Preview

The Relation Between Witchcraft And Religion

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2699 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Relation Between Witchcraft And Religion
The dictionary definition of witch is the most commonly assumed stereotype which is a person, usually a woman, with malignant supernatural powers, who practices sorcery with the aid of the devil. The word witch is weighted with many different associations, so it is hard to conjure up one exact definition of the word. The meaning of this word has became immensely distorted due to centuries of persecution at the hands of the Christian church. The idea of witchcraft usually lands in the same realm as fantasy and childhood notions of fairytales. When confronted with the notion that people in this world really do practice witchcraft, we are immersed both in fascination and fear. The very concept of witchcraft, and the magic associated with it, …show more content…
I suppose with any idea or concept, without proper knowledge of it, can be taken out of context such as witchcraft is. People in society are not only going on an outsider’s perspective on the religion, but they are also running on fear. I really can see how witchcraft can inspire deep fear and bewilderment in people, because of it’s unrealistic elements and assumed sources of power. Despite that idea, I still believe the amount of bashing and wrongly assumed ideas of this religion is taken out of hand, so out of hand that most witches find themselves keeping their spirituality a secret. That to me, is very unfair. The media has really oppressed this religion, a religion that is still trying to enlighten themselves on their origins since the eighteenth century witch trials. With that in mind, try to keep an open mind to any religion and their values. Witchcraft practice and religion sure has been taken out of context and dramatized by the media, but you can be that one percent who is educated on the true elements of witchcraft. Encourage the idea that everyone has their own spiritual path, and has the right to their beliefs and have the power to be outward with

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The purpose of this book was to examine the history and social life of Salem Village to try to figure out what was the cause of the events that occurred there. I believe that the authors achieved their objective at least they did to me. Boyer and Nissenbaum's explanation for the outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Salem hinges on an understanding of the economic,…

    • 472 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Evans-Pritchard insists that witches defined by the Azande, do not exist. But “the concept of witchcraft nevertheless provides them with a natural philosophy by which the relationship between man and unfortunate events are explained ...” (Evans-Prichard, 63). In other words, witchcraft does not exist as we understand it, but only exists as a way to explain day to day occurrences for which we have no explanation. Witchcraft principles also contain a standard by which…

    • 985 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Witchcraft Craze Dbq

    • 79 Words
    • 1 Page

    Great job explaining your answers in great detailed. I found it very captivating how they viewed the witchcraft craze as evil and unsafe. How the people who practice it were severely punish. This was a craze that quickly spread from the big cities to the smaller towns. How it was mostly associated with women because they consider them as inferior. However, by the mid 17th century it had decrease as people became more educated and the government became stronger.…

    • 79 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    For hundreds of years, the word “witch” has been associated with innumerable negative images. Witches were considered devil worshipers who committed scores of evil deeds toward society. By the 14th Century, a law was passed outlawing any practice of witchcraft or sorcery; anyone in Europe accused of witchcraft was subject to the torture and execution. In the 1450’s there was a breakout of violent persecutions against people accused of being witches. “During this time more than 100,000 people (mostly woman) were killed for allegedly practicing witchcraft” (Kallen 33) . Witches were viewed by the public as dangerous and uncontrollable menaces to society. They were believed to have relationships with the devil, this relationship was developed because of the church demonizing the witches in the 1450’s. During this time, people lacked medical knowledge about sickness and disease. When the witches were healthy during many of these wide spread diseases, the people believed they were the ones that cursed everyone with it. The people believed that witches could curse people that they did not like. In the city, It was common for old beggars to be on the side of the street asking for change but when people refused to give the beggars coins, they would angrily curse at the passersby. If the people that the…

    • 1192 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    AP EURO Witches DBQ

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages

    It was extremely easy to be accused of being a witch in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth century. During this time period, Europe was going through many changes such as the Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Reformation, the Scientific Revolution, and the consolidation of many national governments. Although all of these changes were taking place, many people were stuck in their ways and did not approve of these new changes. The people that did not follow the social and political norm of the time were often accused of witchcraft.The most common reasons of persecutions of individuals as witches were if you were a female, if you were middle age and not married(widowed), or if you were not practicing Christianity.…

    • 597 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Witches are known to be very dangerous, evil, and made deals with the devil. They were even killed, tortured and jailed, but nowadays we treat them completely differently. We invite them into our house, give them candy, and strike conversations with them, that is at least on halloween. In the late 1600s many older men and women were being caught as being “witches” in Salem, Massachusetts.These witch trials were being caused by young girls who were pretending just to get ergotism, attention, and eventually after one lie they got out control really quickly.…

    • 635 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Witchcraft is understood by being a religion that includes reverences for nature, and belief in rights of others and includes own spirituality. People that practice witch craft now focus on doing good things and helping others. They also refuse to be connected to the devil. Their beliefs go back to ancient times, long time before the advent of Christianity. In current culture witches have been confused with the belief they have black pointy hats, green faces with broom sticks. This is often how witches are portrayed in movies and…

    • 965 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Damned Women: an Analysis

    • 1820 Words
    • 8 Pages

    women fueled witchcraft accusations and proceedings and women's guilt over their perceived spiritual inadequacies could even lead them to confess to specific transgressions they apparently…

    • 1820 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Salem Witch Dbq

    • 241 Words
    • 1 Page

    Nowadays people will look for reliable evidences before they accuse someone. However, the Salem Witch Trials show that people are mindless when something is about witchcraft. Many people do not believe that there’s witchcraft in the world today, but in the Salem Village in the 17th Century, people believe that witchcraft exists and they are scared of the witchcraft, they are scared that other will use witchcraft to harm them, so people just use this opportunity to eradicate other people that might harm them or people that they dislike when the trials are going on. The Salem Witch Trials show that women have low social status in the society in the 17th Century, most likely women were executed from the trials since witches are most likely are…

    • 241 Words
    • 1 Page
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Tempel Anneke was accused of witchcraft in 1663, not because of what she did for her community but because she was an elderly female in a man’s world that was set on freeing society of witches. The Christian church which was run by men viewed witchcraft loosely as a way to lump together all practices that could not be explained through the church. It was also demonized by the Church who had no good response to give its people. The Church believed it wasn’t coming from God, so it must be evil. This led to insecurities throughout towns and villages that feared a group of non-believers or witches wanted to destroy them.…

    • 1730 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Catholic Church was steeped in traditional thinking in regards to religion as well as life. They felt that no one was above the church and that to say otherwise was blasphemy. It was for this view that the church stopped supporting humanism. They felt that it was putting too much emphasis on man and not enough on God. (Mark Kishlansky, 2008) The views of the Catholic Church became more radical as they began their witch hunt making it policy for the “rectors of the Church and those who communicate the people are enjoined to take the utmost care when they communicate women that the mouth shall be well open and the tongue thrust…

    • 874 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The elites believed that all witchcraft was because of the devil. Witches worship the devil and do all acts of magic in the name of the devil. The bible prohibits witchcraft; therefore all acts of witchcraft are acts of heresy and must be severely punished (p. 134 course reader). The elites were concerned with persecuting witches as a way to reduce heresy and rebellion among the common people (p. 160 Levack).…

    • 1052 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The Salem Witch Trials were a dark time in the history of America. There were people killed for being a “witch”. Whether they were or not, they tested them with various ways of torture. From being hung, to being tied to a rock and thrown in a lake; if they survived, they were a witch, if they died, they weren’t. The Puritans came up with many different theories of witchcraft for various problems. Whether it was for the weather, lack of crop growth, or if someone smelled a little different. Some popular theories were: Ergot Poisoning. They believed that if someone accidentally ate a fungus, they belonged to the devil. However I am not going with this theory. I am going with the theory of the Occult. “The Puritans…

    • 307 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the seventeenth century virtually everyone in the Western world believed that the devil confederated with in human beings and either enable them to inflict by supernatural means or else did it for them (Morgan 48). Morgan also states in his article that “Others believed that both the devil and his witches could actually cause things like storms or sickness or fatal accidents.” So with beliefs like these going around the different villages, it made it very easy to believe when a group of young girls started acting out and faking sickness to blame one woman of witch craft. Also, in ancient time witch craft was viewed in some societies as a relatively respectable profession of its time. People would seek their help in time of need. Unfortunately, over time witch craft became frowned upon because of nonreligious review of it within the church. Due to this it adhered to the people’s negative takes on witches and started to associate them with the devil. With events like these could make its very easy for people to believe that witches could only be the clause of evil happening with in their…

    • 947 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The Witch Dbq

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Women who didn’t act like “proper women” were outcast as witches. For instance, if a woman were not obeying her husband’s every command then she wasn’t playing the expected gender role, therefore she was a witch. Outcasts were different, otherwise they wouldn’t be outcasts. People who were exiled were weird in that they lived life their own way, making people judge and want to get rid of them. If a person who was considered an outcast were using herbs as medicine or staying out late and spending time alone, then they were persecuted as witches. A woman accused of being a witch said that she was pinpointed as being a witch because society saw her as different. She wrote, “some call me witch, and being ignorant of my self, they go about to teach me how to be one” (Doc 5) People were also persecuted for “suspiciously” being selfless. A report of Churchwardens in Gloucestershire, England claimed that a woman, Alice Prabury, “ useth herself suspiciously in the likelihood of a witch, taking upon her not only to help Christian people of diseases strangely happened but also horses and all other beasts.” (Doc 4) Women and men who were less fortunate were those most wrongly persecuted. From a regional and comparative witchcraft study done in 1970, it showed that from 1546-1680, woman who were the wives of laborers were more accused than wives of the wealthier men. (Doc 10) This was suspicious in that society and culture were doing the wrong thing, not those who were persecuted. Women were…

    • 1092 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics