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Witchcraft is the practice of what the practitioner ("witch") believes to be supernatural skills and abilities, such as the casting of spells and the performance of magical rituals. Historically, witches have been commonly blamed to use supernatural means to cause harm such as the death of a child, bad harvests, or the death of cattle ... . But witchcraft is not necessarily sorcery and can be beneficial and often refer nowadays to benign, positive, or neutral metaphysical practices, such as divination, meditation, or self-help techniques found in the modern Pagan and New Age movements.
The Babylonians and Assyrians believed that myriads of evil spirits or devils hovered about the face of the earth and caused all the evils of humanity; and that there was a special class of these malignant beings who moved about at night, inspired bad dreams, and even sucked the blood of sleepers. This belief in … Read more
Witch hunts still occur today. Africa Witch-hunts against children were reported by the BBC in 1999 in the Congo and in Tanzania, where the government responded to attacks on women accused of being witches for having red eyes. A lawsuit was launched in 2001 in Ghana, where witch-hunts are also common, by a woman accused … Read more
During the early Middle Ages, the Church did not conduct witch trials. The Council of Paderborn in 785 explicitly outlawed the very belief in witches, and Charlemagne later confirmed the law. Among Eastern Christians belief in witchcraft was regarded as deisdemonia—superstition—and by the 9th and 10th centuries in the West, belief in witchcraft had begun … Read more
Initially, the Church had not considered witchcraft to be heresy, but this changed in 1320, when Pope John XXII authorized the Inquisition, an organization designed to root out heresy, to persecute witchcraft as well. This marked the beginning of a period of witch-hunts which lasted about 200 years, and in some countries, particularly in North-Western … Read more
The phrase “the burning times” was introduced in reference to the European and North American witch trials by Gerald Gardner in 1954 in his book Witchcraft Today. Gardner claimed he had discovered an Old Religion based on an ancient tradition of witchcraft; the “burning times” were its period of greatest persecution, and a major reason … Read more
Ever since the ending of the Witch Hunt, various scholars have estimated how many men, women and children were executed for witchcraft across Europe and North America, with numbers varying wildly depending on the method used to generate the estimate. In the 19th century, historians were still unsure as to the exact number, for instance … Read more
Doctor John (also called Bayou John and Jean Montaigne) was a free black man and a hougan who owned slaves in New Orleans. Doctor John claimed he was a prince in his homeland of Senegal, sent into slavery by the Spaniards and taken to Cuba. There he became an excellent cook and convinced his master … Read more
Old George Pickingill (1816–1909) was a legendary English Cunning Man and a controversial figure to many contemporary Witches. According to the English folklorist Eric maples, Old George Pickingill claimed to be descended from a line of hereditary witches dating back to the 11th century. He was born in 1816, the oldest of nine children to … Read more