Whether you believe in what the Bible has to say or not, the first written account of witches dated back as early as 931 B.C and 721 B.C. The story goes that King Saul went to the Witch of Endor to summon the late prophet, Samuel, to help Saul defeat the Philippian's army. The witch awoke Samuel, who ended up predicting the death of Saul and his sons. The very next day, at least according to the Bible, Saul and his sons died. The sons dying in war and Saul, committing suicide.
The next written account of witches was during the mid-1400s when witch hysteria really came to be. Many ended up confessing to being a witch, usually under awful and tortures acts, before being either burned at the stake or hung. And it didn't stop there, it only grew worse. Between the 1500s and 1600s, an estimated 80,000 suspected witches were sentenced to death.
Around 80 percent of these deaths were of women who were accused of being devil worshipers and lust filled. While Ireland had the least amount of executions, Germany, at the time, had the most. This period of time leads to the creation of Malleus Maleficarum - essentially a book on how to identify and hunt so-called, witches. For over 100 years this book sold more copies than any other book besides the Bible.
After these events, the most known witch hysteria, known as the Salem Witch Trials, took place. Around 150 were accused while 18 were put to death. While the trials didn't go on forever, obviously, the horror from the past still continues on, and people today still think these crazy ideas about witches.
So, as a "witch," I want to take the time to explain what witchcraft really is and debunk popular ideas of what being a Wiccan really is. The most important one is that we do not worship Lucifer...Satan...whatever you may call the Devil.
Like...at all. We do not pray to the devil to smite those who have wronged us or wish for them to suffer, no, none of that. In fact, according to the Wiccan Rede, we cannot harm others. Witches are not out to cause mass chaos into the world or make others bend at the knee to us.
So, worshiping Satan just really doesn't fit that. Many, including myself, worship deities. Since I am still fairly new to praying to deities, I only worship one because that is who I feel closely connected with, and that is the Norse Goddess, Freyja.
The beauty of Wicca is that you do not have to worship anyone if you do not want to, while we do have the Moon Goddess and Horned God, others, including myself, worship other deities as well. Another thing about Wicca is that you can be Wicca and not practice witchcraft, or you do not have to be Wiccan, you could be Christian, Catholic, etc. and still practice witchcraft. The possibilities are endless.
I do not want to get too deep into this topic right away, because there is frankly too much to cover in one post. So, with that being said, I plan on making this a series - talking about Wicca for those who are curious and interested in the topic and also have it serve as a self journey type of diaryeque writing for myself as well.
I wish you all the best, until next time!
