Blog 6

A War Against Women: Witchcraft to Witch Hunting

Witchcraft has been brutally persecuted from its inception in Western society, culminating in the three-century-long witch-hunting era that started in the late Middle Ages. The thousands of women who were accused of being witches must have posed a major threat to the social order and the authority of the people who wanted them dead in order to have been executed by being burned at the stake. But first, we must address the subject of what witchcraft was in order to comprehend who the witches were (and are). In the West, the history of witchcraft and magic are closely related. Witchcraft is thought to have originated in Persia, possibly thanks to Zoroaster, and spread to Greece and Rome via the Persians.

Magic was classified into two categories based on the goals it sought to accomplish: "good" magic was designed to heal, while "evil" magic was designed to cause injury or even death (Arnauld, 1992; pp. 18-28). Because malefic magic disrupted social structures and power hierarchies, it was viewed as evil and dangerous and was later absorbed to witchcraft. Furthermore, because it was done covertly and at night, it was viewed as a dark menace. Therefore, the night was the domain of dark magic, and women lived there. The gods who protected it, Hecate foremost among them, but also Artemis, Diana, Selene, and all the lunar goddesses, as well as the representations of witches in classical literature, served to further encourage this.

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