Witchcraft (traditional)
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Template:Witchcraft sidebar Witchcraft is one way some Europeans[vague] described folk magic, calling those who possess and use this knowledge witches.[1][2][3] They might be specified as 'white,' 'good,' or 'unbinding' witches.[4] There were a number of other interchangeable terms for these individuals including blessers, wizards, sorcerers, cunning-man, wise-man,[4] cunning folk, wise people, and service magicians.[5]
Folk magicians throughout Europe were often viewed ambivalently by communities, and were considered as capable of harming as of healing,[6] which could lead to their being accused as "witches" in the negative sense. Many English "witches" convicted of consorting with demons may have been cunning folk whose supposed fairy familiars had been demonised;[7] many French devins-guerisseurs ("diviner-healers") were accused of witchcraft,[8] over half the accused witches in Hungary seem to have been healers,[9] and the "vast majority" of Finland's accused witches were folk healers.[10] Among the Russian words for witch, ведьма (ved'ma) literally means 'one who knows', from Old Slavic вѣдъ 'to know'.[11]
The presence of this form of traditional knowledge would be combined with folklore[vague] and the history of the early modern witch trials to create the witch-cult hypothesis in the early nineteenth century.[citation needed] Popularized by Margaret Murray in the early 20th century, it was influential in the development of various forms of neopagan witchcraft, including Wicca. It would remain popular in Pagan circles until well into the 21st century, despite the thorough refutation of any surviving organized pre-Christian religion in Europe.
When Europeans encountered other cultures and began the process of colonization, they discovered a variety of religious and cultural expressions of magic, including shamans, witch doctors, folk healers, and medicine men which were sometimes considered by Europeans to be witches.[12]
Russia[edit]
Spells[edit]
Pagan practices formed a part of Russian and Eastern Slavic culture; the Russian people were deeply superstitious. The witchcraft[citation needed] practiced consisted mostly of earth magic and herbology; the specific herbs were not as important as how these herbs were gathered. Ritual centered on harvest of the crops, and the location of the sun was very important.[13] One source, pagan author Judika Illes, tells that herbs picked on Midsummer's Eve were believed to be most powerful, especially if gathered on Bald Mountain near Kiev during the witches' annual revels celebration.[14] Botanicals should be gathered "during the seventeenth minute of the fourteenth hour, under a dark moon, in the thirteenth field, wearing a red dress, pick the twelfth flower on the right."[15]
Spells also served for midwifery, shape-shifting, keeping lovers faithful, and bridal customs. Spells dealing with midwifery and childbirth focused on the spiritual well-being of the baby.[15] Shape-shifting spells involved invocation of the wolf as a spirit animal.[16] To keep men faithful, lovers would cut a ribbon the length of his erect penis and soak it in his seminal emissions after sex while he was sleeping, then tie seven knots in it; keeping this talisman of knot magic ensured loyalty.[17] Part of an ancient pagan marriage tradition involved the bride taking a ritual bath at a bathhouse before the ceremony. Her sweat would be wiped from her body using raw fish, and the fish would be cooked and fed to the groom.[18]
Demonism, or black magic, was not prevalent. Persecution for witchcraft mostly involved the practice of simple earth magic founded on herbology by solitary practitioners with a Christian influence. In one case, investigators found a locked box containing something bundled in a kerchief and three paper packets, wrapped and tied, containing crushed grasses.[19] Most rituals of witchcraft were very simple—one spell of divination consists of sitting alone outside meditating, asking the earth to show one's fate.[20]
While these customs were unique to Russian culture, they were not exclusive to this region. Russian pagan practices were often akin to paganism in other parts of the world. The Chinese concept of chi, a form of energy that often manipulated in witchcraft, is known as bioplasma in Russian practices.[21] The western concept of an "evil eye" or a "hex" was translated to Russia as a "spoiler".[22] A spoiler was rooted in envy, jealousy and malice. Spoilers could be made by gathering bone from a cemetery, a knot of the target's hair, burned wooden splinters, and several Herb-Paris berries (which are very poisonous). Placing these items in a sachet in the victim's pillow completes a spoiler. The Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, and ancient Egyptians recognized the evil eye from as early as 3,000 BCE; in Russian practices it is seen as a sixteenth-century concept.[23]
Societal view of witchcraft[edit]
The dominant societal concern about those practicing witchcraft was not whether it was effective, but whether it could cause harm.[19] Peasants in Russian and Ukrainian societies often shunned witchcraft, unless they needed help against supernatural forces. Impotence, stomach pains, barrenness, hernias, abscesses, epileptic seizures, and convulsions were all attributed to evil (or witchcraft). This is reflected in linguistics; there are numerous words for a variety of practitioners of paganism-based healers. Russian peasants referred to a witch as a chernoknizhnik (a person who plied his trade with the aid of a black book), sheptun/sheptun'ia (a 'whisperer' male or female), lekar/lekarka or znakhar/znakharka (a male or female healer), or zagovornik (an incanter).[24]
There was universal reliance on folk healers—but clients often turned them in if something went wrong. According to Russian historian Valerie A. Kivelson, witchcraft accusations were normally thrown at lower-class peasants, townspeople and Cossacks. People turned to witchcraft as a means to support themselves. The ratio of male to female accusations was 75% to 25%. Males were targeted more, because witchcraft was associated with societal deviation. Because single people with no settled home could not be taxed, males typically had more power than women in their dissent.[19]
The history of Witchcraft had evolved around society. More of a psychological concept to the creation and usage of Witchcraft can create the assumption as to why women are more likely to follow the practices behind Witchcraft. Identifying with the soul of an individual's self is often deemed as "feminine" in society. There is analyzed social and economic evidence to associate between witchcraft and women.[25]
Latin America[edit]
References[edit]
- ↑ Adler, Margot (2006). Drawing Down the Moon. Penguin Press.
a person (usually an older female) who is adept in the uses of herbs, roots, barks, etc. for the purposes of both healing and hurting (including midwifing, poisoning, producing aphrodisiacs, producing hallucinogens, etc.) and who is familiar with the basic principles of both passive and active magical talents, and can therefore use them for good or ill, as she chooses. A typical Classic Witch, being an old peasant, would probably also be a font of country wisdom and old superstitions, as well as a shrewd judge of character. Such a person would be of great value to local peasants, but would also be somewhat frightening and resented.
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- ↑ Scot, Reginald (1584). "Chapter 9". The Discoverie of Witchcraft. Booke V.
At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, 'she is a witch' or 'she is a wise woman'. At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, 'she is a witch' or 'she is a wise woman'. Nevertheless, it is possible to isolate that kind of 'witchcraft' which involved the employment (or presumed employment) of some occult means of doing harm to other people in a way which was generally disapproved of. In this sense the belief in witchcraft can be defined as the attribution of misfortune to occult human agency. A witch was a person of either sex (but more often female) who could mysteriously injure other people.
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- ↑ Stein, Rebecca; Stein, Philip (2017). The Anthropology of Religion, Magic, and Witchcraft. Taylor & Francis. pp. 233–234, 244, 248.
[Some of those accused of witchcraft] were those who dealt with folk remedies and midwifery. 'When such remedies went bad, and when face-to-face dispute resolution failed, the customers who paid for the cures or the potions might conclude that the purveyor was at fault'.
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- ↑ 4.0 4.1 Macfarlane, Alan (1999). Witchcraft in Tudor and Stuart England: A Regional and Comparative Study. Psychology Press. ISBN 978-0415196123. Archived from the original on 26 January 2021. Retrieved 31 October 2017 – via Google Books. Unknown parameter
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- ↑ Hutton, Ronald (2017). The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present. Yale University Press. pp. x–xi. Search this book on
- ↑ Wilby, Emma (2006) Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits. pp. 51–54.
- ↑ Emma Wilby 2005 p. 123; See also Alan Macfarlane p. 127 who notes how "white witches" could later be accused as "black witches". Archived 2016-08-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ↑ Monter, Witchcraft in France and Switzerland. Ch. 7: "White versus Black Witchcraft".
- ↑ Pócs 1999, p. 12.
- ↑ Stokker, Kathleen (2007). Remedies and Rituals: Folk Medicine in Norway and the New Land. St. Paul, MN: Minnesota Historical Society Press. pp. 81–82. ISBN 978-0873517508.
Supernatural healing of the sort practiced by Inger Roed and Lisbet Nypan, known as signeri, played a role in the vast majority of Norway's 263 documented witch trials. In trial after trial, accused 'witches' came forward and freely testified about their healing methods, telling about the salves they made and the bønner (prayers) they read over them to enhance their potency.
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- ↑ See also Ryan, W.F. The Bathhouse at Midnight: An Historical Survey of Magic and Divination in Russia, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999.
- ↑ "Shamanism, Witchcraft, and Magic: Foreword." Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft, vol. 1 no. 2, 2006, p. 207-208. Project MUSE, doi:10.1353/mrw.0.0064. "Whether they are called shamans, seers, medicine men, witch doctors, or occasionally witches, people engaged in some type of shamanistic practice have been revered and celebrated, feared, or condemned in many societies. In addition, scholars have argued that remnants or residues of shamanistic practices underlie numerous magical rites in many other societies. Perhaps most famously, Carlo Ginzburg identified shamanistic elements in the rites of the so-called benandanti (well-farers) of early modern Friuli. Although the benandanti claimed that they battled witches in a trance state to ensure the fertility of crops, investigating inquisitors eventually became convinced that the benandanti were themselves witches."
- ↑ Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 524.[ISBN missing]
- ↑ Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 252.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 847.
- ↑ Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 623.
- ↑ Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 797.
- ↑ Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 705.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 19.2 Kivelson, Valerie A. (July 2003). "Male Witches and Gendered Categories in Seventeenth-Century Russia". Comparative Studies in Society and History. 45 (3): 606–631. doi:10.1017/S0010417503000276. JSTOR 3879463. Unknown parameter
|s2cid=ignored (help) - ↑ Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 313.
- ↑ Janet and Stewart Farrar, A Witches Bible: The Complete Witches' Handbook (Washington, Phoenix Publishing, Inc.) 1984. p. 316.
- ↑ Judika Illes, The Element Encyclopedia of 5,000 Spells: The Ultimate Reference Book for the Magical Arts (Element: London, 2004), p. 586.
- ↑ Raymond Buckland, The Witch Book: The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft, Wicca, and Neo-Paganism (Detroit: Visible Ink) 2002. p. 160.
- ↑ Worobec, Christine D. (1995). "Witchcraft Beliefs and Practices in Prerevolutionary Russian and Ukrainian Villages". The Russian Review. 54 (2): 165–187. doi:10.2307/130913. JSTOR 130913.
- ↑ Peterson, Mark A. (March 1998). "Damned Women: Sinners and Witches in Puritan New England. By Elizabeth Reis. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1997. xxii + 212 pp". Church History. 67 (1): 192–194. doi:10.2307/3170836. JSTOR 3170836. Unknown parameter
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