Examples Of Witchcraft

This article is about witchcraft and its different varieties of practices in different cultures. This article explains how witchcraft exists and plays an essential part in structural and functional aspects of a society. It also sheds the light on the journey of witchcraft from being profane and wicked to acceptable part of a culture.

There are countless reports throughout history of occurrences where society feared one another, but rarely were there occurrences where society felt feared and confident of one another. There was once a society that feared accusation, but trusted their struggles would disappear with the help of another. Witchcraft was the incredible yet terrifying thing that was responsible for this great uproar in some societies. According to the text Identity, Race and Power, witchcraft is a belief system that serves as a method of social control by directing anger towards others (Miller et al. 2013:214).. Throughout history the individuals with political power would use witchcraft as an excuse to maintain order throughout a given society. Looking at particular societies in Malta and South Africa this paper seeks to provide evidence as to how witchcraft operates to maintain a sense of “order”.

In such a field, the lesser agents of misfortune, the witches could flourish” (Ashforth, p. 102). Furthermore, with high unemployment rates and pervasive poverty, jealousy was seen as the principle motivator for the practice of witchcraft. In the same interview, Madumo continues, “It’s also about jobs. It’s the lack of jobs that’s contributed to the high volume of witchcraft. Because if someone is having a job, then his neighbors become jealous and will witch him so as to make him lose that job” (Ashforth, p. 102). Madumo cites these societal circumstances as a sociological causation for the rise of purported witchcraft.

Witchcraft is a term which sprouts many different meanings. As stated above, it is attributed to witches. But what is a witch? Probably an evil haggish-like women who has signed a pact with the devil if we think of it in the English sense. So witchcraft must be evil doings; putting curses on people to make their life miserable, using wicked spells to transform humans to frogs etc. But does this hold true to everyone's idea of what witchcraft is.People's believes on the subject of witchcraft might differ between different cultures.

To completely understand the history of New England witchcraft you have to understand the role of colonial women. The author of this book, Carol Karlsen, used a lot of Secondary and primary sources to support her thesis. She uses first hand accounts of witch

Most modern concepts are much more used to the idea that Witchcraft is focused on learning how to be a witch with the more advanced users learning spells for love and other magic spells that are satanic and evil in nature. Thanks to popular television and movie shows, Wicca has become synonymous to Witchcraft, most of the time exchanging the two ideas. Fact is, Witchcraft is but a mere part of the Wiccan religion, and it is a religious belief that focuses on the understanding of an individual regarding earth and nature which affirms and recognizes the divinity in all living things. It basically teaches individuals that while external forces matter, it does not constitute to our own being and therefore is not to be blamed for anything that is happening to us individually. It teaches responsibility for our actions, therefore ensuring a harmonious balance between the earth and

Those who claimed to know the future and weren’t prophets were convicted of blasphemy and witchcraft and were punished. It was considered witchcraft because fortune-telling required a direct relationship between a human or witch and unholy spiritual powers. During the Middle Ages, witchcraft in ecclesiastic or church courts was presided over by church-appointed officials. This may have caused biased opinions and also links to religion being a cause of the harsh punishment. In medieval judicial proceedings, torture was sometimes used as a means of extracting information concerning witchcraft, and confessions were not uncommon. Historical evidence states that many confessed out of fear of being tortured and not because they were truly guilty.

Personal Statement - The delusion of witchcraft stemmed from fear. Fear of savages, fear of women gaining control and ultimately fear of the unknown.

Religious, I am a very religious person, I go to church as much as possible and know a lot about the bible, I believe at one time when jesus walked the earth there was miracles or some may call magic taken place. He performed these miracles to show everyone who he was and the power he had through his father God. He raised people from the dead, fed thousands of people with five loaves of bread and two fish, gave blind people sight. However once he went back to heaven he said “It is written” which means he was done performing miracles, I think at that point the power to do things like that were over. Non religiously, well witchcraft is considered to be spiritual as its self, so there is no ways to describe it but other than explain it as close to a religion which is the belief in yourself as being the one with the god like powers and performing these magic miracles. However I personally do not believe in these or that they couldn't even be

“Have you ever wondered if Magic or witches and wizards really exist in this modern world? Well yes, they do exist, and they are quite active in the modern world. There are more than 10 million witches in the United States, with new practitioners on the rise daily.”(Caine) Being a witch is much different than what you may have seen in the movies. There is real magic to the craft, but witches or wizards don 't walk around turning people into to frogs with a flick of their magic wands. They don 't disappear into thin air, nor do they fly around through the night on broomsticks. They also don 't live in a big castle or mansion. They walk around as normal people and you wouldn 't be able to tell them apart for anyone else. The art of real witchcraft is one of the oldest practices in the world. “The oldest instruments of the real craft that have been discovered date back to 40,000 years ago, while the practice of real witchcraft dates back to paleolithic times. It is very much a way of life, as you may have heard from the modern followers of Wicca. During the middle ages, and in the event known as The Inquisition, the practice of witchcraft became outlawed throughout most of the Christianized world, an offense punishable by death.”(Caine) A witchcraft frenzy broke out in the early colonial history of America in Salem, Massachusetts. Insane torture tactics were put in by the church to draw out confessions. This period of time is often cited as the start of "the burning times."

The witchcraft phenomenon of the Renaissance period was shaped by a wide range of cultural factors; witchcraft was not necessarily subject to a single cohesive idea or concept, and it was often instead a conglomeration of many different societal concerns, concerns which spanned through all spheres of society. Textual evidence from this period provides insight into the way in which witches were conceived, and how witches were dealt with, while visual images present a companion visualisation of the tensions, which influenced created the witch, and the imagery, which came to be associated with witchcraft.

In the 16th century, different societies with distinctive social and common religious views have assisted in the harsh treatment towards witchcraft. The accounts in Salem provided its reasoning on the unexplainable acts and questions being associated with the devil producing an execution of hanging. Whereas in Europe implemented its action of persecution and torture on the influential publication of Nicole's Remy and Jean Boldin. Depending on the social and religious components in a particular community, contributes to how one perceives a witch and how they will communicate and administer the participant of witchcraft.

Witchcraft exists. Whether we choose to believe or not, its existence in worldwide cultures is undeniable. Its form takes many shapes that can be determined by the religion, economics, politics, and folk beliefs in each individual culture where it may take place. Its importance in our own, American, history should not go understated: Witches were a major dilemma for people who lived in 1692 Salem, Massachusetts, and as a result women (and men) were hanged due to undeniable belief in the power of Witchcraft. Today, belief in magic and witches has diminished with the increasingly secular nature of our culture, but we must accept there was a time when witches “existed”. While American culture has drifted away from ideas such as witchcraft, others have certainly not, with the primary example being Africa. Witchcraft in African culture accounts for many of the issues found within many of the continents communities. Correcting these issues, at least for a time, usually results in a community being “fixed” (examples are made in Adam Ashford’s account of witchery, Madumo, a Man Bewitched and the anthropological accounts being used for this essay). What is fascinating; however, are the parallels that can be made between witchcraft in different cultures. In a previous essay I touched on this topic by incorporating my definition of witchcraft as “a cultural means of being able to create particular moral boundaries by means of ‘magic’ thinking” (Brian Riddle, 2015). In this essay, I

I don’t know about you, but for me so far, all of our author’s attempts to get an explanation about what witchcraft is has failed. We know that witchcraft is the cause of misfortunes and personal injury sustained by the Azande people through what they believe to be no fault of their own, but I think we have yet to have any understanding of what causes witchcraft itself. Where does it come from, who causes it, and is it in any way like a sort of karma believed to be punishment for bad deeds like in eastern philosophies? I think we need to take a deeper look into witchcraft and what the Azande people are actually talking about, because from what I’ve gathered so far, the Azande believe that witchcraft is an unexplained phenomena of independent events that in no way should have had any reason to take place simultaneously

Shorter defines witchcraft as the “inborn power to harm others secretly and unjustifiably.” This mean, there is no reason, it shows that witches harm randomly because they are driven to do so. According to Magesa, they operate psychically and project from the mind their powers on the victim. There is no rite preformed or spell uttered. Magesa draw a dichotomy between a sorcerer and a witch thereby states, “The use