Talk:Witchcraft/Archive 3

additional material
I find it surprising that this article does not reference any of the work done by Keith Thomas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.235.145.143 (talk) 13:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, there are plenty of really good sources available, but hardly anyone seems to look further than Ronald Hutton. I've been intending to make some improvements to this article for a long time, probably mainly relying on Eva Pocs, Carlo Ginzburg, E. William Monter, Bengt Ankarloo and so on, since I don't actually own a copy of Thomas' Religion and the Decline of Magic, but if you have access to the book, then why not be bold and start to add some info from him yourself? I've been meaning to improve this article for years (literally!), but I can't see much free time opening up in the near future. We'd love your help... Fuzzypeg★ 05:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

New material includes links to sources.24.168.227.29 21:29, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Linda Blair entry - funny, but this isn't the place... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.189.143.237 (talk) 20:00, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Suggestion
Do we need an "overview" section? The introduction should be the overview. I suggest removing "==Overview==" header to merge it with the intro. Totnesmartin 21:56, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Add "Critical resources" section
Any objections to adding a "Critical resources" section with the following link?: Thanks for your input. --Sdiekmann 16:55, 20 September 2007 (UTC)
 * A review of Bible verses prohibiting witchcraft, sorcery, and divination


 * Not entirely convinced about the quality of the translations in the NASB. Someone who "divines by spirits" is not really the same thing as a spiritist or medium, for instance... But that's OK. Now, we already have sections regarding witchcraft as addressed in the old and new testaments. Try improving these sections first, and if it expands large enough to warrant its own section, we can split it out. One approach might be to add a couple more particularly relevant examples of biblical prohibitions against witchcraft, and include a link to that page in the reference.
 * What would be really good, though, is if you could find some discussion and interpretation of these verses by a notable church person, or even better, a range of views. There's only so far we can go with listing quotes from the Bible. Fuzzypeg ☻ 22:26, 20 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestions. I'll see what I can come up with.  --Sdiekmann 02:34, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I was wandering if the central image associated with Witchcraft could be modernised. It doesn't paint a pretty picture so to speak, and the development from origins has been great, I think more up to date representation could be used as the representative. The reason is that I have come from Facebook, or which the image is centrally associated and find it offensive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 123.200.219.93 (talk) 06:26, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Majority of accused were women
I've just added this statement back to the article. Old discussion around this between me and User:DreamGuy can be found at Talk:Witchcraft/Archive 2. Barstow estimates 80% of accused and 85% of executed were women; Gibbons estimates 75-80% of accused were women. If anyone wants to remove this statement again, please provide concrete references rather than vague gestures at "the authors I've read", and we can argue it out. Fuzzypeg ☻ 22:24, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

You'd think with the popular book Malleus Maleficarum in the medieval period, and how the church believed in general, because of Eve, that women were more prone to sin than the superior man was, would be enough proof that women were more likely thought of as witches & executed for it than men. Lets not include most depictions of medieval witches are very much female. Xuchilbara (talk) 00:32, 28 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Yes, and of course now that the documented witch trials are being analysed, it's possible to make some good guesses at the actual statistics.  Fuzzypeg  talk 02:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

witches
okay are witches real or fake i want u to discusses in this with a friend or a family memberso thats the big talk and even though it's not big trust me it is and who knows u could find out that your friend is a witch —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.17.189.192 (talk) 04:46, 16 February 2008 (UTC)


 * This type of question belongs in a place like Yahoo! Answers, not here. However, you are certainly welcome to read the article; that might answer your question. Elle (talk) 05:27, 27 February 2008 (UTC)

I belive that no site can explain if witchcraft is real or not because some sites say it is real and some say its not,Sounds reasonable. Read the history section in a library. --Condolence "(talk)" 03:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Witches are not a myth at all. Witchcraft is a very real religion just like Christianity or Judaism. The religion most Witches belong to is Wicca, a feminist, nature-oriented, very misunderstood religion based on the Old Religion of ancient Europe. But I agree with Seaj11, this is not the place for a discussion on whether Witches are a myth or not. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.191.78.254 (talk) 17:10, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

"most Witches belong to Wicca" is incorrect, Witchcraft and Wicca are not synonymous nor interchangeable and there was no "Old Religion" of ancient Europe. There are non-Wiccan witches and Wiccan witches, and a considerable amount of Witches are non-Wiccan. Unless you have numbers saying otherwise. 24.12.78.197 (talk) 04:36, 8 December 2009 (UTC)K.W.

Haha old religion of Europe could apply to many, as it wasn't centered (and the fact that Romans at one point controlled "Ancient Europe." But yeah I agree Wicca and other Witch-based (or pagan or nature etc.) religions are just that: religions. I mean you could say that magic isn't real and stuff, but the existence of people claiming to be witches (as a religion) is true. 69.85.153.126 (talk) 04:50, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

witches are real but not in the terms that most people think of them. we use magick but not like making red sparkes flying out of finger tips or flying and all that others stuff there are wiccan witches as sinebot said but all the witches i know ( around 10) practice somthing of a mixture of similar religions one worships hindu gods another worsips pan as the oak king hades as lord of shadows aapollo as god of the sun artimas as the maiden and hera as the mother i am not sure who she worships as the crone but i practice under a modifyed version of the wiccan rede paganism witchcraft and alcamey. we have magick but it is less obvious. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.87.224 (talk) 19:41, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

New bunch of witchcraft-related articles
Hello folks, just wanted to highlight some contributions by an enthusiastic new editor. This talk page seemed the most obvious place to put this, as I know there are a lot of people with this on their watchlists. While I don't want to discourage an obviously keen contributor, I was just a little concerned that the large number and similar nature of these articles is a source of worry to me: I'm not sure what the answer is (or even if I need to be worried!) but thought I'd ask for some community feedback as a first step. Kim Dent-Brown  (Talk)  17:06, 24 February 2008 (UTC)


 * notability is not established, nor is the suggested difference from the (wide, fuzzy) field of Wicca. 13:11, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

--- HI guys, not sure what Im doing but as a Greenwitch PLEASE do not delete that new stuff or put it with Wicca. I am a witch, not a Wiccan, there IS a difference! I'd love to see the contemporary witchcraft stuff be kept and added to, please do not delete it! - A concerned Witch. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.70.147.38 (talk) 23:36, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

HUH? I'd really like it if you guys at least explained what we do wrong if we do something wrong and what the right thing to do is!!!!! Not everyone is good with comuters you know! PS Hedgewitches and Greenwitches and such are all different and valid paths! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.70.147.38 (talk) 23:39, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Versnel qoute
I've removed the following quote from the article:
 * H. S. Versnel writes: "Anthropologists in particular have argued that no meaningful contrast between religion and magic can be gained from this approach and that our notion 'magic' is a modern-western biased construct which does not fit representations of other cultures."

...since it's missing the required context to explain what he's talking about. The point it seems intended to make in the article is that magic and religion have no distinct boundary, but that's not exactly what Versnel is saying. He's saying that the Frazerian hard distinction between magic and religion based on intentions and methods has fallen out of favour, but that he still finds useful distinctions can be drawn between the two. Little of this is conveyed by the quote, and it might be possible to expand the segment so it better explains his point, but I'm not even sure whether that point needs to be made. If someone else feels they want to work this in to the article, go for it. Fuzzypeg★ 21:30, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

maleus maleficrum
This is the best known (i.e., the most infamous) of the witch-hunt manuals. Written in Latin, the Malleus was first submitted to the University of Cologne on May 9th, 1487. The title is translated as "The Hammer of Witches". Written by James Sprenger and Henry Kramer (of which little is known), the Malleus remained in use for three hundred years. It had tremendous influence in the witch trials in England and on the continent. This translation is in the public domain. The Malleus was used as a judicial case-book for the detection and persecution of witches, specifying rules of evidence and the canonical procedures by which suspected witches were tortured and put to death. Thousands of people (primarily women) were judically murdered as a result of the procedures described in this book, for no reason than a strange birthmark, living alone, mental illness, cultivation of medicinal herbs, or simply because they were falsely accused (often for financial gain by the accuser). The Malleus serves as a horrible warning about what happens when intolerence takes over a society. Although the Malleus is manifestly a document which displays the cruelty, barbarism, and ignorance of the Inquisition, it has also been interpreted as evidence of a wide-spread subterranean pagan tradition which worshiped a pre-Christian horned deity, particularly by

Something needs to be added
I believe there needs to be something added to the witchcraft page. How can I post it without getting into trouble? What I belive needs to be added: Witchcraft applies to both women and men but the term witch means a woman with powers. A wizard is a male with powers. If it hasn't already been added or needs to be added can I add it? --Condo lence  08:01, 27 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Have you read the third paragraph of the article? It's not true that the term witch means a woman with 'powers'; it can equally mean a man, and there have been many examples of men either being accused of being 'witches' or claiming to be 'witches', both historically and in the current day. The only reason why people think of witches as female is because there were more women than men accused of witchcraft, and the stereotypical witch in fairy stories is female. In our 'enlightened' age people think of witches as the characters in fairy stories rather than as real people, and they look no further than the fairy story stereotypes.
 * A 'wizard' is a slightly different stereotype with different connotations, and it's not simply the masculine corollary of a witch. I think the article is fine as it stands, in regards to explanations of witchcraft and gender. Fuzzypeg★ 21:50, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

I disagree. I read in a webster's dictionary on the term witch. It said: Witch- a woman with powers and is believed to assosiate with the devil. Then i looked up wizard: wizard- a man with powers. Men were accused for doing witchcraft for revenge or simply because someone didn't like someone. When it comes to cartoons and when men are into witchcraft they are called wizards. Look at all the websites about witches, they will all be women. But if you look at the websites about witchcraft it'll have men and women.

Every book I seen on witches had women on it. The movie the craft had women witches not men. in old times i assure you that women were considered witches and men considered wizards. Most people i asked said the same.--Condo lence  18:30, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * For a start, I can assure you Websters dictionary didn't say that; they have some understanding of grammar! Try looking it up again: witch and wizard.
 * You will notice that they say a witch is especially a woman (which is exactly what this article says, discussing stereotypes), but they do not say that witches are exclusively women: "one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers": "one" means a person. That is, man, woman or child. Or possibly a ghost or some other supernatural entity. Whatever.
 * Another point is, you say men were accused of witchcraft just because someone didn't like them. How do you know? And how do you know it's any different with women?
 * Another point: you say you're getting your information from cartoons and popular movies and "people you asked". No wonder you're barking up the wrong tree. You're seeing exactly the stereotype "witch" that I talked about in my previous comment. I see images on television of arrogant American idiots carving up foreign countries to suit their own greed all the time, and some of the people I talk to think that Americans are all arrogant and ignorant. But that's the stereotype, not the reality, and I know plenty of Americans who prove it wrong. We can't go around believing fantasy stereotypes.
 * When talking about real people (historical or current-day) claiming to work magic, cast spells and so on, or accused of doing so, there are a few terms that regularly come up. One is 'witch', and this applies equally to men and women. In Scotland they sometimes used the term 'warlock' for male witches, but these were still technically 'male witches'. In the field of anthropology, the common term used to be 'witch' (for men and women), but it is now more common to talk about 'sorcerers' and 'sorceresses'. It is only when we get to a quite specific area of English witchcraft that we start to find the terms "cunning man", "cunning woman", "wise woman", "wizard", "girdle-measurer" and so on. Of these terms "cunning man" and "cunning woman" were most common, but it was also common practice to call them 'witches', again men as well as women. See Alan Macfarlane Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England appendix 2 for a discussion of the names given to magic workers in England.
 * That term 'wizard' (wise-ard) has entered popular imagination largely as the fictitious stereotype of a T. H. White Merlin-type figure with a staff and a wide-brimmed pointy blue hat with silver stars and moons on it. It is uncommon nowadays for anyone to call themselves (or any other non-fictitious person) a wizard. It is only normal in children's stories for wizards to be seen as the counterparts of witches. Fuzzypeg★ 01:15, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

(Insert Note: "warlock" is indeed a Scottish term, but it in its original usage, it meant "oath-breaker.) Wolfpeaceful (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 18:07, 19 August 2009 (UTC).

In the movie's of Harry potter, the teacher's (staff) use the terms Wizard and Witch. In all movie's i've seen a witch is always a woman, and a man is always a man. The terms Witch and Wizard define if an individual thats into witchcraft is a man or a woman. Everyone I know thinks of a witch is a woman and a wizard of a man. The terms wizard has been used long before this time. You know the story about King Author, the wizard in it Was a man. Or how about The wizard of Oz. Also a man. The witch in the wizard of Oz was a woman. --L Condolence _ 23:04, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

I don't mean to be rude, but please! You are getting your information from popular movies and Harry Potter books! These are works of fiction, not valid sources! The Craft's Witchcraft is fiction made up of a combination of mythology, stereotypes, and common misconceptions, while Harry Potter is a fictional creation derived from a variety of myths and the author's imagination. And everyone you know seems to be under a popular misconception. A "Witch" is a person, man or woman, who practices magic through rituals such as herbalism, candle magic and invoking deities. A "wizard" is a mythological person who practices magic that defies or manipulates the laws of nature. It is true that in fiction, a wizard is usually a man, but this is fiction. I do not know of any people calling themselves wizards today, but i do know many people, both male and female, who live in the modern world and call themselves Witches.

If men can be witches, then why is Wicca a woman based religion? Come on, sure there have been men considered witches, but the terms today (as Websters and most would consider) is that witches are women. Honestly, the amount in history, fiction, and popular culture vastly engulfs the amount of males called witches instead of wizards or warlocks or sorcerers. I guess if religiously a man CAN become a witch, then it should be both, but nowadays I'm unsure if pagan religions would even consider him as such. That would end the argument.69.85.153.126 (talk) 04:56, 21 December 2009 (UTC)


 * why is Wicca a woman based religion? In a nutshell, it isn't.--Vidkun (talk) 23:43, 21 December 2009 (UTC)

Has Anyone Heard of a Book Of Shadows,If so please reply!!
Bold text

Anyone who has heard of it reply... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.38.79.69 (talk) 22:47, 1 May 2008 (UTC)

At your service. A book of shadows or B.O.S is a book that a practitioner uses to write down spells or information on the practice. Maybe someone else can give you a better description. --Condo lence  18:14, 3 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Here's an entire article on it: Book of Shadows. Fuzzypeg★ 01:17, 16 May 2008 (UTC)

Witchcraft the religion
This is what I am frequently told by Neopagans who want to label their religion this, when its a broad term. Appearently, they have not read the historical references to witchcraft and are not aware that witchcraft usually refers to harmful magic. Furthermore they seem to believe magic equals religion, when no ancient "pagan" religion, culture, nor academic definition fits this.(I could cite god upon god myths from various religions that reflect that magic does not equal religion and is more of a "tool".) I think this should possibly be stated in the article, about the stark contrast between Neopagan definition and the academic.

I'm also very unsure of the section of Polytheistic reconstructionism. Many recons reject Neopaganism and the labels, calling oneself a "witch" and using "witchcraft" would just not be common practice. I know of no recon that does this, or tries to reconstruct any form of witchcraft. Xuchilbara (talk) 00:29, 23 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Re the first point: I think the article actually makes the difference between historical and neopagan definitions of witchcraft explicit. If you think that neopagans are incorrect to label their religion as witchcraft, and can find a reliable source whom you can cite in support of this, go ahead.


 * I have more sympathy on the reconstructionism front. My understanding of this is that it seeks to revive historically existing religions such as the faiths practiced by the Romans or Norse. I don't know of any historically existing witchcraft religion, and therefore there can be no reconstruction of one! How do you suggest we amend this section? Kim Dent-Brown  <font face="century gothic" size="1" color="#0E6E2D">(Talk)  06:14, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * To interject, you might want to check out Völva and, afterwards, Seid. Both are integral elements of the society of the pre-Christian Germanic peoples; the Anglo-Saxon equivalent being the ultimate origin of our term "Witch" from surviving elements of Anglo-Saxon paganism. bloodofox: (talk) 11:21, 23 May 2008 (UTC)

If we have some good references, especially on the Seid part we may be able to expand the section. Xuchilbara (talk) 18:57, 23 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I believe that's a point that Ronald Hutton makes in Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles, that no historical pagan religion blurs the distinction between religion and magic. Don Frew countered with the obvious example of classical Theurgy (though there are plenty of other good examples)(Frew, Ethnologies issue 1, Canadian Folklore Society), which was eventually accepted by Hutton (in Triumph of the Moon) despite initially kicking up a huge fuss and rather vilifying (through misrepresentation) poor Frew (Hutton "Paganism and Polemic" in Folklore journal). In Witches, Druids and King Arthur Hutton actually devotes a substantial number of pages (starting about p. 100) to discussing Theurgy and its blurring of religion and magic, and even credits Frew for having alerted him to the idea! (or maybe that credit was in Truimph; can't remember.) Unfortunately, Hutton makes a number of false starts with his history of magic; he does better on the front of popular literature and culture. Of course magic does not equal religion, but let's not imply from that that there was never a close relationship between the two.
 * Regarding 'witchcraft' usually referring to harmful magic, that's a bit misleading. It wasn't uncommon for it to refer to beneficent magic. Witchcraft was certainly illegal, and any such art, for the purposes of healing or harming, was (in theory) dealt with equally by the courts: regardless of its supposed purpose it came from Satan and was evil. Early accounts of accused witches generally indicate more benevolent than malevolent intentions; the stories of roasting babies, kissing the devil's arse, sinking ships and stealing men's potency increased as the sabbath stereotype became entrenched in Europe, and particularly as torture began to be more extensively used. Even still, the term 'witch' retained an element of ambivalence. Alan Macfarlane gives a good explanation of the application of the terms 'witch' and 'witchcraft' in Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England Appendix 2. Basically, 'witch' or 'white witch' remained common terms for beneficent cunning folk, even despite the awful legal implications overhanging the term.
 * 'Witch' is an English term, and in England it was widely used for cunning folk, those who were not malevolent, and indeed were mostly God-fearing Christians...
 * ...And this brings us back to that other point about examples of magic blurring with religion. Many of these cunning folk who had interactions with the fairies and familiars also reported interactions with angels or other divine beings: there was often a strong element of religiosity to their beliefs and experiences. One example is Andro Man and the angel Christsonday who appeared to him. See Emma Wilby's Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits for more examples. Looking further afield across Europe we find people like the benandanti, the călusari and a Livonian 'werewolf' all claiming that they fought magically for the fertility of the land as part of a divine calling: they had been called on by God to do His work. The church-men who interrogated them were clearly mystified by this, yet these folk-sorcerers proudly stuck by their guns, totally convinced of their divine mandate.
 * I realise the Witchcraft article is currently lacking a lot of this information, but I'm a busy man and I haven't had a chance to devote the time it deserves... But I suggest you have some more reading to do before you draw conclusions about the lack of precedence for anything resembling religious witchcraft... Fuzzypeg★ 04:50, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Is this article saying that Witchcraft is "real"?
Is this article neutral in its presentation? Although Witchcraft has been seen has "real" in the middle ages and up to the 1700's can the article's presentation of Witchcraft practices has real be taken seriously?! Example: If a nutter turns up a Witchfest festival with the intention of killing the attendees with a claw hammer, will the attendees stop the attacker using their "witchcraft"? No of course not. Can the practices be wordrd a bit more pragmatically to ensure its neutral and not POV please? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.170.24.217 (talk) 17:08, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * See Requests for arbitration/Paranormal and Requests for arbitration/Paranormal. As long as the lead of the article frames the epistemological status sufficiently, we don't need to go overboard with the rest of the article. I'll have a quick look at the lead and see if anything needs improving. Remember, we don't want to insult our readers' intelligence by spoon-feeding them.
 * Oh, and your example to demonstrate the unreality of witchcraft relies of a pretty naive conception of what magic (or witchcraft) is. It also assumes that all attendees at a witchfest would be competent witches, which is unrealistic. But for this scenario, lets say they were: then sure they'd try to stop him with their 'witchcraft', whether that involved talking to him or smashing him over the head with a rock. But more likely the attack simply wouldn't happen, because if it did, that would be an indication that something had already gone very wrong. Fuzzypeg★ 22:47, 15 June 2008 (UTC)


 * The lead uses the terms 'magic' and 'paranormal', either of which is regarded as providing adequate epistemological framing. If our readers can't follow this, then they're probably incapable of understanding any of the rest of the article! Fuzzypeg★ 23:15, 15 June 2008 (UTC)

Witchcraft is real. You don't have to believe that Witches are actually capable of doing magic, but it cannot be denied that there is a community of people who define their religion as Witchcraft or Wicca and who believe that they are practicing magic. This cannot be denied anymore than it can be denied that Christianity "exists". If as you say this article is saying that Witchcraft exists, it is perfectly neutral as it is simply presenting an accurate if little-known fact. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.191.78.254 (talk) 17:33, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

What about the belief that technology or certain/various modern inventions are actually witchcraft or synthetic witchcraft? Surely lasers, and microwaves are magic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 156.34.180.13 (talk) 15:52, 23 July 2009 (UTC)
 * By definition magic and scientific discovery are at odds - magic is supernatural and thus can't be studied; lasers and microwaves can because they work within the laws of nature. -<font color="32CD32">Jeremy <font color="4682B4">(v^_^v Tear him for his bad verses!) 02:10, 25 July 2009 (UTC)

Gray magic article
I know the article will be deleted,Due to lack of info, but I thought i would come here for assistance to improve the article.--<font color="blue" style="border:1px solid blue" face="comic sans ms">Condalence <font color="white" face="wingdings" style="background:blue">( 01:56, 22 June 2008 (UTC)

Witchcraft not synonymous with sorcery
The terms 'witch' and 'witchcraft' have complex histories and connotations in a number of different fields, and there is no other word that shares all of these connotations. 'Sorcery' is another word describing the use of magic, as are 'wizardry', 'magery', 'magic', 'conjuration' and 'enchantment', but none of these have the same precise set of meanings. I have therefore removed the statement from the lead that 'sorcery' is often seen as the same thing.

In anthropological terminology a sorcerer employs ritual tools and actions to effect maleficium, while a witch does not; her/his maleficium comes not from any ritual actions but from an indwelling evil quality. Often someone accused of 'witchcraft' (the anthropologists' term, not generally the term used in the culture being observed) is not even aware of being a 'witch'.

In historical terminology a sorcerer is one who performs magic, and it has a darker connotation than 'magician'; there were those magicians who worked with 'natural magic', which they claimed was perfectly fine, since it was only effective through the power of God, and by the will of God. All magic eventually became frowned upon, but the term 'magician' tends to have preserved more of its beneficent sense, linked with these forms of high magic (and stage magic), while terms like 'sorcerer' are much more ambivalent. Sorcerers were seen as receiving their powers from the Devil, like witches, but the word 'sorcery' hasn't accumulated those other parts of the witchcraft stereotype: the witches' sabbath, flying on broomsticks, mostly women, etc., etc.

The words 'witch' and 'witchcraft' have such complex connotations, intimately wound up in the history of the witch-trials, popular depictions and scholarly uses of the term, that I believe the most important purpose of this article is to explain that history and those connotations. Conflating it with sorcery in the first paragraph won't help. Fuzzypeg★ 05:04, 23 June 2008 (UTC)

indeed. witchcraft is maleficium specifically. This isn't a Christian invention in an attempt to discredit paganism, but an anthropological constant found in all cultures. The "re-claiming" of witch as a self-designation is a post-WWII phenomenon and needds to be discussed separately. --dab (𒁳) 10:46, 15 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Actually, I'm not entirely convinced by that. Talking about the English term witch puts us squarely in a British paradigm, although of course the English and Scots were strongly influenced by other concepts of maleficarium, hexe, brujeria and the like floating round on the continent. But the word witch in England was used not only for those accused of maleficium, but also for healers, diviners and cunning folk: "good witches", "white witches" or "unbinding witches". The most common use of the term was indeed the negative sense, and perhaps this is a result of the witch-craze and the overlaying of negative stereotypes onto a previously ambiguous word. That would appear to be the most obvious explanation, but I have no sources to support it. Regardless of this, though, the word always retained a degree of ambiguity. Keith Thomas discusses this ambiguity in Religion and the Decline of Magic, but I don't have the references at hand; Alan Macfarlane also discusses it in Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England in one of the appendices, I think appendix 2, and scatters examples of the more positive usage of the word "witch" throughout the rest of the text. Fuzzypeg★ 21:53, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * I've just seen your changes to the opening paragraph, and I submit that it's not that black and white. Not only in England but throughout Europe it was recognised that witches (by whatever regional name they were called) sometimes performed magic with positive intentions, and there was a whole area of demonological discussion around why such positively-intended acts were nonetheless the work of Satan. There was of course a bias towards interpreting any actions of a witch as evil, and the stereotype of the diabolical witches' sabbath with killing babies, kissing the devil's arse and so on took this to extremes. But the courts still had to deal with the practical realities of significant numbers of accused claiming they had done nothing wrong and indeed, had done good. Even in the eyes of the theologians and courts, witchcraft did not exclusively involve malicious acts, though all of course involved Satanic influence.
 * When you start comparing with other cultures ("all cultures", you say above) you run into the problem that all this terminology has been applied by anthropologists adopting E. Evans Pritchard's conventions. Individuals who correspond to certain types of English "witch" are not called "witch" in the anthropological literature, but may be called "sorcerer", "witch-doctor", "shaman" and so on. An anthropological "witch" is normally only ever a person who has been accused of evil magic without tangible evidence that they consciously performed such magic. This only really corresponds to Dashu's "neighbourhood witch" or "supernatural witch". It corresponds with only the third of Kieckhefer's 3 categories. If your comparison of cultures uses a broader definition of "witch", corresponding with the "witches" discussed by Macfarlane, Pocs and the rest, then the "anthropological constant" of maleficium disappears. Fuzzypeg★ 22:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)
 * In absence of any response I'm going to try to improve the wording of the lead section to reflect the wider usage of the word 'witch'. Fuzzypeg★ 04:18, 28 October 2008 (UTC)

Ælfric
This text, translated by the Anglo-Saxon scholar Audrey L. Meaney, is the only properly sourced translation I could find of this passage. It is referred to by Sarah Semple (see citation) in the same context as in the text. This passage replaces a previous translation of the same passage, which gave neither the references from Ælfric nor a source for the translation. Please do not remove it. Additional references to Meaney can be found in the book Superstition and Popular Medicine in Anglo-Saxon England, edited by D. G. Scragg, (1989) which includes an article by her entitled "Women, Witchcraft and Magic in Anglo-Saxon England". Thanks, Mathsci (talk) 13:13, 25 July 2008 (UTC)

New material
I've been meaning to give this article an overhaul for years, and now, being home sick from work, I've made a start. Mainly I'm adding rather than removing material at the moment, and since the current sections aren't really laid out in a conducive manner, it may look a little funny for a while. Some of the themes previously covered in the article (but not clearly referenced) will probably change form a bit, since I'll have to reword them to follow the cited sources. Currently there's a strong influence of Neopagan witchcraft on much of the article, not obvious, but it seems to cause a bit of imbalance in some of the wording (and a preponderance on 'religious' witchcraft!); I'll try to get this better segregated and explained so the article is more neutral.

Another thing: I realise that I'm adding a fair bit of material relating to European witchcraft, and we have an article for that. The thing is, witchcraft, being an English word, is so caught up in European history and concepts that it's not at all easy to take the Euro-centrism out of it. Some of this info could possibly be reorganised into the other article once we see how things are taking shape, but in the mean time I'll be mainly working here.

Cheers all! Fuzzypeg★ 05:53, 11 September 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm back at work now, so my edits have slowed down a bit, but I think where it is now the article is at least coherent, so I'm happy to call that one completed block of work. It's not perfect, and if anyone wants to help improve it, go for it. My vision for this article is that it explain the diverse meanings the word "witchcraft" has had in different ages and disciplines, giving a sense of where and how these meanings arose; and what the current meanings are. The word covers several quite distinct concepts, which is why I put the "Types of witchcraft" section near the top.
 * I intend to continue expanding some of the new sections and adding more supporting references to give a broad view of current academic scholarship. Fuzzypeg★ 06:25, 15 September 2008 (UTC)

"Wizards"
I removed a sentence in the lead that read 'There are also such people called "wizards", who have equal powers to witches, but are male.' I did this for several reasons:


 * 1) The way this was worded, it effectively asserted the factual existence of "wizards" with "powers", certainly a controversial claim.
 * 2) The way this was positioned, it effectively claimed to cite it from a source that I sincerely doubt that the anonymous editor who added this without summary had consulted.
 * 3) The word "wizard" can have a range of meanings, and in present-day usage its use as a male equivalent of a specifically female word "witch" is not even the most common. I don't think the mention of the word "wizard" adds anything useful to the lead. The term is used later in the article, more or less in the way that I think it should be, relative to the topic. - Jmabel | Talk 06:44, 28 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Not to mentioned that it would need to be properly sourced. Sephiroth storm (talk) 21:08, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

"Good witches"
the confusion of healers or "cunning folk" with witches is entirely modern, and apparently a product of neopaganism. Historically, i.e. in any period prior to the 20th century, a witch is an evil magician, doing harmful magic. The rather dubious claims in this article that the witch-hunts were directed against "healers" in particular, even if true, simply establish that the accusations were false, i.e. that the people accused of witchcraft were not in fact witches. It doesn't show that there was such a thing as a "good witch", which prior to Murray was a contradiction in terms. We need to keep Romanticist/Neopagan speculation clearly distinct from the topic of witchcraft proper: it's got its own section and should be discussed there. If you consult MW s.v. "witch", Or, in the American Heritage Dictionary,
 * 1) one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers ; especially : a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar : sorceress — compare warlock
 * 2) an ugly old woman : hag
 * 3) a charming or alluring girl or woman
 * 4) a practitioner of Wicca
 * 1) A woman claiming or popularly believed to possess magical powers and practice sorcery.
 * 2) A believer or follower of Wicca; a Wiccan.
 * 3) A hag.
 * 4) A woman considered to be spiteful or overbearing.
 * 5) Informal A woman or girl considered bewitching.
 * 6) One particularly skilled or competent at one's craft: “A witch of a writer, [she] is capable of developing an intensity that verges on ferocity” (Peter S. Prescott).

this article is entirely about meaning (1), it is not about ugly old women, nor about alluring girls, nor about practicioners of Wicca. The "usually" is due to the Romanticist (pre-Wicca, 1830s-1920s) theories of a witch-cult, which should be addressed here, but also in a separate section.

dab (𒁳) 16:54, 14 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I don't know how I missed it, but someone's rearranged or removed large sections of carefully researched and written material I added a couple of months back, that explain the issue clearly. I'll try to fix this up again. Dbachmann, you're incorrect that there was no such thing as a "good witch" prior to Murray, and the relevant references will become available again if I can fix up the mess that's been made of this article. I particularly suggest you check Macfarlane, since he provides a good overview nicely packaged in a brief appendix. Fuzzypeg★ 03:31, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I see it was you who did this large-scale rearranging, and you don't seem to believe, or haven't checked, the references supplied in the article. I see you asked for some clarification in the Macfarlane reference, but I can't see what's unclear about it (please explain your query). You also have added your own (implied) assertion that in pre-modern English "witch" had an exclusively inimical meaning, and asserted (explicitly) that "good witches" are non-existent prior to the 19th century Witch-cult hypothesis, which is in direct contradiction of the cited sources, and for which you have offered no evidence. You seem to be pushing for a very black and white approach to what is really a very complex subject. That's the real problem with the term witchcraft, and why it has rather fallen out of favour with anthropologists: it has too many shades of meaning and its definition is not shared between disciplines. The approach I would like to take with this article is to explain the various meanings attached to the word by various historical groups and disciplines, and the major theories surrounding it, so that it can be better understood in all its uses. I don't want to see one person's (or group's) dogmatic definition of the word to dominate the article.
 * In your comment above, you mention the "confusion" between cunning folk and witches as being entirely modern. Well, check out two major works on cunning folk in England: Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England by Macfarlane and Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Wilby. They give clear evidence (as cited in the article) that "witches" were often cunning folk seen in a negative light. Eva Pocs finds exactly the same situation in Hungary. But that's all in the article, I see, so you could check this if you wanted...
 * Now, I don't like heading the section on mediators and healers "Good witches", since that indicates a polarisation that may not always have been present; also, many of these individuals, while not seen as specifically evil, were respected with an element of fear, for they were considered equally capable of cursing as of curing. I prefer to follow the literature and call them healers, mediators and seers, rather than "good witches", a phrase which could equally be a value judgement or the beginnings of a straw doll argument!
 * And finally, the dictionary definitions you supply: I don't think they say what you think they say: "one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers" (the word "usually" would not be there if exclusively malignant powers were intended!); and "A woman claiming or popularly believed to possess magical powers and practice sorcery" (this says nothing about good or bad). You also assert that this article is about only a single definition from each of these lists, but if you look at the history of the article this has not been the case: it has touched on a nuymber of meanings. I repeat, I don't want to see one person's (or group's) dogmatic definition of the word to dominate the article. We should reflect historic usage, academic usage in the various disciplines, and modern popular usage. Cheers, Fuzzypeg★ 04:26, 17 November 2008 (UTC)


 * Hmmm. And if you're not sure what I'm getting at with a particular reference, don't have access to it yourself, or anything like that, there's always the option of asking a question on the talk page here; it should be clear from the text that someone (me) has put significant effort into writing these sections, and might be a bit put out if they are significantly altered and rearranged simply because someone wasn't sure how to evaluate them. OK, I'll stop ranting, but lets discuss it before you make any other big changes, eh? Cheers, Fuzzypeg★ 04:35, 17 November 2008 (UTC)

I'll try to review your material with a little more sensitivity, Fuzzypeg, but I am afraid you are mistaken here. Witchcraft is, first and foremost, the notion of a supernatural threat in folk belief. A witch-hunt is an action triggered by such fears. Claiming that there is such a thing as a "good witch" is a misleading play on terminology, and as such a matter for disambiguation. The point is that this article is to be addressing a topic of anthropology (ethnology), not Neopaganism or fantasy literature. If we're going to fix ethnological sources with neopagan or literary discussions, the result will be a single confused mess. So ""witches" were often cunning folk seen in a negative light." -- well, yes, the significant bit here being "negative light". Calling a "cunning person" a witch implies the allegation that they are doing harmful magic. Now from the point of view of this cunning person this may be a true or a false allegation. If it is a false allegation, it's simply that, the allegation that somebody is trying to perform harmful magic (witchcraft) who is not in fact doing this. By no means does this translate to the claim that cunning people are "good witches". Please. --dab (𒁳) 17:26, 24 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm in full agreement that witchcraft usually has negative connotations. But sometimes it doesn't—and this is not a modern neopagan innovation. As Alan Macfarlane and Keith Thomas have both demonstrated, and as is discussed in the article, the term 'witch' was also used in a non-negative sense in early modern England, in the phrases "good witch", "unbinding witch", "white witch" or simply "witch". These terms were used to refer to cunning folk, and not just in the context of accusations of maleficium. This is not a "misleading play on terminology", but is consistent with both historical and contemporary use (as your dictionary citations demonstrate).
 * The notion of supernatural threat is an important one, and key to the anthropological use of the term, but the anthropological use is not the only one. The anthropological "witch" is a technical term with quite specific connotations, as described in the article. Keith Thomas in the 1970s, and other historians of European witchcraft since, have distanced themselves from that system of understanding. As Keith Thomas says,
 * "In general [...] the anthropological distinction between witchcraft and sorcery is of limited utility when applied to England. It can be said that the sorcerer used material objects, whereas the witch did not. But the presence or absence of magical techniques does not seem to have been of great concern to those who took part in the trials. [...] The historian cannot even say, with the anthropologist, that sorcerers existed, whereas witches were imaginary. For some of those accused of being witches really had tried to harm others by mere ill-wishing, unaccompanied by magical techniques. In intention, at least, witchcraft was not an impossible crime." (Thomas 1997 Religion and the Decline of Magic pp. 464-5)
 * Ankarloo and Henningsen put it more succinctly: "Sixteenth-century Europe was not an African village." (Intro to Early Modern European Witchcraft 1990, p. 14)
 * Since then an increasing amount of scholarship has considered witchcraft not just in terms of moral panic and attempts to explain misfortune, but in terms of conflict between belief systems: Christian orthodoxy on the one hand, and seership, magic and trance practices on the other (e.g. E. William Monter, Carlo Ginzburg, Gustav Henningsen, Emma Wilby, etc. etc.). It makes sense not to limit this article to the view prevalent in the 1970s (and still championed by some, such as Ronald Hutton), a view which Ankarloo and Henningsen characterise as a dogma. (their discussion of the "dogma of learned origins", Intro to EMEW)
 * Unfortunately the term "witchcraft" is a confused mess, but we won't be helping our readers if we ignore that fact and arbitrarily choose just one definition to present. Supernatural threat is a very important aspect of witchcraft, by most definitions, but there are other aspects. Fuzzypeg★ 01:33, 25 November 2008 (UTC)

I appreciate these points, and it was my intention to take this angle into account in the "good witches" section (which could also get a different title). I still get the impression that you are attempting to spin things, in the sense of making the usual appear marginal, and the marginal usual. If we can agree on the "usually" for now, the proper course is to write the article as addressing the "usual" concept, and include a section on "exceptional cases and minority views". Your quote regarding the "distinction between witchcraft and sorcery" isn't relevant here, since it doesn't distinguish harmful from helpful magic. Of course, both the sorcerer and the witch did harmful magic, while the neutral term would have bee "magician". Again, I appreciate your familiarity with the literature, but the problem appears to be that you are trying to employ this familiarity in order to twist the article to fit your ideology. I am not familiar with the works of E. William Monter, Carlo Ginzburg, Gustav Henningsen, Emma Wilby, "etc. etc." but it does appear significant that Ginzburg-Pócs regularly appear in the context of Neopagan pseudohistory. This may be through no fault of their own. --dab (𒁳) 17:00, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I'm really not trying to apply spin. I have read widely, trying to gauge what scholarly opinions really are regarding survivals of paganism. This was mainly in response to having read Ronald Hutton's Triumph, which I discovered took far from a consensus view. It's not surprising that I would try to flesh out an area that I feel is under-represented in popular opinion (largely formed from Hutton's books) and that I have some expertise in; however I really have tried not to over-egg the cake.
 * The "usual" case: there really isn't a "usual" case for the meaning of the word 'witch'; there are a number of different cases from different disciplines and different eras, and I'd like to explain each one, without giving undue preference to any meanings I'm personally fond of. If there is a "usual" case, it would be the witch of popular mythology, the "Wicked witch of the West", with a small side-credit to Glenda, the good witch of the north. Positive witchcraft is definitely the minority (though in practice, amongst those accused of witchcraft, positive or at least benign magic was probably at times the majority—such as in Hungary).
 * I was aware that quote I gave didn't distinguish positive from harmful; it was intended to show the rift between anthropological and European historiographical usage, and was followed by a list of authors who extend this rift by seeing witchcraft in terms of conflict between belief systems: a generally benign pre-Christian shamanistic belief system on the one hand, and Christianity on the other. I'm sorry for not making that more clear.
 * The neopagan "pseudohistory" you mention: if they've got as far as reading Ginzburg and Pocs, perhaps they're no longer in the realm of pseudohistory and are actually trying to base their information on solid research? Have you considered that? I find far too many people have read Hutton alone, and consider themselves fully informed, when that man gives us such whoppers as "only one mystery religion of the ancient world, that of Attis, centered around a dying and resurrected God"; "the Holy Royal Arch is the highest, most prestigious degree in Freemasonry"; "there was no Earth Mother in Mesopotamia or Anatolia"; "W B Yeats invented the Rose Cross"; and "Lucius Apuleius was unique amongst the ancients in portraying one goddess as the embodiment of all others". What I'm trying to do here is wrest history out of the hands of one man and put it back with scholarly consensus and the common range of scholarly opinions. Fuzzypeg★ 01:27, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

There is no evidence that witches or sorcerers did harmful magic. The evidence is that during the witch hunts the Christian church accused people who may or may not have been witches, good or bad, of practicing harmful magic. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.191.78.254 (talk) 17:37, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

"witchcraft, more broadly"
regarding the summary,
 * More broadly, the term witchcraft can also encompass beneficent or ambiguous magic such as that of healers and seers, and the diabolical stereotypes surrounding it are often corruptions of more benign pre-Christian beliefs regarding spirits and the "other-world". (Ginzburg 1990 Part 2, ch. 1, Pócs 1999 pp. 13-14)

--dab (𒁳) 17:13, 25 November 2008 (UTC)
 * if "witchcraft" can indeed "encompass beneficent or ambiguous magic", why aren't we treating this as a case for disambiguation, linking to magic (paranormal)?
 * "beneficent or ambiguous magic such as that of healers and seers" confusingly lumps "healers and seers" as one of a kind and implies they invoke "magic".
 * "diabolical stereotypes surrounding [witchcraft] are often corruptions of more benign pre-Christian beliefs regarding spirits and the other-world" -- this sounds like pure neopagan fantasy. the "diabolical stereotypes" are in fact continuations of "pre-Christian" diabolical stereotypes. The implication that belief in witchcraft was somehow introduced by Christianity is absurd. I would very much like to see exactly what claim of Ginzburg's and Pócs' this is based on, and if this should reflect these authors' opinions accurately, remove any hint of this is being stated in Wikipedia's voice. To the best of my knowledge, late medieval belief in witchcraft is considered a re-appearance of pagan beliefs, not an "inversion" of pagan beliefs.

excellent. So these are "new and amazing" breakthroughs of the 1990s. I do not contest that their subject matter is on topic here. The question is, what is their relative weight, how was Ginzburg's "hidden schamanistic culture" received over the past 18 years since he published this, and how did any of this affect the mainstream view of the topic. Remembering, of course, that Wikipedia is supposed to give an account of mainstream opinion, with mentions of notable minority views, given weight relative to their respective notability.
 * Ginzburg (1990/2004) -- "compelling evidence of a hidden shamanistic culture that flourished across Europe and in England for thousands of years."
 * Pócs (1999) "New types of mediators are identified such as 'the neighborhood witch,' the healing witch, and the demons seen in dreams."

To avoid confusion: the point under scrutiny here isn't whether witchcraft has "pre-Christian roots". It does. The question is whether these roots were "more benign", i.e. whether Christianization has turned "good magic" into "evil magic". It appears the main contribution of Ginzburg was the discovery of the benandanti, establishing that there was an actual belief in (evil) witchcraft in the rural population. These benandanti weren't witches, they were combatting witches. Their "diabolical stereotypes" according to Ginzburg are by no means "corruptions of more benign pre-Christian beliefs", they much rather are themselves pre-Christian "shamanistic" beliefs. --dab (𒁳) 17:22, 25 November 2008 (UTC)


 * OK, you've raised a lot of concerns, and I'll try to address them one by one.


 * "A case for disambiguation"? We are trying to explain the term witchcraft, and turning it into a dab page wouldn't aid this explanation. Secondly, the phenomenon of witchcraft accusations and the folk beliefs that fed into these would not be sufficiently explained by a dab page. You are still labouring under the assumption that 'witchcraft' cannot mean anything other than evil magic and devil worship, and your suggestion of a dab page would be a way of segregating out any other meanings.
 * Healers and seers confusingly lumped together? This is a convention commonly employed in the historiography of European witchcraft. French and Swiss "white witches" are for example termed devins-guerisseurs (I think I spelt that correctly; "white witches" is Monter's term for them). Pocs more often uses the term "mediators", which I considered using, since it is more fully-encompassing, but it would require too much couching explanation. Magical healing and divining accord fairly well with the main activities identified by the literature on the subject.
 * The "pure neopagan fantasy" is actually a strong and well-regarded school of thought in witchcraft historiography. I can try to summarise the relevant points of Ginzburg's and Pocs' ideas, and perhaps a few others. Carlo Ginzburg wrote in the 60s about the benandanti, and then again in the late 80s about a large selection of similar groups and beliefs spread across Europe. He demonstrated a remarkable similarity between the beliefs and practises of these various groups (although in most cases it was unclear whether they ever physically met as groups, since their experiences were mostly described as out-of-body), and strong morphological links with folkloric themes such as nocturnal battles against evil spirits to secure fertile crops; leaving the body in the shape of an animal; attending feasts presided over by a mistress or goddess figure who taught magic and gave prophecies; the wild hunt; monosandalism and limping; killing and dismembering of animals before piling the bones back into the skin and resurrecting them; and others. These motifs he attempted to find the origins of, by tracing back through the archeological, historical and mythical records, and determined that they were extremely widespread (from Scotland to Bangladesh, Siberia to Japan!) and originated in shamanistic practices of central Eurasia. I understand that some of his peers feel he went too far out on a limb with some of his probings into the distant past, but his findings regarding medieval and early modern groups (or individuals) and their ecstatic practices are uncontroversial. In particular, his domonstration of how the diabolical sabbath stereotype absorbed and these popular beliefs and gave them a negative spin is very well regarded. Pocs of course has undertaken with her research group the largest ever study of witchcraft trials, encompassing over 2000 trials. She discovered that over half of the accused were healers, diviners and mediators, people who actually employed magic for their own or the community's benefit. She charted their beliefs (which accord very well with those identified by Ginzburg and others) and demonstrated how ambiguity around their magic allowed them to be viewed as "good" healers and magicians by some people and "evil" sorcerers by others. She also demonstrated that this ambiguity did not arise out of Christian interpretations, but had been present before.
 * Ginzburg and Pocs stand out, along with the other authors I've cited, as tying witchcraft beliefs to pre-Christian paganism, that is, pre-Christian religion. I've tried not to push this aspect too hard, and have instead used wording that is more reflective of the hesitation of many scholars on this point. It is, as you say, generally agreed now that witchcraft stereotypes draw on popular belief and practice; but can those beliefs and practices be said be religious? As an example of a view fairly distant from Ginzburg and Pocs, lets take Robert Muchembled. As summarised by Ankarloo and Henningsen, he is
 * in line with the position of the seventies, when he regards the sabbath as ‘simply and solely a figment created by theologians, whose ideas governed the imagination of the élite classes of Europe in the late Middle Ages’. But he parts with the dogma of learned origins when he states that the demonologists’ description of the sabbath ‘was a diabolized version of practices, customs and beliefs which really existed among peasant folk ... with the difference that every one of its features is given a negative coefficient’. (intro to Early Modern European Witchcraft)
 * The practices, customs and beliefs he describes include night-time revelries, popular superstitions and spells. But he doesn't claim these are religious. They are, on the whole, benign, of course, and given a "negative coefficient" by the demonologists and interrogators. (By the way, the book I'm quoting from is, while not completely up to date, a good introduction to the range of current scholarly views. The introduction on its own is not heavy reading, and could clear a few things up for you.)
 * Probably one of the most extreme views on the witch hunts, which I increasingly suspect from your posts that you are familiar with, is Ronald Hutton. He has achieved popular fame for his Triumph of the Moon, and his account of the period of the neopagan witchcraft revival is included in one edited academic collection of witchcraft articles, but when it comes to earlier European witchcraft he departs heavily from scholarly consensus. At one point he even misrepresents a group of seven authors writing in the 70s, claiming they have "left no doubt that the people tried for witchcraft in Early Modern Europe were not practitioners of a surviving pagan religion", when in fact the only ones who actively promote such a view are Muchembled, and possibly Gerhard Schormann (whose German book I have only read a summary of); the remainder (Midelfort, Ankarloo, Alver, Macfarlane and Monter) all discuss survivals from pre-Christian paganism; some phrase these as folkloric survivals, some as religious survivals. Even Norman Cohn, a favourite of Hutton's, identifies pre-christian magical groups such as the ''tempestarii" and benign folk-magic techniques as having contributed to the sabbath stereotype. If I am correct in thinking that your incredulity is largely derived from Hutton, I urge you to check out some other recent works from your local university library.


 * Regarding 'reappearance' or 'inversion' of pagan beliefs: as Pocs has pointed out the potential for inversion was already there, and provided a convenient means for demonisation. But the ambiguity between "good" and "evil" still persisted under Christianity (and does to the present day, as we can see from Gail Kligman's study of the present-day Calusari, a magical society remarkably similar, even to points of detail, with the benandanti, and that was, like them, persecuted for witchcraft in the early modern age [1600s from memory?]).
 * "New and amazing breakthroughs of the 1990s": Pocs wrote in 1999; Ginzburg in 1966 and then 1989. Ginzburg's 1966 work is still highly celebrated and was seen as the first evidence of a real society with witchcraft-like beliefs, persecuted for witchcraft, although it is still controversial whether these people were a "society" or just individuals. In the 42 years since Ginzburg wrote I benandanti, his work has been corroborated and expanded on by dozens of other academic authors writing about similar "cults" in Italy and wider Europe. Professor Ginzburg is held in high regard as a historian, and pioneered the discipline of microhistory. He was given the prestigious position of Franklin D. Murphy Professor of Italian Renaissance Studies at UCLA, where he wrote Ecstasies.
 * Your point regarding the Benandanti considering themselves good Christians, pitted against evil streghe, is important in establishing that this particular group considered their actions benign; however the important point I'd like you to take from this is not what they called themselves, but what they were: folk magicians accused of witchcraft, whose beliefs echoed the diabolical sabbath stereotype (and those beliefs in various manifestations throughout Europe had provided the framework for this stereotype). I've been at pains in the article to avoid describing individuals or groups as witches; I either call them "accused witches" or at least put quotation marks around the word. Most of the people accused of witchcraft throughout Europe denied it, until coercion or torture changed their story. Many witchcraft historians are interested in what the actual beliefs of accused witches were, and that's what I'm trying to represent. Of course this particular situation in Italy uses the Italian word, derived from the Latin "strix", which had its own connotations and colouring, different from the English 'witch'. The English word 'witch' seems, according to Macfarlane and Thomas, to have a long history of ambiguity between good and evil, and has presumably been coloured by being made cognate, during the witch craze, with hexe, streghe and the like, and more recently by its use in anthropology, pioneered by E Evans Pritchard (amongst the Shona people, who certainly didn't use the word "witch"!) who brought certain assumptions along with the word, based on the prevailing view of the European hunts at the time as entirely a moral panic.
 * As you can see, the word "witch" has some rather complicated history and diversity of meanings, and I'm hoping this article can make these a little more clear. Fuzzypeg★ 00:44, 26 November 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for your detailed and well-informed reply. I begin to understand what is going on here, and I assure you that I am aware that the burden of pulling my own weight lies with myself here. I think you assume that my criticism goes further than it actually does. Let me address a few points: Let me outline the gist of what I want: --dab (𒁳) 17:29, 26 November 2008 (UTC)
 * You are still labouring under the assumption that 'witchcraft' cannot mean anything other than evil magic and devil worship, and your suggestion of a dab page would be a way of segregating out any other meanings.
 * not at all: it can. Which is why we need witchcraft (disambiguation). Also note that I never mentioned either "evil magic" or "devil worship". I took care to discuss harmful magic. Whether harming someone is "evil" is an entirely different question. Harming an "evil" person may actually be seen as "good".
 * yes there are devins-guerisseurs, benandanti, white witches. I never disputed there were. Discussing them here simply creates confusion. Once again, I am not opposed to a "white witches" section summarizing the problem.
 * Ginzburg and Pocs stand out, along with the other authors I've cited, as tying witchcraft beliefs to pre-Christian paganism, that is, pre-Christian religion.
 * I've looked into this, and I agree that Ginzburg and Pocs are good academic references. The problem isn't with their credibility, the problem is with their being misrepresented. "tying witchcraft beliefs to pre-Christian paganism" is exactly what I am trying to do: witchcraft belief has nothing to do with Christianization but is entirely pre-Christian.
 * I'd like you to take from this is not what they called themselves, but what they were: folk magicians accused of witchcraft
 * exactly. Not "witches" accused of witchcraft. This statement isn't compatible with the statement I objected to, the term witchcraft can also encompass beneficent or ambiguous magic
 * this is the general "witchcraft" article. It should not focus on European witchcraft or Christianization unduly, but should explain what witchcraft is worldwide, as the near-cultural universal that it is.
 * all the points we discuss above concern not just Europe, but the Early Modern European witch-hunts. Ginzburg and Pocs appear to be saying that once these witch-hunts were in full swing, they clamped down on various traditions of folk magic that happened to have survived Christianization. I have no objection whatsoever to this view.
 * what I am interested in covering in the context of the European Middle Ages is the disappearance of witchcraft from the "official" record during the 9th to 14th centuries: witchcraft was persecuted as a matter of course in all pre-Christian civilizations, it appears as an offense in the various Germanic laws, until the persecution of witches is suppressed following the Council of Paderborn, to resurface only at the very close of the Middle Ages. This means that Christianization has actually suppressed the persecution of witches, and only the collapse of the medieval order in "Christendom" on the eve of the Reformation does the officially sanctioned persecution of witches re-appear. This does not appear to be contradicting any of your points above, but it sheds a rather dubious light on the claim that "diabolical stereotypes" used to be more benign pre-Christian beliefs regarding spirits and the other-world. Why "pre-Christian"? "pre-Renaissance" would be more to the point.

ok, here's a suggestion: This entire topic of folk magic, devins-guerisseurs etc. is without doubt highly notable, and also closely related to the topic of witchcraft, since, as the article is already aware, anyone capable of  healing by magic will likely be deemed just as capable of harming as of healing. Nevertheless, the topic isn't identical. We have the articles white witch, cunning folk and folk magic, which may themselves be partly overlapping in scope. The discussion of this "benevolent witchcraft" belongs there, not here. What does belong here is a discussion of the relation between "harming and healing". This achieved by a "white witch" section which has as its main article the white witch article. --dab (𒁳) 18:00, 26 November 2008 (UTC)


 * I like where you're taking this. I was uneasy when I started my major additions/alterations to this article, since they mostly relate to European witchcraft and the Early Modern European witch-hunts; I just couldn't figure out at the time how to work it into those articles, since my main intention was to elucidate the various meanings and connotations the word 'witch' carries in different contexts. I'm happy to have the information rearranged in some form.
 * I didn't like your previous "Good witches" section title because it sounded too positive considering there was often an element of ambiguity around these folk magicians; even those who were well respected for their good works often received a little extra respect in virtue of their perceived ability to harm any who offended them. The term "white witch" for me is slightly more vague and hence preferable.
 * "Folk magicians accused of witchcraft": This is a really intriguing and important area of European witchcraft historiography: how folk beliefs and Christian demonology interacted with and influenced each other. The influence was of course great, and my point has been that the very concept of witchcraft was largely informed by this process of cross-influence. This shamanistic substratum provided the bones for stereotypes of the witches' sabbath, the witch's familiar, flying through the air and so on. Those people named as "witches" could in a sense be considered witches even though they were entirely misunderstood by their accusers, since the witch stereotype did indeed reflect their beliefs/experiences/practices, if through a glass darkly. I don't suggest we out-and-out call them witches, but I think they deserve a look in.
 * There were other concepts of malicious magic that were grafted onto these shamanistic ideas, such as poisoning wells, ritually killing babies and committing oneself to perform as many evil acts as possible. As Ginzburg demonstrates in Ecstasies book 1, these accusations were not long before applied to Jews, lepers and Muslims in similar but smaller moral panics; Max Dashu documents similar accusations applied to the Bacchanals in Rome; I believe early Christianity was vilified in the same way. These are perennial concepts of maleficium, but they contribute only part of the concept of "witchcraft". This would be worth writing more on, probably in the European witchcraft article.
 * The concept of witches practicing apparently beneficent magic was also recognised by demonologists throughout Europe, who couldn't fail to notice that so many of their accused felt they had done no wrong. This resulted in the theological position that, even if magic was aimed at an end such as healing, if it was performed through the power of the Devil rather than God and the saints then it represented the heinous spiritual crime of turning away from God. Many healers, who thought they had been communicating with angels or good spirits, discovered during their trials that they were actually in league with demons. I can't point you off the top of my head to a good discussion on this doctrine, though I'm sure I've read a couple.
 * Regarding the lull in persecutions, Macfarlane has some ideas regarding England specifically and why witchcraft popped up when it did. I'd have to re-read to get totally clear on this, but one of the factors he points to is that the "Old Religion" (Catholicism) provided means to combat curses, in the form of essentially "magical" charms administered by priests. Under the new system, such charms were no longer offered or approved of, which meant protection and redress had to be sought either through another magical practitioner or through the legal system. But there have been lots of proposed reasons why the witch craze rose when it did, and to the level it did, and I still don't feel competent to summarise them.
 * Regarding the "more benign pre-Christian beliefs", it was Christian theologians that demonised the beliefs of folk-magicians, who were essentially continuing shamanistic practices from a pagan past. Yes the banner was then taken up by secular courts, and the worst spates of execution were far from the regulating influence of the churches, but it was still a Christian myth, formed in conflict with an earlier belief system. I can really recommend Ginzburg's Ecstasies for a better idea of how these older motifs fit in with the forming Christian stereotypes; it's a fantastic and very readable book, and if you've only read Hutton's summary of it (a rehash of Cohn's summary) you're in for a nice surprise. I believe Margot Adler also gives a much fairer summary of it in only 2 or 3 pages in her Drawing Down the Moon. Fuzzypeg★ 04:36, 27 November 2008 (UTC)

An Intolerant Look at Witchcraft on Wikipedia
I can't believe we're still living in an age when witchcraft is still defined as harming someone or something. When Wikipedia is, unfortunately, sometimes the only source that people look to when trying to learn information, and what they see is:

Witchcraft, in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is the use of certain kinds of supernatural or magical powers in order to inflict harm or damage upon members of a community or their property. The concept of witchcraft is normally treated as a cultural ideology, a means of explaining human misfortune by blaming it either on a supernatural entity or a known person in the community.[1]

it is no wonder we have so much hate and intolerance for each other in the world. As a Pagan scholar, it is ridiculous to think that pre-Christian religions were not demonized after the onslaught of the world's current religion. Look at any of the Mesopotamian religions to see how their myths were later distorted.

I simply suggest that we change the paragraph to:

Witchcraft, in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is the belief in certain kinds of supernatural or magical powers, often in the form of energy work, medicinal herbs, divination, etc. In recent Christian theology, as exemplified by the Inquisition and Witch Trials, the concept of witchcraft is normally seen as a means of explaining human misfortune by blaming it either on a supernatural entity or a known person in the community. A witch (from Old English wicce f. / wicca m.) is a practitioner of witchcraft.

It is mentioned MUCH later, to my dismay, in the article that "modern witches" still exist, and that Paganism and Wicca are some kind of reclaiming religions.

If you look at the page of Mormonism, for example, you do not see how some of their sects rape their women and abuse their children, but in fact it is a general explanation of what Mormonism is. Witchcraft should be the same, especially because some people do consider it their religion, whether YOU think it's politically correct or not.

People are still being burned as "witches" today, and I can't believe you can live with yourself by writing that all witches harm people in their communities. The amount of ignorance and intolerance in a monolithic world sometimes makes me sick.

If a woman can sue her library for making her attend an event that promoted "witchcraft" (aka Harry Potter) through the ACLU, I'm pretty sure I can sue Wikipedia for violating my religious beliefs as well.

Aaatkins (talk) 08:41, 28 December 2008 (UTC) 28 December, 2008 Aaatkins


 * Aaatkins, your introduction woul violate NPOV. I am sure that there are some people who use the term withcraft as you do.  But I know a plethora of sources attesting to the fact that most Latin Americans and Native Americans view withcraft as a set of powers used to harm others.  It is true that in many parts of Latin America and in many Native American groups there is a distinction between good and bad witchcraft i.e. many witches heal.  In Africa withcraft is widely viewed as aharming power.  Those Whites who have their beliefs about withcraft as positive should indeed be represented in this article, but you cannot erase the views of Latinos, Native Americans, and Africans. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 14:56, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * "If a woman can sue her library for making her attend an event that promoted "witchcraft" (aka Harry Potter) through the ACLU, I'm pretty sure I can sue Wikipedia for violating my religious beliefs as well." That sentence doesn't make any sense whatsoever. That's not something the ACLU would do, and anyone can sue anything for any reason... the only part that matters is if the judge rules in your favor, which certainly would not happen. If you plan on suing Wikipedia, let us know so we can have you banned for making legal threats. But ambiguous threats won't make us turn the article into a place for people to push their own personal beliefs. DreamGuy (talk) 19:21, 28 December 2008 (UTC)


 * I think both versions have NPOV issues. When there are multiple definitions, the best thing is to include them all - with references. If nothing else, the current version just seems contradictory - it defines it as "inflict harm or damage" and then in the second sentence says "[good witchcraft] involving the use of these powers to heal someone from bad witchcraft", which obviously doesn't come under "harm or damage". Are there reliable sources to say that witchcraft is specifically only used where the intent is "harm or damage"? The obvious improvement would be to remove that claim, and simply say "is the use of certain kinds of supernatural or magical powers". I also see that this appears to be a matter of some edit warring, e.g.,, - and see Talk:Witchcraft, above. There doesn't seem to be any clear resolution to this, nor a consensus for the version that's currently there. Any other editors have an opinion? Mdwh (talk) 02:44, 18 February 2009 (UTC)


 * '' Please read this page so you can check your so-called 'witchcraft references.' http://deafpagancrossroads.com/2008/09/23/answers-to-the-intolerance-test/ Aaatkins (talk), 5 January 2008

I would like to know your evidence for witchcraft that proves it is, originally, harmful to humans, and that is not a Christian source. This is impossible, because all the old resources available are Christian or are Christian-influenced. (Please see Dominant Religious Lens for further inquiry.)

For example, Slrubenstein, one cannot claim that this article is a "neutral point of view" because "Native Americans" had no single language or culture, and in fact this is an ignorant term placed on all natives of the "Americas." The Christian conquerors first imposed their idea of witchcraft onto Native American beliefs that have no correlation in English or Spanish culture or language. As for "Latin America," this is a recent term given by, again, Christian conquerors of the "New World." They brought their preconceived ideas with them, one of which, witchcraft, sticks out among the many because of its extreme negativity in the bible. This cultural idea can be traced back to the Inquisition and beyond.

There is no "neutral point of view" when writing in the Christian conqueror's language of English. The authors should at least admit this when dealing with terms that have been distorted throughout history and that are perpetuated in Christian American consciousness. Besides this fact, this is a religious movement for some people, whether you think it is "right" or not. One, as a rule, should tread carefully when writing about religious movements. Faith cannot be reduced to terms like the entries found on Wikipedia, especially when dealing with primarily oral traditions.

P.S. Clearly because you do not read/care about about modern affairs of witchcraft, the ACLU event I was referring to was a librarian suing her library, through the ACLU, because she said Harry Potter contained "witchcraft" and she should not be forced to attend a book release party because witchcraft is "against her religious beliefs." So yes, the ACLU does sue on behalf of ignorant people.

Aaatkins (talk) 10 February 2009
 * If you think that everyone living in Latin America is a Christian, and that there are no more Indigenous people left who have their own beliefs apart from Christianity, then you are just spewing Christian propaganda. Slrubenstein  |  Talk 20:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that the last phrase in the sentence "Witchcraft, in various historical, anthropological, religious and mythological contexts, is the use of certain kinds of supernatural or magical powers in order to inflict harm or damage upon members of a community or their property" violates NPOV because it defines "witchcraft" as having an intent to harm. The sentence goes beyond defining witchcraft (the practice of witches) and makes a moral judgment. Dorje (talk) 19:25, 20 February 2009 (UTC)


 * You do not understand NPOV. NPOV does not mean the absense of views.  It means providing all significant views from notable sources.  The mainstream views from notable sources is that witchcraft can be used to harm or to heal, others.  Since this is a verifiable view, and significant, it goes into Wikipedia.  If you think I am wrong please reread the policy. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 20:18, 20 February 2009 (UTC)

So, by the definition you just used, witchcraft is used to harm or HEAL. Yet this is not mentioned in the first sentence, the one that most people are most likely to read. I also agree that is a moral judgment. (talk) 23 February 2009


 * Yeah yeah yeah - it is all in the first paragraph, so it is all NPOV. I would rather discuss this with someone who has the capacity to read more than one sentence. "." does not mean "the end" in means "the end of one thought" and often comes before another thought. Slrubenstein   |  Talk 15:48, 23 February 2009 (UTC)


 * I think the point of contention is that whilst we'd agree on "to harm or to heal", the article defined it as only to harm. The fact that is said something else in the next sentence just made it even more confusing, as this definition of good/bad witchcraft contradited the previous sentence. I've reworded it to be clearer. Mdwh (talk) 00:09, 27 February 2009 (UTC)


 * Two attempts to improve the clarity and fix the contradiction have been reverted by DreamGuy, falsely claiming that two editors have reverted me. DreamGuy claims that I should get a consensus, even though I am the one trying to compromise with different suggestions, and discussing this on talk, and even though there is no consensus for the current version either. I am not "ignoring", since I am discussing this on the talk page. Note that the current version was added to the definition later on, and I don't see there was any great discussion or consensus for that version? Also note that the previous version was stable for over a year - in fact it's been there at least as long as three year ago  and it's the new version that has been the source of edit-warring, suggesting that there is no consensus at all for this change. Yet, I'm not currently trying to remove this change at all - I'm merely trying to make it clearer, as a compromise.


 * So what's the problem with my two edits? What other proposals does DreamGuy have to cover the two definitions in a way that doesn't sound contradictory (currently we state one definition, and then immediately describe Witchcraft in a way that contradicts it). What do other editors think?


 * As Aaatkins notes, even the version with my edits still has problems, in that it suggests "good" witchcraft is only used to counter "bad" witchcraft, and it's not clear if that is true. Mdwh (talk) 19:02, 28 February 2009 (UTC)

Pointy hats
Any alleged reasons for the stereotypical hat? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.240.247.250 (talk) 20:20, 30 July 2009 (UTC)

--yes, read here:  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wolfpeaceful (talk • contribs) 19:25, 15 August 2009 (UTC)
 * That seems a little dubious - Londoners didn't call country-dwellers "pagani"

--actually, you're wrong... the more modern term is "pagan" but they actually used both terms to refer to country-dwellers... pagani/paganus is the older Latin term, and Latin was widely taught in europe in the UK during the time era mentioned below.... But that's beside the point... and its not dubious... its just not the best website resource... it might be better for you to go to the library and find an actual rectangular book related to the clothing of the 14th to 16th centuries. You might also want to check into regional united kingdom folk magick for that same era. i'm sure you'll find some interesting overlaps. 70.61.247.31 (talk) 21:01, 28 September 2009 (UTC)

Try this:
 * There is another, commonly held belief that the pointed hat originated with another persecuted group in Europe, the Jews. While Jews did wear pointed headgear, most scholars now believe these hats were not a likely source for the witch's pointed hat. After all, pointed hats were fairly common throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance.


 * This fact leads us to the source I find to be most believable, and most mundane, for the Pointy Hat Look. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, commoners in Wales and England often wore pointed hats. As fashions changed, the last to retain the old styles were the rural and peasant folk, who were considered "backward" by higher society and were usually the ones accused of heresy and witchcraft. Much as we today have stereotypes of the sort of student who might commit violence at a high school, so did the medieval people have their ideas of what sort of person might be a witch.

Totnesmartin (talk) 19:43, 15 August 2009 (UTC)

--well that's kind of what the article I pointed to, talks about.... just not in great detail. As for the jews, they used a different form of hat, that does not resemble what one would commonly think of when thinking of a witches' hat. 70.61.247.31 (talk) 21:01, 28 September 2009 (UTC)