History of Witchcraft Witchcraft Surviving through Times by Levanah

…To the sacrificed ones, ad futuram rei memoriam… The Roots of Religion and the Beginning of the Gods

The twenty-five-thousand years old cave paintings from the Palaeolithic people probably stand for the beginning of sympathetic magic, that is based upon the "like attracts like" principle. In order to track down an animal, a hunter might perform a ritual, like drawing the scene of a killed animal on the wall of a cave, or even perform a dance ritual, such as the bison-dance ritual performed later by the Native American Indians.In some ways they created a psychic bound with the prey, and thinking like the animal made it easier to track it down and an animal killed on a picture would end in the dead of a real one.

Since surviving was a very difficult thing to do, those people created the Deities, but who were they, and who was there first; a god or a goddess? According to Charles Leland, who translated "The Vangelo of the Witches of Tuscany", "Diana was the first created before all creation; in her were all things; out of herself, the first darkness, she divided herself…" The worship of the goddess and her priestesses might be the oldest worship ever known and even older by far then any god worship. The ability to give birth was long considered as an act of pure magick and directly linked with the moon, regarding the change of the women's womb during pregnancy. These changes reminded of the phases the moon goes through each month anew while waning and waxing.Another ability, considered, as being magical was the ability to bleed each month anew, without suffering from this loss and also was the direct link menstruation has with the phases of the moon, most women bleeding on new moon. The moon was the form the goddess took to show herself to mankind, and all the magical abilities of the women were strongly linked with her. The nature goddess later gave birth to the god, who then became Lord of the Hunt as well as Lord of Death.

Based upon the "like attracts like" principle did they depict the Lord of the Hunt as a stag or a horned human and this image of the god survived through times. Of course, there were many more deities since they all overtook different aspects of the one, and so ruled over specific areas of nature and the world. There was a God of Thunder, a God of the Trees or a Goddess of Water.


The people then spread across countries, followed by their Gods. These Gods got different names, depending on the folk they had to watch over and so the main Scottish Goddess was named Nicneven, while the Celts still continued to call her Diana. The Deities of the different folks often had the same attributions, sometimes, even the names were simple variations of a basic one. For example, the God named Cernunnos, the Horned One, in south Britain, has been named Creme in north Britain. With the nascence of the different Deities, the different ancient world religions were born, and as the roots of all were common ones, they showed a lot of similitudes.

Since communication with the Gods was important, the ancient ones designed people who seemed to have an invisible bond with the Deities, to become priests and priestesses.Some of these people who knew the language of the Gods and could direct the rituals to bring positive results, became later known under the name of "Witch" or "Wiccan", which translates into "the wise ones".

Same as the priests, priestess and magicians of other world religions, the Wiccan knew about astrology, divination, magick and herbs. In some way we can say that they were all equally wise, since they handled with ancient wisdom and divine mysteries and were using the powers of nature to perform magick.The religion of the Wiccan, the rituals and the magick related to it later became known as "Witchcraft".

According to Teresa Moorey, the Celts bring us the closest to today's witchcraft. Back in 12.000 BCE (Before Common Era), the Celts in Ireland worshiped already a multitude of Gods and Goddesses, but they also worshiped the "Triple Goddess", also known under the name of "Great Mother", and so marked their time around the Moon.


Next to rituals in honour of the goddess do many myths speak of the celebration of death and rebirth of a solar God. This was also the case in ancient Egyptian, Maya and Inca mythology. In these religions, even sacrifices were made in their honour.

The witchcraft religion was mainly influenced by the Greek Sun God Apollo, whose cult was related to philosophy and the tools of the conscious mind.

The sacrifices were of different kind,all depending upon the religion itself, and so the Maya and Aztecs even performed human sacrifices. Human sacrifice, especially the sacrifice of young children or babies must sound barbaric nowadays, but in Aztecan and Mayan beliefs they were so-called messengers, whose souls would directly become stars and carry a message for the gods. This specific message was a request to stop time since they believed it to be their worst enemy ever since it would imply the ending of another era, or 'sun', bringing along the end of their (and our) civilization.

In the witchcraft religion, sacrifices were mainly of another kind, even though human sacrifice seemed to have been part of our religion at some point if we look at the so-called slain kings which died in the honour of witchcraft around the same time of the year in which the corn got cut and the god of witchcraft symbolically died along, to be reborn in all we make from this corn. Most offerings in the craft are nevertheless under the form of fruits, food, incense or other non human or animal kind.

Another similitude between the old religions was the construction of sacred sites, used to worship their Deities. Some of these sacred sites are still present today. Stonehenge is perhaps the most popular sacred site known in Europe, hundredths of people visiting it per day, and Wiccans and Druids still celebrate Midwinter and Midsummer on this area. These ancient sites are places of great power, where the energies of the Elements are gathered and accessible. They are mainly related by ley lines, which are lines of great energy on the earth's crust-which ancient ones were aware of.

The deities of these different world religions evolved and changed through times and still show presence nowadays, but were all these deities they worshipped of a good kind? And if so, why would they ask human sacrifice and blood?

In accordance to the teachings of the Tree of Life, as well as basing upon Yin and Yang principle, are we very well aware of the fact that there is a dark and light force in everyone, including the deities. We can consider them as twins of equal importance to keep balance and to distinguish them one from another. In Egyptian mythology the good god Osiris got killed by his evil brother Seth because that one was jealous and wanted to rule over upper and lower Egypt. Isis then revived Osiris using her magical abilities and Osiris became the God of the Underworld and vegetation. This is only one legend amongst many which depict the constant battle between light and darkness.

This symbolic battle still takes place twice a year in today's witchcraft, when the Oak and Holy Kings battle for light or darkness to reign for six months. These legends tell us that both are somehow needed to keep balance and that we should honour both equally because the dark deities are not pure evil but part of the one creative force. Also does witchcraft, compared to other ancient religions, not know a so-called dark force, but the aspects of darkness and light as being part of the one god, who can be both lord of dance, depicting the enjoyments of life, as well as being lord of death, symbolic for the eternal cycle of life, death and rebirth. Nevertheless were there and certainly still are, people that don't understand these attributions and strongly believe that witches pray towards evil forces.

They often turn towards the other ancient world religions, their deiites and rites and think they can consider them as practicing exactly alike, especially in regards of the human sacrifices. It is nevertheless important to know that in witchcraft human sacrifice were rare and souls praying towards dark forces even more, but this wasn't what the Catholic Church believed and so It soon claimed that their God was the only God and every other worship a wrong path to follow.They couldn't accept that more people worshipped the ancient gods and goddesses instead of worshipping the one and only God they claimed theirs to be. For that case, followers of the ancient pagan or witchcraft cults had to be converted by force and all other religions were claimed to be ruled by an evil force, which witches and pagans alike were said to worship.

Since witchcraft did not know a purely evil godform or force, this force had to be invented. Fact is, the Devil never existed before that time and he saw daylight through an error in translation, the Hebrew word "Ha-Satan", which actually meant "opponent" became "Satan", the Devil. Another very important fact is that nowhere in the whole bible can you find a description of Satan and that his general depiction is deviated from the image of the Horned God since they absolutely wanted the god of the witches to become evil by nature.

The Catholic Church also claimed that witches were in love with Satan, that they consumed this love on Sabbats and even sacrificed their unbaptized babies during black messes. Incest was said also being a current case because of the duality of the Horned God.The accusation of consuming their love during Sabbats must have derived from the Beltane celebration, each April-30, during which witches made love in the fields in celebration of the fertility of nature. All these false accusations pushed witchcraft to enter its darkest chapter known as "The Witchcraze".



The Witchcraze

"…and for nearly three hundred years the fires of the persecutions raged…"

The persecution of the witches is known as "witchcraze" and the next chapter is a very dark one in the history of witchcraft.As it was very hard to be formulated in words, we mostly let the ancient texts speak for themselves:

The first witchburning took place in Toulouse (France) in 1275 ACE (After Common Era) but the great witchhunt started with a document called the <<Papal Bull>> or <<Summis Desiderantes>>. This document saw daylight in the first year of office of Bishop Innocent VIII (1484-1492 ACE) and he soon charged the two inquisitors Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer to eradicate the evil-doer in German lands and surroundings. The parts of the two following articles, taken from the internet medieval sourcebook, include the <<Papal Bull>> of 1484 ACE, in which Bishop Innocent VIII provided his blessing to the witchhunt and an extract from the <<Malleum Maleficarum>>, also known as <<The Witch Hammer>>, describing the process of examination and trials. We have taken the most important parts of the texts, as reproducing the whole was not necessary.

INNOCENT VIII: BULL Summis desiderantes.Dec.5th.1484.
Innocent, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God. Ad futuram rei memoriam.

" …. It has recently come to our ears, not without great pain to us that…many persons of both sexes, heedless of their own salvation and forsaking the catholic faith, give themselves over to devils male and female, and by their incarnations, charms and conjuring, and by other abominable superstitions and sortileges, offences, crimes and misdeeds, ruin and cause to perish the offspring of woman, the foal of animals, the products of the earth, the grapes of wine, and the fruits of trees…; that they afflict and torture with dire pains and anguish, both internal and external… and hinder men from begetting and women from conceiving, and prevent all consummation of marriage; that moreover, they deny with sacrilegious lips the faith they received in holy baptism; and that, at the instigation of the enemy of mankind, they do not fear to commit and perpetrate many other abominable offences and crimes, at the risk of their own souls, to be insult of the divine majesty and to the pernicious example and scandal of multitudes. And although our beloved sons Henricus Insitoris and Jacobus Sprenger, of the order of Friars Preachers, professors of theology, have been and are still deputed by our apostolic letters as inquisitors of heretical pravity, the former in the upper parts of Germany and the latter certain parts of the course of the Rhine… We therefore, desiring, as it is our duty to remove all impediments in which
in any way the said inquisitors are hindered in the exercise of their office, and to prevent the taint of evil from spreading their infection to the ruin of others who are innocent… it shall be permitted to the said inquisitors to exercise their office and to proceed to correction, imprisonment, punishment and chastening, according to their deserts, those persons whom they shall find guilty.".


Extracts from THE WITCH HAMMER ( Malleus maleficarum), 1486.

"The methods of beginning an examination by torture is as follows: First the jailers prepare the implements of torture, then they strip the prisoner. The stripping is lest some means of witchcraft may have been sewed into the clothing, such as thought by the Devil, they prepare from the bodies of unbaptized infants, that they may forfeit salvation. The judge tries to persuade the prisoner to confess the truth freely, but if he will not confess, he bid attendants make the prisoner fast to the strappado(*) or some other implements of torture…Then at the prayers of some of those present, the prisoner is loosed again and is taken aside and once more persuaded to confess, being led to believe that he will in that case not be put to death (… even if he will be punished with death…)…that for a time the promise of imprisonment is to be kept, but that after a time she should be burned…that the judge may safely promise witches to spare their life, if only he will later excuse himself from pronouncing the sentence and will let another do this in his place…if neither by threats nor by promises such as these, the witch can be induced to speak the truth, then jailers torture the prisoner according to the accepted method, with more or less severity as the delinquent's crime may demand….Note that if he confesses under torture, he must afterward be conducted to another place, that he may confirm it and certify that it was not just due alone to the force of the torture…if the prisoner does not confess the truth satisfactorily, OTHER sorts of torture must be placed before him , with the statement that unless he will confess the truth, he must endure these also. But if not even thus he can be brought into terror and to the truth, then the next day or the next, but one has to be set for a continuation of the tortures-not a repetition, for it must not to be repeated unless new evidences produced…and during the interval, before the day assigned, the judge…shall see to it, moreover, that throughout the guards are constantly with the prisoner, so that he may not be alone, because he will be visited by the De and tempted into suicide."


And what exactly were those methods of torture they were writing about?

Let us Isaac Bonewits answer the question: "Human beings were torn limb from limb by wild horses, flayed alive, covered with boiling pitch, had red-hot irons locked around their bodies, had toenails and fingernails ripped off, toes, fingers and testicles crushed, woman had their hair burned …off or if they were girl children, were raped to death by …teams of inquisitors… So those people were hideously killed in ways that make the atrocities of Nazi stormtroopers and death squads look like child's play".Here is to be add that Isaac Bonewits, didn't go into details, and it has also again been narrowed by us. Now, how were these men/women executed? This depended of the region they lived in. In England they were to be burned, in other countries you could find either burning or hanging.

Most people died between 1550-1695 ACE, throughout the entire world. The best known are of course the witches of Salem (Massachusetts).

From June to September 1692 ACE, nineteen men and women were accused of witchcraft and hanged at Gallow Hill , whilst a eighty years old men had been pressed to death under massive stones. More then hundert people had to face accusations and many spent a long time in in jail without being trialed until the mass hysteria came to an end .Most of these people died because they were a thorn in someone else's eye. The victims were both men or women. Of course the number of female victims was much higher, because of the so-told loving relationship to the De.A woman who wasn't married, and so not under the control of a man, immediately became suspect, and if she was very beautiful or red-haired too, she had to be a witch.This explains the high number of female victims in comparison to men, but of course a man could also being claimed a witch, Independent from his age or appearance.

The last in Scotland recorded witchburning took place in 1722, but in German lands the fires burned much longer, the last witchburning being in April 1775.

It is today very difficult to say how many people really died since the number varies from hundredth thousand to nine million.

According to Brian P. Levack, author of <<The Witchhunt in Early Modern Europe>>, nine million is exaggerated if you look at the population rate, the number of executions could lie between hundredth- and three hundredth thousand. Most of those killed lived in German lands, as records of about thirty thousand prosecutions were found, but they could have exceeded fifty thousand people.The next highest rate of prosecutions was around German territory and the more away from German land, the more the rate decreased. There are records about hundredth ten thousand prosecutions and sixty thousand executions.
But how can we find such a high number as nine millions death?

The authorities may have claimed this number by themselves, fact is that this high number comes very often in appearance, and it is very difficult to find what could be more accurate.

During those dark times, it was difficult to know how many people really worshipped the Deities, as they were gone very deep into hiding.

In 1604 ACE, King James the First passed his witchcraft act, which was replaced in 1736 ACE by an act that stated that witchcraft doesn't exist and every citizen pretending to have occult powers had to be charged with fraud. During the next three hundredth years, the Craft seemed to have died, but a religion as old as Witchcraft could not die so easily, in fact it was very much alive. Covens of witches were grounded and the knowledge of the wise ones was handed over to the generations that followed. In 1921 ACE, Dr Margaret Alice Murray, Anthropologist and Professor of Egyptology at London University, produced the book <<The Witch Cult in Western Europe>>.

She studied the records of the trials of the Middle Ages and it seemed to her, that there was a pre-Christian Religion behind all the "hogwash" of the Christian allegations and that Witchcraft existed as a religious cult. She enlarged these views in her second book called << The God of the Witches>> in 1931 ACE. In 1951 ACE, the last English law against Witchcraft was finally repealed and the witches could step out of the shadows.

Dr Gerald Brousseau Gardner, a retired British civil servant and father of The Gardnerian Witchcraft, edited his book <<Witchcraft Today>> (1954), in which he claimed Dr Margaret Murray being right, Witchcraft being a religion.This book gave back the witches story from their point of view and after the circulation of his book, he heard from many covens throughout Europe, still practising their beliefs. For a long time he was a single voice speaking for Witchcraft. He was initiated in an English Coven of Witches in 1939 by Dorothy Clutterbuck, a High Priestess of the New Forest coven, after he had spent a lifetime studying the material available about the craft. The New Forest coven today is a very famous coven through which much of the ancient knowledge got preserved. Also is it this specific coven that worked against the Nazi invasion of Britain and probably was the fact that Hitler changed plans in the last minute a result of their rituals.Soon after his initiation into the coven, Gardner wanted to spread the knowledge but was told not to spread it yet since it might be too soon and many oppressors of the craft could still be around, but in 1949, Gardner edited a novel based on some of the Craft beliefs and in 1959, he finally published <<The Meaning of Witchcraft>> to complement <<Witchcraft today>>.

All present day Witches owe him a great debt of gratitude as it is because of him that we can all practise the Craft today. Many people stood up for the craft and so today we have a multitude of different Wiccan traditions: Gardnerian, Georgian, Celtic Wicca, Scottish, Irish, Druidic. The plans of the Catholic Church to wipe out the Old religion amongst all others failed and today we can still enjoy and practice our beliefs. The most ironic part is that through trying to eradicate other religions, does the Church now face today a loss of followers, with many people turning towards other religions, which have not tried to convert people by force and this proves again that all that you do returns to you at some point...either good or bad.

 

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