Witchcraft

Witchcraft
Witches, as a convention, are recognized as spellcrafters who worship and serve at least one apect or entity within the Old Gods. Many have ties to the fae- or claim they do. Their style of ritual is often less formal and eleborate than sorcery but this is not always the case. Witches can be of any gender, ethnicity and socio-ethnic background. The media depicts witchcraft as being sensual, mysterious, and matriarchal. Witches comonly join covens of 3-22 members but have some larger non-profit organizations. Certain families have their own exclusionary covens closed to those outside of their own blood lines. Other covens have their own membership criteria or practice a very specific form or tradition of witchcraft.

Early Witchcaft
Witchcraft, like shamanism, has its roots in the early paganistic tribes of humans who began to emerge as distinct cultures during the Mythic Era before the Age of Man. At that time, there was little differentiation between them except that witches typically worshipped the Old Gods and drew power from them directly while shamans worked with the fae, animal totems and other nature spirits. Every pagan or pantheist culture had at least some witches, shamans, or both.

The European Prosecutions
Witches were targeted by the Abrahamic religions and the Church from their inception. especially starting in the era of St.Augustine and growing steadily worse until reaching a peak in the Burning Times. Only a handful ot actual witches remained in Europe at the rise of the Enlightenment in the 1680s but the Salem witchcraft trials in 1692-1693 demonstrated that Christianity remained paranoid and vigilant against spellcraft in general and witchcraft in specific.



The Revival Period
During the 1850s-1950s, wtichcraft found its voice restored in the work of people like Charles Leland, Margaret Murray, and Gerald Gardner. The handful of witch families and covens that had survived the prosecutions had buried themselves deep and were not always appreciative of attention being cast their way. Many would outright deny their involvement in witchcraft and take drastic measures to protect themselves from disclosure. Others embraced the Revival and began to openly practice witchcraft and teach it to others.

Current Witchcraft Demographics
Throughout the 1950s-1990s, witchcraft spread rapidly. By 2011, 14% of Americans (nearly 36,000,000) in the G&G worldverse are considered to be members of a paganistic/witch-bsed religion. By comparison, 45% of Americans consider themselves Christian and 30% consider themselves atheist or agnostic whereas only 2% of the US population are Jewish and Muslim respectively. DOMO estimates that there are at least twice as many active witches than members of all the other conventions combined.

see also covens

see also grimoires

see also sabbats

see also witches and spirits

see also witch families