II. Defining “Witchcraft” and the Evidence of Witchcraft from History
II. Defining “Witchcraft” and the Evidence of Witchcraft from History
Before we can have a coherent, rational discussion about what "witchcraft" might be, we have to have some agreement on terminology and on the meanings of words. I turned to several online dictionaries, and some offline ones, to find definitions of "Witchcraft". Here are three examples of what I found:
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
WITCHCRAFT:
1 a : the use of sorcery or magic b : communication with the devil or with a familiar
2 : an irresistible influence or fascination
Cambridge Dictionary
WITCHCRAFT:
1. The activity of performing magic to help or harm other people
Encarta
WITCHCRAFT:
1. exercise of allegedly magical powers: the art of using allegedly magical powers
2. alleged effect of magical powers: the alleged effect or influence of magical powers
3. seductive charm: alluring or seductive charm or influence
Other dictionaries kept using the word "Sorcery" as synonymous with "Witchcraft". The words "sorcery" and "magic" were often associated with "Witchcraft". So, I looked up those two words. Most of the definitions were like these:
SORCERY:
1. the art, practices, or spells of a person who is supposed to exercise supernatural powers through the aid of evil spirits; black magic; witchery.
MAGIC:
1. the art of producing illusions as entertainment by the use of sleight of hand, deceptive devices, etc.; legerdemain; conjuring: to pull a rabbit out of a hat by magic.
2. the art of producing a desired effect or result through the use of incantation or various other techniques that presumably assure human control of supernatural agencies or the forces of nature.
"Witchcraft" is, by every dictionary's definition, the same as sorcery. And "sorcery" has a well-known meaning; it refers to the use of familiar spirits, demons, or supernatural spirits to affect some needed change, including divinations or inflicting harm on enemies. Even the definition of "magic", which includes stage magic (sleight-of-hand and illusionism) includes a second definition mention the control of supernatural agencies and their use in producing a desired affect.
It is perfectly clear that "witchcraft" and "sorcery" are not separate things. And it is perfectly clear to any well-read student of history that witches were always associated with "familiar spirits", spirits that aided them in performing their magic. There is no witchcraft without familiar spirits and other spirits that are either allied to the witch, or compelled by the witch to do their will.
There are some who try to imply that the word "witch" comes from some ancient root meaning "to bend, to change" or something of that nature, and try to argue that a "witch" was a person who had some innate power to "change" or "bend" reality to their will. This is spurious. The Etymological Dictionary's entry for "Witch" says:
O.E. wicce "female magician, sorceress," in later use esp. "a woman supposed to have dealings with the devil or evil spirits and to be able by their cooperation to perform supernatural acts," fem. of O.E. wicca "sorcerer, wizard, man who practices witchcraft or magic," from verb wiccian "to practice witchcraft" (cf. Low Ger. wikken, wicken "to use witchcraft," wikker, wicker "soothsayer"). OED says of uncertain origin. Klein suggests connection with O.E. wigle "divination," and wig, wih "idol." Watkins says the nouns represent a P.Gmc. *wikkjaz "necromancer" (one who wakes the dead), from PIE *weg-yo-, from *weg- "to be strong, be lively."
Once again, we have a connection with people gaining the cooperation of spirits to perform "supernatural acts". We also have connections with idols and divination.
The Bible gives us a famous reference to a Witch- the Witch of Endor, who, using a familiar spirit, was able to conjure up a dead man in a necromantic ritual. The first book of Samuel, chapter 28 mentions that Saul had "put away those that had familiar spirits, and the wizards, out of the land." This doesn't stop Saul from seeking out the witch at Endor, as we see in this verse:
"Then said Saul unto his servants, Seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her, and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor. 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, and bring me him up, whom I shall name unto thee."
Easton's 1897 Bible Dictionary mentions this famous witch, who is mentioned in the book of Samuel. It says "The "witch of En-dor" (1 Sam. 28) was a necromancer, i.e., one who feigned to hold converse with the dead. The damsel with "a spirit of divination" (Acts 16:16) was possessed by an evil spirit, or, as the words are literally rendered, "having a spirit, a pithon." The reference is to the heathen god Apollo, who was regarded as the god of prophecy."
The Bible is not the only source we have for witchcraft and the practice of sorcery through the use of familiar spirits- we have a massive amount of sources from the Greek, Roman, and Germanic Pagan worlds for these things. Anyone who is familiar with Georg Luck's book "Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds" has 385 pages full of evidence of sorcery and witchcraft which was done following the same pattern: people perform rites intended to win the favor of Pagan Gods, especially the Gods of the Underworld, and rites to entrap or urge familiar spirits or Daimons to help them achieve some outcome.
In the Greek Magical Papyri, which is available in translation at any good bookstore on or offline, we have hundreds of pages of magical manuscripts containing material from the 5th century BC all the way up to the 4th century AD. In nearly EVERY magical operation detailed in those manuscripts, the sorcerers invoke the help of Pagan Gods from Greece or Egypt, the spirits of dead men and women (especially those who died young or tragically) and familiar spirits, daimons, paredros-spirits, and the like. They do this to achieve magical affects. The spirits of plants are even called upon, and the Gods who were seen as guarding those plants, for magical effects. The Bible itself mentions a woman who had a "pithon"- a python, the serpent sacred to Apollo, the Pagan Greek God of light, occult rites and prophecy. Apollo is one of the Gods most often invoked in the Greek Magical Papyri for prophecies and other spells.
Apuleius, in his influential occult novel written two millennia ago, speaks of witches at length, and their power to influence Fate, change their shape, and their worship of ancient Goddesses. These witches work with familiar spirits as well. Apuleius was himself accused of sorcery and witchcraft during his life. The Seventeenth century writer Louis Guyon says:
"It need no longer be doubted [that Lucius Apuleius Plato was a sorcerer, and that he] was transformed into an ass, foras-much as he was charged with it before the proconsul of Africa, in the time of the Emperor Antonine I, in the year 150 A.D., as Apollonius of Tyana, long before, in the year 60, was charged before Domitian with the same crime. And more than three years after, the rumour persisted to the time of St. Augustine, who was an African, who has written and confirmed it; as also in his time the father of one Prestantius was transformed into a horse, as the said Prestantius declared. Augustine's father having died, in a short time the son had wasted the greater part of his inheritance in the pursuit of the magic arts, and in order to flee poverty he sought to marry a rich widow named Pudentille, for such a long time that at length she consented. Soon after her only son and heir, the child of her former marriage, died. These things came about in a manner which led people to think that he had by means of magic entrapped Pudentille, who had been wooed in vain by several illustrious people, in order to obtain the wealth of her son. It was also said that the profound knowledge he possessed—for he was able to solve difficult questions which left other men bewildered—was obtained from a demon or familiar spirit he possessed. Further, certain people said they had seen him do many marvellous things, such as making himself invisible, transforming himself into a horse or into a bird, piercing his body with a sword without wounding himself, and similar performances. He was at last accused by one Sicilius Œmilianus, the censor, before Claudius Maximus, proconsul of Africa, who was said to be a Christian; but nothing was found against him."
In Pagan Iceland, a very famous account in the Sagas introduces us to the Volva, a woman who was able, through the singing of special songs which attracted spirits, to predict the future. She wasn't simply "sighted" or "psychic"; she was a ritual worker who knew how to create a special platform that she mounted, above the gathered people, and she instructed the women of the area to sing special songs around her, after she had eaten a ritual meal of animal hearts. After this complex ritual was performed, spirits were attracted that she could sense and communicate with.
In Sweden, as late as the 17th-19th century, Pagan rituals were recorded as being done at a stone formation in the forest of Tiveden, a big stony area called the "Trollkyrka". A folk poem from that region details the ritual, which begins with a sacrificial meal to "the spirits", and which ends with the statement:
"In the midnight hour
When stars glitter,
The prelate asks for silence
And this is obeyed by all the men.
They fall down onto the ground,
The prelate looks grimly at the heavens.
And incantations and summons echo in the dells
The prelate is summoning spirits.
Everyone received an answer to their question,
No one heard from another man what the answer was."
These people at the Trollkyrka were asking questions to summoned spirits, and receiving answers from them. There's no lack of mention in other sources from Northern Europe regarding powerful sorceresses, who were called "witches" by churchmen, who practiced necromancy by summoning the dead from burial mounds. Many of the elements of modern Traditional Witchcraft are found in the sources I'm mentioning- the "Red Meal", or sacrificial meal shared between human beings and the spirits, along with the sprinkling or pouring of the blood/liquid, is mentioned in the same folk-poem from Tiveden above.
That same poem mentions the creation of a magical "fire" that was the center of the rite, made from nine different kinds of wood- and it says of this specific ninefold fire-construction that "this was the old custom". I feel the need to point out that this poem was around hundreds of years before Gardner or Wicca. The Christian author of the fourteenth century "Hausbok" mentions that women sometimes "take their food to stone piles and caves... they consecrate it to the land spirits and eat it, believing that the land spirits would be friendly to them and that they would be more prosperous."
All of these people mentioned have one thing in common: they are trying to contact spirits for some needful end, through incantations, offerings, or some other method. These practices, which have a clear ancient religious element, are also acts of sorcery. They are the reality, the roots and branches of much ancient and modern witchcraft. I will discuss the debate over whether or not Witchcraft is a religion or not further below, but before I get there, this much has to be said: in ancient times, "magic" and "religion" were not clearly defined, separate things. Every occultist or scholar worth the name either already knows this, or has declared it. Georg Luck gives us over three hundred pages of evidence for it, and he's just one scholar. There are many more who agree.
The hard division we have now between "religion" and "magic" did not exist in the ancient world. Even when some historical societies developed to the point where they began to evidence orthodox ideas about what was "proper" to religion and what was unlawful or impious in "magic", and even when they took steps to make sorcery illegal (which the Greeks and Romans often did), the more ancient world before them did not draw a hard distinction between sacrifices and invocations to spirits for needful ends, and religious sacrifices for the same.
The ancient rituals of religion, including the simple act of sacrifice, originally had a magical or sorcerous purpose, and throughout history, they maintained shadows of this. They were intended to win the favor of spirits or Gods, for the good of the people or the participants. Prayers for aid from Gods were invocations to the same- as early as the Iliad, we see Achilles, Agamemnon, and Hector pouring libations and praying the Zeus not merely for simple praise of him as a God, but specifically for things they need.
What of the rest of the world? Outside of Europe, Anthropologists from Mircea Eliade to Michael Harner have presented a wealth of evidence that shamans and other animistic power-workers from places as far apart as North America to Africa and Australia gain "spiritual allies" or familiar spirits, helping spirits, or guardians that allow them to work as shamans. Black Elk, the great Lakota Sioux Wicasa Wakan or Power worker gained his abilities from "The Six Grandfathers", powerful spirits that he met in vision. Wallace Black Elk, a living Lakota shaman, records his workings in his own strange way in his book "Black Elk: The Sacred Ways of a Lakota", and page after page reveals that EVERYTHING he does, he does with the aid of spirits that he calls to help him.
This pattern will NOT go away. This is sorcery; this is witchcraft, all over the world.
