharka (a male or female healer), or zagovornik (an incanter).[279]

    Ironically enough, there was universal reliance on folk healers – but clients often turned them in if something went wrong. According to Russian historian Valerie A. Kivelson, witchcraft accusations were normally thrown at lower-class peasants, townspeople and Cossacks. People turned to witchcraft as a means to support themselves. The ratio of male to female accusations was 75% to 25%. Males were targeted more, because witchcraft was associated with societal deviation. Because single people with no settled home could not be taxed, males typically had more power than women in their dissent.[274]

    The history of Witchcraft had evolved around society. More of a psychological concept to the creation and usage of Witchcraft can create the assumption as to why women are more likely to follow the practices behind Witchcraft. Identifying with the soul of an individual's self is often deemed as "feminine" in society. There is analyzed social and economic evidence to associate between witchcraft and women.[280]
    Russian witch trials
    Main article: Witch trials in Russia

    Witchcraft trials frequently occurred in seventeenth-century Russia, although the "great witch-hunt" is believed[by whom?] to be a predominantly Western European phenomenon. However, as the witchcraft-trial craze swept across Catholic and Protestant countries during this time, Orthodox Christian Europe indeed partook in this so-called "witch hysteria." This involved the persecution of both males and females who were believed to be practicing paganism, herbology, the black art, or a form of sorcery within and/or outside their community. Very early on witchcraft legally fell under the jurisdiction of the ecclesiastical body, the church, in Kievan Rus' and Muscovite Russia.[281] Sources of ecclesiastical witchcraft jurisdiction date back as early as the second half of the eleventh century, one being Vladimir the Great's first edition of his State Statute or Ustav, another being multiple references in the Primary Chronicle beginning in 1024.[281]

    Goya's drawing of result of a presumed witch's trial: " [so she must be a witch]"[282]

    The sentence for an individual who was found guilty of witchcraft or sorcery during this time, as well as in previous centuries, typically included either burning at the stake or being tested with the "ordeal of cold water" or judicium aquae frigidae.[281] The cold-water test was primarily a Western European phenomenon, but it was also used as a method of truth in Russia both prior to, and post, seventeenth-century witchcraft trials in Muscovy. Accused persons who submerged were considered innocent, and ecclesiastical authorities would proclaim them "brought back", but those who floated were considered guilty of practicing witchcraft, and they were either burned at the stake or executed in an unholy fashion. The thirteenth-century bishop of Vladimir, Serapion Vladimirskii, preached sermons throughout the Muscovite countryside, and in one particular sermon revealed that burning was the usual punishment for witchcraft, but more often the cold water test was used as a precursor to execution.[281][283]

    Although these two methods of torture were used in the west and the east, Russia implemented a system of fines payable for the crime of witchcraft during the seventeenth century. Thus, even though torture methods in Muscovy were on a similar level of harshness as Western European methods used, a more civil method was present. In the introduction of a collection of trial records pieced together by Russian scholar Nikolai Novombergsk, he argues that Muscovite authorities used the same degree of cruelty and harshness as Western European Catholic and Protestant countries in persecuting witches.[281] By the mid-sixteenth century the manifestations of paganism, including witchcraft, and the black arts—astrology, fortune telling, and divination—became a serious concern to the Muscovite church and state.[281]

    Tsar Ivan IV (reigned 1547–1584) took this matter to the ecclesiastical court and was immediately advised that individuals practicing these forms of witchcraft should be excommunicated and given the death penalty.[281] Ivan IV, as a true believer in witchcraft, was deeply convinced[citation needed] that sorcery accounted for the death of his wife, Anastasiia in 1560, which completely devastated and depressed him, leaving him heartbroken.[281] Stemming from this belief, Ivan IV became majorly concerned with the threat of witchcraft harming his family, and feared he was in danger. So, during the Oprichnina (1565–1572), Ivan IV succeeded in accusing and charging a good number of boyars with witchcraft whom he did not wish to remain as nobles. Rulers after Ivan IV, specifically during the Time of Troubles (1598–1613), increased the fear of witchcraft among themselves and entire royal families, which then led to further preoccupation with the fear of prominent Muscovite witchcraft circles.[281]

    After the Time of Troubles, seventeenth-century Muscovite rulers held frequent investigations of witchcraft within their households, laying the groundwork, along with previous tsarist reforms, for widespread witchcraft trials throughout the Muscovite state.[281] Between 1622 and 1700 ninety-one people were brought to trial in Muscovite courts for witchcraft.[281] Although Russia did partake in the witch craze that swept across Western Europe, the Muscovite state did not persecute nearly as many people for witchcraft, let alone execute a number of individuals anywhere close to the number executed in the west during the witch hysteria.
    Witches in art

    Albrecht Dürer circa 1500: Witch riding backwards on a goat

    Louhi, a powerful and wicked witch queen of the land known as Pohjola in the Finnish epic poetry Kalevala, attacking Väinämöinen in the form of a giant eagle with her troops on her back. (The Defense of the Sampo, Akseli Gallen-Kallela, 1896)

    Witches have a long history of being depicted in art, although most of their earliest artistic depictions seem to originate in Early Modern Europe, particularly the Medieval and Renaissance periods. Many scholars attribute their manifestation in art as inspired by texts such as Canon Episcopi, a demonology-centered work of literature, and Malleus Maleficarum, a "witch-craze" manual published in 1487, by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob Sprenger.[284]

    Canon Episcopi, a ninth-century text that explored the subject of demonology, initially introduced concepts that would continuously be associated with witches, such as their ability to fly or their believed fornication and sexual relations with the devil. The text refers to two women, Diana the Huntress and Herodias, who both express the duality of female sorcerers. Diana was described as having a heavenly body and as the "protectress of childbirth and fertility" while Herodias symbolized "unbridled sensuality". They thus represent the mental powers and cunning sexuality that witches used as weapons to trick men into performing sinful acts which would result in their eternal punishment. These characteristics were distinguished as Medusa-like or Lamia-like traits when seen in any artwork (Medusa's mental trickery was associated with Diana the Huntress's psychic powers and Lamia was a rumored female figure in the Medieval ages sometimes used in place of Herodias).[285]

    One of the first individuals to regularly depict witches after the witch-craze of the medieval period was Albrecht Dürer, a German Renaissance artist. His famous 1497 engraving The Four Witches, portrays four physically attractive and seductive nude witches. Their supernatural identities are emphasized by the skulls and bones lying at their feet as well as the devil discreetly peering at them from their left. The women's sensuous presentation speaks to the overtly sexual nature they were attached to in early modern Europe. Moreover, this attractiveness was perceived as a danger to ordinary men who they could seduce and tempt into their sinful world.[251] Some scholars interpret this piece as utilizing the logic of the Canon Episcopi, in which women used their mental powers and bodily seduction to enslave and lead men onto a path of eternal damnation, differing from the unattractive depiction of witches that would follow in later Renaissance years.[286]

    Dürer also employed other ideas from the Middle Ages that were commonly associated with witches. Specifically, his art often referred to former 12th- to 13th-century Medieval iconography addressing the nature of female sorcerers. In the Medieval period, there was a widespread fear of witches, accordingly producing an association of dark, intimidating characteristics with witches, such as cannibalism (witches described as "[sucking] the blood of newborn infants"[251]) or described as having the ability to fly, usually on the back of black goats. As the Renaissance period began, these concepts of witchcraft were suppressed, leading to a drastic change in the sorceress' appearances, from sexually explicit beings to the 'ordinary' typical housewives of this time period. This depiction, known as the 'Waldensian' witch became a cultural phenomenon of early Renaissance art. The term originates from the 12th-century monk Peter Waldo, who established his own religious sect which explicitly opposed the luxury and commodity-influenced lifestyle of the Christian church clergy, and whose sect was excommunicated before being persecuted as "practitioners of witchcraft and magic".[251]

    Subsequent artwork exhibiting witches tended to consistently rely on cultural stereotypes about these women. These stereotypes were usually rooted in early Renaissance religious discourse, specifically the Christian belief that an "earthly alliance" had taken place between Satan's female minions who "conspired to destroy Christendom".[287]

    Another significant artist whose art consistently depicted witches was Dürer's apprentice, Hans Baldung Grien, a 15th-century German artist. His chiaroscuro woodcut, Witches, created in 1510, visually encompassed all the characteristics that were regularly assigned to witches during the Renaissance. Social beliefs labeled witches as supernatural beings capable of doing great harm, possessing the ability to fly, and as cannibalistic.[287] The urn in Witches seems to contain pieces of the human body, which the witches are seen consuming as a source of energy. Meanwhile, their nudity while feasting is recognized as an allusion to their sexual appetite, and some scholars read the witch riding on the back of a goat-demon as representative of their "flight-inducing [powers]". This connection between women's sexual nature and sins was thematic in the pieces of many Renaissance artists, especially Christian artists, due to cultural beliefs which characterized women as overtly sexual beings who were less capable (in comparison to men) of resisting sinful temptation.[251]
    Witches in fiction

    Witches in fiction span a wide array of characterizations. They are typically, but not always, female, and generally depicted as either villains or heroines.[288]

    The classic fairy tale "Hansel and Gretel" presents an example of the "witch villain" figure. The story involves a cannibalistic witch that eventually becomes outwitted by the children she tries to eat and is burned to death in her own oven. "Snow White" depicts a murderous, tempting magician for its main antagonist. The witch is labeled an evil queen and meets her demise after being forced to dance in red-hot iron shoes. "The Six Swans" includes a step-mother who magically turns her step-children into swans out of spite and jealousy. In retaliation, the figure labeled as witch is eventually burned at the stake. Such examples within the Brothers Grimm's works demonstrate not only evidence of the figure of "witch villain" but also exhibits their punishment by injury or violent death.[288]

    Living Alone, published in 1919, uses the "witch heroine" as an agent in support of female liberation. Stella Benson's novel surrounds the musings of a female witch who functions as an anarchic force in the lives of middle-class Londoners. Her non-harmful magic aims to "shake the most downtrodden women out of complacency and normality" to meet a state of liberation.[288] The importance of such a heroine sheds light on the positive effects associated with magic and witchcraft, a change from the often brutalized and tortured illustrations found in early nineteenth century literature. Other examples of heroic witches in fictional literature include Glinda from The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900), Serafina Pekkala from His Dark Materials (1995–2000), and Hermione Granger from the Harry Potter series.
    See also
        Witches Sabbath
        Feminist interpretations of the Early Modern witch trials
        Flying ointment
        Neoshamanism
        Kitchen witch
    Footnotes
         The Hebrew word אֹב‎ (ob), rendered as familiar spirit in the translation, has a different meaning than the usual English sense of the phrase; namely, it refers to a spirit that the woman is familiar with, rather than to a spirit that physically manifests itself in the shape of an animal.
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         For a detailed description and analysis of Bernardino's anti-witchcraft sermons, see Chapter One (pp.52–108) of Franco Mormando's The Preacher's Demons: Bernardino of Siena and the Social Underworld of Early Renaissance Italy, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999.
         Martin, Ruth (1989). Witchcraft and the Inquisition in Venice, 1550–1650. Oxford, UK. p. 235.
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         See also Ryan, W.F. The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 524.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 252.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 847.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 623.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 797.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 705.
         Kivelson, Valerie A. (July 2003). "Male Witches and Gendered Categories in Seventeenth-Century Russia". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 45 (3): 606–631. doi:10.1017/S0010417503000276. JSTOR 3879463. S2CID 145811691.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 313.
         Janet and Stewart Farrar, A Witches Bible: The Complete Witches' Handbook (Washington, Phoenix Publishing, Inc.) 1984. Page 316.
         Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), page 586.
         Raymond Buckland, The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-Paganism (Detroit: Visible Ink) 2002. Page 160.
         Worobec, Christine D. (1995). "Witchcraft Beliefs and Practices in Prerevolutionary Russian and Ukrainian Villages". The Russian Review. 54 (2): 165–187. doi:10.2307/130913. JSTOR 130913.
         Peterson, Mark A. (March 1998). "Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England. By Elizabeth Reis. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997. xxii + 212 pp. $32.50 cloth". Church History. 67 (1): 192–194. doi:10.2307/3170836. JSTOR 3170836. S2CID 162208619.
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         Puigblanch, Antonio (1816-01-01). The Inquisition Unmasked: Being an Historical and Philosophical Account of that Tremendous Tribunal, Founded on Authentic Documents; and Exhibiting the Necessity of Its Suppression, as a Means of Reform and Regeneration, Written and Published at a Time when the National Congress of Spain was about to Deliberate on this Important Measure. Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy.
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         Lorenzi, Lorenzo. Witches. Exploring the iconography of the sorceress and enchantress. (2005).
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    Referenced works
        Alan Macfarlane, Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England, Psychology Press, 1999 (orig. 1970)
        University of Kansas Publications in Anthropology, No. 5 = John M Janzen and Wyatt MacGaffey: An Anthology of Kongo Religion: Primary Texts from Lower Zaïre. Lawrence, 1974.
        Studia Instituti Anthropos, Vol. 41 = Anthony J. Gittins: Mende Religion. Steyler Verlag, Nettetal, 1987.
        Thompson, David W. (2017). Sister Witch: The Life of Moll Dyer. Solstice Publishing. ISBN 978-1973105756.
    Further reading
        Ashforth, Adam (2000). Madumo, A Man Bewitched. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-02971-9.
        Boyer, Paul and Stephen Nissenbaum, eds. The Salem Witchcraft Papers: Verbatim Transcripts of the Legal Documents of the Salem Witchcraft Outbreak of 1692, Volumes I and II. New York: Da Capo Press, 1977.
        Callow, John (2022). The Last Witches of England, A Tragedy of Sorcery and Superstition. London: Bloomsbury Academic. ISBN 978-1-7883-1439-8.
        Easley, Patricia Thompson (August 2000). A Gobber Tooth, A Hairy Lip, A Squint Eye: Concepts of the Witch and the Body in Early Modern Europe (M.A. Thesis thesis). UNT Digital Library.
        Favret-Saada, Jeanne (December 1980). Deadly Words: Witchcraft in the Bocage. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-29787-5.
        Favret-Saada, Jeanne (2009). Désorceler. L'Olivier. ISBN 978-2-87929-639-5.
        Gaskill, Malcolm. "Masculinity and Witchcraft in Seventeenth-century England." In Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe, edited by Alison Rowlands, 171–190. New York: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2009.
        Geschiere, Peter (1997) [Translated from French Edition (1995 Karthala)]. The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa = Sorcellerie Et Politique En Afrique — la viande des autres. University of Virginia Press. ISBN 978-0-8139-1703-0.
        Ginzburg, Carlo; Translated by Raymond Rosenthal (June 2004) [Originally published in Italy as Storia Notturna (1989 Giulio Einaudi)]. Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-29693-7.
        Goss, D. K. (2008). The Salem witch trials. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
        Gouges, Linnea de ''Witch Hunts and State Building in Early Modern Europe Nisus Publications, 2017.
        Hall, David, ed. Witch-hunting in Seventeenth-century New England: A Documentary History, 1638–1692. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991.
        Henderson, Lizanne, Witch-Hunting and Witch Belief in the Gàidhealtachd, Witchcraft and Belief in Early Modern Scotland Eds. Julian Goodare, Lauren Martin and Joyce Miller. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007
        Hill, F. (2000). The Salem witch trials reader. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press.
        Hutton, Ronald (1999) The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, Oxford, OUP.
        Hyatt, Harry Middleton. Hoodoo, conjuration, witchcraft, rootwork: beliefs accepted by many Negroes and white persons, these being orally recorded among Blacks and whites. s.n., 1970.
        Kent, Elizabeth. "Masculinity and Male Witches in Old and New England." History Workshop 60 (2005): 69–92.
        Lindquist, Galina (2006). Conjuring Hope: Magic and Healing In Contemporary Russia. Berghahn Books. ISBN 978-1-84545-057-1. Retrieved 20 May 2013.
        Levack, Brian P. ed. The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America (2013) excerpt and text search
        Moore, Henrietta L. and Todd Sanders 2001. Magical Interpretations, Material Realities: Modernity, Witchcraft and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa London: Routledge.
        Notestein, Wallace. A history of witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718. New York : Crowell, 1968
        Pentikainen, J (1978). "Marina Takalo as an Individual in Oral Repertoire and World View. An Anthropological study of Marina Takalo's Life History". F. F. Communications Turku. 93 (219): 58–76. INIST:12698358.
        Pentikainen, Juha. "The Supernatural Experience." F. Jstor. 26 February 2007.
        Pócs, Éva (1999). Between the Living and the Dead: A perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age. Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 978-963-9116-19-1.
        Ruickbie, Leo (2004) Witchcraft out of the Shadows: A History, London, Robert Hale.
        Stark, Ryan J. "Demonic Eloquence", in Rhetoric, Science, and Magic in Seventeenth-Century England (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 2009), 115–45.
        Williams, Howard (1865). The Superstitions of Witchcraft. Project Gutenberg. London: Longman, Green, Longman, Roberts, & Green.
        Worobec, Christine D. (1995). "Witchcraft Beliefs and Practices in Prerevolutionary Russian and Ukrainian Villages". The Russian Review. 54 (2): 165–187. doi:10.2307/130913. JSTOR 130913.
    External links
    Wikiquote has quotations related to Witchcraft.
    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Witchcraft.
    Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article "Witchcraft".
    Scholia has a topic profile for Witchcraft.
        Witchcraft on In Our Time at the BBC
        Kabbalah On Witchcraft – A Jewish view (Audio) chabad.org
        Jewish Encyclopedia: Witchcraft
        Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands, 1886, by John Linwood Pitts, from Project Gutenberg
        A Treatise of Witchcraft, 1616, by Alexander Roberts, from Project Gutenberg
        University of Edinburgh's Scottish witchcraft database
        'Witchcraft and Statecraft, A Materialist Analysis of the European Witch Persecutions'
    witchcraft, traditionally, the exercise or invocation of alleged supernatural powers to control people or events, practices typically involving sorcery or magic. Although defined differently in disparate historical and cultural contexts, witchcraft has often been seen, especially in the West, as the work of crones who meet secretly at night, indulge in cannibalism and orgiastic rites with the Devil, or Satan, and perform black magic. Witchcraft thus defined exists more in the imagination of contemporaries than in any objective reality. Yet this stereotype has a long history and has constituted for many cultures a viable explanation of evil in the world. The intensity of these beliefs is best represented by the European witch hunts of the 14th to 18th century, but witchcraft and its associated ideas are never far from the surface of popular consciousness and—sustained by folk tales—find explicit focus from time to time in popular television and films and in fiction.

    Meanings
    The modern English word witchcraft has three principal connotations: the practice of magic or sorcery worldwide; the beliefs associated with the Western witch hunts of the 14th to the 18th century; and varieties of the modern movement called Wicca, frequently mispronounced “wikka.”

    The terms witchcraft and witch derive from Old English wiccecraeft: from wicca (masculine) or wicce (feminine), pronounced “witchah” and “witchuh,” respectively, denoting someone who practices sorcery; and from craeft meaning “craft” or “skill.” Roughly equivalent words in other European languages—such as sorcellerie (French), Hexerei (German), stregoneria (Italian), and brujería (Spanish)—have different connotations, and none precisely translates another. The difficulty is even greater with the relevant words in African, Asian, and other languages. The problem of defining witchcraft is made more difficult because the concepts underlying these words also change according to time and place, sometimes radically. Moreover, different cultures do not share a coherent pattern of witchcraft beliefs, which often blend other concepts such as magic, sorcery, religion, folklore, theology, technology, and diabolism. Some societies regard a witch as a person with inherent supernatural powers, but in the West witchcraft has been more commonly believed to be an ordinary person’s free choice to learn and practice magic with the help of the supernatural. (The terms West and Western in this article refer to European societies themselves and to post-Columbian societies influenced by European concepts.) The answer to the old question “Are there such things as witches?” therefore depends upon individual belief and upon definition, and no single definition exists. One thing is certain: the emphasis on the witch in art, literature, theatre, and film has little relation to external reality.

    False ideas about witchcraft and the witch hunts persist today. First, the witch hunts did not occur in the Middle Ages but in what historians call the “early modern” period (the late 14th to the early 18th century), the era of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and the Scientific Revolution. There was neither a witch-cult nor any cult, either organized or disorganized, of a “Horned God” or of any “Goddess”; Western “witches” were not members of an ancient pagan religion; and they were not healers or midwives. Moreover, not all persons accused of witchcraft were women, let alone old women; indeed, there were “witches” of all ages and sexes. Witches were not a persecuted minority, because witches did not exist: the people hurt or killed in the hunts were not witches but victims forced by their persecutors into a category that in reality included no one. The witch hunts did not prosecute, let alone execute, millions; they were not a conspiracy by males, priests, judges, doctors, or inquisitors against members of an old religion or any other real group. “Black masses” are almost entirely a fantasy of modern writers. “Witch doctors,” whose job it was to release people from evil spells, seldom existed in the West, largely because even helpful magic was attributed to demons.

    Saint Thomas Aquinas. Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas, altarpiece by Francesco Traini, 1363; in Santa Caterina, Pisa, Italy. St. Thomas Aquinas (c1225-1274) Italian philosopher and theologian. Dominican order of monks (black friars).
    BRITANNICA QUIZ
    Medieval History Quiz: Part Four
    When did the first European trials for witchcraft occur? Who was the only Englishman to become pope? Use this quiz to test what you know about the Middle Ages.
    Sorcery
    A sorcerer, magician, or “witch” attempts to influence the surrounding world through occult (i.e., hidden, as opposed to open and observable) means. In Western society until the 14th century, “witchcraft” had more in common with sorcery in other cultures—such as those of India or Africa—than it did with the witchcraft of the witch hunts. Before the 14th century, witchcraft was much alike in villages from Ireland to Russia and from Sweden to Sicily; however, the similarities derived neither from cultural diffusion nor from any secret cult but from the age-old human desire to achieve one’s purposes whether by open or occult means. In many ways, like their counterparts worldwide, early Western sorcerers and witches worked secretly for private ends, as contrasted with the public practice of religion. Witches or sorcerers were usually feared as well as respected, and they used a variety of means to attempt to achieve their goals, including incantations (formulas or chants invoking evil spirits), divination and oracles (to predict the future), amulets and charms (to ward off hostile spirits and harmful events), potions or salves, and dolls or other figures (to represent their enemies). Witches sought to gain or preserve health, to acquire or retain property, to protect against natural disasters or evil spirits, to help friends, and to seek revenge. Sometimes this magic was believed to work through simple causation as a form of technology. For example, it was believed that a field’s fertility could be increased by ritually slaughtering an animal. Often the magic was instead an effort to construct symbolic reality. Sorcery was sometimes believed to rely on the power of gods or other spirits, leading to the belief that witches used demons in their work.

    Jeffrey Burton Russell
    Witchcraft in Africa and the world
    The same dichotomy between sorcery and witchcraft exists (sometimes more ambiguously) in the beliefs of many peoples throughout the world. Again, witches are typically seen as particularly active after dusk, when law-abiding mortals are asleep. According to traditional Navajo belief, when a witch travels at night, he wears the skin of a dead animal in order to effect a transformation into that animal. These “skinwalkers” hold nighttime meetings at which they wear nothing except a mask, sit among baskets of corpses, and have intercourse with dead women. In some African cultures witches are believed to assemble in cannibal covens, often at graveyards or around a fire, to feast on the blood that they, like vampires, extract from their victims. If they take the soul from a victim’s body and keep it in their possession, the victim will die. Like those in Western society suspected of child abuse and Satanism, African witches in the popular imagination are believed to practice incest and other perversions.

    Sometimes, as in the Christian tradition, their malevolent power is believed to derive from a special relationship with an evil spirit with whom they have a “pact,” or they exercise it through “animal familiars” (assistants or agents) such as dogs, cats, hyenas, owls, or baboons. In other cases the witch’s power is thought to be based in his or her own body, and no external source is deemed necessary. Among the Zande of the Congo and some other central African peoples, the source of this evil-working capacity is believed to be located in the witch’s stomach, and its power and range increase with age. It can be activated merely by wishing someone ill and is thus a kind of unspoken, or implicit, curse. At the same time, the Zande believe that evil deeds can be wrought even more effectively by the manipulation of spells and potions and the use of powerful magic. In anthropological terminology this is technically “sorcery,” and thus, like the “witches” in Shakespeare’s play Macbeth who dance around a pot stirring potions and muttering spells, the Zande practitioners may more properly be termed “sorcerers” rather than “witches.”

    In many African cultures witches are believed to act unconsciously; unaware of the ill they cause, they are driven by irrepressible urges to act malevolently. It is thus easy for those accused of witchcraft, but who are not conscious of wishing anyone ill, to assume that they unknowingly did what is attributed to them. This, along with the effects of suggestion and torture, in a world where people take the reality of witchcraft for granted, goes far to explain the striking confessions of guilt that are so widely reported in Africa and elsewhere and that are otherwise hard to comprehend. It is worth noting, however, that if witches believe they are unconscious agents, this is generally not the view of those who feel victimized by them.


    Whatever the basis of their power and the means by which it is exercised, witches (and sorcerers) are regularly credited with causing all manner of disease and disaster. Sickness, and even death, as well as a host of lesser misfortunes, are routinely laid at their door. In many parts of Africa and Asia, epidemics and natural disasters have been interpreted as acts of witchcraft. For some unhappy candidates in many less developed countries, the same malign influence is cited to explain (at least in part) failure in examinations, elections, or difficulties in finding employment. Members of certain Afro-Brazilian cults, for example, believe that job loss is due not to economic conditions or poor performance but to witchcraft, and they participate in a ritual, the “consultation,” to counter the evil.

    However, like their ancient and early modern European counterparts, modern Africans and Asians who believe firmly in the reality of witchcraft do not lack the power of rational reasoning. To suppose that these are incompatible alternatives is a common mistake. In reality pragmatic and mystical explanations of events usually exist in parallel or combination but operate in different contexts and at different levels. For example, anthropological research has demonstrated that African farmers who believe in witches do not expect witchcraft to account for obvious technical failures. If one’s home collapses because it was poorly constructed, no witch is needed to explain this. If a boat sinks because it has a hole in its bottom or a car breaks down because its battery is dead, witchcraft is not responsible. Witchcraft enters the picture when rational knowledge fails. It explains the diseases whose causes are unknown, the mystery of death, and, more generally, strange and inexplicable misfortunes.

    There is thus no inconsistency in the actions of the sick African who consults both a medical doctor and a witch doctor. The first treats the external symptoms, while the second uncovers the hidden causes. Just as the sick African takes preventative measures prescribed by the medical doctor, he or she might also take steps against the supernatural. To protect against witchcraft, for instance, the patient might wear amulets, take “medicine” or bathe in it, or practice divination. Similarly, the Navajo protect themselves against witches with “gall medicine” or with sand paintings. If preventative measures prove ineffective for the Navajo, then the confession of a witch is thought to cure the evil magic, and torture is sometimes used to extract that confession. Moreover, like ancient and modern Westerners, people in modern Africa and other parts of the world who take the reality of witchcraft for granted usually also believe in other sources of supernatural power—e.g., divinities and spirits.


    Witchcraft explains the problem posed when one seeks to understand why misfortune befalls oneself rather than someone else. It makes sense of the inequalities of life: the fact that one person’s crops or herds fail while others’ prosper. Equally, witchcraft can be invoked to explain the success of others. In this “limited good” scenario—where there is implicitly a fixed stock of resources and where life is generally precarious, with little surplus to distribute in time of need—those who succeed too flagrantly are assumed to do so at the expense of others less fortunate. The “witch,” therefore, is typically someone who selfishly wants more than he or she ostensibly deserves, whose aspirations and desires are judged excessive and illegitimate.

    However, there is a narrow, ambiguous line between good and evil here. Among some African peoples “witchcraft” is intrinsically neither morally good nor bad, and among others the supernatural activities of “witches” are, according to their perceived effects, divided into good, or protective, and bad, or destructive, witchcraft. Traditional and modern African leaders sometimes surround themselves with protective “witch doctors,” and are themselves thought to be endowed with supernatural power. This is the positive charisma of which witchcraft is the negative counterpart. In the colonial period these ideas were extended to Europeans, who, in the Belgian Congo and British Central Africa at the time of independence, were feared as cannibalistic witches. This was somewhat ironic since colonial regimes, unlike their missionary predecessors, did not believe in witchcraft and made accusations of witchcraft illegal in most of sub-Saharan Africa—which has been largely reversed by their successor regimes.

    This ambiguity between good and evil can also be found among the Mapuche, an indigenous people of Chile. They believe that young women take up sorcery and as old women become powerful witches who use “bad medicine” to obtain their ends. They are aligned with evil forces and use them to harm or gain advantage over others. Their training and use of plants and animals in their medicine is similar to that of the shamans who use “good medicine” and other magic against forces of evil.


    The distinctions between good and bad supernatural power are relative and depend on how moral legitimacy is judged. This becomes clear when the spiritual power invoked is studied more closely. In a number of revealing African cases, the word that denotes the essence of witchcraft (e.g., tsau among the West African Tiv and itonga among the East African Safwa), the epitome of illegitimate antisocial activity, also describes the righteous wrath of established authority, employed to curse wrongdoers.

    This essential ambivalence is particularly evident in Haitian Vodou, where there is a sharp distinction between man-made evil magic powers, connected with zombis (beings identified as familiars of witches in the beliefs of some African cultures), and benevolent invisible spirits identified with Catholic saints. This antithesis between witchcraft and religion, however, is always problematic: after death, the malevolent spirits or powers that an ancestor has used for personal benefit become accrued by that person’s descendants’ protective spirits (lwas). Magic has thus turned into religion (the converse of the more familiar process in which outmoded religions are stigmatized by their successors as magic).

    So everything depends on the moral evaluation made by the community of the victims of misfortune: have they received their just deserts or is their plight unjustified? Witchcraft and sorcery are only involved in the latter case, where they provide a moral philosophy of unmerited misfortune. This is particularly important in religions that lack the concepts of heaven and hell. Where one cannot take refuge in the reassuring belief that life’s injustices will be adjusted in the hereafter, witchcraft indeed provides a way of shrugging off responsibility and of coming to terms with an unjust fate. According to these “instant” religions, the just should prosper and the unjust should suffer the consequences of their evil deeds here on earth.


    The psychodynamics here are equally revealing. Those who interpret their misfortunes in terms of witchcraft will often use similar means to discover the source of their woes, which is often traced to the malice and jealousy of their enemies. In Africa and elsewhere, the bewitched person seeks help from a diviner to establish the evil person responsible. The diviner, often in a trance, uses a number of different techniques to discover the witch, including throwing dice or opening a Bible or Qurʾān at random. Another form of divination involves administering poison to a chicken and mentioning the name of a suspected witch. If the chicken dies, then the suspect is a witch. Whatever the process, the result is always the same, the bewitched “victim” finds the source of his woes among his rivals, typically neighbours, coworkers, or other competitors. Accusations often follow the lines of community conflict and incompatibility. In Chile, for example, the tensions between the Mapuche and neighbouring Chilean peasants are revealed in accusations that the Chileans use witchcraft to cheat the Mapuche and conversely that the Mapuche use it to harm the crops or livestock of the Chileans. Among the Navajo, competition over grazing lands and water rights or between jealous lovers is the source of witchcraft accusations. In some polygynous societies in Africa, these accusations are particularly prevalent between competing co-wives, but they are by no means always targeted at women. Ultimately, the effect of successful accusations is to call into question or to rupture an untenable relationship.

    Ioan M. Lewis
    The witch hunts
    Compendium maleficarum: Devil and witches trampling a cross
    Compendium maleficarum: Devil and witches trampling a cross
    Although accusations of witchcraft in contemporary cultures provide a means to express or resolve social tensions, these accusations had different consequences in premodern Western society where the mixture of irrational fear and a persecuting mentality led to the emergence of the witch hunts. In the 11th century attitudes toward witchcraft and sorcery began to change, a process that would radically transform the Western perception of witchcraft and associate it with heresy and the Devil. By the 14th century, fear of heresy and of Satan had added charges of diabolism to the usual indictment of witches, maleficium (malevolent sorcery). It was this combination of sorcery and its association with the Devil that made Western witchcraft unique. From the 14th through the 18th century, witches were believed to repudiate Jesus Christ, to worship the Devil and make pacts with him (selling one’s soul in exchange for Satan’s assistance), to employ demons to accomplish magical deeds, and to desecrate the crucifix and the consecrated bread and wine of the Eucharist (Holy Communion). It was also believed that they rode through the air at night to “sabbats” (secret meetings), where they engaged in sexual orgies and even had sex with Satan; that they changed shapes (from human to animal or from one human form to another); that they often had “familiar spirits” in the form of animals; and that they kidnapped and murdered children for the purpose of eating them or rendering their fat for magical ointments. This fabric of ideas was a fantasy. Although some people undoubtedly practiced sorcery with the intent to harm, and some may actually have worshiped the Devil, in reality no one ever fit the concept of the “witch.” Nonetheless, the witch’s crimes were defined in law. The witch hunts varied enormously in place and in time, but they were united by a common and coherent theological and legal worldview. Local priests and judges, though seldom experts in either theology or law, were nonetheless part of a culture that believed in the reality of witches as much as modern society believes in the reality of molecules.

    Since 1970 careful research has elucidated law codes and theological treatises from the era of the witch hunts and uncovered much information about how fear, accusations, and prosecutions actually occurred in villages, local law courts, and courts of appeal in Roman Catholic and Protestant cultures in western Europe. Charges of maleficium were prompted by a wide array of suspicions. It might have been as simple as one person blaming his misfortune on another. For example, if something bad happened to John that could not be readily explained, and if John felt that Richard disliked him, John may have suspected Richard of harming him by occult means. The most common suspicions concerned livestock, crops, storms, disease, property and inheritance, sexual dysfunction or rivalry, family feuds, marital discord, stepparents, sibling rivalries, and local politics. Maleficium was a threat not only to individuals but also to public order, for a community wracked by suspicions about witches could split asunder. No wonder the term witch hunt has entered common political parlance to describe such campaigns as that of the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy in his attempt to root out “communists” in the United States in the 1950s.

    Another accusation that often accompanied maleficium was trafficking with evil spirits. In the Near East—in ancient Mesopotamia, Syria, Canaan, and Palestine—belief in the existence of evil spirits was universal, so that both religion and magic were thought to be needed to appease, offer protection from, or manipulate these spirits. In Greco-Roman civilization, Dionysiac worship included meeting underground at night, sacrificing animals, practicing orgies, feasting, and drinking. Classical authors such as Aeschylus, Horace, and Virgil described sorceresses, ghosts, furies, and harpies with hideous pale faces and crazed hair; clothed in rotting garments, they met at night and sacrificed both animals and humans. A bizarre set of accusations, including the sacrifice of children, was made by the Syrians against the Jews in Hellenistic Syria in the 2nd century BCE. These accusations would also be made by the Romans against the Christians, by early Christians against heretics (dissenters from the core Christianity of the period) and Jews, by later Christians against witches, and, as late as the 20th century, by Protestants against Catholics.


    Along with this older tradition, attitudes toward witches and the witch hunts of the 14th–18th centuries stemmed from a long history of the church’s theological and legal attacks on heretics. Accusations similar to those expressed by the ancient Syrians and early Christians appeared again in the Middle Ages. In France in 1022 a group of heretics in Orléans was accused of orgy, infanticide, invocations of demons, and use of the dead children’s ashes in a blasphemous parody of the Eucharist. These allegations would have important implications for the future because they were part of a broader pattern of hostility toward and persecution of marginalized groups. This pattern took shape in 1050–1300, which was also an era of enormous reform, reorganization, and centralization in both the ecclesiastical and secular aspects of society, an important aspect of which was suppressing dissent. The visible role played by women in some heresies during this period may have contributed to the stereotype of the witch as female.

    Saint Thomas Aquinas. Apotheosis of St. Thomas Aquinas, altarpiece by Francesco Traini, 1363; in Santa Caterina, Pisa, Italy. St. Thomas Aquinas (c1225-1274) Italian philosopher and theologian. Dominican order of monks (black friars).
    BRITANNICA QUIZ
    Medieval History Quiz: Part Four
    When did the first European trials for witchcraft occur? Who was the only Englishman to become pope? Use this quiz to test what you know about the Middle Ages.
    The Devil, whose central role in witchcraft beliefs made the Western tradition unique, was an absolute reality in both elite and popular culture, and failure to understand the prevailing terror of Satan has misled some modern researchers to regard witchcraft as a “cover” for political or gender conspiracies. The Devil was deeply and widely feared as the greatest enemy of Christ, keenly intent on destroying soul, life, family, community, church, and state. Witches were considered Satan’s followers, members of an antichurch and an antistate, the sworn enemies of Christian society in the Middle Ages, and a “counter-state” in the early modern period. If witchcraft existed, as people believed it did, then it was an absolute necessity to extirpate it before it destroyed the world.


    Because of the continuity of witch trials with those for heresy, it is impossible to say when the first witch trial occurred. Even though the clergy and judges in the Middle Ages were skeptical of accusations of witchcraft, the period 1300–30 can be seen as the beginning of witch trials. In 1374 Pope Gregory XI declared that all magic was done with the aid of demons and thus was open to prosecution for heresy. Witch trials continued through the 14th and early 15th centuries, but with great inconsistency according to time and place. By 1435–50, the number of prosecutions had begun to rise sharply, and toward the end of the 15th century, two events stimulated the hunts: Pope Innocent VIII’s publication in 1484 of the bull Summis desiderantes affectibus (“Desiring with the Greatest Ardour”) condemning witchcraft as Satanism, the worst of all possible heresies, and the publication in 1486 of Heinrich Krämer and Jacob Sprenger’s Malleus maleficarum (“The Hammer of Witches”), a learned but cruelly misogynist book blaming witchcraft chiefly on women. Widely influential, it was reprinted numerous times. The hunts were most severe from 1580 to 1630, and the last known execution for witchcraft was in Switzerland in 1782. The number of trials and executions varied widely according to time and place, but in fact no more than about 110,000 persons in all were tried for witchcraft, and no more than 40,000 to 60,000 executed. Although these figures are alarming, they do not remotely approach the feverishly exaggerated claims of some 20th-century writers.

    The “hunts” were not pursuits of individuals already identified as witches but efforts to identify those who were witches. The process began with suspicions and, occasionally, continued through rumours and accusations to convictions. The overwhelming majority of processes, however, went no farther than the rumour stage, for actually accusing someone of witchcraft was a dangerous and expensive business. Accusations originated with the ill-will of the accuser, or, more often, the accuser’s fear of someone having ill-will toward him. The accusations were usually made by the alleged victims themselves, rather than by priests, lords, judges, or other “elites.” Successful prosecution of one witch sometimes led to a local hunt for others, but larger hunts and regional panics were confined (with some exceptions) to the years from the 1590s to 1640s. Very few accusations went beyond the village level.


    Salem witch trial
    Salem witch trial
    Three-fourths of European witch hunts occurred in western Germany, the Low Countries, France, northern Italy, and Switzerland, areas where prosecutions for heresy had been plentiful and charges of diabolism were prominent. In Spain, Portugal, and southern Italy, witch prosecutions seldom occurred, and executions were very rare. There were additional hunts in Spanish America, where the European pattern of accusations continued even though the differences between the folklore of the Europeans and Native Americans introduced some minor variations into the accusations. In Mexico the Franciscan friars linked indigenous religion and magic with the Devil; prosecutions for witchcraft in Mexico began in the 1530s, and by the 1600s indigenous peasants were reporting stereotypical pacts with the Devil. Like the Spanish colonies, the English colonies repeated the European stereotype with a few minor differences. The first hanging for witchcraft in New England was in 1647, after the witch hunts had already abated in Europe, though a peculiar outbreak in Sweden in 1668–76 bore some similarity to that in New England. Although the lurid trials at Salem (now in Massachusetts) continue to draw much attention from American authors, they were only a swirl in the backwater of the witch hunts. The outbreak at Salem, where 19 people were executed, was the result of a combination of church politics, family feuds, and hysterical children, all in a vacuum of political authority. Prosecutions of witches in Austria, Poland, and Hungary took place as late as the 18th century.


    The responsibility for the witch hunts can be distributed among theologians, legal theorists, and the practices of secular and ecclesiastical courts. The theological worldview—derived from the early Christian fear of Satan and reinforced by the great effort to reform and conform that began in 1050—was intensified again by the fears and animosities engendered by the Reformation of the 16th century. The Protestant Reformation and Catholic Counter-Reformation heightened the fear of witchcraft by promoting the idea of personal piety (the individual alone with his or her Bible and God), which enhanced individualism while downplaying community. The emphasis on personal piety exacerbated the rigid characterization of people as either “good” or “bad.” It also aggravated feelings of guilt and the psychological tendency to project negative intentions onto others. Moreover, just as the growth of literacy and of reading the Bible helped spread dissent, so did they provoke resistance and fear. Sermons and didactic treatises, including “devil books” warning of Satan’s power, spread both the terror of Satan and the corresponding frantic need to purge society of him. Both Protestants and Catholics were involved in the prosecutions, as the theology of the Protestant Reformers on the Devil and witchcraft was virtually indistinguishable from that of the Catholics. More differences existed among Protestants and among Catholics than between the two religious groups, and regions in which Protestant-Catholic tensions were high did not produce significantly more trials than other regions.

    Because accusations and trials of witches took place in both ecclesiastical and secular courts, the law played at least as important a role as religion in the witch hunts. Local courts were more credulous and therefore more likely to be strict and even violent in their treatment of supposed witches than were regional or superior courts. Crude practices such as pricking witches to see whether the Devil had desensitized them to pain; searching for the “devil’s mark,” an oddly-shaped mole or wart; or “swimming” (throwing the accused into a pond; if she sank, she was innocent because the water accepted her) occurred on the local level. Where central authority—i.e., bishops, kings, or the Inquisition—was strong, convictions were fewer and sentences milder. Ecclesiastical and civil authorities usually tried to restrain witch trials and rarely manipulated witch hunts to obtain money or power.


    The witch executions occurred in the early modern period, the time in Western history when capital punishment and torture were most widespread. Judicial torture, happily in abeyance since the end of the Roman period, was revived in the 12th and 13th centuries; other brutal and sadistic tortures occurred but were usually against the law. Torture was not allowed in witch cases in Italy or Spain, but where used it often led to convictions and the identification of supposed accomplices. The latter was the greatest evil of the system, for a victim might be forced to name acquaintances, who were in turn coerced into naming others, creating a long chain of accusations. Witch trials were equally common in ecclesiastical and secular courts before 1550, and then, as the power of the state increased, they took place more often in secular ones.

    Among the main effects of the papal judicial institution known as the Inquisition was in fact the restraint and reduction of witch trials that resulted from the strictness of its rules. It investigated whether the charges resulted from personal animosity toward the accused; it obtained physicians’ statements; it did not allow the naming of accomplices either with or without torture; it required the review of every sentence; and it provided for whipping, banishment, or even house arrest instead of death for first offenders. Like the Inquisition, the Parlement of Paris (the supreme court of northern France) severely restrained the witch hunts. After an outbreak of hunts in France in 1587–88, increasingly skeptical judges began a series of restraining reforms marked by the requirement of “obligatory appeal” to the Parlement in cases of witchcraft, making accusations even more expensive and dangerous.

    The decline of witch hunts, like their origins, was gradual. By the late 16th century, many prosperous and professional people in western Europe were accused, so that the leaders of society began to have a personal interest in checking the hunts. The legal use of torture declined in the 17th and 18th centuries, and there was a general retreat from religious intensity following the wars of religion (from the 1560s to 1640s). The gradual demise during the late 17th and early 18th century of the previous religious, philosophical, and legal worldview encouraged the ascendancy of an existent but often suppressed skepticism; increasing literacy, mobility, and means of communication set the stage for social acceptance of this changing outlook.


    Nevertheless, the reasons for the decline in the witch hunts are as difficult to discern as the reasons for their origins. The theory best supported by the evidence is that the increasing power of the centralized courts such as the Inquisition and the Parlement acted to begin a process of “decriminalization” of witchcraft. These courts reduced the number of witch trials significantly by 1600, half a century before legal theory, legislation, and theology began to dismiss the notion of witchcraft in France and other countries.

    Explanations of the witch hunts continue to vary, but recent research has shown some of these theories to be improbable or of negligible value. Most scholars agree that the prosecutions were not driven by political or gender concerns; they were not attacks on backward, or rural, societies; they did not function to express or relieve local tensions; they were not a result of the rise of capitalism or other macroeconomic changes; they were not the result of changes in family structure or in the role of women in society; and they were not an effort by cultural elites to impose their views on the populace. Moreover, the evidence does not indicate a close correlation between socioeconomic tension and witchcraft, though agrarian crises seem to have had some effect.

    One of the most important aspects of the hunts remains unexplained. No satisfactory explanation for the preponderance of women among the accused has appeared. Although the proportions varied according to region and time, on the whole about three-fourths of convicted witches were female. Women were certainly more likely than men to be economically and politically powerless, but that generalization is too broad to be helpful, for it holds true for societies in periods where witchcraft is absent. The malevolent sorcery more often associated with men, such as harming crops and livestock, was rarer than that ascribed to women. Young women were sometimes accused of infanticide, but midwives and nurses were not particularly at risk. Older women were more frequently accused of casting malicious spells than were younger women, because they had had more time to establish a bad reputation, and the process from suspicion to conviction often took so long that a woman might have aged considerably before charges were actually advanced. Although many witchcraft theorists were not deeply misogynist, many others were, notably the authors of the infamous Malleus maleficarum. Resentment and fear of the power of the “hag,” a woman released from the constraints of virginity and then of maternal duties, has been frequently described in Mediterranean cultures. Folklore and accounts of trials indicate that a woman who was not protected by a male family member might have been the most likely candidate for an accusation, but the evidence is inconclusive. Children were often accusers (as they were at Salem), but they were sometimes also among the accused. Most accused children had parents who had been accused of witchcraft.


    In the long run it may be better simply to describe the witch hunts than to try to explain them, since the explanations are so diverse and complicated. Yet one general explanation is valid: the unique character of the witch hunts was consistent with the prevailing worldview of intelligent, educated, experienced people for more than three centuries.

    Contemporary witchcraft
    Wicca is a predominantly Western movement whose followers practice witchcraft and nature worship and who see it as a religion based on pre-Christian traditions of northern and western Europe. Adherents of Wicca worship the Goddess, honour nature, practice ceremonial magic, invoke the aid of deities, and celebrate Halloween, the summer solstice, and the vernal equinox. A parallel movement, Neo-Paganism, also worshipped the Goddess and practiced witchcraft but eschewed the designation witch. As the 21st century began, Wiccans and Neo-Pagans were found throughout the English-speaking world and across northern and western Europe. Estimates of the number of adherents ranged dramatically, with the number of Wiccans in the United States believed to be between 100,000 and more than 1.5 million. The rise of Wicca and Neo-Paganism is due in part to increasing religious tolerance and syncretism, a growing awareness of the symbolism of the unconscious, the retreat of Christianity, the popularity of fantasy and science fiction, the growth of feminism, the ascendancy of deconstructionist and relativist theory, and an increasing emphasis upon individuality and subjectivity. Most modern Neo-Pagans, distrustful of the demands of traditional religions, eschew doctrine or creed and engage in the ritual expression of “symbolic and experiential” meanings. Although Neo-Paganism incorporates the emotional involvement and ritual practices associated with religion into its tradition, many Neo-Pagans prefer to think of themselves as practicing magic rather than religion. Both Wiccans and Neo-Pagans also have strong ecological and environmental concerns and celebrate the change of seasons with elaborate rituals.