Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion Problems with Terminology Many agree that Wicca combines magic, religion, and

witchcraft, but questions such as Are is a Wiccan necessarily a Witch? and Is magic part an integral part of Wicca are frequently debated (often with much heat and little light) amongst both Wiccans and others in the Neopagan community. I believe that a large part of these debates stems from the lack of a general agreement on, or intimate knowledge of, the meaning and history of terms. If the debaters were in agreement concerning the meaning of magic, religion, and witchcraft, their similarities, their differences, I believe some apparent differences could be resolved. Accordingly, although these questions cannot be fully answered here, I hope to provide a clearer framework in which they can be discussed. I begin with a short history of the debate on the difference between religion and magic. I then continue with how witchcraft has been defined within European culture and then within various other cultures. Finally, I examine how the connotation of witchcraft has changed from negative to positive, and a new paradigm has been created. Magic vs. Religion It was not long ago that a question on what constituted magic and what religion would have been unnecessary. Scholars agreed on the differences between magic and religion that Sir James Frazer had proposed. To him, the fundamental difference was religion requested but magic manipulated. That is, religion consists of asking, requesting, or praising a divine figure/power for aid, whereas magic involves, at least to some extent, human manipulation of supernatural power. The anthropologist Bronislaw Malinowski later reinforced these definitions to a great degree. The growth in sophistication of the social sciences, especially with the anthropological explorations in the third world, brought challenges to Frazers model. The first was to Frazers assumption that magic was somehow more primitive than religion. Ruth Benedict critiqued this evolutionary projection on the concepts of magic and religion in the 1930s. Yet the fundamental distinction of magic as manipulation and religion as request remained until E. E. Evans-Pritchard, a renowned British anthropologist. His examination of native culture drew attention to the attitudes and language those cultures used in relation to the supernatural. Although Evans-Pritchard maintained that magic and religion existed separately, he noted the practicing cultures themselves did not distinguish the two. Because various actions did not easily translate into clear-cut paradigms, he cautioned scholars who sought to categorize actions relating to the supernatural within native cultures. His critiques on the accepted definitions were furthered by Murray and Rosalie Wax, who maintained the distinctions between magic and religion collapsed when considering native cultures. They went so far as to suggest abandoning magic as a term within anthropology. More and more experts weighed in, some continuing to criticize Frazers definition of magic, others defending it in part, and still others suggesting it be kept for a working base as long as the limitations of the model were known. If the debated was intricate when confined to the field of anthropology, it became downright convoluted once it spilled into other fields. Scholars of classics, who had

formerly accepted the older models, began to see its inadequacy themselves. Robin Lane Fox, in his groundbreaking work on paganism and Christianity in the years before Constantine, could claim that magic existed within Roman religious practice (which was officially supported), and was not opposed to it. At the same time, the Romans themselves had declared magic illegal. Such a contradiction only makes sense when the definitions of both magic and religion become fluid. Biblical scholars encountered similar issues. Morton Smith, and later John Dominic Crossan, both called Jesus a magician, and referred to his miracles as magic, indicating that the two are identical. Crossan explicitly stated, almost contemptuously, an amusement at what he referred to as an ideological war to protect religion from magic. Whether ideological or not, both scholars encountered criticism for their designations. To illustrate problems with Frazers long-accepted model, we shall examine individual cases of humans performing supernatural activities, deliberately chosen for their inability to fit neatly in either of Frazers categories. The first is from the Mishnah, although other accounts of the same act by the same person exist in different sources. According to the Mishnah, a certain Honi the Circle-Drawer, possibly a Pharisee, was asked to pray for rain during a drought. He does, but his prayer is not answered. Honi then proceeds to draw a circle upon the ground, steps into it, and with an oath involving Gods great name declares that he will not move until God sends rain. God does, but initially it is not enough, then it is too much. Each time, Honi complains to God, and the amount of rain changes. Finally, Honi prays to God to stop the rain. The term used for Honis action is prayer, which would seem to put his actions within the realm of religion. Yet there are noteworthy differences between the behavior of Honi and other pious Jews for whom God performs miracles (indeed, another Pharisee criticizes Honi for his unseemly and irreligious behavior). One difference is the actions of Honi after his initial failure. Drawing a circle upon the ground, and using special names for God seem to fall more within the category of magic. Honi is, in essence, manipulating God for a supernatural effect. This distinction is made clearer when Honi complains about the amount of rain God sends. If religion involves request and worship, it seems Honis actions fall somewhat outside the religious sphere, but can they be considered magic? The same issues are prevalent hundreds of years later in Europe. Active in the 16th century, wise-woman Margaret Hunt used several different formulas for healing sick patients. All involved, at least initially, a significant amount of prayer. Like other traditional wise men/women, cunning folk, and white wizards, Hunt was Christian and worked her magic within a Christian framework. What is notable is that certain prayers, repeated a set amount of times, were seen as necessary for the desired result (e.g. five Our Fathers, five Hail Marys and five Church creeds). Even herbal remedies involved mixtures of holy water and prayer. The same was true for later wise-woman Goodwife Veazy. Her remedies for canker-worm involved saying three times, In the name of God I begin and in the name of God I do end. Thou canker-worm begone from hence in the name of the Father, of the Son, and the Holy Ghost. This was followed by the application of honey and pepper. Both examples clearly contain both religious and magical elements. On the one hand, they contain prayers to God as well as worship (in the first case) or the use of the trinity for effect (in the second). On the other hand, both cases contain ritualistic and

formulaic actions found in magic (i.e., incantations/prayers of a certain type repeated a set number of times, or invoking the names of deities for a certain effect), and both remedies involve more than just a request. Here again where religion ends and magic begins is unclear, but what is clear is that neither example fits neatly into either category within Frazers paradigm. Even a brief perusal of Wiccan ritual reveals the same issue. Many Wiccan spells and rituals both make requests of the Divine and manipulate Divine power. Here Wicca inherits from both traditional European magic and ceremonial magic, each steeped in Christian symbolism but replaced by that of Wicca. Proposed Solution Despite the myriad different (and often opposing) solutions of experts in various fields, differentiating religion from magic is not as daunting as the above discussion might suggest. First, it is not necessary to propose a highly technical definition that will satisfy every expert in every field. Scholars have a way of rejecting or abandoning former models or categories once detailed study reveals them to be not quite adequate. They have questioned categories such as Gnosticism, paganism, and even Hellenism, and their solution is too often to reject a useful model, despite its limitations, either without proposing a replacement or proposing an equally troublesome one. Second, many of the critiques of various proposed models (and, incidentally, far more critiques than replacement models have been offered) revolve around doing exactly what was done above: picking examples that do not fit neatly into magic or religion. That process skews the true picture, in which most examples would probably fit completely within magic or religion. Religion especially is full of examples of worship or prayer that could never be mistaken for magic. The path to a solution then, as is so often the case, is one of compromise. For religion the definition used here will be that of Sir Edward Tylors (slightly modified), later endorsed by Ronald Hutton:
the belief in the existence of spiritual beings or of a cosmic order/power who are or which is in some measure responsible for the cosmos, and in the need of humans to form relationships with them/it in which they/it are accorded some respect.

The definition of magic used here is an amalgam of various proposals:

the practices in which supernatural power is manipulated, directed, used, or adapted by human beings either internally and/or externally, and both with and/or without action (e.g. magical empathy is used without spells or rituals, and therefore no action is required on behalf of the magician).

The definitions are necessarily broad in scope. They are perhaps less important than, or at least of equal importance of, additional modifications to Frazers model. Perhaps the most important addition is that magic and religion do not exist entirely separately. At times they operate cooperatively (see the example of the wise-women above). At times, magic and religion operate on a spectrum. At one end, there are rites or rituals that are clearly religious, such as a prayer to end world hunger. On the other, there

are rites or rituals that are clearly magical, such as a curse using unintelligible words designed to harm the recipient. In the middle are those practices that seem to contain both magic and religion. Another addition is that magic and religion can exist within the same structure, and both can be performed for the same purpose in a similar capacity by the same functionary. Priests and magicians are not necessarily separate, nor are their actions clearly separated into magical and religious. Likewise, the lay worshipers actions do not always separate into magical and religious. Lastly, this debate would not have existed in pagan cultures, where the distinction was not made. It is, rather a result of monotheistic mentality, primarily Christian. These three additions are very important in relation to debates on whether magic is integral to Wicca. We discuss later just how they provide a clearer framework after examining the concept and definition of witchcraft. Defining Witchcraft Defining witchcraft is both easier and harder than defining the relationship of magic to religion because the concept within various cultures and religions is, oddly enough, simultaneously rigid and fluid. It is rigid because every culture has a distinct practice definable as witchcraft, which can clearly be distinguished from other forms or practices of magic. A simple perusal of European languages demonstrates this clearly. Technical words abound in Germanic, Celtic, Romance, Semetic, Slavic, etc, languages designed to distinguish witchcraft from magic (i.e. hexerei, sorcellerie, brujeria, stregoneria, toverij, troldom, hekseri, trolldom, noituus, and , denoting witchcraft, from words like zauberi, hechiceria, magie, denoting magic or enchantment, or words like benandanti or magara, referring to cunning folk). The fluidity results from varying self-definitions of which practices fit into which category. For example, wise men and women, cunning folk, and various other practitioners of magic all distinguished between their practice and witchcraft, yet others (the intellectual/religious/political elite, various clients, etc) may not have applied these distinctions. What constituted magic for the common people may have been termed witchcraft by ruling classes. One culture in history may have thought of magic designed to increase wealth as separate from witchcraft, while another may have thought it inspired by the devil. This seeming contradiction may seem somewhat nonsensical, but further examination should provide clarity. To start, we examine the definition, and evolution, of the English word witch up to the 20th century. Only then will we be able to contrast this concept with that in other cultures. The word witch derives etymologically from the Anglo-Saxon word wia (feminine wie), and was defined as a practitioner of wiacrft. Wiacrft, or witchcraft (also called wiedom or wiung), was characterized by malicious spell working. The Laws of King lfred, written in early West Saxon, declared this practice to be illegal. lfreds law concerning witches was based on Exodus 22:18, which was translated to thou shalt not suffer a witch to live. Later laws of Edward the Elder and Guthrum condemn witches to exile, execution, or fines. Witchcraft in Medieval Europe and the Spreading of Christianity

Although our word is from the Anglo-Saxon, the English concept of witchcraft is very much a result of the spread of Christianity after the fall of Rome. Though banned from the Roman Empire, Arianism, a heretical form of Christianity, took root among the Teutonic tribes beyond the northern frontier and was carried to the Goths by the Gothic missionary Ulfilas, who translated most of the bible into Gothic. Arianism ended in 495 with the conversion of the Teutonic Franks to Catholicism. Other heretical groups, like the Nestorians, also spread Christianity after being banished. The Eastern Church spread into what is now Russia, and Christianized the Slavs. Our concern, however, is much more the Church of Rome, for it is Roman Catholicism that most directly influenced the later European witchcraft model used in the witch trials, mainly by spreading the Greco-Roman conception of witchcraft across Europe. This is somewhat ironic, because initially, as we discuss later, the Church was responsible for ending the pagan persecution of witches, not for propagating it. The Edict of Milan in 313 began the official toleration of Christianity in the Roman Empire, and Constantine, after his defeat of Maxentius, made Christianity a path to political success. But it was not until Theodosius I that Christianity officially became the religion of the Roman Empire. For this reason, among others, our examination of the evolution of English witchcraft begins with the Codex Theodosian, published in 438: The Chaldeans and wizards, and all the rest whom the common people call malefici will use their arts no more. For the first time, the word malificium came to designate witchcraft, and remained a term used throughout the European witch trials. Although the Codex Theodosian was a political document of the state, the Church also took a strong stance against witchcraft. These theological perspectives on witchcraft are represented both in various rulings of numerous Church councils (e.g., Elvira, Laodicaea, Carthage, etc) as well as important Church fathers and theologians. Augustines City of God was particularly influential in defining and condemning witchcraft. He was the most responsible for the policy of viewing witchcraft as both false and yet dangerous. To Augustine, and subsequently to the Church, witchcraft was a deceit of the devil and of demons. It was a superstition (superstitio), a pagan practice, and not real. Two difficulties which were to emerge from this stance were (i) the common people continued to believe in the power and harm of the witch, and (ii) laws concerning witchcraft seemed to fluctuate between condemning the practice itself and condemning those who condemned witches. Germanic law by and large emerged as an echo of Roman law, at least with respect to witches. The Burgundian Code allows men to put away their wives upon proving them guilty of witchcraft. The Codex Theodosian was reworked for King Alaric of Visigoth Spain in the Breviarium Alarici. Visigoth law contained prohibitions against witchcraft and strict penalties for those convicted of malificium. Frankish law was less Roman in influence than the Burgundian or Visigoth. It designated various heavy fines for practices of different types of witchcraft. These laws all reflected a genuine hatred of both witches and witchcraft. That witchcraft was illegal is not in any doubt, but what is doubtful is how effective witchcraft was thought to be, at least by educated Christians. Other laws, like the Rothairs Edict of Lombard in 643, are more concerned with protecting people (especially women) unjustly accused of witchcraft, which is not wise to be believed by Christian minds . Charlemagnes laws also reflected a belief that witchcraft was a deceit of the devil, and

actually condemns to death those who burned witches. To a large extent, this double view of witchcraft and magic was a result of Christians associating it with pagan religion. Because pagan religion was false, and because witchcraft was thought to be pagan (although it had been illegal in pagan society as well), it was difficult for Christians to admit that any power existed in witchcraft. In this they were to some extent merely continuing the tradition of pre-Christian intellectuals in the Roman Empire who condemned witchcraft not for being harmful but for being a deceit. The difference in the growing Christian world came from an association of witchcraft with the devil. Medieval European law prohibited diviners, enchanters, fortune tellers, amulets, incantations, curses, and virtually all elements of witchcraft and of magic. Despite the prohibition, executions of witches were infrequent in medieval Christian Europe. Those convicted of witchcraft could find themselves facing fines, imprisonment, or even penance for a year or more. The authorities were far more concerned with the persecution of heretics. The change from the medieval view of witchcraft to that of early modern Europe and the witch trials occurred in 1324 C.E. In that year, Richard Ledrede (a bishop of Ossory in Ireland) accused Alice Kyteler of meeting at night with a group of other witches. Her trial is noteworthy because it is the first mention in European history of a type of sabbat. Kyteler was accused of sexual intercourse with a demon, sacrifice to the devil, and witchcraft. These types of accusations were nothing new, but Kytelers trial, and subsequent death by burning, was the first time that the accusation focused on witchcraft rather than heresies. Probably a number of influences increased the interest in persecuting and executing witches. One influence could have been the natural disasters, like the plague, that swept Europe in the fourteenth century. Another was the Reformation, through which both the Catholic Church and the Protestants sought to reform Christian life. Witchcraft was then seen as Satans tool to corrupt the human race. Whatever the reason, by the fifteenth century trials of witchcraft had begun to flare up far more frequently. The European Witch Trials

CommonMisconceptions It is important here to examine the multiple common misconceptions about the European witch trials prevalent amongst laypersons, to which Wiccans are especially susceptible. The first of these concernes their frequency. Most estimates of total deaths from witch trials, across all Europe and over several centuries, range from around 30,000 to 50,000; that is, an average of perhaps 100 to 200 deaths per year in all Europe. This cannot be characterized as a widespread persecution of witches. In fact, most places saw only occasional trials punctuated by periods of larger and more intense persecution. Such witch hunts, far from being the result of any centralized Church or state authority, took place in areas removed from such power. The centralized authorities were more often, as earlier, responsible for controlling and stopping witch trials than encouraging them. It was the common people, whose belief, fear, and hatred of

witches were widespread, who were responsible for the hunts that did occur. Intense study of primary source material since Margaret Murray has also destroyed any historical validity to the Wiccan creation myth. By the middle ages, Europe was thoroughly Christian. What pagan practices did remain had been absorbed into the large Christian culture. Even what is now referred to as traditional witchcraft was quite Christian in nature and language, as can be seen by the examples of European cunning folk given earlier. Murrays version of the sabbat as a meeting place for an underground pagan cult was possible only by a very selective manipulation of trial documents. Later examination of her sources, and of other sources from many other places and times within the relevant period, has completely eradicated any possibility that the trials were an attempt to stamp out paganism. The commonly held notions of victims being wise-women, healers, midwives, etc. has also been abolished. Although it is true that women made up a majority of the victims (exceptions include Finland, Estonia, northern Livonia, and a few others), this was due not to a patriarchal state attempting a war against women, but rather to an ancient and popular association with witchcraft to women (that is, it might have been due to a sexist view of women held by the populace rather than the state). A majority of the accusations against women were made by women themselves. It is also untrue that cunning folk, midwives, or healers were a significant portion of the victims. Those who were accused of witchcraft were more frequently social misfits who had often been accused before. Yet even this stereotype is somewhat inaccurate. The old hag witch portrayed by intellectuals seeking to ridicule the publics belief in witches had no more than a marginal effect on the consciousness of the general populous. Men, young women, children, even the elite were accused of witchcraft. The perfect witch known today (old, ugly, poor, etc.) is a somewhat of a myth. The importance of the association of witchcraft with the devil is also unclear. It is undeniable that the sabbat, with its various common aspects (orgies, sex with demons, diabolical pacts, cannibalism, etc.) were part of the European cultural consciousness. Accordingly, the accused could easily confess to such activities under torture. Yet in many places (England being one) stories of the sabbat never emerged, or emerged only slowly. Also, the presence of the devil in accusations of witchcraft are notable by their rarity. Charges of witchcraft more frequently refer to acts of malificium (harmful magic) than they do to devil pacts or sabbats. Possession, evil sorcery, cursing, etc make up the experience of bewitchment. It is often not until trial that the sabbat came into play. Although evil and the devil were very much a part of the consciousness of popular society, witches in the public eye were not so different from what they had been a thousand years earlier. The public still feared the destruction of crops, the evil eye, possession by spirits, and any number of effects by malicious magic that had been a part of the belief structure of the common folk for centuries. The so-inaccurately-called witch craze of early modern Europe was not in the least remarkable. Belief and persecution of witches, as we shall see, necessarily follows in any society for which magic is a reality. What is remarkable is that it did not happen earlier in Christian Europe.

The Nature of the Witches and their Trials

Having addressed these misconceptions, what then was the real nature of the witch trials, and how did the common people, those responsible for the persecutions, perceive witches? It is important to note the differences across Europe with respect not only to the nature of witchcraft, but to the timeline of persecutions. In Catholic France, witch hunts began to decline as early as 1590. By the time witchcraft was formally decriminalized in 1682, trials of witches had all but ceased. In England the decline began around 1610, but was followed by two unusual great witch hunts. After these, the decline subsequently continued, this time permanently. The last execution occurred in 1684. Scotland, for reasons which will become clearer below, was not as fortunate. Five great witch hunts occurred from 1597 to 1662. Unlike England, here witchcraft was more often associated with the devil. The last execution occurred in 1706. Germany has perhaps the worst record in regards to frequency of witch trials (again, for reasons addressed below). Trials lasted into the 18th century. Other countries were late bloomers: in Hungary, although trials did occur during the 16th century, they did not peak until the early seventeenth century, and did not decline until the mid-18th. Poland followed much the same pattern. Regional chronological patterns of witch persecutions varied probably more than the cultural concepts of witchcraft itself. Despite conceptual differences concerning witchcraft, many generalizations can be made which hold more or less true for all of Europe. Types of bewitchments could be either against the community or could have a more individual character (the latter was probably more common, especially in the later era of the witch trials). Bewitchments against the community most commonly involved weather, epidemics, fires, or even shipwrecks. The most common individualistic accusation of bewitchment was probably injury or sickness (particularly of a child or woman), but also often took the form of possession, the evil eye, problems in the production of butter or beer, crop failure, problems with cattle, even impotence in men or the refusal of women engage in sexual intercourse with their husbands. Diabolical involvement in witchcraft varied significantly from region to region, sometimes occurring little or not at all. The gender most frequently accused of witchcraft was women (with notable exceptions, some mentioned above). In fact, in some places witchcraft existed almost exclusively within the social circles of women. The women accused and persecuted other women, with men more often playing an enabling rather than active role. Gender also often mattered in the type of bewitchment or witching accused witches engaged in. Men in Western Europe were usually the only ones accused of using the devil to obtain riches or hunt treasure. Women, on the other hand, were almost the sole practitioners of love potions, which frequently involved using things like menstrual blood and/or burnt pubic and armpit hair in potions. These were then drunk (unwittingly) by the target male, thereby ingesting the womens sexuality into the male. The witchcraft discourse most often involved a triune participation. First there was the complainant or accuser who believed himself or herself, or a family member, to be bewitched. Next, often enough, an unwitching specialist was consulted. Cunning folk, wise men and women, white wizards, etc, were the archenemies of witches. They were frequently sought after in order to combat bewitchment. Usually, these unwitching experts would then identify the witch, completing the triad. Unwitching, though often the realm of a specialist, could be attempted by anyone, and common prescriptions abounded. Rituals, often involving burning, were

quite prevalent. So too was scratching, or obtaining the blood of the accused witch by scratching or cutting her. Potions were often used as well. Almost all magical devices used to combat bewitchments involved religious (i.e. Christian) aspects. One fairly common one was simply to compel (often forcefully) the witch to bless the victim(s). Decline of the Trials and the Continuation of Witchcraft Beliefs Although the decline of trials fluctuated across Europe, by the early 19th century at the very latest trials everywhere had ceased. Until the last few decades, it was assumed that this decline was caused by the increase in science and rationality which accompanied the Enlightenment. Recently, however, scholars have re-examined the trial records and noted that the decline in individual regions did not accompany judicial skepticism in witchcraft. Rather, this decline accompanied an increasingly centralized judicial authority, the members of which noted more and more the difficulty in establishing the guilt of suspected witches. The reliability of torture and spectral evidence, for example, began to be doubted long before witchcraft itself was denied by judges. In trial after trial, although the judge himself usually acknowledged the existence of witchcraft in theory, his dedication to fair judicial process necessitated acquitting the accused witches. In addition, the increasing frequency of defendants being represented by attorneys helped to quicken the process of decline. This was why France and England, which both possessed a far more evolved and centralized justice system than, for example, Germany and Scotland, were able to end witch trials far earlier. Yet the end of trials did not mean the end of belief in witchcraft, or even the persecution of witches. After the courts refused to prosecute witches any longer, the common folk began to take matters into their own hands, and were then most often prosecuted themselves. Although the killing of witches occurred with far less frequency after the trials ended, even up to the present day accused witches (usually socially marginalized old women) are subject to violent attacks, some even being beaten to death or burnt to death in their houses. Unwitching specialists (what Wiccans today would actually refer to as traditional witches), continued long after the trials even up to the present day in some parts of the world. Occasionally, their clients (perhaps unhappy with their services) accuse them of bewitchment. Although this has happened throughout the centuries (before, during, and after the trials) unwitching specialists did not make up a high percentage of the accused. The nature of witchcraft often changed very little over the centuries, even after the trials ceased. Common people continued to fear and hate them, and sometimes persecute them. The most important aspect of the crime of witchcraft throughout the centuries involved the use of malicious magic: malificium. Despite the varying linguistic and conceptual difference across Europe concerning witchcraft, this was a constant, and thus will form our definition of witchcraft. In order to assess the universality of this definition, however, other work must be accomplished.

Witchcraft In Other Cultures: Ancient Civilizations To gain a universal concept of witchcraft and witches requires a comparative

analysis of the concept of witchcraft within other cultures, if it exists within them at all. We start with an examination of ancient civilizations, which could not be influenced by an as-yet-non-existent Christian theology, and then proceed to an examination of the vastly different cultures of so-called primitive societies. To achieve an adequate universal definition, the examination must yield a core concept similar within all cultures. So far, what core we have consists of two components. The (more important) first component is a characterization of witchcraft as specifically malicious magic, involving curses, harmful spells, and other forms of malificarum. The second involves the association of this magic with a supernatural evil (e.g., the Devil). Both components must have equivalents in other cultures to retain this definition. We start with the cradle of civilization: Mesopotamia. Dominant within this realm were the Sumerians and Akkadians, both possessing a similar mythology and belief with respect to magic. Information on witchcraft within these civilizations comes largely from primary sources unearthed from the 19th century onward. Ancient tablets and inscriptions yield a clear concept of the first component in witchcraft: malificium. The manifestation of witchcraft is actually quite similar to that within early modern Europe. Women are frequently seen as culprits, destroying crops and harming livestock, in addition to inflicting personal injury via supernatural methods. Although the Mesopotamian illustrations of actual witchcraft are somewhat infrequent, their notion of the witch can be mostly clearly seen in the numerous materials concerned with repelling witchcraft, which prescribe various counter-spells and rituals. The counter-magic employed would probably be familiar to any cunning folk of Europe thousands of years later. Potions and salves made of herbs and other materials are frequently employed, both by the commoner and professional exorcists. An ancient medical textbooks describes one such potion:
If a man is bewitched: In a kettle you boil a potsherd of the river together with bitumen, put it in first-rate beer and take it on the last day of the month. Facing the sunrise you speak as follows: Witch, your charms will turn back against you and seize you! He shall say thus and he will get more.

The potion, and use of incantations, are common prescriptions against witchcraft of both ancient and early modern times. Another aspect of anti-witchcraft ritual present in both early modern Europe and ancient Mesopotamia is an appeal to the divine. The complex anti-witchcraft ritual Maql contains the following prayer:
Your sorcery, your evil magic, your witchcraft, The result of your witchcraft, Ea, the exorcist of the gods, has dissolved them, May your evil mouth be filled with dust, May your evil tongue be tied with strings, At the command of Enbilulu, lord of Life!

Within the above prayer is a hint that the second component in witchcraft, that of association with supernatural evil, is also present in ancient Mesopotamian culture. There is a tendency within modern culture to characterize evil, sin, and supernatural evil as a by-product of Christianity. Yet Christianity is not unique in its belief of a supremely evil deity, let alone the existence of evil or sin. Islam, Zoroastrianism, and apocalyptic Judaism all contain a dualistic cosmology of God vs. the Devil.

Although Mesopotamian mythology lacks such a dualistic view of supernatural representations of good and evil, it has its share of devils. Magic was frequently used to ward off attacks of demons and other supernatural evils. Even an obsession with sin was not foreign to these ancient civilizations. Ethics was extremely important, as it was believed that good people received good fortune, and wickedness was punished by the Gods. To explain how this often failed to happen, sin was seen as vastly complex. It was therefore impossible to only do good, or even to know when exactly one was sinning, as the following prayer shows: Because of my sin that I know or do not know, I stand before you, O God! To protect against sin, one had to pray for redemption from all sins, many of which could not be known, because morality itself was too complex to know what was right or wrong. Witchcraft, as the Maql excerpt above illustrates, was clearly believed to be evil, not simply malicious. It required a combination of prayer and the aid of the Gods (e.g., Asalluhi, the divine exorcist) and anti-witchcraft magic. Although the words used for witches or witchcraft are not completely consistent (in one story involving a wise woman combating a witch, the witch is called ma-ma, which later becomes an official concerned with healing or purification), the concept is nonetheless not only constant but consistent with the proposed definition of witch. It is characterized most importantly by malicious magic and secondly is associated with supernatural evil (although not personified with a single entity like the Christian Devil). Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live runs the famous biblical line forbidding witchcraft. Although often associated with Christianity, this was a Hebrew law long before the existence of Christianity. The law itself was an echo of the earlier pagan Code ( kaaptu in Hammurabis code). Here again we of Hammurabi. The word used is find that it is typified by a type of harmful, malicious magic (often a curse of some sort). Oftentimes, as is true elsewhere (including in early modern Europe), witchcraft is associated with the evil eye. Although, as in the ancient Mediterranean, we find no single personified evil (Satan did not exist until apocalyptic Judaism, after the fall of Israel to the Persians), there is still an association of witchcraft with evil (e.g. the evil eye). Witchcraft is forbidden by God under penalty of death. As in other cultures, witchcraft is distinguished from other types of magic, such as divination. Although the moral/legal status of other types of magic was somewhat arbitrary, that of witchcraft was not. So far our definition of witchcraft as a type of malicious magic holds throughout the ancient near-East. But one more culture, often associated with Wicca (as an influence), remains to bridge the gap between pre-Christian and Christian civilization in this area: the Greco-Roman culture. Although witchcraft was clearly illegal in the empire (indeed, the the pagan Roman empire held the two largest witch trials in history, both resulting in thousands of executions), we must ascertain that their cultures witchcraft fits our definition of witchcraft. The words for witchcraft in Greek and Latin are more fluid than the English equivalent. , with its Latin equivalent Venifica, could refer to witchcraft, but also to potion working, poisoning, medicine, etc. Goeteia is also used to describe witchcraft, but additionally was used simply as a derogatory term for lesser or lower magic, especially fraudulent or deceitful magic. Both words are distinguished from other more positive concepts of magic (Theourgia, Mageia, Sortilegium, etc). The above should make clear that at times, neither nor venifica fit into our definition of

witchcraft, nor even into the model given for magic. This does not mean the concept of witchcraft, as defined previously, did not exist in Greco-Roman culture. Certainly malicious magic was a reality for both Greeks and Romans. Over a thousand curse-tablets, written in mostly in Greek but also in Latin have been recovered. That many of these curses fall clearly under the proposed category of witchcraft is obvious both by their content and by counter spells used to protect against such witchcraft. The nature of the harmful intent within curse tablets varies, from simple binding spells intended to restrict activities (frequently sexual) to curses intended to bring death:
in the name of the underworld one, so that, just as I entrust you to this impious and lawless and accursed Cardelus, whom his mother Fulgentia bore, so may you bring him to a bed of punishment, to be punished with an evil death, and to die within five days. Quickly! Quickly! Let him perish and fall, just as you lie (here), prematurely dead

The latter curse refers to a prematurely dead corpse, and wishes the same upon the intended target. The intent of these curses can also be seen by a description of them from Patos Laws:
Another kind of with its so-called sorceries, charms, and binding-spells persuades those attempting to harm their victims that they are really able to achieve such a thing.[emphasis added]

Protections against curses and harmful magic not only illustrate their malicious nature, but also that they were viewed in a similar fashion to witchcraft in other cultures examined:
Drive away, drive away the curse from Rufina. And if anyone harms me in the future, turn the curse back upon him. Free Juliana from all and all suffering and all magical influence and demonic manifestations by night and by day.

In this second counter curse, is associated with demonic manifestations. The Greco-Roman daimon, from which comes our word demon, was an ambiguous figure. It could cover a kind of angel, a demon, and anywhere in between, Yet there was clearly a belief in an evil demon, as illustrated in Plutarchs Brutus. Although a clear association of daimons with evil is not present until Christian influence, that evil daimons did exist and that they were associated at times with witchcraft was clearly a pre-Christian belief. The Greco-Roman world saw a connection between witchcraft and evil, though perhaps not as clear as in other cultures. Examining Greek and Roman laws, as well as the works of philosophers and early theologians, yields more evidence for a cultural rejection of harmful magic. The two greatest mass executions of witches took place in early second century Rome, BCE, where 2000 and then 3000 witches were executed at once. This exceeds the total execution of witches for some countries in Europe across the centuries of the witch trials. Platos Laws, already quoted above, clearly outlaw harmful magic. Apuleius, in his Apology, writes that witchcraft in Rome had been illegal for centuries. The Roman

historian Pliny also speaks of prosecutable magical acts, such as harmful spells. The Lex Cornelia, Sullas law from 81 BC, specifically outlaws venifica. Sanctions from the city of Teos not only outlaw harmful , they show (as does Pliny in his Natural History) another cultural parallel between the Greco-Roman cultural concept of witchcraft, and the later European.
Whoever employs harmful against the people of Teos, either against the city as a whole or against a private individual, let him be destroyed, himself, and his entire family.

What is noteworthy in this public curse against witches is that it mentions witchcraft against an entire city. Presumably, witchcraft against a city manifests itself as destruction of crop or cattle. Pliny specifically references such spells in his works. This type of malicious magic is a common, cross-cultural example of witchcraft. Other such examples exist within Greco-Roman culture. Women again are seen as the primary employers of harmful /venifica. Here again, cunning folk sought to distinguish their practice from witchcraft as they will do centuries later in early modern Europe. For example, they asserted they practiced theorgia, which initially was considered an acceptable kind of higher magic, separate from witchcraft. Although opinions of Theorgia change with the adoption of Christianity, this only clarifies the similarities between the cunning folk of the Roman Empire and those of early modern Europe. In an attempt to defend themselves against Christian polemics, pagan magicians declared that they only used good daimones to work their magic. Like the later wizards of Europe, the wise-ones needed to distance their magic from harmful or evil witchcraft. Witchcraft In Other Cultures: Tribal Societies So far our cross-cultural study has consisted of cultures that have been major influences on Western Civilization, either directly (e.g., Roman and Greek) or indirectly (e.g., Mesopotamian and Israelite). All have concepts consistent with our witchcraft paradigm. To complete this study, we contrast these cultures with other cultures or peoples in tribal society, including those with shamanic spiritualities. Because some of these cultures are in many ways the opposite of the sedentary, more densely populated, and economically diverse cultures we have examined so far, existence of a common witchcraft notion in both types should provide sufficient evidence to assert a near universal concept of witchcraft within human society, at least those that already believe in some form of magic. Shamanism The word shaman, originally Tungusian for medicine-man, has come to denote virtually any type of spiritual/magical leader within shamanic society. Most often, this word carries a positive connotation. Shamans heal and protect tribes, villages, families, etc. They are seen to function as both priest and doctor. In Western imagination, few magical/religious figures can be as removed from our ideal witch as a shaman. Yet anthropological evidence suggests that our imagination has carried us too far. Even

shamanic societies are not without their witches. Although similarities exist, there is much to distinguish the benevolent shaman from the European cunning folk. The emphasis of the shaman is not on magical cures as much as it is in spiritual flights, ecstatic states, etc. Although both cunning folk and shamans can function in a witch doctor capacity (as magical healers), the cunning folk are not analogous to the shaman. However, within shamanic religions there does exist a concept of a harmful worker of malicious magic. Joseph Campbell reports a number of incidents in various shamanic societies of shamans who practiced malicious magic, engaged in psychic battles, attempted to kill with spiritual powers, etc. One such shaman in an Inuit community battled off his entire village after killing eight people. Professor Brian Haydon, living among the Highland Maya of Guatemala, recorded events that could be compared to witch trials within European society. Instead of formal trials and executions, he reports mass expulsions of shamans who were thought to be working evil against the community. He also notes that similar events took place in hill tribe communities in Vietnam. Once more we find an association here of witchcraft with evil. Benevolent shamans in virtually all shamanic cultures are used to protect against witchcraft, yet, as with the cunning folk of Europe, who was benevolent and who was malevolent was a matter of interpretation. Thomas Bridges reported accounts of shamans of one community blaming deaths on shaman of an opposing group. Folklore in shamanic society also indicates that witchcraft not only exists within such cultures, but that it is clearly a social taboo. The Ona of Tierra del Fuego possess an interesting creation myth designed to explain the need of an existing secret society for men (the Hain) within that culture. According to the myth, in olden times it was the women who had a secret society, or Lodge. Its purpose was to instruct girls in the arts of witchcraft. They learned how to use magic to bring sickness and death. The men lived in fear, until they decided to kill all the women and girls (except for those too young to have been members of the Lodge). They proceeded to form their own society in order to prevent the women from achieving their former authority. A similar myth is present in the nearby Yahgans, only in their myth the women seem to have given up their authority rather than having it taken from them. Not only do both of these myths show us clearly that a belief in witches existed within these tribes, but also that it was associated with women. Women also exist as witches within the Pindupi tribes of Australia, but there men can be witches as well. They practiced erati, or black magic, which was a harmful form of sorcery, and could be lethal. Germanic Tribes Ironically, as mentioned earlier, it was Christianity that brought an end to persecution of witches within Germanic tribes. These tribes had a long tradition of hunting and killing witches. Their earliest law codes penalized women who were believed to destroy men by magic at night, an obvious parallel to the myth cited above. It was the Church which revoked the laws. One example is the Lombard code of 643: Let nobody presume to kill a foreign serving maid or female slave as a witch, for it is not

possible, nor ought to be believed by Christian minds. The Devil, instead of being responsible for witchcraft, is seen as responsible for the erroneous belief in witches, as typified in Charlemagnes proclamation to the Saxons in 789:
If anyone is deceived by the Devil, and believes after the manner of pagans that some man or woman is a witch and eats people, and if because of this he burns her let him pay the penalty of death.

Germanic conceptions of witchcraft can be determined by examining Norse literature. As with Latin and Greek, many terms in the Nordic language can be considered analogous to witchcraft, but none perfectly so. Odin speaks of his ability to hinder the souls of night witches (tnrur) from returning to their bodies. Trolldmr could refer to witchcraft, but it could also refer to many misfortunes in life. In Norse literature, many different words serve to describe those capable of performing witchcraft. For males, there is galdramar, vitki, skratti, and trollmar, and for females there is ggr, seikona, spkona, and trollkona. Yet none of these words are completely equivalent to our witch or witchcraft paradigm. As above, any search for the witchcraft model must be done by examining Nordic conceptions of harmful magic. N mli ek at um vi ik, Grettir, at sr heillum horfinn, allri gipt ok gfu ok allri vQrn ok vizku, vi meir, sem lifir lengr. [I curse you now, Grettir, to be deprived of all good luck and all good fortune, all help and all wisdom, the more so longer you live.] This curse is uttered by an old female witch, at the behest of an enemy of Grettir, the hero of Grettis saga. Grettir immediately realizes the harm that has been done, and proceeds to break the old womans leg by throwing a stone at her. Laxdoela saga contains other interesting examples of witchcraft. Kotkell and his family use witchcraft to cause death and disaster in their local community. Although few details are given for how the witchcraft is performed, its results are familiar. One such act causes a storm to arise, only, instead of striking crops or cattle, this storm drowns Kotkells enemies at sea. Kotkell and his wife are later stoned to death. The stonings in the above stories are not mere literary devices, they indicate how witchcraft was punished in Nordic society. Much of the law in Nordic culture was oral. The law-speaker (lQgsQgu-mar) memorized and recited law. For this reason, our sources for codes and laws are mainly sagas and other literature, as opposed to the codes and rulings of some cultures cited previously. An example is the formal trial in Eybryggija saga. Here the search for a night witch results in a trial where the accused is subsequently freed due to a lack of evidence. Yet clearly evident within the story is the illegal nature of witchcraft. Although both men and women could practice harmful magic, witches in Nordic literature are predominantly women. Furthermore, although evil is not as much a concern in the Nordic psyche as in the Christian, an association between evil and harmful magic clearly existed. Taking these aspects of Nordic witchcraft into account, and the similarities between them and our witchcraft model, we can draw a confident parallel

between our model and the Nordic conception of witchcraft. Warning We should not extend too far the notion that a perfect model of witchcraft exists in all cultures. The idea that concepts in vastly different cultures can be compared readily (as was done so frequently until a few decades ago by, for example, Joseph Campbell) ignores the fact that dissimilarities far outnumber similarities. It is easy to say (as Frazer did) that the notion of a dying and resurrecting God in Christianity is comparable to many other religions (such as the ancient Greek mystery cults) that also tell of a God who dies and lives again. However, to equate them is to ignore completely the disparate belief systems behind them. It is likewise important to keep these limitations in mind when comparing witchcraft within shamanic culture and that within early modern Europe. We can acknowledge these limitations by limiting the model of witchcraft to a basic level: that of malicious magic. Despite the belief in Satan and his association with witches in early modern Europe, to a great degree the people, who were the ones causing what persecution did occur, feared not Satan but malificarum. The people genuinely feared the harm witches might accomplish. It is this belief we have searched for, and found, in other cultures. Indeed, it seems that there is a common language, even though the words are inexact, wherein people from vastly different cultures can speak of a similar crime and action: witchcraft. Other similarities beyond this basic one also exist. Common in cultures is associating witchcraft with evil. Often, the ways in which harmful magic manifests itself are similar. For example, many cultures speak of dangers to crops or livestock (expressing a fear that witchcraft strikes at the heart of a community). Also common is an association of witchcraft with women, a result of the sexism present in virtually every pre-modern society. Counter spells and charms against witchcraft also have some similarities. All these common characteristics give us the ability to refer to witchcraft as a universal concept, although we must acknowledge the limitations of this assertion when doing so. From Witch to Wiccan However, this model completely fails with respects to Wicca. Wiccans may refer to a part of their practice as witchcraft, yet perhaps the most commonly accepted tenet of Wiccan faith is An harm it none, do what ye will. This places Wiccan practice completely outside our model of witchcraft, illustrating that the concept of witchcraft beginning with Jules Michelet and culminating with Gardner effected a complete break from the prior conception of witchcraft. The rest of this essay will be devoted to demonstrating how Wiccan witchcraft exists entirely separate from earlier definitions, even possessing a unique etymology, and cannot be compared with them. Jules Michelet was not the first to suggest that witches were remnant practitioners of pagan practice. He was preceded in 1749 by Girolamo Tartorotti-Serbati, and again in 1844 by Jakob Grimm. In fact, Michelet based much of his research on witchcraft (although he did not share the same conclusions) on the work of two Catholics (Karl Ernst Jarcke and Franz Jojef Mone) who wrote to support the Catholic church over pagan practice. Yet Michelet was the perhaps the first to portray witches in a positive light. An

ardent political activist, his political ideals saturated his work and contributed to his suspension from the College of France. Even when his research was thorough, Michelets political beliefs were as influential in his work as his primary source material. At other times, his research was scanty or non-existent, and political ideology remained as the bulk of his work. Central to his political outlook was a virulent hatred of both the Catholic Church and the institution of monarchy. Both of these views formed a basis for La Sorcire (1862), in which witches are political activists defying both Church and State. They preserve the wisdom of the ages despite the ignorance and corruption of religious and secular authority. By reversing the role of witches from that of popular imagination to spiritual activists, Michelet could demonize his ideological enemies. It was for this purpose, as well as money, that La Sorcire was written. Produced in two months to produce as much profit as possible, it was virtually ignored by the French scholarly community. The book was not without impact, however, inspiring Charles Godfrey Leland, one of the persons most influential to the creation of Wicca. Leland was an American traveler and journalist. He shared many of Michelets views, including a hatred of monarchy (Leland had participated in the 19th century French Revolution) and the Catholic Church. However, where Michelet idealized the medieval peasants, Leland had a natural affinity towards those who he felt were their modern counterparts: gypsies, Native Americans, etc. Of particular importance to him, for its apparent value in demonizing the Roman Catholic Church, was the gypsy lore of Italy. Lelands first two publications on this subject, Etruscan Roman Remains (1892) and Legends of Florence (1895), both contained stories of witches who are clearly identified as hostile, evil, malicious creatures who are, and should be, feared. Two patronesses of witches are occasionally identified: Diana, the ancient Roman goddess (and the only goddess mentioned in the New Testament), and Aradia, the Italianized name of Herodias. Herodias was the queen in the New Testament who had John the Baptist killed. Neither work can be accepted as scholarly. Leland took pains to show the remnants of pagan religion where none existed. He dismissed the incredible amount of Christian and Catholic piety in gypsy folklore. He went much further in his next work, Aradia (1899), a purported gospel of witches. In it, Diana, goddess of darkness, mates with her brother Lucifer. Diana then gives birth to Aradia, who is sent to teach witchcraft to the commoners in an attempt to strike back against their oppressors, the Roman church. Aradia represents a clear divergence from whatever scholarship Leland had achieved in his previous work. He had admitted earlier that, though his informants at times referred to the old religion, nothing they discussed amounted to anything remotely resembling a coherent religious system. All this changes in Aradia, as does the portrayal of witches, based on Lelands purported discoveries. But no other Italian folklorist has ever found any of his purported discoveries. Furthermore, the Roman Catholic powers which had governed Italy were quite adept at detecting secret societies. An inquisitor in the 1620s had published detailed information on almost fifty varieties of heresies of his time, including small and insignificant groups (e.g., the Carpogranites). No modern historian can accept (or has accepted) Lelands discoveries recorded in Aradia. Whether he created them, or his principle source, Maddalena, did so, or whether it was a combination of both, is unknown. What is known

is the beautiful and intriguing story Aradia is undoubtedly a complete work of fiction. But it was not without influence. Like Michelet, Leland portrayed witches in a new light. Although he had turned them into political activists, Michelet nonetheless conceded devil worship amongst witches. Leland, on the other hand, emphatically denied this, and thought it a creation of the Church. For Leland, Diana was the goddess of the witches. Lelands witches inspired Margaret Murray, Gardner, and many members of the Wiccan faith. His work was another turning point, and a significant one, in the creation of a new witch archetype. Murray, picking up after Leland, was an Egyptologist much influenced by Frazer. Her first major work on witches was The Witch Cult of Western Europe. Its premise was the existence of a pagan cult within Europe that had been systematically stamped out by the witch trials. The sabbats were no more than coven meetings of worship. It was this, and Murrays subsequent work, which formed the basis for the historical pagan aspects of Wicca. There is, however, nothing historical within Murrays writings. Even at the time, those few scholars who reviewed her books found them devoid of anything resembling scholarship. Murray had used a small amount of primary source material, particularly trial documents, and had proceeded to freely rip any quotes she could find out of their historical context. She castigated unfriendly reviewers by declaring them either tainted by Christian prejudice or unable to truly understand her sources (as she could). Research into the witch trials since Murray has been extraordinary, but no scholar has yet to give credence to her work. Despite the lack of interest of scholars in Murrays theories, her books and theories were eagerly accepted by the public. Misconceptions of the witch trials formulated by Murray became part of public opinion. It was with this background that Wicca was created. Creation of Wicca It will simply be assumed here that Wicca was the creation of Gerald Gardner with the help of others because a serious examination of Wiccan origins is beyond the scope of this essay. That Wicca is entirely a creation of the 20th century is beyond doubt. That Gardner was most responsible for its creation is the most plausible theory. However, it is also possible, if less likely, that Gardner was inducted into a relatively new society of witches who used the works of Margaret Murray, Charles Leland, and various occult authors and writers as a basis for their coven. In any case, it was Gardner who was responsible for publicizing the new religion, presented in the guise of an ancient one. With Gardner, the line of people restructuring the image of the witch was complete. He neatly synthesized the history of Murray and Leland to reconstruct pagan history with ceremonial magic and theory for practice. His wica were a combination of mythical pagans and occult magicians. They resembled in no way the malicious witches of historical belief. A new paradigm was created, for our definition of witch was wholly unsuitable. Etymology of Wicca The etymology of the wiccan witch also suggests a total separation of wiccan from the older paradigm of witch. It can be quite plausibly argued that wicca and witch have their own separate etymological histories, not simply different definitions. Gardner

called his witches the wica. He believed the word came from the Anglo-Saxon word for the wise, but in this he was mistaken. Although wica does look similar to the Anglo-Saxon wia, it is pronounced differently, spelt differently, and in meaning is quite different. We have already seen how the Anglo-Saxon word was used. It did not refer to the wise, nor to a group of adherents to an Old Religion. In fact, the closest word in English etymological history to what Gardner wished to portray was actually Middle English word wizard (wissard), meaning wise one. Wizards were cunning folk at the time Gardner believed his witches would have existed. Wica is his own creation, and like the religion he began it entirely a product of the 20th century. If any history of it exists before his use, it can only be traced to Middle English and not to Anglo-Saxon. It is upon this foundation that the wiccan witch was built. This witch is an altogether new type, the word itself having a unique history. Conclusion We may now turn back to our original questions. Are a Wiccan and witch the same thing? Can you be a Wiccan without being a witch? How about the reverse? Is magic necessary in Wicca? The preceding data allows us to make two points. The first concerns the use and definition of the word witch itself. When using witch in the above questions, Wiccans unnecessarily complicate the issues by combining two very separate definitions of the word witch. Although most Wiccans of more than a few years experience are aware that the Wiccan Creation Myth, despite its merits, is not history, they often continue to associate the mythical witch of Michelet, Leland, and Murray with the witch figure of history. The two have nothing in common, and Wiccans do not share anything with the witch figure of history. Our word witch, though etymologically Germanic, derives conceptually from the Greco-Roman culture, and by extension the Church Fathers, who in turn borrow much from earlier Near-Eastern culture. However, within every culture which holds or has held a belief in magic, exists a figure which can appropriately be called witch. Although this witch figure is steeped in magic, it is not what Wiccans refer to in their debate. Modern witches, including Wiccans, are descendents of an altogether different witch. This witch is the mythical archetype of Michelet, Leland, and Murray. Modern witches share very little with any actual historical groups, pagan or otherwise, outside of the occult. And for their ancestor, the mythical witch, magic was not of great importance. From Michelet to Murray, and even with Gardner to a degree, magic was marginalized, and at times even ignored. For the mythical witch, the important factors were: 1. Rebellion, social marginalization, and oppression (from Church and State). 2. A connection to an alternative spirituality, which was always some form of mythical paganism. This is important because it means that the modern witch needs magic no more than a

Wiccan. The magical witch of history was bad, even evil. In mythical and in modern witchcraft, of which Wicca is a subdivision, magic has not always clearly existed, and it is certainly not essential. To reiterate, to designate oneself as Wiccan but not a witch because of magic is to use a definition of the word that cannot accurately describe modern Witches. The second point we can pull from our evidence concerns another essential misuse of terms in the debate: those of magic and religion. Wicca belongs within the Magic/Religion spectrum proposed at the beginning of this writing. One can certainly be a witch and not be Wiccan, but the argument over whether a Wiccan is necessarily a witch, or whether magic is essential to Wicca, is a moot one. The distinction between magic and religion is not necessary. Pagan culture frequently did not clearly separate them into distinct categories. As with Wiccan ritual, magic and religion in pagan cults were blended. To separate magic and religion in Wicca is to use a modern, outdated, and primarily Christian distinction. Ironically, entering into the debate of magic in Wicca at all, is to put oneself into a Christian framework, not to mention the religious mentality of the Church Fathers. The new definition of witch (the Wiccan witch) needs no such categorization. Witches of today are throwbacks in many ways to ancient religious and cultic followers, to whom religion was a world of magic.