I’ve sometimes heard Wiccans and neopagans speak as if they were the faith-descendants, as it were, of the “witches” persecuted in 16th-Century Europe.
Well, there were always folk-magicians* and such in Europe, at all premodern periods – not charlatans, but practitioners who believed in their own magic (and might have seen no distinction between chanting a spell and applying an herbal poultice – magic is magic). “Witches” in the vernacular just meant folk-magicians who used their magic maliciously; and no doubt there were always some who did, or believed they were doing so. (There was also a recognized class of “cunning folk” – respectable folk-magicians who did not think of themselves as witches, and were not regarded as witches, and sometimes were hired as witch-finders.)
And, perhaps, there might have been some underground pagans keeping alive some pre-Christian beliefs and traditions and ceremonies.
But, the crypto-pagans might or might not have been on speaking terms with the folk-magicians. ISTM. At least, popular imagination conflates the two groups but I don’t know whether there is actually any reason to do so. Is there?
As distinct from stage illusionists; also, as distinct from high or ceremonial magicians, or magickians, like John Dee, Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley, etc. The sort who work with what Granny Weatherwax would call “books and stars and . . . jommetry.”
It’s been a while since I read Triumph of the Moon by Ronald Hutton (The Triumph of the Moon: A History of Modern Pagan Witchcraft - Ronald Hutton - Google Books), but IIRC there’s a lengthy discussion of “cunning folk” and other folk magicians. The upshot is there is no evidence that their practices are directly related to religious paganism (and there is no evidence that “crypto-pagans” ever existed in the first place).
The linked thread seems to be based on “Murray’s now infamous The Witch-Cult in Western Europe”, which has been roundly debunked by modern scholarship.
There’s no reason to conflate the two, since neither existed in pre-Christian Europe.
Wicca is a made-up religion dating from the 1920s. It pretends to deep roots, but it is basically just a matter of picking and choosing practices from any time in history as people see fit.
Pre-Christian Europe had various pagan religions, but all were crushed by the Church. They have no connection to Wicca, nor do “folk magicians” – what in other cultures are called “medicine men” mean anything in the context of the period: there were healers and priests of the pagan religions.
Of course folk-magicians existed in pre-Christian Europe.
Every premodern culture has its magicians. Sometimes priests are wizards; sometimes – as would have been the case in the Roman Empire – magicians are distinguishable from priests in that they operate outside any official or recognized priestly hierarchy.
And there’s the problem. Unless i’m mistaken and there’s been some major leap in historical understanding, there were no “pagans” to speak of left in Europe by the 16th century, and the “witches” who were persecuted were all, much like the “witches” in Salem, ordinary Christian folk (and some Jews) who were singled and wrongly accused due to neighborhood grudges or petty disputes or racism or just plain superstition.
Of course, some of those might have been actual witches, i.e., folk-magicians who had been casting spells with malicious intent. And others might have been legitimate cunning-folk unfairly maligned – not as to practicing magic, but as to the uses made of it.
OTOH, it’s hard to believe there were no pagan survivals (other than Church traditions co-opting pagan ones, like Christmas) in Christian Europe – conversion wasn’t an all-at-once thing, Lithuania remained non-Christian until the end of the 14th Century.
I did once hear at a Wiccan educational seminar that “heathen” means “those peasants out in the remote countryside, on the heaths, who are still practicing that old-fashioned pre-Christian stuff.” “Pagan” likewise means “hick,” more or less (Latin paganus from pagus, rural district). And the conical witch’s hat was explained as Church propaganda: Conical hats went out of fashion – at least, in the towns and cities – about a century before the first known artistic depictions of witches wearing them, but, at that time, some people were still wearing conical hats in the remote countryside, where cultural changes took a very long time to reach in those days. In depicting witches as wearing conical hats, the Church was saying, “Only these backward rustic folk are still pagans; all we hip, sophisticated people are Christians!” I’ve never tried to verify any of that.
It’s interesting to recall that wizards were usually depicted as conical hat wearers as well; sometimes, IIRC without brims. I wonder if the origin of the dunce cap is somehow connected with this “hick hat” theory as well?
I also have to ask, whenever were conical hats in fashion? I can’t recall ever seeing anyone depicted or described as wearing such a hat, except in stories about witches or wizards.
I think this is a possibility. You wouldn’t be speaking or writing much about such things openly in a region where you might be severely punished for being Catholic or Protestant in the wrong country, and in earlier times, beheaded or impaled for adhering to paganism.
I don’t see magicians or witches as non-christians. There were a lot of pagan practices (like celebrating xmas :D) in medieval and early modern christian Europe. But I doubt there were people (save muslims and jews to an extent) who did not believe christian God and Jesus do not exist. Also, everybody believed that there are a large number of other spirits, some of them “satanic”. The argument to convert the Lithuanians was not that the stuff they worship is not real but that it is from Satan.
Witchcraft was real and a grave sin but like with any other sins, they committed it regularly. Some magical practices, like astrology, were not even condemned by the church. Having sex with Satan was the really big deal and the authorities were expected to act from a religious point of view. Cursing your neighbour’s cattle was also a crime but probably a much less spiritual issue.
Of course folk-magicians existed in pre-Christian Europe.