The History of Witchcraft

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Hutton starts his discussion by outlining five characteristics of the European witch and the way these can be found worldwide. He suggests that this provides a common model on the basis of which historians and anthropologists can collaborate and obtain interactive insights. 1. A witch causes harm by uncanny means; 2. A witch is an internal threat to a community; 3. A witch works within a tradition; 4. A witch is evil; and 5. A witch can be resisted. These features produce a lot of variation taken from anthropological research. In passing Hutton introduces 'service magicians' as a new term for 'cunning folk', denoting magical specialists who were fighting against, or were consulted to help with, cases of malicious witchcraft. The advantages of Hutton's approach are that it strips 'witchcraft' to its bare essentials without contamining it with, for instance, possession, divination, shamanism, pagan religion, satanism, or 'occultism' in general. He proceeds to discuss ancient magic and witchcraft in Egypt, Mesopotamia, Greece and Rome and pays particular attention to the 'demonesses of the night', in a global context. The third chapter is dedicated to shamanism, and focuses on adjusting and refuting Carlo Ginzburg's theories on the subject. (3) This might be the most “unknown” book on my list, but it probably shouldn’t be. Glass’s book is what Gardner probably wished his books were like, readable. Glass’s history of Witchcraft is not particularly good, but as a snapshot in time it’s a fun look into what people were thinking in 1965. Also of historical value is Glass’s use of the word “Wicca” with two c’s (Gardner spelled it with one “c”) and as the name of the Craft of the Wise, religious Witchcraft.

The town, yes. But have you been to the village? The village renamed itself in the nineteenth century, so many people don’t know it’s there. It renamed itself Danvers. It’s got a memorial to the Salem witches that lived there. The one that lived there that many people know about is Rebecca Nurse. Her house is still there and you can go visit it. Unlike the town, it has this hushed quality. It’s like walking with death. You’re right—the town of Salem is this creepy monetization of the terrifying aspects of the past. That to me is a little uncomfortable. I sometimes want to say to people: you realize actual people died here, right? This isn’t fun. Artifacts, things, actually last much longer than people, and can be passed on from one person to another—reused, reinterpreted, redeployed. So it feels really magical that you might come across such an object, as the modern Tom and Jan do, hidden in a fireplace. I was incredibly drawn to the idea of the very old item that you might suddenly come across one day, with nobody knowing it was there at all. We foist the facts of the external narrative to match what we internally feel to be true, which is often nuanced, complicated and impossible to explain. In later centuries, constant attempts to defeat heresy brought to light a number of figures who were difficult to reconcile with Christianity. Such figures were typically created without reference to witchcraft at all, but led to the creation of the figure of the heretic witch.In the 1950’s and 60’s the first public Witches stepped forward in Great Britain and the United States. Though none of them felt comfortable writing a “101” book, much of their early work does contain a few things that are readily identifiable to most of us today. None of these books have aged well, but they remain valuable peaks into a different era. Early witches were people who practiced witchcraft, using magic spells and calling upon spirits for help or to bring about change. Most witches were thought to be pagans doing the Devil’s work. Many, however, were simply natural healers or so-called “wise women” whose choice of profession was misunderstood. In England, 90% of the accused were women. But in other countries, more than half of the accused were men”

When this book was originally released it was the first complete overview of Witchcraft and Paganism in the United States, and the first book to ever truly explore the history of Modern Witchcraft. It’s also full of interviews with some of American Witchcraft’s most important names, including an interview with Victor Anderson, one of the founders of the Anderson Feri Tradition. Adler’s skill as a journalist is on full display in DDtM, it’s simply better written than much of what came both before and after it. This is the chilling story of the most savage witch-hunt in English history. By the autumn of 1647 at least 250 people—mostly women—had been captured, interrogated, and hauled before the courts. More than a hundred were hanged, causing Hopkins to be dubbed ‘Witchfinder General’ by critics and admirers alike. Though their campaign was never legally sanctioned, they garnered the popular support of local gentry, clergy, and villagers. While Witchfinders tells of a unique and tragic historical moment fuelled by religious fervour, today it serves as a reminder of the power of fear and fanaticism to fuel ordinary people’s willingness to demonize others. You can find a translation of it now on the internet, but that’s not very interesting. So I sat there with a complete Lewis Carroll trying to work out what the keyword was. Interestingly, I had a student who worked it out from scratch a few years ago by working out that the first sentence must be ‘I love you’.This is about a particular group of Siberian shamans. Now, I lay claim to no fluency of the language of Siberian tribes, but it might be worth noting for the record that the word ‘shaman’ actually comes from a Siberian tribal language. There’s now a locution among anthropologists and social scientists, the ‘California shaman’, which has obviously not a lot to do with what the Siberians thought it was. So there are people selling their services on the internet as shamans, they’re probably not from Siberia. This is where I should probably shut up, but I find the determinism of the sorting hat quite troubling. The idea that you are a Slytherin, you are a Gryffindor. Especially when you’re eleven years old, for God’s sakes. Adults, too. Don’t you find it a bit worrying? It reminds me of Calvinist pre-destination, where from the beginning of time you’re destined to go to the hot place or not. Let’s suppose that an eager JP has put together a significant number of depositions – complaints in writing from your fellow villagers – and has also interrogated you, and got a confession from you. The next stage is that all this evidence is put to a jury, who decide whether to take it to trial or not.

It’s unclear exactly when witches came on the historical scene, but one of the earliest records of a witch is in the Bible in the book of 1 Samuel, thought be written between 931 B.C. and 721 B.C. It tells the story of when King Saul sought the Witch of Endor to summon the dead prophet Samuel’s spirit to help him defeat the Philistine army. The publication of “Malleus Maleficarum”—written by two well-respected German Dominicans in 1486—likely spurred witch mania to go viral. The book, usually translated as “The Hammer of Witches,” was essentially a guide on how to identify, hunt and interrogate witches. In modern secular culture, there are rigid distinctions between satanic, demonic, ghostly, haunting and evil. But actually it sounds like these groups were much more porous. Triumph was not the first book to explore the origins of Modern Witchcraft, but it was the most thorough, and its implications were long-lasting. To put it simply Hutton freed (most especially) Wiccan-Witchcraft from a fictitious past and helped academia to see that the Modern Witch and Pagan movements were worth exploring and writing about. The story of Witch history can nearly be seen through a lense of “pre and post Hutton.” I thought I knew the story of the witch who turned Odysseus’s men into pigs, but Miller’s magnificent novel gives Circe her own epic. A daughter of the sun, she is banished to Aiaia where, part-god, part-herbalist, she teaches herself magic. She needs it, for it’s not only men who threaten: the gods, too, can be witch-hunters. The writing shimmers and figures including Daedalus and Odysseus are threaded beautifully into Circe’s story as she learns not only sorcery but love, and what it might mean to be mortal.

Though not my favorite work by Valiente (give me her memoir The Rebirth of Witchcraft everyday of the week!) this is still a tremendous book. It’s a how to book from the woman who wrote many of Modern Witchcraft’s earliest rituals. And Valiente can be counted on to provide clear and practical instructions. The first truly great “101 Book” to come from Great Britain. The court decided to use a controversial water test to determine her guilt or innocence. Sherwood’s arms and legs were bound and she was thrown into a body of water. It was thought if she sank, she was innocent; if she floated, she was guilty. Sherwood didn’t sink and was convicted of being a witch. She wasn’t killed but put in prison and for eight years.