…witchcraft, HISTORICALLY, was a label used by larger society to label a “bad” magic practice. Witchcraft is what people did outside/against/ in spite of normal religious practice, rules and morals. Witchcraft rebelled against the social norms. Witchcraft was the term people used, for generally bad metaphysical shit done with unorthodox methods.
Until the term was “reclaimed”.
But before that, what witches actually did depended on the society that labeled them. Medieval christian society? Witches be worshiping satan. Ancient Greece? Witches be hanging out with cthonic deities and murdering children. Early modern Britain? Witches be hacks who are trying to con simple people out of hard earned money.
What witches were was decided by the taboos of the society that labeled them witches. If you broke those taboos, congrats, you could have been accused as a witch!
So when I see people going around trying to define witchcraft, I get seriously confused because there IS no way to universally define witchcraft! Witchcraft was a label slapped on people, not a term deriving from one religious cult that had a set of practices and ceremonies and a cohesive decided upon morality.
Sure, some times pagan practices or christian practices have been called witchcraft. But that doesn’t mean that the practices were considered by their founders to be witchcraft! It means they were considered by others outside of their practices to be witchcraft.
Example:
Culture A, let’s call them catholics. They light incense in church.
Culture B. Let’s call them puritans
Catholics: la de dah, ave maria, *swings incense around*
Puritans: AHHHH! THAT’S WITCHCRAFT! YOU HEATHENS! JESUS DIDN’T USE INCENSE! YOU ARE WORSHIPING DEMONS!
Catholics: *confused look* say whaaaat?
<more fighting and war and executions and stuff>
Example two:
Culture A, lets call them Saxon heathens
Culture B: lets call them early christians
Saxon heathens: *sprinkles blood of animal in field* la de dah please <insert deity here> can we have good wheat this year because last year sucked ass and you are so great and kind and special.
Early Christians: THAT"S WITCHCRAFT! YOU ARE PLACATING DEMONS! INSTEAD OF RELYING ON THE ONE TRUE GOD
Saxon heathens: *fondle knives*
Third Example:
Culture A: lets call them rationalists
Culture B: Lets call them folk practitioners.
Practitioners: la de dah, would you like your fortune read?
Rationalists: THAT’S WITCHCRAFT! YOU ARE RELYING ON IGNORANT SUPERSTITION INSTEAD OF YOUR REASON!
Practitioners: *shuffles cards*
Now I know I just made a thousand history teachers scream with my vague reductionist examples, but do you see the problem with trying to define witchcraft? Witchcraft basically is manipulating life/others lives using methods/beliefs/practices/deities/things that larger society or people in power define as UNACCEPTABLE AND WRONG AND EVIL AND STUFF.
Witchcraft throughout recorded history was defined by the very people who wanted to destroy unorthodox practices. So what it was depended on what they thought was orthodox.
So. Rather than getting hung up on exactly what a witch is NOW, I’d rather look at what, in history, a personal labeled as a witch DID. And why. And why was it feared? Did it threaten the power structure? Blaspheme a deity? What societal needs were filled by the person in the witch role? And do those needs still need filling?
If so. How?
Otherwise you just end up getting all Margaret Murray on peoples asses. And nobody has time for that!
Please note: There have always been borderline acceptable practices that were considered close enough to orthodoxy that they were sort of allowed. Of course what was considered borderline in one society was considered straight witchcraft by another, so you run into similar problems defining these practices too. What seemed to be common features were: being ignored/tolerated by the laity of the day, using whatever dominant religion at the time as a power source for performing magic (like using the name of Jesus, or calling on Woden), and generally performing beneficial magical acts, like healing the sick, or counteracting a malicious practitioner, and for this reason a version of this person was usually tolerated if not embraced. These people often did self-identify as things like “cunning man/woman/person, fairy doctor, white witch, charmer, pellar, white wizard”. The general distinction being that they were on the borders of “acceptable” society. Witches were outside of acceptable society.
also note: I’m talking about western/european history here.
FINAL NOTE: I’m talking about HISTORY. What ya’ll want to self identify as, is a different matter entirely to what I’m talking about here, and I’m not saying that you shouldn’t call yourself a witch.
Just that you should be aware that there is no good one answer in history regarding a uniform set of morals, practices and other things that witches identified with.
It’s all relative maaaaaan.
