October 30 and the 31st All Hallows Eve

A Two Part Summary on Witchcraft and Paganism from Sermon excerpts: 

 Whither Witchcraft?

 When you first hear the word, “witch,” what comes to mind? Chances are, especially at this time of the year, the image you conjure up is of an ugly old hag or an old wizened, wicked crone.

Whether that image has come to you through horror films, MacBeth, or Hansel and Gretel, it matters little- it is a cruel and ignorant parody of the truth. It represents a psychological projection that is tied to a cultural and religious misogyny that, unfortunately, is still alive in conservative churches today. If I told you that witchcraft or Wicca is one of the fastest growing religions in the Western world today, what would you say? 

As this is the season for haunting thoughts and scary notions, let me take a portion of this service to “set the story straight” when it concerns witches and witchcraft. I will briefly try to explain how a genuine religious and spiritual expression became the source of both the tragic and the comic associated with Halloween, and how an almost genocidal persecution of women has been associated with witches as targets of ridicule, scorn and even execution.

Witchcraft, Wicca, or the Craft are all names for an ancient belief system that finds its origins in prehistoric culture. Various scholars indicate that these nature-based religions are the oldest type of religious understanding known to humanity. In that regard, it predates Egypt and India, and its ancient and intuitive teachings can be seen as accompanying the first wonderings of humankind. It is widely believed and well documented that some form of witchcraft can be found in every rural, ancient, or pre-patriarchal culture. 

The common beliefs held universally are attention to the cycles and seasons of the year, paying careful attention to regional plant life for their medicinal and magical properties, and looking to the animals as shamans- as our symbolic guides for wisdom. Through various icons and idols, early civilizations fashioned an effective and imaginative polytheism that is still found among the Balinese, rural Hindu and Chinese lifestyles. While every European society, from Russia to Italy, from Sweden to Portugal has had within it, witches or nature worshipers, because our American society is so predominantly Anglo-Saxon, we have commonly known more about the Celts and the Druids of the British Isles than any other branch of witchcraft and pagan teachings. Additionally, since Wiccan practices and overall outlook on life is similar to Native American and Native Taoist and Australian Aboriginal religions, we could say that what most of us would define as witchcraft can best be summarized as Native European Spirituality.

The polytheism of witchcraft symbolically centers itself in the foundational belief that the Divine is not above or beyond them, but that Divine energy or presence was best understood as imminence; that the divine was not transcendent and aloof. In that way, the God/Goddess is not removed from the natural world that so directly shapes our lives. This power resided in nature, and was to be understood as flowing through life and all around through the seasons of the year and resides in the mysteries of the human body and psyche. This was a profoundly intuitive belief system and as a result, witchcraft became a valuable storehouse of nature lore, rituals, herbal medicines, and has its own form of depth psychology replete with its archetypes and Mythic images that spanned the spectrum of nature and address many of the enduring issues of human concern.

Witchcraft, paganism, feminist “thealogy” and nature worship have similar interlocking or complementary histories. Clearly, some of their teachings overlap and have suffered at the hands of patriarchal attitudes and prevailing church beliefs. By looking at a few key definitions, we can begin to see the sorry story of how such prejudice and banality were developed in our Western religions and society, and how those notions can be eliminated or at least clarified.

The word, witch, was not coined until much later in history. The first title used to describe this approach to religion and beliefs was pagan. Today, the word, pagan, is used to define anyone who is not orthodox, mainline Christian. It can refer to someone who seriously reveres nature without adhering to strict Western theism, or to theological concepts of God as being “out there” or above and removed from us. That definition, by the way, includes most of us!

As for the origins of the word witch, scholars suggest two possible meanings. The first possible meaning comes from the word, WIC, which means to shape or bend. The reference here would be to anyone who has the power to shape their own consciousness, or to bend their thoughts and feelings to produce new outcomes. The second definition of the word, WIC, refers to the blending of wisdom, playfulness, humor, and wit. Anyone who spends time among today’s witches might favor that last definition!

Once the traditional, hierarchical, and male dominated church came to power, the references in Scripture, tradition, and culture to witches and pagans began to take on only a pejorative and derisive meaning. It became defined as someone who was a heathen, and later from Judaism into Christianity, anyone who is non-Christian. 

In orthodox Islam, we have a similar treatment using the word, infidel. These pagan believers were arrogantly and unmercifully considered to be lower and less than the cultural citizens or the pious, church going believers. Consequently, they were also considered “cheap labor, brutish, beneath ordinary mentality or morality, a convenient source for slavery, ripe for exploitation. 

Of course, that means we can add pagans and witches to the anawim- to all those who were socially disenfranchised and who shared a portion of the common horror of the Native Americans, Blacks, Asians, homosexuals, Jews, and any nonwhite and poor women.  Witches were women who believed in natural forms of medicine, healing, and were an especially vulnerable target. They became hated by the established medical and religious institutions because they were spiritual healers, midwives, and herbal doctors. 

Even though these women were able to help people effectively, it was in ways that the established church and traditional medical practices could not grasp or control, so they became targets of jealousy and suspicion. When some of these helpers and healers gained acclaim, respect, and might have been given some pieces of land for their talents, then the great witch hunt could begin, and it was somehow justified to reassert the patriarchal Church’s control in a truly diabolical way.

One glaring statement from the teachings of this book states that 80% of all women inherit original evil tendencies, and that the original sin that becomes witchcraft starts in a woman’s lust and her carnal appetites. In order for these women to be saved from themselves, these often wise and beneficial women would have to have their souls bleached, or their will and their bodies broken! Because no “great man” was associated with creation based religions like witchcraft, it was unacceptable. Because witches audaciously believed that God could be directly experienced, and that her Spirit is ever active in benevolent Nature, they were brutally treated and superstitiously feared- even to the point of hysteria-which by the way, was a particular disease that could only affect people who had wombs! 

    (My experiences in Salem/Beverly MA; My experiences in State College, PA