Witch Craft Essay Research Paper

Witch Craft Essay, Research Paper



The Illusions of Modern Day Wicca

Witches – Most of us assume we will never meet a real one.

Starting from the very first years of childhood we are assured over and

again that there are no such things.

But why are we so quick to dismiss the existence and powerful practise

of witchcraft.

Is it really because of the many misconceptions towards Wiccan

believers that drives us to think you would only cross paths with a witch

in a fairytale.

Take a look at some of the falsities of white witchcraft in modern

day times. Of course the initial image most of us picture when witches are

mentioned is that little old lady with the pointy black hat, the cauldron, the

broomstick, and the black cat.

Often, she has bats for friends and lives in a plagued, haunted house.

She is famous for riding through the air on her broomstick and for

casting spells, especially the kind that turn you into a toad, a turtle or a tea-

pot. Every October, her picture appears in advertisements and store windows,

as rubber masks, and in books of cute stories that are about as frightening as

Goldilocks . This Halloween witch gets many more giggles than shivers

these days and yet there is so much more to witches than many may realize.

The History of Witchcraft

Today most people laughingly dismiss witchcraft as a superstition of

the ignorant. But in seventeenth-century Europe and America, witches,

(defined by the English judge Lord Coke) as persons who had conference

with the Devil to consult with him or to do some act, were taken very

seriously. Witches were women – the male equivalent was *warlock and as

a result of their dealings with the Devil were commonly

believed to be able to preform supernatural acts.

During early Colonial days in America all but very few men believed

in the actual existence of demons and witches and harboured many supersti-

tions that had been handed down from the ages.

The penalty for being proved a witch was death and in a few years of

Oliver Cromwell s rule in England, many unfortunates accused of witchcraft

perished on the gallows – 60 being hanged in a single year in Suffolk, a county which

notorious witch-hunter Matthew Hopkins declared to be overrun with

witches.

Superstition soon crossed the Atlantic with the Pilgrim Fathers,

and at a time when it was disappearing in England it started to flourish

alarmingly in the state of Massachusetts- which in 1692 was the most

celebrated witch hunt and witch trials in history.

*The preferred term used by Wiccan people is witch for both male & female.

Witches in Fiction

From the stories of Hansel and Gretel to the classic film of

The Wizard of Oz to the play, Shakespeare s Macbeth – all of these

fictions have the same antagonists, and they are all unrealistic and wicked witches.

Maybe that is why everyone is so positive it would be impossible to ever

meet an authentic witch. These movies, stories and plays are so far-fetched

that the very definition of a witch is altered to symbolize:

A villainous hag that snatches away youngsters to devour or to turn into toads

and many other witch familiars.

The definition above is a possible version of many people s perceptions

towards Wiccans.

So many books, and films have contributed to the false interpretations

that many Wiccans have to face daily. Below are some of the misleading types of

entertainment, that is influencing surrounding judgement about innocent and harmless

Wicca believers.

Remember the very famous movie The Witches .

This 1990 film features Anjelica Huston as a menacing and inhuman

leader of evil forces, witches. They loathed children and had planned

to get rid of all of them by turning them to rats.

How about the story that is known by all children everywhere,

Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs .

In this tale the vain and wicked witch-queen asks her magic mirror,

Who is the fairest of them all. When the reply is Snow White the queen

decides to exterminate her young rival with a poisoned apple.

Hunt the Witch

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Christianity became, in time, the

dominant religion of Europe. Yet much of the ancient world s pagan traditions,

including witchcraft, lingered on and thrived among ordinary people.

Convinced that such leftover beliefs were inspired by the Devil, and determined to

stamp them out, the Christian Church launched a merciless and brutal attack on

every hint of witchcraft and wizardry throughout Europe. This persecution lasted

from the 15th to the 18th century. Hundreds of thousands of helpless suspects

suffered torture and execution, often on false charges and faked evidence.

Even now when groups are hounded by a powerful authority, we call it a

witch-hunt.

Conceiv

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