It's crazy to think that people still operate under archaic beliefs and superstitions that have no factual basis. Here in the South, I still catch wind of people whispering things like,"Oh, don't leave your cat around your baby. It will steal its breath!" I have to stop myself from correcting them; I have to remind myself that it is none of my business. However, when it comes to what people believe or know about witchcraft, I feel that it is my duty as a practitioner to explain the ins-and-outs of it. Dismantling the common misconceptions that have been perpetuated by fear for centuries ensures that my community is more well-informed.
I know it is easy to be scared of things that have been touted as "evil" or "backwards." Hollywood has played its role in painting this image of what witches do, who they are, and even what they wear. Most of these stereotypes actually stem from rumors that were created hundreds of years ago to control populations of people. It really is unfortunate that our modern society continues to allow these falsehoods to flourish because most witches are normal people living their lives. They just happen to have a different set of beliefs. Let's get y'all some learnin'!
MISCONCEPTION 1. Witches believe that they can control the weather/read minds/conjure demons/insert some other outlandish feat.
Like I have told people in my Witchcraft 101 class, magic is not a hocus pocus way of bending the laws of nature to suit your needs. The "magic" of the witchcraft is to raise and channel energy that is within you to bring it in harmony with nature to achieve the desired result.
What people assume: Sally wants to do well at a job interview. Sally mixes mugwort, thorns, blood, and a baby's finger in a jar, sits it in front of the full moon, strips down, communes with Lucifer, and lands the job. No, wait! Lands the job the boss once had! *GASP*
What actually happens: Sally wants to do well at a job interview. Sally spends a few days before practicing self-care (meditations, getting enough rest, eating well, hydrating), talking to people she shares healthy relationships with, practicing answers to potential questions, updating her resume, and focusing her mind towards self-confidence, peace, and prosperity.
I wish it was as easy as desiring an outcome and it appearing out of thin air, but that isn't possible and it is quite foolish. We simply focus our energy on the things we want in tandem with working towards them in mundane ways.
MISCONCEPTION 2. All witches practice Wicca.
Just because a person is a witch, that does not mean they practice or subscribe to Wicca. (Like me. I don't practice Wicca and I have opinions.)
Wicca, in of itself, carries many stereotypes. One of those being that Wicca is an ancient practice. Although it's based on centuries-old beliefs, including aspects of paganism and nature-based spirituality, Wicca was founded by anthropologist Gerald Gardner in the early 1950s.
Wicca is a new religion that combines surviving folk traditions and more modern elements. It is loosely based on Western European pagan rites and rituals that have been performed for centuries -- before, during and after the time of Jesus Christ -- such as reverence of nature, observance of the cycle of the seasons, celebration of the harvest, and doing magic.
Wicca opposes the use of negative, harmful magic and discourages people from hurting others physically or emotionally. Wiccans believe in the ethical guideline called the "Threefold Law," which states that whatever a person wishes upon someone else returns to them three times over.
However, not every witch subscribes to that school of thought, and there are witches from every single background you can think of. There are even atheist and Christian witches!
MISCONCEPTION 3. Witches worship the Devil!
These stereotypes can be traced directly back to the beliefs of long-dead Christians, used as fear mongering tactics and political propaganda to keep citizens in line. Research focuses on early modern Germany, where the majority of witches in Europe were executed. Over 25,000 witches were murdered. This stark figure has led scholars to dub the Holy Roman Empire as the ‘heartland’ of the witch craze. As is generally well-known, the majority of those prosecuted were women, but it is important to remember that men were also accused of witchcraft; about 25% of those prosecuted were men.
Many religious fanatics claimed that witches could show no emotion. If they did not cry during ‘questioning’ (i.e.: actual torture), this was another sure sign that they were a witch. There were more inconsistencies that were included in various texts written to scare the general public. An example of one of these witch-identifying manuals? It was written that if someone was innocent, God would help them to withstand torture and they would not confess. However, someone who did not confess after being subjected to severe torture could be construed as having withstood their interrogation through witchcraft and with the aid of the devil.
Jurists, preachers, and elite scholars read and responded to these texts. Some city territories had their own mandates for witch-hunting drawn up, and authors of legal manuals incorporated sections on witchcraft, often referring back to a "demonologist" as their source. These texts went on to inform the trials of accused witches, and arguably they helped to standardize the stereotype of the witch.
This meant that interrogators (from reading such manuals) asked similar questions (often leading) of those accused of witchcraft. This led, at times, to correspondingly standardized answers -- although, of course, sometimes folk belief and local superstitions could also intermingle and make their way into confessions.
In turn, the witches’ confessions (which were most often given under duress) were read aloud at their places of execution. In this period, executions attracted large audiences from near and far, sometimes numbering in the thousands. In this way, the stereotype continued to be propagated. Those in attendance came to know what terrible crimes witches supposedly committed, and how. Consequently, if they were to find themselves accused and tortured at a later date they would know what they were expected to confess. Stories of witches’ executions also made their way into news reports, thus spreading the news of witches’ crimes further afield.
At the end of the day, it is important to remember that just because someone is different, that doesn't mean they are wrong. We are lucky to live in such a diverse global community, deeply enriched and influenced by many cultures. Your friendly neighborhood witch is just as normal as the neighbor who leads Bible studies at her church or the neighbor that spends his Sundays tending to his lawn, beautifying his space. It is doubly important to dismantle the dangerous misinformation that still leads to the persecution of people.
The next time someone happens to mention one of these stereotypes, you can school them on your new witchy know-how!