quotations about witches & witchcraft
All magic, all witchcraft, depends on the Devil, and is fundamentally evil.
MONTAGUE SUMMERS
Witchcraft and Black Magic
What happens when people start falling sick without any apparent cause for sickness? You kill a woman. Yes, you read that right. A sixty-three year-old woman, Purni Orang, living in Sonitpur district in Assam was stripped naked and beheaded by villagers because she was practicing witchcraft, which was spreading sickness. A local police officer, Samad Hussain, told a leading intentional news network channel that people in the district, 'blamed Purni Orang for their condition.' Seven people have been arrested over the death of Purni Orang, a mother of five children, who was accused of casting spells.... Belief in witchcraft remains widespread in tribal-dominated areas of India, where it is considered normal to kill the accused. The practice continues despite certain government efforts to enforce laws against killing people accused of witchcraft. This incident adds to the list of crimes against women, prevalent in the rural areas of the country, throwing light on the pressing need of equality for women and education for all.
AINEE NIZAMI
"A Woman Was Beheaded Yesterday For 'Witchcraft'. Is This Still the 21st Century?", iDIVA, July 22, 2015
Witchcraft was hung, in History,
But History and I
Find all the Witchcraft that we need
Around us, every Day
EMILY DICKINSON
The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Salem has become this ... Mecca for Wiccans, but no witches died here. Aside from Tituba, no one practiced anything like witchcraft near here in colonial times. It was a bunch of bored Puritans who thought killing their neighbors at the behest of teenage girls was a fine, Christian form of entertainment and land acquisition.
THOMM QUACKENBUSH
Pagan Standard Times: Essays on the Craft
Ideally, of course, there are no bystanders in a Wiccan circle. It's a coven, not a congregation. And certainly one doesn't make it very far in a training setting without engaging in acts of witchcraft, but is there a minimum? How much witchcraft is enough witchcraft to make you a witch? I mean, even I managed to play soccer once or twice, but it didn't undo all of the destructive not-soccer I was usually up to. I was a cautionary tale, not an athlete.
THORN MOONEY
"All Wiccans are witches, but some of us are bad at it", Patheos, January 21, 2016
Anything that you do not understand, you deem witchcraft!
ANDREA ZUVICH
The Stuart Vampire
Witchcraft is seeing a resurgence among queer-identified young people seeking a powerful identity that celebrates the freedom to choose who you are.
MOIRA DONOVAN
"How Witchcraft Is Empowering Queer and Trans Young People", Vice, August 14, 2015
Witches are moon-birds, Witches are the women of the false, beautiful moon.
AMY LOWELL
"Witch-Woman"
Witchcraft is all about living to the heights and depths of life as a way of worship.
LY DE ANGELES
Witchcraft: Theory and Practice
The major misconception about Witchcraft today is that Witches worship Satan, which is just not so. We do not believe in Satan. That is a Christian creation. We don't worship evil. Indeed, to give evil a name is not a real intelligent thing to do, because then you give it power.
SILVER RAVENWOLF
interview, The Edge, November 1, 1997
Maybe witchcraft, as so many of my traditional witch fellows insist, is in the blood, and the initiatory and training process only forces its development. Maybe we just have to trust that time will weed out those who really should have just remained outsiders. Maybe those of us in established witch traditions need to have tighter standards and higher expectations, particularly if we understand our tradition to be a priesthood and a calling rather than just one more feel-good, self-indulgent road on the map to personal self-discovery.
THORN MOONEY
"All Wiccans are witches, but some of us are bad at it", Patheos, January 21, 2016
I think witchcraft is making this unique resurgence in this sort of doomsday world we're currently living in.
PETER MERCURY
"A Night Among the Witches Fighting the Trump Administration", Slate, March 22, 2017
Witchcraft is the action by which you maximize what happens for your good and minimize what happens for your ill. The role of a witch is to always do the best they can in anything they do and emphasize the energy around them.
NICK KATSIKIS
"Contemporary witchcraft", The Temple News, October 27, 2015
The important thing is that as this is a modern religion, born in a modern Western country, it has the values of modern Westerners. The values of modern Westerners are individualism, freedom to practice as you choose, no authority above you, no official doctrine that forces you to stick to a certain way and very, very few moral mandates. The only moral mandate is harm nobody. Do what you want, but harm nobody.
KAINE FINI
"Wicca thrives in Orange County", Coast Report Online, April 4, 2017
Witchcraft is a way to spiritually support those around you ... and that includes women of color, poor women, sex workers, disabled women, and anyone else who needs help. Although being a witch may be "in style" right now, witches have historically always been persecuted and continue to carry that legacy. We must use our privilege of being able to practice freely to empower each other and ourselves. Here's to making magick together.
GABRIELA HERSTIK
"Ask A Witch: How Do Politics Inform Your Practice?", Nylon, March 24, 2017
Another theme unique to traditional witchcraft is the lore of the Witch Mark. This mysterious concept may have come from coerced testimony. However, a closer look reveals a deeper mythology with connections back to antiquity coming to be known as the Mark of Cain. The idea of an initiatory experience transforming one into something different, something other, is not new to human consciousness. In witch mythology the mark is transmitted from Cain, the first sorcerer, who was marked as other by God. It is seen as a spiritual fire that connects those of the Witchblood across time and space. The Mark is something that crosses the boundaries of all traditions, uniting those who seek a deeper truth. Individual spiritual growth is paramount to the witch, forging their own spiritual relationships while discovering for themselves the secrets of the Universe.
COBY MICHAEL SMITH
"A Traditional Witch's Love Affair With History", Patheos, March 22, 2017
The SA Law Reform Commission says these pastors tell congregants they have animals in their bellies, especially snakes, because of witches they do not identify. According to the commission, these charismatic churches promise to protect congregants from all forms of evil, including witchcraft. The commission has recommended that the government introduces a new law -- the Prohibition of Harmful Practices Associated with Witchcraft Beliefs Bill -- to stop people from being accused of being witches, prevent violence relating to witchcraft claims and criminalise witchcraft. In terms of the proposed new law, approaching a sangoma to declare someone else a witch will be punishable by up to five years' imprisonment.
LOYISO SIDIMBA
"A government commission has accused controversial churchmen -- pastors Paseka 'Mboro' Motsoeneng, Lesego Daniel and Chris Oyakhilome -- of reinforcing belief in witchcraft", Sowetan Live, January 30, 2016
Although the most acute judges of the witches and even the witches themselves, were convinced of the guilt of witchery, the guilt nevertheless was non-existent. It is thus with all guilt.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
The Portable Nietzsche
When I consider the Question, Whether there are such Persons in the World as those we call Witches? my Mind is divided between the two opposite Opinions; or rather (to speak my Thoughts freely) I believe in general that there is, and has been such a thing as Witchcraft; but at the same time can give no Credit to any Particular Instance of it.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, No. 117
It is an accurate statement that the followers of Witchcraft do not usually proselytize, which means you aren't going to find us standing on your local street corner thumping our Books of Shadows. Nor do you have to worry about jumping out of the shower to answer our serene and smiling faces at the door with your clothes stuck to various uncomfortable places on your wet body. But just because we (hopefully) aren't the forcible type doesn't mean we don't exist.
SILVER RAVENWOLF
To Ride a Silver Broomstick: New Generation Witchcraft