The History of Witchcraft

I always hate this topic. I’ve read many, many accounts of Magic’s history, and I’ve yet to find one that matches another. I especially dislike our history as told by Paganism’s own kind. Most of it is incredibly Anti-Christian and prejudiced.

I remember very vividly when I was 18, and I had just started college. I had read somewhere (I cannot now remember where), the reason the Bubonic Plague had so stricken Europe was as a result of the Church, during the Witch Hunts and Inquisition, killing off so many dogs and cats, believing them to be Witch’s familiars. The rat population consequentially rose and spread the disease. I repeated this particular piece of garbage in front of a campus gathering of Pagans I had joined. Their shocked faces silenced me for the rest of the night. I have never felt so grossly ignorant in my life.

EVERYONE has killed someone else in the name of religion.

NO culture is exempt from that. Be it Norse, Egyptian, Jewish, or Christian.

We have to stop blaming current cultures and peoples for things done in their ancestors’ past. There is no reason why a Christian today should be blamed for something that happened over 7 centuries ago.

*Gets off soap box*

So I beg all of you, take our history with a tablespoon of salt. I will not post an actual history here, as I do not know it, but I will be looking for reputable books that may help and linking them. Keep checking back.

– Alfrún

What is Paganism?

What is Paganism?

Defined as:

– a religion that has many gods or goddesses, considers the earth holy, and does not have a central authority. (Merriam-Webster)

– a member of a religious, spiritual, or cultural community based on the worship of nature or the earth; a neopagan. (Dictionary.com)

– Paganism is a broad group of religions, including modern pagan religions, indigenous religions and historical polytheistic religions. Modern knowledge of old pagan religions comes from several sources, including: anthropological field research records, the evidence of archaeological artifacts, and the historical accounts of ancient writers regarding cultures known to the classical world. Paganism is often taken to exclude monotheism, and to express a worldview that is pantheistic, polytheistic, and/or animistic. In a wider sense, paganism has also been understood to include any non-Abrahamic, folk, or ethnic religion. (Wikipedia)

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