Witchcraft

By Chris Wood

Witchcraft - or the Craft of the Wise - is actually three things, generally but not exclusively rolled into one: the practice of Natural Magic, a modern Pagan religion, and a Mystery or Wisdom Tradition. This does lead to some confusion, as it is perfectly possible to be a practitioner of Natural Magic without being a Pagan - indeed the vast majority of people of recent centuries who we would now call Witches were not Pagan, at any rate not in the modern sense. Similarly, the Mysteries overlap and transcend all professed religions.

Modern Pagan Witchcraft

The various forms of Pagan Witchcraft have certain things in common: the practice of Natural Magic, seasonal and Nature-reverencing festivals, ritual based on a sacred circle and the honouring of various deities, usually headed by a God and a Goddess. Most Witches (or Natural Magicians) also work ritual in special robes (although a few, mainly Garderians, work skyclad, i.e. naked), acknowledge elemental directions within the magical circle, use various ritual tools and end their ceremonies with a communion, although the details vary.

There are some feminist Witches who only acknowledge a Goddess, and some (usually 'Dianic' Witches) who insist on women-only covens. This tendency however borders on political Feminism rather than Paganism.

Most Witches respect the Wiccan Rede (in spirit if not necessarily in the words), of "An it harm none, do as you will". This is a challenging 'moral code' which basically says that one should follow one's own true, inner will, as long as that results in harm to no-one and no-thing. As any action harms something, even if it is 'only' the life of a lettuce leaf eaten, this apparently straight-forward phrase challenges us to think through the consequences of our actions in a very thorough way.

The main groupings within Pagan Witchcraft are listed below. These are not completely independent and more and more people now blend elements from the various streams, as well as from other Pagan and Magical paths. In addition to these are the continuing practice of folk magic and wise-craft by people who may or may not be trained in Magic or Pagan Witchcraft and who may or may not consider themselves to be Pagan, and the Feminist, Dianic Witchraft which merges with Goddess Spirituality.

In its turn, Witchcraft has also been a major force behind the growth of other modern Pagan traditions, such as Druidry, the Northern Traditions, and Shamanism. These in turn have had some influence back again - modern Paganism is a dynamic phenomenon.

Wicca

The coven-based systems, which have relatively highly scripted rituals, a number of degrees of initiation and trace their ancestry through a series of High Priests or High Priestesses to a founder, in general ultimately to Gerald Gardner's coven (of the 1940s and 1950s) or that of the Sanders, as the founder of a given stream of Wicca is/was usually an initiate of Gardnerian or Alexandrian Wicca.

'Traditional' Witchcraft and Natural Magic

A variety of heterogenous streams which claim origins separate to that of Wicca (although some of them clearly derive directly from it). Some of these traditions in all probability originated before Wicca, and certainly independently of it. Their roots appear to lie as much in Hermetic and Gnostic traditions (which in themselves would be difficult to label as Witchcraft) as in the modern neo-pagan cultural stream and as such may have greater claims to longevity than Wicca. They tend to consider the Mysteries as more important than the religion or the magic. The use of the word 'traditional' is complicated by it being used by Wiccans in the U.S.A. to describe an adherence to the unadulterated, handed-down forms of that tradition. 'Hereditary' or 'Family' Witchcraft also seems to fit into this grouping and refers to traditions where a familial descent is claimed.

Hedge Witchcraft

A more recent, eclectic school of practice, generally of individuals rather than groups, in which Natural Magic and Nature-reverence are most important, with less emphasis on the Mysteries.

Where Does Modern Pagan Witchcraft Come From?

Modern Pagan Witchcraft has its roots in a number of traditions and trends, which have come together in the melting pot of the modern era. The main sources appear to be as follows. (This schema draws particularly, but far from exclusively, on the work of Ronald Hutton - see the booklist at the end.)

Cunning or Wise-craft practice

A mixture of self-taught Magicians (who were reading the same books as the ceremonial, Hermetic Magicians of the time) and charmers, who provided various magical services for their customers, including divination, finding and spells for health and love - but also they could curse and conversely 'unwitch', i.e. remove curses and trace malevolent 'witches' (alledged bewitchers) - using a variety of magical techniques, including Christian folk magic. The legacies of these people include modern Natural Magic and also the arts of New Age 'Mind, Body and Spirit' practitioners.

Immigrant Traditions

The Magic and some religious ideas of such groups as Moorish Gnostics and the Romanies. Perhaps it would be appropriate to include the writings of Charles Godfrey Leland on Italian Witchcraft, Stregeria, here, as they had a major impact on Wicca. Both Magic and paths to the Mysteries are legacies of such people.

Ceremonial Magic

The alchemical Hermetic, Qabbalistic and esoteric Christian traditions practised by 'high' Magicians for centuries, which through secretive traditions such as Rosicrucianism and the higher degrees of Freemasonry filtered into the modern age in the form of Magical Lodges and Orders, the most famous of which, and probably the most influential, was the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, formed in 1888. The legacies of this stream include powerful ritual Magic, Mystery traditions and perhaps the first self-aware rebirth of Paganism. (See also the Ceremonial Magic page.)

Theosophy and Tantra

Eastern streams which were brought into the Western Mystery Tradition by Ceremonial Magicians.

Craft Guilds and their Mysteries

Crafts have always had their mysteries, mainly practical secrets to limit entry into the profession, but also some deeper spiritual elements, often related to ancient and primordial masculine and feminine mysteries. Freemasonry apparently came from such beginnings, and more recently the Horseman's Word and similar fraternities derived from that. Many traditional craftspeople, working with their hands and the living, spirit-embued material, have their secrets. It is no accident that Smith Gods and Weaving Goddesses have always been important in myth. This stream gives us Natural Magic, a form of the Mysteries, and perhaps even an animistic perspective, working with the spirit of the iron, stone, wood, silver, wool or flax.

Tales of the Witch-trials and the Folklore of Witchcraft

The claims made and confessions extracted during the Witch-trials bore precious little relation to reality - indeed the Witch-hunts came to an end, it would seem, not because of a growing rejection of the supernatural, but because those involved became less and less accepting of the proofs and evidence with which they were presented. However, the popular images of mediæval Witchcraft derived from the texts of the trials and from folklore have been definitive for centuries. It would be surprising if no-one became attracted by and took up these ideas, whether genuine Magical seekers, looking for hidden truths behind challenging masks, or reckless thrill-seekers rebelling by dabbling in diabolism (Satanism is the current form of that unhealthy wish-fulfillment). The stereotypes were moulded into a semblance of a whole by Margaret Murray in the 1920s and 1930s, and became an important source of labels and forms for the various Witchcraft movements of the 1950s-1970s.

Belief in Spirits

is not in itself Pagan; after all, Christians of various hues believe in angels, saints, devils, bogies, færies, elves and sprites. But a continuing acceptance of such non-physical entities, especially with influence from the Irish fairy-traditions, has been an important factor in the development of the modern neo-pagan cultural stream.

Urbanisation and Industrialisation

These phenomena have distanced people from the land and from contact with Nature, to a greater or lesser extent, but the result has also been a new attitude to the countryside and to Nature, first identifiable in literature in the late eighteenth century in the work of the Romantic poets, which has led to the modern Green movement and to the Nature-orientation of modern Paganism, which is a self-aware development of this neo-pagan cultural stream.

The English Bible

The English-language version of the Christian sacred scripture only appeared at the end of the 14th century, when John Wyclif's version was copied surrepticiously in monastic scriptoria and carried around the country by itinerent preachers - the Lollards, who were burned at the stake for heresy. The first English version in print appeared in 1536 - and the publisher, William Tyndale, was executed for his trouble, although only a few years after his death, officially sanctioned English Bibles began to appear, to support the Henrician Reformation. It was a century before the vernacular scripture filtered far into wider consciousness. When it did, it had an explosive impact. One of the manifestations of this was the writings and actions of Gerrard Winstanley, whose Diggers, or True Levellers, in 1649 took over land to cultivate for ordinary people, and did so on a Sunday in order to make a stand for religious freedom. Their inspiration was the realisation that their religion, according to its scripture, gave every man equal standing before their God and equal right to the land. This heightening of status and new spur to individual religious contemplation resulted in changing attitudes towards the land, society and the cosmos, being part of the movement to scientific rationalism, environmentalism and feminism, as well as the free-thinking that has been core to the rise of modern Paganism.

However, it is important to realise that the above list only represents the outer form of the origins of modern Pagan Witchcraft. Each Magician and each Pagan renews their tradition and receives their Magic from the deities - from the Inner - by whatever name.

What after all makes a Witch? Is it their Magical practice? Their religious label? Or their personal relationship with the unseen?

The key dates in the outward history of Witchcraft in Britain, since the Witch-trials, are as follows.

c.1428-c.1782

Witch trials across Europe;

15th century

Arrival of the Hermetic Tradition?

c.1500

Arrival of Romanies in Britain;

1536

William Tyndale publishes the Bible in English & is executed for it;

1563

Anti-Witchcraft statutes of Elizabeth and of Mary of Scotland;

1590s

Origin of Freemasonry;

1604

Anti-Witchcraft statute of James VI of Scotland / I of England;

1649

Gerrard Winstanley leads the Diggers in a campaign for land access & religious freedom;

1736

Repeal of the Witchcraft statutes and their replacement with the Witchcraft Act;

1824

Vagrancy Act;

1826

First recorded suggestion that mediæval Witchcraft was a survival of pre-Christian Paganism - by Karl Ernst Jarcke, a Catholic who saw it as a decay into Devil-worship;

1849

First recorded suggestion that there was once a universal Great Mother Goddess - by classicist Eduard Gerhard;

1856

Creation of police forces (County & Borough Police Act);

1862

First recorded positive interpretation of the Pagan survival myth - by Jules Michelet in his La Sorcière;

1888

Formation of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn;

1890s

Publication of Charles Godfrey Leland�s books about Italian Witchcraft (Stregeria);

1921

Publication of Margaret Murray�s The Witch Cult in Western Europe, which popularised the Pagan survival myth, along with the idea of covens (of 13);

1933

Publication of Murray�s The God of the Witches, with the worship of a Horned God;

1948

Publication of Robert Graves� The White Goddess, with a triple, lunar Goddess and Summer & Winter Kings;

1951

Repeal of the Witchcraft Act 1736, replaced with the Fraudulent Mediums Act;

1954

Publication of Gerald Gardner�s Witchcraft Today;

1984

Latest recorded European �witch�-burning - in Poland;

1999

Publication of Ronald Hutton�s The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft.

The following books may be useful:

• Bengt Ankarloo & Stuart Clark (editors) (1999) The Athlone History of Witchcraft and Magic in Europe, especially Volume 5 The Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 0-485-89105-0 and Volume 6 The Twentieth Century, Athlone.
• Rae Beth (1990) Hedgewitch Robert Hale 0-7090-4851-3
• Vivianne Crowley (1989) Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Age Aquarian; Thorsons 1996 0-85030-737-6
• Vivianne Crowley (1996) The Phoenix from the Flame: Paganism in the New Age Thorsons
• Owen Davies (1999) Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736-1951 Manchester University Press 07190-5656-X
• Marian Green (1991) A Witch Alone Aquarian; Thorsons 1995 1-85538-112-5
• Marian Green (1989) The Elements of Natural Magic Element 1-85230-067-1
• Marian Green (1987) The Gentle Arts of Aquarian Magic Aquarian 0-85030-553-5 (O.O.P.)
• Gwenfran Gwernan (1996) Introduction to Witchcraft Third Edition, Quest (BCM-SCL Quest, London WC1N 3XX, £4.00)
• Ronald Hutton (1999) The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft Oxford University Press (hardback: 0-19-820744-1)
• Prudence Jones (2000) Triads and Trinities: The Origin of the Modern Pagan Goddess Pagan Dawn 135 (Beltane 2000) pp. 14-6; The Three Goddesses (pt II) Pagan Dawn 136 (Lammas 2000) pp. 26-8.
• Nigel Pennick (2001) Way of Natural Magic Thorsons 0-7225-4038-8
• Marion Shoard (1999) A Right to Roam: Should we open up Britain's countryside? Oxford University Press 0-19-288016-0
• Doreen Valiente (1975) Natural Magic Phoenix (distributed in the U.K. by Robert Hale 0-7090-6450-0)
• Doreen Valiente (1978) Witchcraft for Tomorrow Robert Hale 0-7090-5244-8
• Doreen Valiente (1994) An ABC of Witchcraft Past and Present Robert Hale

The following quarterly magazines contain useful material too (U.K. susbscription rates given, please enquire of the magazine, enclosing an International Reply Coupon, for details of overseas rates):

• The Cauldron, "Witchcraft, Paganism and Folklore", single issue £2.50, annual subscription £10, pay 'Mike Howard', Caemorgan Cottage, Caemorgan Rd. Cardigan, Dyfed SA43 IQU (do not put 'The Cauldron' on the envelope). Web-site: http://www.the-cauldron.fsnet.co.uk.
• Quest, "For the magical heritage of the West", single issue £1.75, annual subscription £7.00, pay 'Quest', BCM - SCL Quest, London WC1N 3XX
• The Witches' Wynd, "Everything for those new to the paths of magic", single issue £2, annual subscription £8, pay 'The Witches' Wynd', P.O. Box 615, Norwich NR1 4QQ.

First uploaded Summer 2001. Latest update: January 2003.