What was Witchcraft?
The
origins of Witchcraft are really an unknown. No one can pinpoint exactly when
the first craft of the Witch took place, and who that first Witch was, for the
simple fact that nothing was documented in writing. There is a lot of
speculation that Witchcraft could have even started with the beginnings of man.
But I think we’ll start a little later in history.
Medieval
times, female Witches were feared…as any woman with any sort of “power” (either
fictional or factual) was deemed as being in league with Satan (this stemming
from the belief that women caused the fall of man by being tempted by Satan).
However…male magicians may have been revered, especially by royals, simply
because it made more sense for men to obtain power (any kind of power, again,
either fictional or factual). Lucky for them, they were granted the skills of
documentation, and stored any sort of information in secretive vaults, rooms
and books.
Women practitioners however, had to translate everything by word of mouth. Very little was written down, because, being women of the village, they weren’t granted the same luxury of learning how to write as male magicians, therefore many of them were illiterate (which could have been a good thing, to provide less proof against them, should they be discovered and tried for practicing a devilish craft).
Many
women (and even some men AND even children) were tried in many trials
throughout history, all over the world, for the practice of Witchcraft. Whether
or not they were guilty is unknown and is more likely that they were not. For
example…the infamous “Salem Witch Trials” proved to be the greatest example of
mass hysteria and paranoia leading to the death of hundreds (if not thousands),
merely out of fear of the unknown and automatic blame of “Witchcraft”. If
anyone was actually guilty of anything, it was perhaps the slave “Tituba”, who
was interestingly sold after the hysteria began (as opposed to being put to
death as many other villagers were).
Later
on, through the years, as a result of the fear of “Witches” based on bias and
power-driven propaganda, “The Hammer of the Witches” was created, especially to
“refute” any belief that “Witches” didn’t exist. “The Hammer of the Witches”
was created in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer and Jacob (James) Sprenger, as a way of
“trying” anyone they accused of Witchcraft. It was more or less a manual on
determining through physical search, exhaustion, and torture to determine who
was a Witch (and anyone succumbing to extensive, embarrassing searches,
exhaustion and torture is bound to admit to anything, even if they’re aren’t
actually guilty of it).
It
wasn’t until about the late 1940’s to early 1950’s when laws against Witchcraft
were finally repealed (perhaps after finally realizing that Witchcraft isn’t as
evil or as dangerous as they thought). In many parts of the world, it is even
protected under constitutions or charters as “freedom of religion or spiritual
beliefs”. The unfortunate part is that many parts of the world, many people are
STILL tried and executed for the practice of Witchcraft, but Witchcraft is practiced
in many different ways throughout the world.
Modern
Witchcraft
Today
Witchcraft takes on a different face. It’s more common for the Witches of today
to participate in more benevolent acts within their craft, however there ARE
those who also make use of malevolent acts, depending on the situation. Most
common acts from Witches today are of a healing or protective variety, but for
the “malevolent” acts, they can be cursing and hexing, and the situation would
have to warrant the use of such extreme force. For example, should someone take
it upon themselves to inflict wilful harm, purely for their own personal
enjoyment, an experienced Witch would take it upon themselves to exact the same wilful harm upon the “criminal” (for
want of a better word) through use of magical means (i.e. a curse). Situations
that would NOT warrant the use of
such extreme force would be the theft of petty personal property (i.e. music
player, laptop, purse, phone, etc), rumours, general hurt feelings. These are
not situations that would warrant such “crafts” being used because of the
extreme nature of such an act.
What is
Witchcraft? What do I do?
The
term takes on different meanings depending on who you ask. There’s the saying,
you ask 100 Witches what Witchcraft is, and you’ll get 150 different answers.
In terms of what I do, Witchcraft is a craft of practical skills, developed
over time through study, and application of that study. What kind of skills are
developed? The more important skills that one needs to develop in order to be a
Witch, properly, would be mental discipline. Meditation can help one to develop
that mental discipline, as it helps one to quiet the mind long enough to
determine what your goals are, when you practice.
Another
skill one should develop would be visualization skills. If you can’t envision
the outcome of your actions, how are you to determine they will come to
fruition? Like all acts in life, you have to see the outcome, and believe it. You wake up in the morning
and, before even stepping out of bed, you see yourself, getting up, brushing
your teeth, getting dressed, eating breakfast, running errands, going to work,
coming home, having dinner, socializing with family and/or friends, then going
to bed. Once you see that in your mind, you take action to make what you
visualize come true.
One
should strengthen their visualization skills so that they can see either with
closed eyes, or opened what they want to achieve as clearly as they could see
whatever it is that is really in front of them. It can take years to develop
these skills. For some, visualization can be easy to develop; but for others,
visualization can be quite difficult. It takes time and patience. Once you have
developed these two important skills, all other skills can fall into place.
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