A. This is off-topic.
B. It is also the case that, to quote Cecil, “This be wack, Jack.” What is the historical basis of the Wicca religion (modern witchcraft)?
A. This isn’t even pretending to be on-topic.
B. Per Cecil, again: How do I go about making a voodoo doll?
What we’re supposed to be doing here is fighting ignorance. Not promoting it.
Oh no it’s not; you just can’t understand what I was saying.
There is a pervasive belief in witches because witches did exist. It’s quite likely that they did not call themselves ‘witches,’ however, it is likely they were given this name because of their practices. I’m not saying modern Wiccans = ancient witches, but that some modern Wiccans imitate practices used by ancient witches.
I (and Cecil, per your cite) sincerly doubt that ancient witches were ceremonial magicians as in the likes of Gardnarian witchcraft, but in the old days pre and early Christianity there were people who did healings, made potions, prepared herbal remedies, etc., these people were later persecuted by the church, but the church didn’t get them all. They passed their teachings down hereditarily.
One of the beliefs that existed in Europe was that through something called “affinity,” the whole of a person could be affected by the use of a cast-off part of a person. It was thought that those the church labeled ‘witches’ were adept in doing such things and so people who believed his tended to protect things such as hair, fingernail clippings, etc.
In more modern times, in Polynesia, this was a widespread belief, and what has been preserved about Polynesian witches, (‘kahuna’), shows that they did indeed practice this. So in fact the practice was widespread and common, and the belief in witches, European or Polynesian was widespread too. The belief in kahuna in Hawai`i persists to this day among some of the Hawaiian and part-Hawaiian mixed local population.
Definately on topic, you just needed more explanation than the average Joe.
And it is fighting ignorance. Yours in particular.
Actually, Christianity was instrumental in promoting a belief in witches.
Xtianity tried to suppress the practices of ‘witches,’ such as herbalism, affinity magic, etc., because it was inconsistant with the teachings of Xtianity. Likely, they also made the term “witch” more popular.
Once again, you are being off-topic, and once again you are asserting fantasies that were dealt with years ago here at the Straight Dope, and now you are persisting in doing so even when that has been pointed out to you.
Margaret Murray’s theories about witches being misunderstood pagans came entirely out of her own head, and in nearly a century no one has introduced any evidence to back her up. On the contrary, all the evidence is against it, especially since men believed in witches long before Christianity came on the scene, and belief in witches is still common in real pagan societies.
Can the moderators please do something about this troll?
> TWEET! < :::: Moderator whistle ::: This is a forum for commenting on Staff Reports, and this thread is meant for commenting on the Tooth Fairy. Yeah, the Tooth Fairy report did relate to fears of discarded body parts (teeth, fingernails, hair, etc) being used for hexes. Discussion of that would be relevant here. But discussion of the relationship between Christianity and witches is way too far afield.
If you’d like to discuss that topic, I suggest starting a new thread in the Great Debates forum.
Or, reading through some old threads, here’s a few:
Colder than a witches teat
Why are druids and wiccans seen as devil-worshippers?
What’s the deal with witches and broomsticks?
Also, John, you’ve been around long enough to know that it is impolite and a rules violation to call someone a “troll”. If you suspect someone of trolling, please alert a moderator.
You mean, the Tooth Fairy report.
I had just questioned what evidence there was for the statement made in the report. I was satisfied that the statement was more or less ironic, rather than based upon evidence. Personally, I would have retracted it, but a lot of people have discussed prevalence of practices that seem to make the statement plausible. I just don’t know yet.
That discussion seemed related to the prevalence of practice argument. For what it’s worth, that discussion has been very helpful and informative to me, in trying to answer my OP.
Yeah, sorry, R M, I was reacting before I had me morning java.
There’s a fuzzy line somewhere. The question of beliefs in the ability to curse by having body pieces is clearly well within the realm of commenting on the Staff Report. And, equally clearly, the question of the historical impact of Christianity’s opposition to witchcraft belongs elsewhere.
I’ve also now read the prior posts more carefully, and I see that the name-calling wasn’t entirely one-sided. So, my warning to John W should have applied to everybody: no personal insults or name-calling in this forum. Period.
Pardon me. I thought this thread was about
Thought I was addressing that… guess I got a lot to learn yet.
No real sweat, Snakespirit, about running a li’l off-topic (in the opinion of the Moderator.) The question of how much latitude is an art, not a science, and I freely confess that it often depends on my mood, on how interesting I personally find the discussion, on whether it’s been discussed before, and on whether the dog’s stuck his nose on my keyboard asking to go out. In this case, since the history of “witches” and “wiccans” has been discussed fairly often on the Boards before, I thought I’d rein this thread in a little.
Also, frankly, if there hadn’t been some insults going on, I’d prolly have let the discussion run. But the rules about no personal insults in this forum are pretty clear.
In any case, we’re glad to have you with us, Snakespirit, and don’t get discouraged by a minor contretemps!
Not to hijack this thread further, but I figure if it is moved to GD or a new thread on the subject gets started I should mention it here.
But the problem with Murray’s claim that “witches are misunderstood pagans” isn’t entirely built out of whole cloth. It’s wrong, but it’s not that wrong.
As Keith Thomas argued in Religion and the Decline of Magic, prior to the Reformation in England the lines between “popular Catholicism” and “pagan practices” were not always clear-cut. It was common for the ostensibly orthodox to use “enchanted” amulets or believe in the “properties” of those born under certain signs of the Zodiac (example: The Commonplace Book of Robert Reynys, Churchwarden of Acle, 1388). It’s not that nobody in the church hierarchy minded at all–the Constitutions of Oxford of 1407 discussed penalties for such activities–but it wasn’t considered a major problem.
Witchcraft was similarly–well, not tolerated, but at least not considered as grievous as other aberrent beliefs. The prosecutions of Lollards under Bishop Alnwick in East Anglia in the 1430’s demonstrate that holding unorthodox beliefs alone was not severely punished; rather, it was the spreading of such beliefs that resulted in severe punishments, including death. As Thomas reiterates, lone witches were often left to their own devices. It was really only in the mid-16th century, with the appointment of Matthew Parker as Witchfinder General, that the prosecution of suspected witches became a priority. In short, though men believed in witches before the coming of Protestantism, at least in England it was not a big problem.
Where am I getting to here? To say that “witches were misunderstood pagans” is perhaps wishful thinking, but to say that “most witches were misunderstood people” might not be. As the New Salem trials demonstrated, a groundless accusation of witchcraft was an avenue to attack one’s personal enemies. Under the very different circumstances of the aforementioned Alnwick trials, groundless accusations of Lollardy, the most feared heresy of the day, are also evident. The explosion in witchcraft trials following the mid-16th century aren’t due to an explosion in witchcraft, but rather a determination by the authorities to find it.
Even before the Reformation, we must take into account that almost all of the records of medieval witchcraft that are extant are ecclesiastical prosecution records, and must be taken with a grain of salt. Just because certain pagan or witchcraft activities were said to occur doesn’t mean that they did. As an example from outside of England, every account of Icelandic pagan activity that survives today was written not by the pagans themselves but by later Christian authors. (Disclosure: my ex-wife has published several papers on this subject.) It is not really known exactly what constituted pagan ritual in Iceland; many of the rituals which were believed by the later authors to have been practiced, such as burial at sea, were later found through archeological or other evidence to have never existed. (Icelanders practiced ship burial, as did other Norse peoples.)
In short, witchcraft may have existed in some form in Europe, but likely not to the extent argued by contemporary sources, nor perhaps in popularly-believed forms.
OK, thanks, Duke, this is now sufficiently off-track that I can close it.
Discussion about wiccans and witches can be found in various threads, including Cecil’s column (already referenced) and:
Why are Druids and Wiccans seen as devil-worshippers?
What’s the deal with witches and broomsticks?, also referring to Cecil’s column
Why the hell did ppl believe in witchcraft?
… and dozens of others