Talk:Witchcraft/Archive 8

Archive 5

Archive 6

Archive 7

Archive 8

Archive 9

Archive 10

Archive 11

Ridiculous!

This is an extremely biased and harmful view of witches and witchcraft! Neither witches nor witchcraft is evil, and magic is nothing like Harry Potter or Charmed or any other ridiculous fantasy film/TV show!

Spells are simply spoken affirmations,rituals are ways to focus and concentrate on self-awareness, self-discovery and self-correction, and magic is never used to harm or curse others!

Witches do not believe in evil or the devil or demons...this is lies spread by Christianity, and witch burning was a form of femicide. Powerful men used it to kill their lovers, mistresses, and women who accused them of sexual assault.

This article is NOT based on solid sources and worldwide views, it's based on the lies that have been spread by organised religion for hundreds of years now (mainly Christianity).

If you want this page to be correct, I suggest you do some non-biased research or even talk to some real witches...people who have practised for decades and know what they are actually talking about!!

If you want this page to be correct, I suggest you base it on facts instead of the opinions of organised religions intent on getting rid of all other beliefs that they don't agree with! 92.1.155.53 (talk) 20:16, 7 July 2023 (UTC)

The article you're looking for is Wicca.
This article is about the traditional and most common meaning of 'witchcraft'. It's absolutely based on solid academic sources and worldwide views. I suggest you take time and read it beyond the first line. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 13:11, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Actually, Witch redirects here and not to Wicca, so this page and its short descriptor should be presenting a present-day world view as well as the terminology and slant that was literally used and promoted by murderers during the witchhunts and witch trials. It's interesting that Wikipedia is claiming, in its voice, the same reasoning and descriptors of witches (nowadays probably millions of women identify as witches, mostly nature-centered and peaceful people whose tasks and beliefs are positive and benign) that was used during the years of using witchcraft as an excuse to kill intelligent and self-driven women and even young girls. At a bare minimum Witch should redirect to wicca, but it would be much better to balance this page out with topic accuracy. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:19, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

In that case I would suggest that Witch be redirected to Witch (disambiguation), where both the traditional and the Wiccan meanings can be listed. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 13:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The term "Witchcraft" also covers the beliefs and practices of witches, so this page should be balanced as well (as for traditional, whose tradition?). Witchcraft is not solely the excuse to kill women, fairly recently in the context of historical eras, but is an ongoing and evolving topic. The short descriptor of this page by itself ("Practice of malevolent magic") could have been used in the witchhunts and witch trials to gain convictions. This page, which has over 1,700 daily readers, seems to be broken, probably more than just redirecting Witch to different terminology. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:41, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I can agree. The page seems pretty biased, despite what Asarlai says. Just take from the first paragraph of the article "Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others...accused witches were usually women who were believed to have used malevolent magic against their own community, and often to have communed with evil beings. It was thought witchcraft could be thwarted by protective magic or counter-magic, which could be provided by cunning folk or folk healers. Suspected witches were also intimidated, banished, attacked or killed. Often they would be formally prosecuted and punished, if found guilty or simply believed to be guilty". This doesn't sound very neutral to me. The question is how to achieve this balance. Are there any sources we should add to ensure the page is more balanced? Historyday01 (talk) 14:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

It's an article focusing on the traditional, conventional and most common meaning of "witchcraft" worldwide, and it's based on modern academic sources. In what way is it not "balanced"? – Asarlaí ^(talk) 14:54, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

If you, or your daughter, wife, girlfriend, mother, or good friend identified as a witch (millions of women do) you might not ask that question. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:59, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Again, you're talking about the neo-pagan religion Wicca and its offshoots. That is not the focus of this article. That's clear to anyone who bothers reading past the first line or paragraph, and it has been made clear many times on this talkpage. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 15:07, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

→The end of the lead says: In contemporary Western culture, followers of the neo-pagan religion Wicca, and some followers of New Age belief systems, may self-identify as "witches", and use the term "witchcraft" for their self-help, healing or divination rituals. Other Wiccans avoid the term due to its negative connotations. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 15:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The title "Witchcraft" and the fact that Witch redirects here goes counter to that fact that, I think (haven't hung out with witches in a while, lately I've see two of them once-a-year at yearly garage sales), most modern-day witches call their practice 'witchcraft' and not always, or maybe even usually, wiccan, and call themselves 'witches' and not 'wicca women' or something. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:14, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

Exactly. Not sure why Asarlaí is so opposed to making the page balanced,especially since there would be use of "modern academic sources". Historyday01 (talk) 17:02, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

A Wikipedian who identifies as a witch led to ANI by her fellow editors

Just noticed the Witchcraft (disambiguation) page opening line reads: "Witchcraft traditionally means the use of malevolent magic. It can also refer to the neo-pagan religion Wicca.". So again, whose "tradition", and yes, something broken here and also, as the Harry Potter "spell" is "spelled", Riddikulus. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:26, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

The fact that Witch redirects here is something that should be discussed at its talkpage. I've said where I stand on that. Also, Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, not on our own experiences or what any of us might "think". – Asarlaí ^(talk) 15:53, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I think it is worth discussing that here, as it is a redirect to this page. If necessary, a change of the redirect could also be posted on Talk:Witch as well. And surely, Wikipedia is based on reliable sources, but that doesn't mean that a page can't be biased and slanted. Even though making pages neutral is a Wikipedia principle, that doesn't mean it is actually carried out in practice. The tone of the article, especially the beginning comes off very negatively, when it shouldn't have that tone. You don't need to get so defensive about this page. All pages on here are fluid and should not be set in stone. I think this discussion would be better if it wasn't just the three of us (apart from the original IP address, who hasn't commented in this discussion apart from the original comment)... Randy Kryn posted a link to this discussion on the Women in Red WikiProject (where I first heard about it), but others should weigh in as well.Historyday01 (talk) 17:09, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I came here from the link at WikiProject Occult I don't think all the projects contacted were necessarily in-scope, but that one was and am inclined to agree with Kryn's and Historyday's stances -- the idea of discussing the redirect on its talk in particular seems pretty absurd. Wicca is one religion that people who identify as witches/warlocks/wizards/etc may believe in, and probably a minority one these days (I tend to think of it as a kind of 90s thing). Some substantial proportion of people looking for information on modern witches will be doing so at this article. There's a not-explicitly-stated but fairly strong suggestion here that we don't actually have a modern-witchcraft-type article, which is...interesting, but there you go. The lead and body of this article should, regardless of if another article is written, include some information on modern witchcraft, and 'Witch' should redirect to (or be) a disambig if the argument is being made that we have information on witches-of-various-kinds across multiple articles. Vaticidalprophet 17:28, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

In terms of all the projects being contacted not being in scope, I just posted on all the WikiProjects listed on this page, so I guess I assumed they were "in-scope". Otherwise, I have to agree that the lead and body of the article should include information on modern witchcraft. I can also agree that "witch" should redirect to Wicca (which I think is what you are saying). I would add that the "Witches in fiction" sub-section should be expanded too (only ONE source is cited for that entire sub-section!), as I know off hand that witches are a major part of The Owl House and that there is a witch/ninja protagonist in OK K.O.! Let's Be Heroes, as a person who often focuses on animation articles on here (including creating pages for new shows). Some other examples are listed at Witch (disambiguation) and Witchcraft (disambiguation), but there are others left out of those lists. And the suggestion that we don't actually have a modern-witchcraft-type article is surely interesting, to say the least. Historyday01 (talk) 18:12, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

"The lead and body of this article should include some information on modern witchcraft" - it already does. The last paragraph of the lead is about Wicca and its offshoots, and this article has a whole section about Wicca and "neopagan witches".

All articles must have a focus. The focus of this article is the traditional/conventional/historical and still most widespread meaning of "witchcraft" as is studied by historians, folklorists and anthropologists. Wicca, or "modern Witchcraft" as you call it, is the focus of the Wicca article. However, you seem to be suggesting that we mix everything together and make this article more about Wicca too, even suggesting that "witch" redirect to "Wicca". – Asarlaí ^(talk) 18:24, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

You seem to be overlooking the repeated expression that "modern witchcraft" (as a roughly umbrella term) and "Wicca" are different things, and the latter is a now-pretty-small subset of the former, even though it was the original big-deal of neopaganism. It's completely predictable (and indeed this was kicked off by it happening) that readers will anticipate typing 'witchcraft' rather than 'wicca' for the article about the former. I don't agree Witch should redirect to Wicca, but I don't think it should redirect here either if there's an insistence on making this article entirely historiographical and when a perfectly good disambig exists. If we don't have an article on modern-day witches, which the repeated suggestion that Wicca is that article implies, then we should and it should be hatnoted, and as this is a broad-concept article it should mention them in ways that aren't missed by readers explicitly telling you they've missed them. (This is a different statement to "it should be about them".) Vaticidalprophet 18:35, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the original poster (92.1.155.53)'s sentiments. The opening sentence of the lede, "Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others" may well be supported by (two) reliable sources, but it sounds POV given that witchcraft has been used traditionally also for benevolent and healing purposes. And, bearing in mind that research comes in the wake of centuries of suppression, animosity, religious (and later, Enlightenment and more fundamentalist) beliefs, it really does come across as (witting or unwitting) propaganda, to me at least. I'd like to see this balanced up with more favourable reliable sources, and mention of the fact that there are "black", "white", and even "grey" practices. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 18:36, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

"I'd like to see this balanced up with more favourable reliable sources" Do you have any specific sources in mind to support the suggested changes? Dimadick (talk) 15:04, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The article largely focuses on the Western concept of Witchcraft. However, occasionally moves towards an intercultural approach, often with a short paragraph or even just one sentence, about similar beliefs in other cultures or religions. Whereby, it mixes up different conceptualizations on magical beliefs. Wiccan, for example, often doesn't follow the Christianity influenced depiciton of witchcraft (Wicca), likewise Middle Eastern beliefs, especially Islam, also may have more ambigious attitudes. Maybe the article should make a decission what it want sto be about: the Euro-centric concept of witchcraft or intercultural witchcraft-like practises. VenusFeuerFalle (talk) 12:07, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

This comes up periodically and we cycle through the same arguments. I agree with Asarlaí and the others who maintain this article that the worldwide definition still favors the traditional meaning of those who do harm - which we have focused on in the article, per RS sources. We have addressed the modern redefinitions in the lede and the body. To turn Witch into a disambig would be prioritize white pop culture sources over scholarly ones, and western over global and traditional/Indigenous/African/etc ones. If there are any changes to be made, it's not to lump more stuff into this article. While I could live with Witch being the disambig, it's not my preference. This article already has links to Wicca, disambig, and other redefinitions (which is what they are; they are not reclamations, though many modern Pagan adherents believe this due to fakelore in the 50's +/-). - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 21:10, 8 July 2023 (UTC)

I think this is worth revisiting. We use two sources to define witchcraft as "the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others". The first of these is 50+ years old, so I'd be very wary of viewing that as the best of contemporary scholarship. The second is much more recent, and notes that there are four contemporary definitions of witch. The author employs one of them, as quoted, but states of the other three "to call anyone wrong to use any one of them would be to reveal oneself as bereft of general knowledge and courtesy, as well of scholarship", yet we only use the most negative of the four definitions. Perhaps we need to expand the opening paragraph and note that there are other contemporary definitions of the term. - Bilby (talk) 00:45, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

The lead already covers multiple definitions. People can read more than one paragraph. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:07, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Articles should be understandable even in snippets, because, unfortunately, snippets are how most readers interact with them. About 60% of mobile readers (the majority) read only the lead of an article; given the structure of the Minerva skin (placing an image or infobox right after para 1), it can be expected a substantial proportion of them read only the first paragraph. Statistics are less clear for desktop readers, who seem more likely to read more but still very likely to read lead-only. A substantial amount of engagement with Wikipedia articles also doesn't happen on Wikipedia itself, but through knowledge graphs, AI assistant summaries, etc. I am reminded of how the opening paragraph to Dracula was rewritten after its author discovered that on Siri, the book's subject was represented as Harker visiting Dracula to conduct a real estate transaction. Vaticidalprophet 02:04, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I disagree with those who are defending the current text, which seems like a strange, bizarre position to me. Historyday01 (talk) 18:39, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Agreed. The 50 year old source should be done away with regardless, as we shouldn't be using outdated scholarship in our articles. And the other source clearly showcases multiple variations on what the term is referring to. It doesn't matter if the rest of the lede showcases that when the first line explicitly only discusses one interpretation of the term and the most negative one. The lede very much needs to be rewritten. Silverseren^C 18:47, 9 July 2023 (UTC)

Changing some of the focus of this page and doing a complete rewrite of the lead seems the way to go. And how about ditching the short description, which all mobile and readers of the default skin read 1,700 times a day when searching for Witchcraft or Witch: "Short description|Practice of malevolent magic". Randy Kryn (talk) 02:55, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea. The short description is bad and really needs to be removed. Historyday01 (talk) 15:08, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Bilby notes "we only use the most negative of the four definitions". Our article's first paragraph suggests our article is primarily about "the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others", which presumably is one of those four. Is that one meaning itself substantive enough to have its own article? If so, so it should be, and the broader concept (presumably those four have a unifying higher-level topic) should have its own separate article in WP:SUMMARYSTYLE that links out to the specific article about any one of them. Or if they are fairly unrelated things that simply happen to have the same name, then that's exactly what WP:DISAMBIGUATION is for. DMacks (talk) 03:22, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Across at Wikipedia talk:Systemic bias#Witchcraft, CorbieVreccan you boldly state that "Input was solicited at the Neopagan wikiproject and that is currently dominating the discussion." As Darker Dreams|Darker Dreams rightly pointed out, "the person who notified the Neopagan group says they notified all the projects listed".

It is not the Neopagan community who are responsible for systemic bias, but quite clearly the article itself, and the sources used, which are responsible for systemic bias that dates back hundreds of years (and also in recent years). Hopefully, more-involved editors will be able to come up with less partisan reliable sources.

The sources that Darker Dreams provided for the revised definition in the article's first sentence were, in my view, a dramatic improvement:

Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers. ... This term carries negative connotations due to religious and social condemnation. [refs]

Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 13:27, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

References

I looked at several Wikiprojects and saw no other notifications. Who notified wikiprojects, and which were notified besides Neopaganism? - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 17:35, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

OK, I found the notifications. Historyday01 notified the paranormal, horror, skepticism, occult, and anthropology projects but none of the ethnic/cultural ones. After I saw the Neopagan notification, I notified Indigenous of North America, African Diaspora and Systemic Bias, but there are a number of others that are also covered in this article that haven't been notified. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 17:47, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I added only the WikiProjects were listed on this page, so the ones I listed were limited as a result. Historyday01 (talk) 18:21, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not including this here as a reliable source, but merely to note that traditional witchcraft has been painted black:

"Of the Healing Power of the Thirteenth Herb

"(13) XXV. The thirteen hearb is named of the Chaldees Olphantas, of the Greeks Hilirion, of the Latines Verbena, of the English men Vervin. This hearb (as witches say) gathered, the Sun being in the Signe of the Ram, and put with graine or corne of piony of one yere old, heals them that are sicke of the falling sickness."

Source: Albertus Magnus (c. 1200 – 15 November 1280), quoted in Idries Shah, The Secret Lore of Magic.

Regards, Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 14:11, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

"Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic" - so all magic is witchcraft? That's a ridiculous statement.

"The term carries negative connotations due to religious and social condemnation" - so 'witchcraft' was originally a positive term and only became negative because of 'religious condemnation'? Let's see some modern, high-quality academic sources for that. Preferably from actual historians, folklorists and anthropologists. The current academic sources in the article do not support that claim, but your proposed wording hijacks those.

As has been explained dozens of times, this article is primarily about the traditional/conventional and most common meaning of 'witchcraft' worldwide, .i.e. malevolent magic. Most cultures have believed in both benevolent and malevolent magic. Outside the Church, many ordinary Christians believed in both kinds of magic until recent centuries. In English, helpful or neutral magic was simply called 'magic' or the 'cunning craft', while harmful magic was called 'witchcraft'.
In the modern era, the likes of Margaret Murray tried to make sense of the European witch hunts. She theorized that accused witches had actually been followers of surviving pagan religion. But this 'witch cult' theory has been utterly discredited. Accused witches weren't pagans and they generally weren't doing any kind of magic. They were accused because people really did believe in harmful magic, and/or because of personal disputes. All of this is explained in this article if you care to read it. The witch cult' theory is often seen as pseudohistory and pseudo-folklore. Nevertheless, it was a big influence on the neopagan religion Wicca, which was originally named 'Witchcraft'. It looks as if you want this article to fit a Wiccan and/or pseudohistorical definition of 'witchcraft'. Wicca and its offshoots are discussed here briefly, but they have their own article. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 14:21, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

witchcraft, traditionally, the exercise or invocation of alleged supernatural powers to control people or events, practices typically involving sorcery or magic. Although defined differently in disparate historical and cultural contexts, witchcraft has often been seen, especially in the West, as the work of crones who meet secretly at night, indulge in cannibalism and orgiastic rites with the Devil, or Satan, and perform black magic. Witchcraft thus defined exists more in the imagination of contemporaries than in any objective reality. Yet this stereotype has a long history and has constituted for many cultures a viable explanation of evil in the world. The intensity of these beliefs is best represented by the European witch hunts of the 14th to 18th century, but witchcraft and its associated ideas are never far from the surface of popular consciousness and—sustained by folk tales—find explicit focus from time to time in popular television and films and in fiction. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 14:50, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Are you going to overlook the many high-quality academic sources in the article for one source that fits your view? WP:BRITANNICA: "There is no consensus on the reliability of the Encyclopædia Britannica (including its online edition, Encyclopædia Britannica Online). Encyclopædia Britannica is a tertiary source. Most editors prefer reliable secondary sources over the Encyclopædia Britannica when available."
Also see Wikipedia:Dictionaries as sources. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 15:00, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I'm not presenting this as a reliable source (like Albertus Magnus, I just quickly pickied it at random): I merely wished to show you that there are other possible points of view other than your own and those of the current sources; though yes, of course, we need to be looking for reliable sources. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 17:58, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

This isn't a question of mathematic or scientific precision, nor is it a question of possibly inaccurate etymological descent. It is a question of postential harm from wikipedia passing a moral judgement based on a choice of which definitions are valid because a decision is made that "tradition" should supercede what you admit is (and deride as) a modern use. Darker Dreams (talk) 18:43, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

@Asarlaí It's quite interesting that the 1990s Britannica still had the following lead sentence: witchcraft, the human exercise of alleged supernatural powers for antisocial, evil purposes (so-called black magic), which is a fairly close match to the lead sentence people are objecting to here. Britannica's present-day lede is startlingly different. I'm not sure mimicking the 1990s' Britannica is such a good look for Wikipedia. Andreas JN466 19:58, 27 July 2023 (UTC)

I have to agree with Asarlaí about the status of Brittanica. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 17:59, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Also agree that all "magic" or things that get defined as "magic" are not called "witchcraft" in the cultures that have these metaphysical practices. In many cultures it is still a killing word. People have expressed the concern that innocents who call themselves witches will be harmed. Well, those who self-identify this way based on Wiccan and pop culture sources might want to be aware that they will be shunned or worse if they call themselves witches in many settings globally and even in the US and UK. It's a systemic bias issue in both current pop culture and among those who edit Wikipedia to think this is a neutral or positive word. Some cultures still have blood law around harming others with metaphysical means, and they call those people witches. They don't care if someone insists it's not what they mean by the word. I have seen this play out in person. This isn't my preference or edict, it's just a fact. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:06, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The problem isn't that witchcraft is, or has been, a killing word. That is fully addressed in the first paragraph. The problem is that the current version you're insisting on portrays that as an appropriate position to still have by imposing the moral judgement of "all witchcraft is evil magic," when you acknowledge that's a limited ("traditional") definition that is not necessarily what people are going to be looking for when they arrive. The idea that "good witchea" only emerge from Wicca is false from the content of the article, which contains heroic wiches sourced back to 1919. One of the best known is the movie the Wizard of Oz (1939) which predates the public emergence of Wicca by more than a decade and still feels it appropriate to specify whether each witch is "good" or "wicked." And the idea that nothing can change in the article because "we're still validating sources" when the proposed sources include th Cambridge dictionary is nonsense. Darker Dreams (talk) 18:36, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

I have recently watched The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926) for the first time. The film features the heroic Witch of the Flaming Mountain who repeatedly rescues the other characters, and eventually duels with the film's evil sorcerer and kills him. I am not certain if she is the first "good" witch in film history, but she is probably the earliest one in animation. Dimadick (talk) 07:45, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

This has absolutely nothing to do with endorsing a moral stance. The fact you see it that way makes it even more abundantly clear that you are engaging in this multi-article POV push in an effort to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. It's clear you believe the debunked "Myth of the Wicca", and that changing this article will protect people. But that is not the case. We are documenting a worldwide issue here. The Wiccan and current, Internet pop culture view is only one perspective. Worldwide, most cultures (many that neopagans imitate) have not redefined this word.

While many Wiccans truly believe the word has been "reclaimed", and was once a positive thing, they have been misled. Misrepresenting the situation on the 'pedia is neither honest nor helpful. If you're actually doing this out of concern for people, Darker Dreams, with your edit-warring on multiple articles now, encouraging naive people to call themselves this could actually endanger them. Again, I've seen it happen, with naive people telling traditional people they are "witches". Battling to change the definition is dishonest. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:39, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I agree with the editors above that the lead paragraph of the article needs to reflect the full scope of the article, which includes both traditional and contemporary usage. Is there wording that we could all find acceptable? Nosferattus (talk) 22:12, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Hmm, I think maybe the pendulum has swung too far in the other direction now. We still need to mention that witchcraft traditionally implies using magic to harm others. We shouldn't remove that from the lead entirely. Nosferattus (talk) 00:18, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Indeed. While we're still discussing this and waiting for more input, Darker Dreams has went on a solo-run and re-written the lead how they think it should be. So the lead no longer opens with the main topic of the article: malevolent magic. This goes against MOS:LEAD.

• The opening line has been changed to "Witchcraft is the use of magic". But this article isn't about "the use of magic" in general, it's about witchcraft. If it's about "the use of magic" then why does this article and the term 'witchcraft' even exist? The wording also wrongly implies that all magic is witchcraft, despite the sources saying otherwise.
• The Wiccan meaning has been put on top, even tho' the vast majority of the article isn't about that. Only one section of the article is about the redefinition used by some Wiccans/neopagans. That goes against MOS:LEAD because its giving undue weight and prominence to one small part of the article.
• The part of the lead dealing with the witch-cult hypothesis, and how its discredited, has been deleted. No clear reason was given.
• Online dictionary definitions are being used as the main sources for the new opening lines, that is not best practice.

I have added more references for the traditional definition being the most common meaning of 'witchcraft' worldwide.

Have we any sources that say the Wiccan/neopagan redefinition is just as common, or more common, than the traditional meaning? If not, then it shouldn't be given priority. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 14:08, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

I don't think there are going to be any sources evaluating the relative use of different definitions of "witchcraft", especially since the two definitions overlap significantly. However, any trip to a bookstore in an English-speaking country will let you know which definition is the most common these days, and I suspect it isn't a close competition. Regardless, I think we need to stop approaching this a war between the modern and traditional definitions. If the "modern" definition is positive and the "traditional" definition is negative, using a neutral definition to start off the article seems sensible. However, we still need to prominently explain the evolution of the term and its various connotations in the lead, hopefully in a way that reflects the contents of the article. Nosferattus (talk) 19:33, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

You have nailed the problem on the head here. You wrote:

However, any trip to a bookstore in an English-speaking country will let you know which definition is the most common these days, and I suspect it isn't a close competition.

Yes, there's a lot of money being made selling pop-culture paperbacks full of spells and such. And the Intarwebs are full of their electronic equivalents, full of terrible or zero sourcing. But that's not representative of the global view. What's left out is oral traditions, Indigenous and other traditional cultures who have never redefined the word.

A more balanced view can be found via some anthropological sources and, more frequently now by members of those cultures themselves, but not all of it is discussed publicly. Which is a problem when it comes to sourcing if people go for quantity over quality. But the scholarly and from-the-cultures-themselves sources should be prioritized here. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 20:02, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Previously headed Wikipedia:Citation overkill ...

You have to be kidding me. Asarlaí has now added six citations back-to-back in the lede about the practice of witchcraft most commonly being seen as "malignant" and is still not satisfied. Surely, they can no longer again religiously insist that the opening sentence of the lede should read Witchcraft traditionally means the use of magic or supernatural powers to harm others. and short description, Practice of magic, usually to cause harm. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 12:06, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Yes, there are now numerous citations, from academic sources, that malevolent magic is the most common and widespread meaning of "witchcraft". The vast majority of the article is about that. Yet Darker Dreams has put the minority Wiccan meaning (positive magic) on top of that and given it priority in the lead, going against MOS:LEAD. Any sensible Wikipedian would not be satisfied with that. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 12:47, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

You will be well aware of this already, of course, but Ronald Hutton, for one, is being deliberately partial (writing only about witchcraft in its destructive manifestations). In Ronald Hutton, The Witch: A History of fear, from ancient times to the present, the author says after the "What is a witch?" quote: That is, however, only one current usage of the word. In fact, Anglo-American senses of it now take at least four different forms, although the one discussed above seems still to be the most widespread and frequent. The others define the witch figure as any person who uses magic ... or as the practitioner of nature-based Pagan religion; or as a symbol of independent female authority and resistance to male domination. All have validity in the present, and to call anybody wrong for using any one of them would be to reveal oneself as bereft of general knowledge, as well as scholarship. ... [I]n this book the mainstream scholarly convention will be followed, and the word used only for an alleged worker of such destructive magic. [emphasis added]. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 13:19, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

IMO, the article should present witchcraft neutrally as a form of magic. Then it should present a neutral history of the development of the practices and understanding of witchcraft. Positive/negative views are extremely cultural. They should be presented third as "Cultural views on witchcraft". There are many who object to various religions and practices. We do not start the articles on Buddhism or Christianity with the views of their opponents. We do not start the article on Gnosticism with the views of its Christian opponents. Why should we base the article on Christianity's violent oppression of practitioners of the craft? Witchcraft should be presented in a manner similar to Gnosticism; they have much in common, both relying on extra-Biblical knowledge, both having been seen as heresy by the Church. Yet in one case we present the thing in itself, for the other we present the views of its oppressors? Why the difference? Because there's no equivalent of the Nag Hammadi library for witchcraft? What about goetia? It's barely mentioned, but is likely connected to what was called 'witchcraft'. Skyerise (talk) 13:37, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Indeed, it's like writing a scholarly thesis on the topic of Christianity based only on a study of Christian Nationalism or Southern Baptists. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 13:49, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Here's an interesting tidbit to get started on, "... court pageants and festivals - notably masques ... Often they pitted royal figures against evil forms of magic and witchcraft - theurgia versus goetia ..." "Magick" being the historically used English term for theurgy and "witchcraft" being the contemporaneous English term for goetia. We have an article on theurgy, but goetia merely redirects to Ars Goetia. We have no history of the practice of goetia from Greek times nor material about its spread throughout the Roman Empire, nor precisely when it got branded as "witchcraft". Skyerise (talk) 14:20, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Also, Magic (supernatural) § Witchcraft would make a good lead for this article, don't you think? Skyerise (talk) 14:50, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

References

"We do not start the articles on Buddhism or Christianity with the views of their opponents. ... Why should we base the article on Christianity's violent oppression of practitioners of the craft?" - That sums up the whole problem with your arguments, as CorbieVreccan has already noted. You seem to think this article is about a religion, and that "witchcraft" meant benevolent magic until it was "oppressed" by Christians. Have you even read the article? Witchcraft always meant malevolent magic, then the witch-cult hypothesis came along and suggested exactly what you're preaching. But the witch-cult theory has been rejected by academia. It's pseudohistory, and some of you are trying to make it the focus of this article. You overlook all the non-Western cultures around the world who believe in witchcraft, and define it as malevolent magic. This article is not about a religion, it's primarily about the traditional and most common meaning of 'witchcraft' worldwide. That was made clear in the lead. The religion has its own articles at Wicca and Traditional Witchcraft. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 15:05, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

No, I'm not talking about religion, except in the sense of cult. I'm talking about Greek shamanic sorcery and its historical spread, the names by which it was called, goetia, sorcery, maleficium, and witchcraft. About its incorporation of materials from and into the Greek Magical Papyri and later from Jewish kabbalistic and sorcerous sources. It's a quite different and darker history than Wicca projected for itself. There are sources out there to support it, so why is this history absent from the article? Proper coverage would include merging maleficium (sorcery) and black magic as referring to the same subject. Parts of Grimoire also refer to the same tradition. Skyerise (talk) 15:24, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

You're free to add that to the article with reliable sources. But please stay on the topic of discussion: we're debating the opening lines of the article. If you want to discuss "Greek shamanic sorcery", you'd be better starting a new section. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 15:59, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

It's all connected. I thought we wrote articles about the thing itself, not the word. Skyerise (talk) 16:04, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

As a "btw", to avoid an tag, you can group unnamed references together, with bullet-pointed citations each on a new line (not easy to show that here): <ref>* cite1 * cite2 ... * cite6</ref>. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 16:23, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Asarlaí, I see that you've "added POV lead tag, as the minority Wiccan meaning has been given priority". I could have tagged the lede myself "added POV lead tag, as the traditional meaning, although more common, has been given undue weight, and citations are excessive." However, I will continue to refrain from making major edits to the article, and suggest that you simply go ahead and swap the two sections round. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 16:44, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Change of plan: Here, I volunteered to move the contemporary material after the more common traditional usage. Hope this helps. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 16:55, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

That's what I had done here. But I was reverted by Darker Dreams, who complained that "the lead spends much longer on the negative definition". Of course it does! That's what the article is about! Leads summarize the article. The minority Wiccan meaning takes up only one section of the article. It was given a sentence in the lead, a hatnote, and I even added this note so readers wouldn't get confused. But some editors kept pushing their preferred meaning in the lead, ignoring the rest of the article and what it's about. Again, Wicca and Traditional Witchcraft have their own articles. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 17:31, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I have once again reverted Darker Dreams at Witchcraft (disambiguation) for the same issues. Please look at that user's contribs as they are doing this disruption on multiple related articles. (Darker Dreams (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log) - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 18:28, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

I think that Skyerise's concern that Wikipedia articles ought to be about "the thing itself, not the word" hits at the heart of our challenge here. Contrary to Gnosticism, which although historically maligned was an actual practice, "witchcraft" in the historical sense is really more of cultural bogeyman/bugbear than something people did in the sense being debated here (the practice of benign or positive magic). In all likelihood, historical practitioners of what is now understood by some as positive witchcraft would not have described their magic as such, not least because of negative contemporary cultural understandings of "witchcraft" as being evil in nature. Self-definition, I believe, is key. It seems, then, that we need two articles: one on "witchcraft" as a cultural bogeyman phenomenon representing fears of malevolent magic (and all the political profiteering and such around it), and another on "witchcraft" as a relatively modern religious/spiritual practice that is largely positive in nature. I do not believe that the "Wicca" and "Traditional witchcraft" articles are sufficient for the latter purpose since they do not describe the full range of practices self-defined as "witchcraft". To rehash the point and re-quote Skyerise, although there is one "word" here, there are two significantly different "things" to write articles about: globally widespread cultural fears of malevolent magic ("witchcraft") and the characteristics and consequences of those cultural fears one the one hand, and a range of spiritual and magical practices self-defined by their practitioners as "witchcraft" on the other. Since the word is shared, I think it entirely appropriate to disambiguate here since both concepts are relatively popular, although one is indeed far more recent (at least insofar as its own practitioners identified it as "witchcraft").Pliny the Elderberry (talk) 19:12, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

@Pliny the Elderberry: The thing is, there was an actual practice, though most of the people persecuted as witches did not actually practice it. That practice was goetia "low magic", as distinguished from magiea or theurgia "high magic". I've put together an article on it at Sorcery (goetia). This is a narrower subject than witchcraft, as it is primarily a Western European tradition. Sorcery in Western Europe was originally a synonym for goetia, as was witchcraft - however the latter also included more indigenous traditions as well as the Greek, so it is no longer an exact synonym. Because actual goetic practitioners were persecuted along with witches, there is some overlap. There may be material in the new article which would be useful here and vice versa. Hope this helps. Skyerise (talk) 12:53, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Devilishly good work there, Skyerise! Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 13:13, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

Skyerise: Regarding use of the word "demon", demon is often confused with daemon (or daimon, genius, or Guardian Angel), which was bivalent and could be a trickster, and has quite literally been "demonised" or "angelified". See, for example, Patrick Harpur, The Philosopher's Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 14:14, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Esowteric: Yes, that's covered. The reputed parentage of Merlin triggered the eventual identification of daimon with demon. More could be added about the process, continually more subtle differences were noted between types of magic, since Merlin was almost always defined as "good" so his "natural" magic evaded condemnation, despite his parentage. See Lawrence-Mathers, A. (2020) [2012]. "Chapter 6: A Demonic Heritage". The True History of Merlin the Magician. Yale University Press. ISBN 978-0300253085. Skyerise (talk) 15:00, 15 July 2023 (UTC)

@Skyerise: That's interesting, thanks. Another book to add to the wish list. In The Sufis, Idries Shah notes that in Islam there is such a thing as "sihr al halal (permitted magic) [which], according to Islamic legal definition, covers [encoded] Sufi material part of which is inaccessible elsewhere in written form." (ie that this and certain alchemical material was used as a vehicle, and hence permissible).

I invite people to look at my edit history. Here, I'll help by highlighting what they're talking about. Ensure that you check the preceding and following edits on each of those pages. Then you might compare with this string of Wikipedia:Tendentious editing that credits all possible positive definition of witchcraft solely to Wicca, and pushes that site wide even in the middle of screaming that my undiscussed edits are violations. Also worth note is that there is apparently a belief that Neopagans are dominant enough to create systemic bias in the mix. Darker Dreams (talk) 19:29, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Apparently these two editors have identified me, personally and individually, as the "main problem" sufficiently that they need to coordinate not just off this talk page, but off wikipedia entirely. Obviously, I have no idea who else they may or may not be privately canvassing or lobbying. Of note, the individual promoting this extra coordination is an administrator. Darker Dreams (talk) 21:53, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Positive magic is all Wicca thesis

One of the core conflicts in the current content/lead disagreement appears (to me) to be the contentions that a) all positive references to witchcraft are the result of Wicca, and b) their modern development and connection to Wicca means they should be discounted.

B would be an editorial decision that could be reached as a community, but it relies on A. The problem is that this idea is not supported in citation WP:OR and is demonstrably incorrect.

It is not argued that Wicca was founded by Gerald Gardener in England. This is believed to have occurred sometime between 1921 and 1950. The first evidence appears for the practice of a neopagan 'Witchcraft' religion (what would be recognizable now as Wicca) during the 1930s in England. Gardner founded the Bricket Wood coven in the 1940s, and wrote High Magic's Aid (1949), Witchcraft Today (1954), and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959).

Given that timeline, I think we can likely assume that the influence by Wicca in depictions of “good witches” in Hollywood movies in 1939 (The Wizard of Oz, which identifies both “good” and “wicked” witches) was unlikely. Even less likely would be the same reference in the book of the same name appearing in the 1900 book) or a 1926 movie (The Adventures of Prince Achmed). While these are popular media depictions, not academic descriptions, that presence is even more likely to follow popular perceptions than lead them. Some of these depictions may have been influenced by Margaret Murray, who presented her version of it in The Witch-Cult in Western Europe (1921) and continued thereafter. It is worth pointing out that the earlier version of the Witch-cult hypothesis, pioneered by German scholars Karl Ernst Jarcke and Franz Josef Mone, was intended as an ominous threat – but did influence books like Charles Godfrey Leland's Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches (1899) and Aleister Crowley.

In this sense, the supposed causal chain being pushed through these edits is backwards; positive depictions of Witchcraft lead to Wicca. As I said at the beginning, presenting all positive or neutral references to witchcraft as Wicca-derived (and all witch-identifying traditions as Wiccan) is WP:OR, is clearly wrong, and is generating bias in editing decisions. Darker Dreams (talk) 22:43, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Befana and Biddy Early are some other interesting examples of pre-Wicca not-evil witches. Cunning_folk_in_Britain has some cited passages that throw significant question on the hard line drawn between the cunning folk and witches in this article. Meanwhile, the "witches are evil" thread is widely and often tied to virulent strains of misogyny and repression of "undesirables."[2][3] While some keep digging up references to support their (not argued!) assertion that there is a negative classical connotation to witchcraft; they somehow keep missing there is also an accepted anthropological notation that marginalized people are far more likely to be "witches" than some acceptable version of magic user, and that the term "witch" will be much more associated with malignity when applied to those people. Darker Dreams (talk) 23:58, 13 July 2023 (UTC)

Biddy Early was a healer who helped her community, who at a later time was accused of practicing witchcraft (doing harm). She's an example of how, in that traditional worldview/nomenclature, healers are at one end of the spectrum and witches at the other. To call her a witch was an insult and, at that time, an accusation of crime. - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 14:07, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Is there a reason that shouldn't feel cherry-picked to ignore actual points?

Meanwhile, "healers" and "witches" were not that far apart in the eyes of the law. The British Witchcraft Act of 1541 effected cunning folk. The 1562 Act Against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts, also still applied to cunning folk. citations at Cunning_folk_in_Britain#England_and_Wales and Witchcraft Acts. Darker Dreams (talk) 14:42, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

You gave an example of someone who did not call herself a witch, and now you are offended this is pointed out? To call her a witch now is revisionism, based on the post-Witchcult modern redefinition (which has been debunked - healers were not called witches). This revisionism also seems to be evident in modern writings about Befana, but I'll leave that to those who speak Italian and can better vet the translations. Best wishes, - CorbieVreccan ^☊ ☼ 15:08, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

Possible sources from older versions

Another way of approaching this issue is to look back at how things have changed over the course of years. I mean to this article at Wikipedia (see this Old revision of Witchcraft), when the subject was treated very differently (though, of course, the article will have been "improved" over time as well), and to check out the sources used in the past. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 18:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

The change to the lede was made around here, not so long ago in the history of the article: Edit difference. This was achieved by swapping out references. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 20:08, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

And I think this is where the idea of harm was introduced: Edit difference. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 20:30, 11 July 2023 (UTC)

Citations used earlier in the article's history (in the lede)

• Witchcraft in the Middle Ages
• Witchcraft and Magic in Europe: Biblical and Pagan Societies
• Britannica
• Pócs, Éva (1999). Between the Living and the Dead: A perspective on Witches and Seers in the Early Modern Age. Budapest: Central European University Press. ISBN 963-9116-19-X.

Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 07:20, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

Digging around looking for possible additional references. It does strike me that Drawing Down the Moon, which is widely recognized as one of the seminal works on modern Paganism, is used exactly once... and then relies on the 1979 version rather than the 1986, 1996, or 2006 versions each of which improved information and detail.

Darker Dreams (talk) 11:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• [4]
• [5] The Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions states in the mandate’s 2009 Report that human rights abuses carried out due to beliefs in witchcraft have “not featured prominently on the radar screen of human rights monitors” and that “this may be due partly to the difficulty of defining ‘witches’ and ‘witchcraft’ across cultures - terms that, quite apart from their connotations in popular culture, may include an array of traditional or faith healing practices and are not easily defined.
• [6] [7] [8]
• [9]
• [10]

Darker Dreams (talk) 15:42, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Are you going to keep posting links without any explanation? What are these links meant to be supporting? Some of them even go against your arguments.

I've added more academic references showing that the traditional meaning (malevolent magic) is the most common meaning of 'witchcraft' worldwide. Can you show us any sources that say the Wiccan/neopagan re-definition is just as common, or more common, than the traditional meaning? If not, then it shouldn't be given priority here. Wicca and Traditional witchcraft have their own articles. – Asarlaí ^(talk) 15:55, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

this has some interesting language from a global perspective ("I challenge the notions that witchcraft and sorcery invariably lead to violence, that there is only one type of witchcraft and sorcery, and that what is labelled witchcraft and sorcery in English is entirely superstitious nonsense." "Despite early Christianisation, belief and practice of witchcraft continues to be prevalent in this primarily matrilineal province. Even outside the province, the flying witches of Milne Bay are legendary and Milne Bay itself has been described anecdotally as the witchcraft centre of PNG. In contrast to other chapters from PNG in this volume which speak of witchcraft and sorcery accusations that generate brutal violence on the accused, violence against women is much less in this province where witchcraft is highly articulated, and it is said to empower and contribute to the status of Milne Bay women.") Darker Dreams (talk) 14:43, 14 July 2023 (UTC)

[11] JSTOR link broke (?) Witchcraft, Sorcery, Violence:Matrilineal and Decolonial Reflections, Salmah Eva-Lina Lawrence

[12] "Certain people, sometimes named but frequently referred to simply as trollgubbe ‘witchman’ or kloka gumma, ‘wise woman’, had special knowledge enabling them to carryout important and necessary supranormal tasks in the community. These people, also called cunning folk in the academic literature, were respected by their local communities for their skills in healing (37/299) and other matters (57/299) that required specialised knowledge (see also Midelfort 1974: 195–196). They are referred to in the archived material as trollkunniga or trolldomskunniga ‘skilled in witchcraft’, which does not translate well into English. Words such as trollkarl, trollkäring and trollgubbe are used in the data for different groups of people, both ingroup and outgroup. The informants do not make clear which of these pose a threat to the community, and which do not, and for this reason I would rather consider the word neutral without strong connotations." Darker Dreams (talk) 13:08, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Darker Dreams (talk) 12:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC) Darker Dreams (talk) 12:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)

"Witchcraft beliefs, though a long-standing part of European folk tradition, are generally agreed to have been qualitatively transformed during the 16th century. As Cohn (1975:197) has observed, “Until the late fourteenth century the educated in general, and the higher clergy in particular, were quite clear that these nocturnal journeyings of women, whether for benign or for maleficent purposes, were purely imaginary happenings. But in the sixteenth and still more in the seventeenth centuries, this was no longer the case.” [...] Russel (1972:25, 279) regards the age of classical witchcraft as having its beginnings in the preceding century, when accusations began to manifest a marked bias against women (see also Monter 1976:24) [...] As Larner points out, until the early 14th century witchcraft trails largely tended to revolve around indictments for sorcery and only occasionally involved the charges of diabolism which we associate with classical witchcraft. The imputation of diabolism slowly increased in incidence during the course of the 15th century [...] although ‘’belief’’ in witches was endemic" [13] Darker Dreams (talk) 22:19, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

[14] interesting abstract, but paywalled. Abstract in part; "The argument that contemporary examples of witchcraft belief demonstrate an alternative form of modern subjectivity has been doubted by many anthropologists, who claim that so-called modern witchcraft is often only a reflection of traditional cultural epistemologies. [...] I argue that witchcraft imagery takes [a negative] form because Christianity has reshaped the cultural conception of personhood, space, and time, detaching witchcraft from the ethos of kinship." Darker Dreams (talk) 23:04, 20 July 2023 (UTC)

[15] Not at all useful for going back past Wicca as the 89-90 timeframe when this was published is going to be right in the middle of now-outdated scholarship. But a fascinating window into some official thinking on the subject... no idea whether it's useful or not.

[16] With full awareness that blogs are not normally considered reliable sources for Wikipedia, but... what about the Library of Congress blogs which seem to be well cited, researched, and have a serious reputation to uphold. "A skeptic, [Reginald Scot] wrote [the 1584 “The Discouerie of Witchcraft,”] to make it plain that “witches” were not evil, but instead were resourceful and capable women who practiced the art of folk healing as well as sleight of hand. Their apparently miraculous feats were in no way wicked. He wrote, “At this day it is indifferent to say in the English tongue, ‘she is a witch’ or ‘she is a wise woman.’ ” " Darker Dreams (talk) 01:15, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

[17] paywalled Cambridge University Press: 20 January 2016 article on globalization trends of witchcraft and study of witchcraft. Darker Dreams (talk) 08:48, 22 July 2023 (UTC)

References

Collection of possible sources with quotes

[18] Login required. Abstract: Religion, magic and witchcraft are conceptual, socially constructed categories, the boundaries of which have been contested under diverse religious, cultural and intellectual conditions in the west. This paper focuses firstly on the polemical relationship between religion and magic in the context of colonial South Africa, namely, the historical factors that privileged the category religion and the multiple effects of the social and legal imposition of western epistemologies on colonised communities whose practices constituted 'magic', and, therefore, were synonymous with 'witchcraft'. Secondly, examples of strategies to reinforce the religion/magic dichotomy, to collapse their subjective boundaries, and the complexity witchcraft discourses bring to both positions are provided in the context of the religious and cultural hybridity of postcolonial South Africa. A parallel discussion is on the influence Christian and Enlightenment thought had on category construction in the study of religion and questions the extent to which Religion Studies today engages in decolonising the categories religion, magic and witchcraft in ways that do not contradict religious realities in our society. [19] Login required. Abstract: The European ideas associated with witchcraft came to the Americas as a multipronged weapon of imperialism, a conception of non-Christian beliefs not as separate worldviews but as manifestations of evil and the reigning power of the devil over Indigenous peoples and, slightly later, African slaves and free people of African origins or heritage. To create this imperialist concept, colonizers drew from a late medieval demonological literature that defined witchcraft as ways of influencing one’s fate through a pact with the devil and the ritual of witches’ sabbaths. Through the court structure of the Holy Offices of the Spanish and Portuguese Inquisitions, Iberian imperialists set up judicial processes that they designed to elicit confessions from their colonial subjects regarding their involvement in what was labeled witchcraft and witches’ sabbaths, but which was most likely either non-European beliefs and practices, or even popular European ideas of healing. Archival documents from the Holy Office fueled Europeans’ vision of themselves as on the side of cosmic good as well as providing some details regarding popular practices such as divination and love magic. Whatever ethnographic details emerge from this documentation, the use of the terminology of witchcraft always signals an imperialistic lens. [20] In Witchcraft, Intimacy, and Trust: Africa in Comparison, Geschiere (2013: xx) suggests that witchcraft “has become so generalized in everyday language that its meaning becomes increasingly vague and limitless.” Yet, to “impose clear definitions and categorizations” would also limit the fluidity of witchcraft and falsely constrain the “diffuseness of the discourse” that “seems to be the secret of its power” (ibid.: 9-10). Though van Beek and Olsen note that not all witchcraft is evil, this turn toward violent expressions of witchcraft as a means to access and understand witchcraft belief is a dominant theme in contemporary witchcraft studies. The problem of witchcraft, layered as both the problem of understanding witchcraft and the problem of witchcraft-related violence, is a motivating puzzle for many researchers and readers. In Witchcraft and Colonial Rule in Kenya, 1900-1995, Katherine Luongo (2011: 8) examines colonial interpretations and terminology of “local beliefs” and “local people whom they had difficulty disciplining and whose powers they aimed to ultimately deny.” Colonial uses of witchcraft, supernatural, and magic were employed to connote “irrational and atavistic” practices intended to cause harm through malevolent power (ibid.: 9). Luongo’s analysis of witchcraft, as a “matrix of discourse, experience, knowledge and belief,” approaches colonialist discourses and local discourses as co-constitutive counterweights opposing each others’ power and legitimacy, yet bound in a dialectical discourse (ibid.). It is this conflict that is at the centre of academic concerns the task of defining witchcraft. Middleton and Winter (2013: 1), in Witchcraft and Sorcery in East Africa, argue that the inability to understand witchcraft beliefs “in the context of the lives of those who hold them, is often at the basis of naive statement that the ‘African mind’ is different in some fundamental way from the ‘European mind’ and in an ultimate sense incomprehensible.” In Witchcraft in Post-colonial Africa, Mavhungu also stresses the importance of local context and warns that witchcraft belief “is neither homogeneous nor coherent” (ibid.: 19). However, the limitations of looking too closely at one context and failing to build a broader conception or clear links between experiences of witchcraft pose another challenge. By focusing on witchcraft as a local and unique experience, the concept risks expanding beyond the confines of language, becoming so diffuse as that it is beyond the act of naming. It is incredibly difficult to escape the reflex of defining witchcraft as a means to explain misfortune. This approach is not only central to Western studies of African witchcraft, it has also greatly informed local conceptions of witchcraft in the past and present. In my own fieldwork (Roxburgh 2014), individuals in Ghana and Cameroon would defer to anthropological works employing this definition when discussing witchcraft in their own milieux. In one interview, a respondent did not want to answer the question of how to define witchcraft and instead instructed me to find an anthropologist to define the concept. In an effort to move away from the interpretation of witchcraft as explaining events through a mistaken belief, many authors are focusing on the emerging paradigm of witchcraft as a form of power. Witchcraft as power questions what witchcraft does in its social context without constructing a hierarchy among diverse notions of reality. Importantly for studies of witchcraft, this approach fosters a coherent interpretation of witchcraft that can be applied across numerous contexts in time and space. Rather than seeking to understand what witchcraft explains, witchcraft as power centres what witchcraft does in a society. In this light, witchcraft can be coherently contained as an extension of one being’s will over another’s against the latter’s wishes. Like political, social, and economic power, witchcraft power gives one the exceptional ability affect and act over another in the real world. [21] In the context of the sixteenth to early nineteenth centuries, the category of brujería encompassed a range of culturally-syncretic spiritual practices marginalized colonial subjects used to restructure social relations and acquire power that they were otherwise denied in their patriarchal environment. The intensity of women’s socio-political abjection at this time meant they had a particularly urgent need to counteract white men’s dominance, a desire that played a key part in the creation of an inter-caste, inter-class, mostly feminine network of relations focused on the commerce of magical knowledge, herbs, and rituals. Centuries later, we find the legacies of these relations in Latin American spiritual traditions, such as curanderismo (a form of traditional healing) and chamanismo (shamanism), which disenfranchised, majority Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) women, still utilize in everyday life as part of their efforts at overcoming systematic subjugation. In New Spain, Christian discourses normalized associating Indigenous and African spiritual practices with sinful diabolism, such that colonial society began to label these practices as brujería using imported Spanish notions. However, it is important to clarify that for most of the Latin American colonial period — in stark contrast to Western European understandings of witchcraft — brujería was not typically associated with a broader conspiratorial network of witches, nor were witches presumed to engage in devil pacts, orgiastic sabbaths, and bloody sacrifices. Rather, brujería had a decidedly quotidian connotation, as it was primarily employed by lovers, spouses, enslaved people and enslavers, or servants and their employers to address conflicts within their relationships. In these settings, women and Black and Indigenous peoples — usually the subordinates in these relations — used syncretic spiritual practices for a range of affective purposes, including to enact revenge through bodily malaise, manipulate the other party, or simply gain power that was otherwise unavailable to them because of their gender or race. Thus, most instances of colonial Mexican brujería are more similar to European domestic sorcery than to openly devilish witchcraft. [22] In analyses of African settings, witchcraft is often synonymous with “power,” Stroeken describes how, for instance, healer and witch are part of the same frame for Pentecostals, since they treat magic , bewitchment, divination , ritual sacrifice, and spirit possession as belonging to one domain. In many cases in the past, in fact, it was reported that sorcery was an instrument of legitimate Big Man control (see Malinowski 1926; Zelenietz and Lindenbaum 1981; Stephen 1996; Dalton 2007, p. 43), and thereby to some degree it was similar to Geschiere’s djambe concept of power in Cameroon (Geschiere 1997). But in contemporary Melanesia we instead read about witches as being sick, old, ugly, and unskilled, as well as envious and greedy. In this context, they are perhaps more figures of anti-power (see Knauft 1985; Kelly 1993; Lipuma 1998). [23] Requires login. Abstract: For years, self-identified witches have demanded the public acknowledgement of witchcraft as “religion” in Nigeria. These political debates are reflected in a long-ongoing scholarly discussion about whether “witchcraft” in Africa should be regarded as religion or not. At its core, this discussion concerns the quest for African meanings. I argue that we should focus on the translingual practice as the reason for today’s perception of “African” and “European” differences as incommensurable. Tracing back today’s understanding of witchcraft among the Yoruba (àjé), the Alatinga anti-witchcraft movement of the early 1950s becomes the nodal point of Yoruba witchcraft history. Discussing the Alatinga as translingual practice, I understand Yoruba witchcraft concepts as products of a global religious history. Only in the aftermath of the Alatinga, a hybrid movement, did the need arise to demarcate “African” and “European” meanings. Thus, Yoruba translingual practice has also affected European understandings of religion and witchcraft today. [24] Requires login. Abstract: This paper explores the ways in which traditional beliefs of Andean peoples regarding health and sickness were transformed by the process of Spanish colonization. It also examines how the colonial context devolved new meanings and powers on native curers. The analysis of these transformations in Andean systems of meanings and role structures relating to healing depends on an examination of the European witchcraze of the 16th-17th centuries. The Spanish conquest of the Inca empire in the mid-1500's coincided with the European witch hunts; it is argued that the latter formed the cultural lens through which the Spanish evaluated native religion--the matrix through which Andean concepts of disease and health were expressed--as well as native curers. Andean religion was condemned as heresy and curers were condemned as witches. Traditional Andean cosmology was antithetical to 16th century European beliefs in the struggle between god and the devil, between loyal Christians and the Satan's followers. Consequently, European concepts of disease and health based on the power of witches, Satan's adherents, to cause harm and cure were alien to pre-Columbian Andean thought. Ironically European concepts of Satan and the supposed powers of witches began to graft themselves onto the world view of Andean peoples. The ensuing dialectic of ideas as well as the creation of new healers/witches forged during the imposition of colonial rule form the crux of this analysis. [25] European fears of witchcraft performed by Andean and African women and New Christians, filtered as they were through Iberian ideologies of gender and religion, were transferred to the New World in ways that were not grounded in the reality of Spanish held Peru, but nonetheless had significant implications for the lives of New Christians and Andean women in the New World. Spanish anxiety about Jews and indigenous witches in early colonial Peru was based in the imagined threats that these groups posed to the colonial order: in being non-Christian, both Jews and Andean women were antithetical to the logic of colonization and were imagined to threaten Christianity and colonial state formation. Despite the fact that New Christians in the New World were principally trying to assimilate into Christian, colonial society and hide their Jewishness, and that Andeans did not have a concept of the devil or witchcraft and as a result did not understand themselves to be practicing witchcraft, the Spanish colonial imaginary perceived New Christians and indigenous women as serious dangers to the foundation of the colonial state. The Spanish uniformly understood Andean religion entirely in terms of their own Christian religion. Andean religion, thus lacking any internal coherence as a result of the Spanish separation of Andean religious tradition from its beliefs and history, was construed as superstition.35,36 In the Andean devotion to huacas and their ancestors, the Spanish saw devil worship, and not the religious beliefs that made such a worship make sense.37,38 Consequently, both the Spanish who understood Andean religion as in some way united to Christianity and ancient Mediterranean religion and the Spanish who saw Andean religion as totally unlike Christianity tried to understand Andean worship in terms of demonic illusion. If Andean worship was indeed devil worship, then indigenous witches were simply manifestations of Andean women’s denunciation of Christianity and their practice of their traditional religion. European witch-hunts, which accused primarily women of being agents of the devil, are generally considered a backlash both to women’s increasing independence from men and motherhood and to the Church’s fading authority. [W]itch hunts explicitly targeted women and midwives in an attempt to incite fear in women who were using birth control and going against the gender order and to eliminate knowledge of birth control.62 The period of the most intense witch-hunts, moreover, was concurrent with the Church’s waning power in the post-Reformation era, and it took advantage of Europe’s most marginalized population (poor, old women) to reclaim its authority. Finally, this period marked the first time that the Church possessed the technology and the capacity to Christianize the European masses, which were thought to have been practicing pre-Christian sorcery. The European witch craze of the mid-sixteenth through the mid-seventeenth centuries was a fear-based reaction both to the new independence of women and to old, pre-Christian manifestations of spirituality in Europe. The fear that the idea of witches brought about for Christian Europe, thus, was simultaneously based in an understanding of Christianity as the only true religion, one that was so distinct from the pagan religions of Europe’s peasantry that mass forced conversion was required, and in new fears that were being engendered by a loss of Church control and by women’s empowerment. Though the witch craze in Europe arose from specifically European circumstances and fears, the European understanding of the devil working in religious and cultural traditions not well understood by the Church was at the heart of the witch hunts and Autos de Fe in Peru at the same time. Spain’s witch hunts and Inquisition sought to bolster the authority of the Church and the state through the public condemnation of marginalized groups (namely women and Jews) who were, or were perceived to be, accruing their own empowerment and threatening the power of the state. Andean women were not only stripped of their roles in organizing their own political and religious institutions, but were economically exploited in ways that were unprecedented under the Spanish system of tribute. Moreover, the equality they had enjoyed with their male counterparts was expunged as the Spanish colonial state and ideology enforced a subordination of indigenous people to the Spanish and a subordination of women to men. Consequently, and because of the power that the Spanish vested in Andean women as a result of their own European fears of powerful women, Andean witches used the Spanish ideology of witchcraft to reclaim their culture, religion, and their female autonomy. By the very definition of witchcraft that the Spanish created in the Andes, the practice by Andean women of their religion and the maintenance of their culture was construed as witchcraft. Both the Andean women who stayed in the reducciones and those that fled to the puna to create radical communities that rejected Christianity, colonization, and patriarchy in absolute terms were construed by the Spanish colonial state as witches simply because of their maintenance of their culture and religion.91 In fact, a Spanish priest who publicly whipped three Andean witches claimed that he punished these women not ‘“so much because of the fact that they believed in superstitions and other abominations, but rather because they encouraged the whole village to mutiny and riots through their reputation as witches.”’ [26] “Red Dirt Witch” is, of course, inspired by Jemisin’s experiences as a black woman, but also—and importantly—by her own ancestry. In an interview, she tells Khatchadourian about her father’s grandmother, “a woman people called Muh Dear,” who made a living “doing fortunes—magic, for lack of a better term” (Khatchadourian). This is the character that inspired Emmaline, the shaman-like figure featured in her story. [27] The original concept of witchcraft corresponds to what anthropologists call sorcery: the attempt to influence the course of events by ritual means. Two other, quite different, phenomena have been called witchcraft. The first is the alleged diabolical witchcraft of early modern Europe and its colonies; the second is Neopagan witchcraft, a 20th century revival. Witchcraft in Africa acts as something real and has pragmatic tasks in society that were like the role of opium in an ill or wounded human being. Witchcraft decreases people’s current agony and offers them pleasant fantasies which give them the muscle to persist. [W]itchcraft has as invisible side, identified by Agbanusi (2016) that: “It is generally believed in West Africa that, apart from the onwards material appearance, there is the experience of an immaterial invisible reality. Witchcraft is part of such reality. However, there are still a lot of controversies about the nature of witchcraft. (p. 116)” [28] Full article locked. Around 1980 both historical/anthropological research on witchcraft and ethnographic/anthropological enquiries on shamanism represented a burgeoning field of scholarly discussion and research. As to the former, among many other inspiring new approaches (such as the “sociology of accusation” proposed by Keith Thomas and Alan Macfarlane, the problem of the distinction of a “popular” layer of witchcraft beliefs from the learned concepts of the diabolic witches’ sabbath discussed by Norman Cohn and Richard Kieckhefer, or the question of gender addressed in a new way by Christina Larner) Carlo Ginzburg’s discovery of documents pertaining to the benandanti directed the attention of researchers to the problem of how a number of archaic sorcerer-types got caught in the web of witchcraft persecutions, and how the archaic beliefs related to them made their imprint on the evolution of learned concepts of witchcraft. This was the starting point for the discussion of the historical relationship between witchcraft and shamanism: the bold suggestion by Carlo Ginzburg, who perspicaciously observed that the traits of the benandanti (being born in a caul, undergoing initiation in dreams, participating in night battles during soul-journeys while their bodies lay at home in trance, communicating with the dead, etc.) “richiama immediatamente i culti dei sciamani.” [29] “Occultism, Witchcraft, and Cultural Fashions; Essays in Comparative Religion” Mircea Eliade (book; not available online) In the period domoninated by the triumphs of scientific rationalism, how do we account for the extraordinary success of such occult movements as astrology or the revival of witchcraft? From his perspective as a historian of religions, the eminent scholar Mircea Eliade shows that such popular trends develop from archaic roots and periodically resurface in certain myths, symbols, and rituals. [30] Requires login. Abstract: Virtually every society in the world has some sort of witchcraft concept. It is indisputable that witchcraft, as is the case with most occultism, is shrouded in mystery. There is also a lot of controversy about its rationality and logic in the modern world. Witchcraft has of late become a 'growth' subject and particular interest is centred on comparing and contrasting witchcraft within Africa itself as well as the now despicable "witch craze" of Medieval Europe. Studies of the evolution and role of witchcraft in the African continent are fraught with sensational and derogatory overtones. Conventional anthropologists and historians approach the subject with disdain and ethnocentric prejudices which impedes objectivity in understanding such a sensitive but pervasive phenomenon. This article articulates a number of historical accounts on the origins and distinctive features of witchcraft in pre-colonial Africa. It offers an appraisal on some poignant aspects such as magnitude, ramifications and controlling witchcraft in traditional settings. It aims to place witchcraft in its proper perspective as a socially constructed meaning system contending in many pre-scientific societies. Furthermore, it elaborates on the role of anti-witchcraft specialists (waganga) whose expertise and significance was deliberately misconstrued by over-zealous colonial administrators and pioneering Christian missionaries. [31] Article locked. Abstract: Against a background of the feminist appropriation of the witch taking place concurrently in second-wave American, French and West German feminism, the paper examines Sarah Kirsch’s appropriation of the witch as a subversive figure in her poetry cycle Zaubersprüche (Conjurations, 1973). In subverting the traditional image of the witch, Kirsch establishes a new one: that of a feminist witch and a feminist witch-writer. The witch is both the fictive character created by Kirsch, and her own self-designation; in the latter case, writing, especially writing in the experimental fashion, is a form of witchcraft. The paper analyzes the poems using the theoretical concept of magical realism. Although magical realism is mostly associated with post-colonial studies, it proves to be an apposite mode for feminist studies as well. The magical realist modality contradicts the state-sanctioned aesthetic of socialist realism, a fact that makes Kirsch one of the subversive “GDR-Witches.”

We'll see if any of that is useful. - Darker Dreams (talk) 03:02, 30 July 2023 (UTC)

Discussions elsewhere

There are discussions related to this ongoing conflict that have been opened outside this talkpage:

• Wikipedia_talk:Systemic_bias#Witchcraft
• User_talk:CorbieVreccan#Definition_of_witchcraft
• Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Archive/2023/07#Witchcraft (#1 Declined)
• Wikipedia:Requests for page protection/Archive/2023/07#Witchcraft_2 (#2 Declined)
• User_talk:Esowteric#WP:FOLLOWING

Darker Dreams (talk) 22:09, 12 July 2023 (UTC) Edited above comment to account for project page archiving and add previous related discussion. Darker Dreams (talk) 23:53, 12 July 2023 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Fringe theories/Noticeboard#Witchcraft
• Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/3RRArchive471#User:Skyerise_reported_by_User:Asarlaí_(Result:_Full_protection_for_three_days)

Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 15:04, 17 July 2023 (UTC)

Dummy edit to make sure that this thread is not archived while dispute resolution is going on. Esowteric + Talk + Breadcrumbs 06:24, 26 July 2023 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Witchcraft_(diabolic)
• Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/Witchcraft_(traditional)
• Template_talk:Witchcraft_sidebar#Inappropriate lumping together of healers and those who do harm
• User_talk:Darker_Dreams#You are edit-warring

Darker Dreams (talk) 07:13, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

• Wikipedia:Templates_for_discussion/Log/2023_August_2#Template:Witchcraft_sidebar

Darker Dreams (talk) 09:00, 2 August 2023 (UTC)

Talk:Witchcraft_(feminist)#Merge proposal Darker Dreams (talk) 16:52, 2 August 2023 (UTC)