copyright 1998: Brenna Fey D'Amaurot
In Medieval Europe, the infamous "witch craze" had begun. Women and children all across the countryside were being thrown into great burning pyres with the cries "destroy them all, the Lord will know his own!" (Buckland 3) echoing in their ears. The word "witch" and a pointing finger were often enough to secure a death sentence. However, sailors and soldiers like the Spanish Conquistadors were off on missions to other countries were the poor pagans lived. It became the great mission of the era to discover new lands filled with such people and bring them the gospel, convert them, and then colonize them.
Why such a discrepancy in the treatment of two polytheistic, non-Christian groups? Christian society has always regarded the two groups with radically different intentions; pagans were the misguided victims of their own ignorance who needed to be shown the way to God, but Witches were evil and soldiers of Satan himself, thus deserving death. There are fundamental differences between Paganism and Witchcraft which has caused society to view them differently, but ironically it is these differences which make Witchcraft similar to Christianity, thus setting it up as a threat to a predominantly Christian society and causing antagonism that continues to this day.
Consider first the root of such antagonism. The environment which fostered the "witch craze" was carefully cultivated by the medieval Catholic Church, whose clergy was unforgivably corrupt, and whose major goal at the time was not to spread the word of God but to gain political control of Europe. Thus we must examine the situation not from the viewpoint of warring religions, but from the arena of political rivals. In pre-Christian Europe, the people were often followers of a polytheistic religious tradition which revered Nature and the natural powers of the world around them. In the Celtic lands, which covered most of Western Europe, there existed a feudal societal structure which placed people in certain classes, and during that time there existed a class of people descended, socially if not through blood lines, from the ancient Druids called the Wica, or Wita.
This word has been defined many ways, but is mostly thought to have designated the "wise ones" or those who worked with mystical knowledge. This term is also suspected to have been derived from the Norse word weik, which relates to things connected with magic and religion and means "to bend or shape." Both words gave rise to the term "witch," which doesn't seem to have been used until the late 1200's and has been defined by the Council of American Witches as one who "seeks to control the forces within her/himself that make life possible in order to live wisely and well without harm to others and in harmony with nature." In old European villages, the Wica "not only led the religious rites but also had to have knowledge of herbal lore, magick and divination; they had to be doctor, lawyer, magician, priest. To the people, the Wica were plenipotentiaries between them and the gods. But, at the great festivals, they became almost like gods themselves" (Buckland 3). The Wica held a very important place in European society; even the Kings would never think of acting without first consulting his Witan, the Council of Wise Ones.
Now, enter the missionary Christians. Contrary to common thought, the whole continent did not immediately convert to Christianity in accordance with the designs of the Roman Empire. In fact, after the fall of Rome many countries reverted back to their traditional religions, which had survived quietly all along. But, as the Latin Church grew in strength, more and more political leaders did in fact convert, albeit for political alliance with the Church rather than religious reasons. Whole countries were considered Christian when in fact only the ruling class had converted, and in the country side the Old Ways were still practiced. Thus the term "pagan" arose from the Latin pagani, which means "people who live in the country." As cities grew and a decidedly urban/rural split developed, the word became more of an insult, an equivalent to our modern day "country bumpkin," and later broadened more to incorrectly designate any person who was not Christian.
Pope Gregory the Great attempted the first mass conversion of Europe. He instructed his followers to enter the pagan temples, smash idols, consecrate and rededicate the temples and groves to the Christian God in the hopes that worshippers would continue to come to their spiritual places regardless of the house that stood there. He was also a pioneer for the adaptation phase of the Church in which countless traditions, holidays, and even deities of the Witches were molded and adapted to fit into the new Christian religion. For example, Easter, one of the holiest Christian holidays, was actually taken from the old festival Ostara. Ostara was a Welsh spring festival honoring the goddess Eostre, whose name was taken for the new Christian holiday in honor of Jesus Christ's resurrection. Brigit, a Celtic goddess of great importance, was given sainthood in an attempt to win her followers to the Church. Also, Christmas, the alleged birthday of Jesus, actually takes place far from when his "historical" birthday might have been. Christmas is actually celebrated to coincide with the Witches' festival of Yule, where evergreen trees were decorated as a symbol that life can survive the winter, and the birth of the witches' Sun King is celebrated with a feast.
Pope Gregory was largely successful, but still his plan was undermined, for when the first Christian churches were built, pagan stonemasons and woodcutters were hired to work on them, and these clever artisans included many images of their own deities in the churches' carvings and architecture. Even today these figures can be seen in the oldest of churches in Europe. Furthermore, the very existence of such adapted holidays as Easter and Christmas, among other traditions and myths, prove that Gregory did not entirely win...Christianity did not replace the Old Ways, it merely swallowed much of them up.
With such slow progress, the Church began to explore new ways to win the pagans over to their side, and so it happened in Europe that the war against the witches began. As illustrated earlier, the Wica were an integral part of old European society, and as a rival political power it was only natural for the Church to want to be rid of them. It is often said that "the gods of an old religion become the devils of a new," (Buckland 4) and that is exactly what happened in Europe. The Church's line of reasoning went something along these lines: their Devil had horns, and the God of the Witches was often depicted as having horns, therefore they must be the same entity.
The Church began to spread this "logic" among its followers, stipulating that those who followed the Old Ways were following the Devil, and were therefore anti-Christian and evil. Laws against homeopathic medicine, which included herbalism and midwifery, were passed in accordance with decrees formulated hundreds of years ago at the Second Council of Nicaea aligning anything esoteric in nature with the Devil and evil. In a final direct effort to remove the Wica from village control and power, they were scapegoated for all kinds of problems ranging from bad weather to infertile crops and sick children.
In 1484 Pope Innocent VIII infused the war against Witchcraft with new life and vigor, making it a mission of God to exterminate all followers of the Old Ways, all Witches. Two years later, Kramer and Sprenger wrote and distributed "The Witch Hammer," a book which educated and instructed those who would fight the holy war against Witches. Although the approval of the book was forged, since it had in fact been rejected by the current censory board, the book sparked a mass hysteria known as the "witch craze" of Europe, a madness that did not trickle off for three hundred years and led to the death of nearly nine million people.
What may turn out to be the greatest religious controversy birthed from that environment of fear and manipulation arises in modern day America. Within the past five decades, America has seen the resurgence of what is termed the "Neo-Pagan Movement," a revival of the Old Ways and Paganism as it truly was: not just a bunch of silly country people, but a nature-based religion seeing divinity in Nature and thus revering Nature, a tradition of people celebrating the seasonal shifts with festivals and honoring a great Mother Goddess and her consort God in their myriad forms. Within this umbrella movement there exists another revival of Witchcraft under the name "Wicca." The Wiccan revival was started and led by a man named Gerald Gardner in Great Britain immediately following the repeal of the British anti-Witchcraft laws. Gardner published a book in 1954 called "Witchcraft Today" in which he not only revealed that he was an initiate of a coven of Witches whose lineage dated back thousands of years, but that he wanted to reveal and revive what he called The Old Religion.
He used the term Wicca for three reasons: to encompass the feeling of a grassroots movement, since "Wica" was the old European word for Witches, to avoid the fear, hocus-pocus, and disbelief associated with the word "Witchcraft," and finally because the religion he wanted to spread was not actually Witchcraft, but a reinvention of a Celtic-based tradition of Witchcraft to meet the spiritual needs of modern society.
Gardner used the scant information he had been given by his coven and combined it with his extensive research into Freemasonry, the Golden Dawn, and mythology to form the Grimoire of what came to be known as Gardnerian Wicca. As a reconstructed version of the Old Ways, steeped in ceremonial magic and European myth, Wicca immediately aligned itself with the Neo-Pagan movement, with which its followers shared many aspects and beliefs.
First, both Wicca and Paganism were polytheistic. Both groups validated and recognized the gods of the other, since polytheism implies that the creative forces of the universe exist in many forms, but are all truly part of the same source. Also, in an effort to fill the gaps of a traditionally male-dominated Judeo-Christian society, both Wicca and Paganism emphasized the importance of the Goddess and women, equally as powerful and in many branches even more powerful than the God and men. Both groups revered Nature and railed against the rape of the earth accomplished under industrialization, and rallied together to spawn many activist groups. They could celebrate the turn of the seasons together in ritual, and both traditions practiced and believed in magic. For Pagans and Wiccans, the practice of magic embodies the idea that as individuals we not only have the power and ability, but the natural right to work with the forces that be in order to change our lives and our world.
These similarities stated, why did the attitudes of medieval Europe remain true to their origin? Ideas about Pagans (with the definition skewed to mean all peoples not worshipping in a Judeo-Christian tradition) and Witches remain from the Dark Ages. Present day attitudes are therefore the same, although the reasons are often subconscious. Paganism in modern society is still not viewed as anything more than mere tomfoolery, adolescents wanting to rebel, misguided people ignoring the more important things in life in order to have fun and dance naked at wild parties in the woods on moonlit nights. But Witchcraft, even in the revised and reformed version of Wicca, still causes God-fearing Christians to spread pamphlets on the evils of Witches, protest the opening of Wiccan stores and the increasing number of public rituals, and harass people who have the courage to be proud of their religion and live openly as Witches.
It can be reasonably argued that while Paganism has enjoyed a revival in this country, it is still markedly different from Christianity and does not offer the same benefits which has kept the Church in power for so long. For example, Christianity offers its followers an established doctrine, a set of moral laws that are easy to understand, and a feeling of "authenticity" which the "new" religion of Paganism cannot give. Neo-Paganism boasts of its loose structure and easy-going attitudes, but for the majority of people this is not a comfort at all. As a society, people need to feel secure in their beliefs, often relying on "experts" (i.e. clergy) to articulate these beliefs for them. The moral codes of Paganism are ambiguous at best, leaving vast amounts of room for debate and grey areas, and since Paganism can encompass any way of worship from Greek to shamanism to Celtic, there is no established doctrine per se.
Furthermore, while Christianity promises eternal rest in Heaven for good behavior, Paganism asserts the belief in reincarnation, promising countless lives on this earth in order to learn enough to attain enlightenment...and depending on which Pagan group you ask, what happens after that can range from reunion with the Source of the universe to absolutely nothing. Viewed in this way, though Paganism does and will continue to appeal to many people, it does not seem likely that it will ever replace the current social or religious structure. Witchcraft, on the other hand, indeed satisfies many of the same requirements for religion that Christianity does. Though it shares many aspects with Paganism there are still some distinct differences between the two. Witchcraft, for example, emphasizes a concept of balance in the world in the form of dualities: right and wrong, male and female, light and dark. While in some Pagan groups you may find worship of the Mother Goddess supreme, it is unlikely that a serious coven of Witches will honor the Goddess above the God, or vice versa. Witchcraft can also claim "authenticity" as an organized religion, since its roots lie directly in Celtic Druidism. Some traditions, such as the Welsh Witchcraft of the Church of Y Tylwyth Teg and Italian Stregheria can trace an initiatory lineage back as far as the 1200's.
Furthermore, whereas Paganism is extremely loose and all encompassing, Witchcraft does retain a good deal of structure from the days of old Europe. It offers rules for the formation of a coven and the workings of that coven; there exists a clergy for direction and instruction, and often a system of accepting and training new initiates. There are eight specific holidays, and lore and tradition that accompanies each one. While Witches and Pagans both follow the Rede, "An' it harm none, do what ye will," Witch covens often have their own set of established rules of conduct and behavior. For example, Gardner originally wrote nearly one hundred rules which he called "The Laws" for his tradition in the early 1960's, the Council of American Witches followed suit with their "Principles of Wicca" in 1974, and since then other traditions have formulated simpler, shorter, lists of rules for their members as well.
Many of these aspects greatly conflict with Christian society, which has not only ignored a Goddess figure but has in fact relegated women to a subservient role in society. "They were so anxious to avoid goddess-worship that they represented God as generating the Son out of himself" (Robertson 22). Nature is not a source of power; it is the playground which God had given Man to use as he deemed fit. As for ideas of magic and ritual, the Church has claimed time and again, as it did even as far back as the Nicene conventions in 787AD, that neither has a place in religion. Interestingly, this claim is ludicrous since no religion in the history of man has been without magic and ritual, though the terms may be different, and "the theory that religion is not only hostile to magic but quite separate from it is as fallacious as the distinction between religion and superstition...religion is 'what is allowed,' superstition 'what is not allowed'" (Robertson 14).
So, why does the Christian Church attack Witchcraft so fiercely? Though it may not be a conscious thought in the minds of today's religious leaders, it is likely that the motives are still political; the effect, however, is still the same. Since both Witchcraft and Christianity share so many basic spiritual ideas and satisfy many of the same spiritual needs of modern society, the population must examine the political structures, ethical laws, and social laws of the religion. "We must look not so much to genius for right thought as to genius for satisfying the common taste" (Robertson 16).
Which group better satisfies the common taste? It is obvious that in the past few decades that taste has been radically changing. Witchcraft is a threat today because, while the Church may have won the last round, its laws and doctrines are rapidly becoming outdated and the population is become disenchanted. Women are no longer accepting their minor role in society, and many feel alienated from a male deity who cast Woman as the bearer of Original Sin and whose religious founders viewed women as vessels of temptation and evil (Armstrong 124). Science has explained away many of the mysteries which the Church once attributed to God. The planet is slipping further and further into a state of environmental emergency caused by world industrialization, and new generations of people are awakening to the fact that the human race may be in danger of self-extinction.
Thus, after hundreds of years of underground survival, secret meetings in the shadows, and careful preservation of wisdom from unsympathetic eyes, the Witches have come back into the light of present-day America. The Neo-Pagan movement which took root in the 1950's and flourished in the 60's and 70's has not only spread and grown, but has earned itself legal tax exemption status for its churches, and received legal recognition as a religion. Though these Pagan groups certainly help to open the eyes of ignorance, they have not really made the revival of Witchcraft more acceptable to Christian society. Witchcraft, however, is appealing to more and more modern men and women and is gaining solid ground. Furthermore, while the Church was able to win the Dark Ages using brutal tactics and force, those tactics are no longer available or applicable to today's population.
So, the threat to the Church lies in that, as a political power, it is losing influence and importance and may not win this time. Conclusively, the war against the Witches has not ended but merely changed playing fields and updated its set of rules. The rivalry continues, as does the antagonism, and it is unlikely that attitudes will change without a radical shift in social paradigms which may leave the word "Christian" with as many dark connotations as the word "Witch" does now.
Armstrong, Karen. A History of God. 1993. Ballantine Books, New York.
Buckland, Raymond. Complete Book of Witchcraft. 1986. Llewellyn Publications, St. Paul.
Robertson, JM. Pagan Christs. 1903. University Books, Inc., New York.
