Forget everything you've heard about witches so far...unless, of course, you are a witch (like me :)), or actually know about the modern(neo-) pagan religion. For those of you who think that witches all dress in black and fly around on broomsticks...read on and you may learn the truth. Witchcraft is a pagan (meaning old, as in pre-christian) religion. A witch worships nature and its cycles. There are many forms of witchcraft, but the one common aspect in the religion is the Rede (rule):

'An ye harm none, do as ye will'

This rule basically means that if you don't hurt anyone, you can do whatever you want. Now that we've gone over the thing that all witches have in common, we'll go on to the stuff some witches do, and some don't. Since Wicca is such a free religion, there are no rigid guidelines or rules saying that every witch has to do and believe specific things.

MOST witches believe in a higher power. The most common deities seen in Witchcraft are: the Threefold goddess (she expresses the three stages of a woman's life: maiden, mother, and crone) the Lady & Lord (the male and female gods) or the All (which encompasses (you guessed it, everything!)
MANY witches believe in the three-fold law of return...which mean that what you send out comes back to you, times three.
MANY witches do cast spells to try to help themselves and/or other people. If they follow the rede, there's no cause for alarm. And since many witches believe in the threefold law of return, meaning that they'd just be harming themselves by casting a spell to harm another person, witches don't generally try to harm others.

Despite what you may have heard from your minister, witches are not Satanists and they do not worship the devil. In fact, most witches don't even believe in the devil. Witches have been (and still are) very misunderstood individuals. Part of the reason for this is that when the Christian religion started to become popular, the church saw all other religions as a threat to its' existence. They spread fear among the people, until they turned against the witches, who were burned, hung, and tortured during the burning times. Some other motives for the persecution of witches include:
1) the degradation of women
2) fear of the unknown (many of the witches were healers in their villages...since they had knowledge of herbs that others didn't, and could in most cases do a better job then the so called 'doctors' these women were both respected and feared)
3) the money and prestige involved (the witch trials were very profitable for everyone but the witches and their families...the judges who sat on trial had to be paid, and so did the witch-finders, the executioners, the jailers, etc.)

Okay, enough about the witch trials, lets get back to the religion. As I said, there are many different types of witchcraft. Some people practice in Covens (with a group of other people), some are solitaries (by themselves). Some prefer to do highly ritualized magick (where are spell would be a like a recipe in a cookbook that you can follow) and some like to do things on the spur of the moment, or make their spells very simple. One thing we have to remember is that a witch should do what's right for him or her. One kind of witch isn't any more important then another witch just because s/he has been initiated into a coven. A witch is a witch is a witch.

Okay, I think that's it for now. If you have any questions, feel free to drop me a line.

Bright Blessings,

Sabrina

FOR MORE INFORMATION:
A Wiccan's World of Witchcraft
Pandora's PaganWeb: Wicca
Wiccan Educational Resource Network

© Copyright Sabrina Wish 1998