From time immemorial, man has always had a need to form groups and be interdependent on one another. The major source of man’s living and existence was by means of hunting animals and picking crops. Out of this ancient period came stories, myths, legends and folklores concerning witchcraft. This was particularly common among the roman and greeks. However, with time, they started distinguishing one form of sorcery from the other. One was named as good sorcery while the other was called evil sorcery. Evil sorcery in those days was punishable by the law. However, with the advent and proliferation of Christianity came the loss of distinction between the two groups. As far as Christians were concerned, all forms of sorcery was witchcraft.
This was the case until the sudden breakout in isolated occurrences of witchcraft accusations. These accusations were mostly directed at heretics as they were seen to reject the teachings of the church. Initially, these heretics were just excommunicated from the church. But with time, the church started seeking the means to quench all heretical voices. Thus began the long and torturous era of condemning the heretics by burning them up.
In 1200 AD, church leaders started a massive campaign to eliminate all forms of heresy from among the people. The initial ploy was to get them to get them to forcefully reject their beliefs and ideas and become christians again. Since many of them remained adamant, the church started an inquisition that saw to the convictions and death of all heretics. With time however, even secular courts joined in the execution and the term witches began to be officially and popularly used. These people were condemned to death because they were thought to participate in evil rites that included the obscene worship of the devil.
By the later part of the 1500s, the idea of witchcraft and witches was so ingrained in people, that the mere mention of it caused anxiety in people. During this same, period, the hunt for witches became large scale. This was instigated by the claims of two girls who made allegations of witchcraft against three women in Salem, Massachusetts. History has it that these girls had a fascination with secret occult rites and suddenly started acting strangely. They would scream while contorting their faces and body in a manner most horrible. Thus, the three women were arrested. This was followed by the arrests of over 150 people in total out of which 19 were killed by convicted of witchcraft and executed by hanging. This lasted for about a year after which all other suspects were freed.
Nothing was heard of witchcraft until the early 1950s when Gerald B. Gardner published books - Witchcraft Today (1954) and The Meaning of Witchcraft (1959) -about the ancient rituals of witchcraft. His books are today known as the foundation of modern day witchcraft religion and has continued to flourish in spite of the harsh criticisms of Gardner’s works from historians who claim his works were baseless given the fact that Margaret Murray’s theories –which initially influenced Gardner- on witches were flawed.
Witchcraft terminology
Although in Spanish the word is used sometimes to define a wizard, like synonymous of magician, regardless of the type of magic that practices, the most frequent use of the term (almost always in feminine) makes reference to the people who practice the black magic. Even within these, Expensive Julio Baroja proposes to differentiate between sorceresses and witches. First they would have developed its activity in a predominantly rural scope and would have been the main victims of the hunting’s of sorceresses in 1450-1750. However, the witches, met from the classic antiquity, are essentially urban personages: a characteristic example in Spanish Literature is the protagonist of the Celestine of Fernando de Rojas. Unlike the medical instructors of the cultured magic, that reached great development in the Renaissance, as much the rural sorceress as the urban Witch belonged generally to marginalized social classes, which made more vulnerable to the persecutions. One thinks that the arts of sorceresses and witches were transmitted orally of generation in generation.
In Latin, the sorceresses were denominated maleficae (singular maleficent), term that was used to designate them in Europe during all the Age Average and great part of the modern age. Approximately equivalent terms in other languages, although with different connotations, are English witch, the Hexe German and the French sorcière.
