Writings
Where I share my thoughts, experiences, and research regarding various spiritual paths and beliefs, practices, and tools. My goal is to provide resources for you to identify and deepen your own beliefs and practices for a satisfying, nourishing, and meaningful spiritual life.
What Exactly is Folk Witchcraft?
What exactly is folk witchcraft? How is it different from other types of witchcraft? Is it different from general magic? In this article I will try to answer these questions, and a few more.
Before you jump into this article, I recommend reading these first:
What exactly is folk witchcraft? How is it different from other types of witchcraft? Is it different from general magic? In this article I will try to answer these questions, and a few more.
Disclaimer: This article is specifically referring to traditional folk witchcraft inspired by pre-modern European folk culture. Pre-modern witchcraft is considered a parallel to an extant European shamanism (for lack of a better term). This is also a general article with broad definitions. If you’d like more details you can check out the resources I recommend at the end of this article.
The word witchcraft is just as overused as the word witch. Overusing a word without precise definition essentially renders it meaningless.
This ambiguity is an outcome of the pre-modern witch hunts performed by the Christian church. The Christian church was the first institution to say that any spiritual practices that were outside of their religion, were “witchcraft”. As a result, folk beliefs, customs, and practices were largely demonized.
However, there is a distinction between what a witch does, versus a general magical practitioner or observer of folk tradition.
In order to clearly define what folk witchcraft specifically is, we must articulate a few different things.
What makes something “folk”?
Folk is referring to the unprivileged common population of a culture. Folk do not have the education, financial means, or power of the elite ruling class. Historically, this rift in privilege meant that folk belief systems and customs were passed down orally in stories and through craft.
When we look at what makes something folk witchcraft, we are referring to this particular class of people and their culture. In my writings and teachings I take a broad approach to the folklore of Europe as a whole, rather than one culture. There was a symbiotic intermixing and mirroring between these cultures over time.
A member of the elite would have had more access to books and formal learning. That includes books on formal ceremonial systems of magic, alchemy, divination, and spirit conjuration (known as sorcery).
This was not readily accessible to the folk people. So their magical practices were more simple and direct. Their tools and ingredients were sourced from their immediate regional place that was directly accessible to them. These practices were encoded in the orally transmitted folk tales, crafts, and beliefs.
While these two classes of culture did influence one another, they also remained pretty distinct. The ruling elite were already greatly influnced by Christianity. Whereas, common folk tended to continue the pre-Christian beliefs of their ancestors. This created a fundamental difference in their ideas of the supernatural. Of course, this in turn impacted the approach each took when doing magic.
(Let me again state: this is a generalized article. There were variations in levels of education and privilege amongst pre-modern common folk, just as there is today. Especially from the mid 1600s onward. But, generally speaking, they were not educated in the same manner as the elite.)
Another great distinction to make is the general difference between folklore and mythology.
Folklore is a series of stories created by the common folk of a culture. They have some shared motifs and story lines, sometimes even shared characters. However, it is not necessarily organized. There is also great variation in the stories in each place the story is told. Until the 1800s, folklore was transmitted verbally. It was not written down or codified.
Mythology is an organized structure of stories, usually created for religious purposes. This organized structure is usually created by a ruling class of priests and/or academics. It is recorded for posterity in formal writing and iconography.
At some point it may have started with folklore, only to be codified into something more formal. And mythology can also have some localized variations of stories. However, overall it is a religious narrative that is formally codified for broader dissemination.
Folktales and customs did pass on beliefs and practices. However, it was never an organized institution of belief in the same manner as religion.
Religion is also a distinction of class. To codify and formalize a belief system for a large group of people requires resources and education. Religion is also utilized in class warfare. It is typical for popular religions to delegitimize alternative spiritual practices. This is precisely what the witch hunts did.
Mythology also tends to shift, via theocrasia, as empires change. Theocrasia is a fusion or mixture of different deities in the minds of worshipers. Theocrasia is a centuries-long practice observed cross-culturally as nations of powers shift and change.
Folk stories, beliefs, and customs existed because common people did not have the privilege of education or resources to formally codify their spiritual beliefs.
Today we have more education at our fingertips than the common people in the pre-modern era. Which means the idea of “folk” magic is different today than it was then. But that is also the nature of tradition. It changes with more knowledge and perspectives.
Folk customs are still practiced today, because there is still a distinction between the common folk and those who are privileged. It will always impact the way that magic and the supernatural is approached. Accessibility and resourcing will always impact our worldview, beliefs, and capabilities.
What is the Difference Between Magic and Witchcraft?
Today especially, most people don’t know the difference between magic and witchcraft. They consider them interchangeable.
However, we can start by pointing out that not just anyone is a witch. There is a specific process to become a witch. This process fundamentally changes a person. Which means their approach to the supernatural is, by default, different.
Yet, anyone can sit and learn a system of magic. There's no special prerequisite to learning magic. You just need dedication and practice.
But what exactly is magic?
Let’s start with a famous definition of magic given by Aleister Crowley: Magic is the art of causing change according to our will.
Modern magic especially seems to focus on utilizing personal power to create change. This could include healing, harming, increasing your wealth or resources, divining, and performing other acts of magical change.
There is a missing element to the modern definition of magic that was implicit in the pre-modern ideas of magic.
In pre-modern magic, one would usually at least petition (ritually ask) a spirit for assistance in making change happen in the world. This spirit could be an ancestor, a local land spirit, the fairy people, or, later on, even saints.
Witches more explicitly engage in spirit communication, spirit relationships, and spirit work as the central mechanism for their craft. A witch specifically must have some sort of spirit familiar in order to even be a witch. Witchcraft was centered around a form of ecstatic out-of-body experience.
Many modern academic studies of pre-modern European witchcraft assert that it was much like an extant fragment of shamanism (for lack of a better word). This is very different from a generalized magical system.
Previous to the witch hunts, spirit workers and magical practitioners did not use the word “witchcraft” to describe their craft. Instead they were cunning people, pellars, wise people, fairy doctors, sin eaters, and many other names.
The Christian church essentially lumped it all together to call any kind of spiritual relationships and practices outside of their approval “witchcraft”.
Other forms of magic utilize sorcerous techniques. Sorcerous techniques are a form of coercion to trick or force spirits to help a magician.
Witches generally worked with spirits who had consenting relationships with them (especially a witch’s familiar spirit). Witches, generally speaking, did not have to trick or coerce their spirit familiar to help them with their magic.
In conclusion, the difference between general magic and witchcraft, is the intensity and intimacy of the spirit work involved.
This is especially true for modern magic, since it often does not have an animistic cosmology or framework, and does not involve spirit work at all.
The other major difference is that anyone can learn and perform magic. But someone can only perform witchcraft by becoming a witch.
Putting Folk and Witchcraft Together
Using these general definitions, we could say the definition of folk witchcraft is the following:
A witch who performs folk magical practices.
They must have undergone the initiation to become a witch. They must have the ability to regularly engage in spirit flight. They must have a spirit familiar. They must have at least some kind of communication with spirits (particularly their spirit familiar).
What makes it “folk” is that it is informed and inspired by folk and fairy tales, beliefs, and practices. The folk and fairy tales contain encoded symbolism of initiation and occult meaning vital to the craft. The beliefs and practices are an outgrowth of that cosmology.
While some have practices based almost solely on modern reinterpretation of these older stories, I think that is shortchanging the art. Modern reinterpretation is usually misinformed regarding the original meanings of older folk and fairy tales, beliefs, and practices.
I find it exciting that we have a renaissance of revealing these older beliefs and meanings, so we can apply them to our practices today. The meanings are far more rich, and they also connect us back to our pre-modern European roots. As a practice is established with firm roots, we can then advance the art with greater power and skill.
Additional Sources Worth Checking Out:
The Wakeful World by Emma Restall Orr
Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade
Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbat by Carlo Ginzburg
Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby
The Visions of Isobel Gowdie by Emma Wilby
Traditional Witchcraft: A Book of Cornish Ways by Gemma Gary
Folk Witchcraft by Roger Horne
What is a Traditional Folk Witch?
Nowadays, the word witch seems to have lost its meaning because it is used for anything considered magical. Let’s fix that by clearly laying out how someone becomes a traditional folk witch, and what a witch does.
Before you jump into this article, I recommend reading these first:
Witch is a term that has evolved over time. Nowadays, the word witch seems to have lost its meaning because it is used for anything considered magical. Let’s fix that by clearly laying out how someone becomes a traditional folk witch, and what a witch does.
(If you want to know how people originally used the term and what they likely believed a witch was, please see my earlier article, A Brief History of Pre-Modern Witchcraft.)
Disclaimer: This article is specifically referring to traditional folk witchcraft inspired by pre-modern European folk culture. Pre-modern witchcraft is considered a parallel to an extant European shamanism (for lack of a better term). This is also a general article with broad definitions. If you’d like more details you can check out the resources I recommend at the end of this article.
First, know that the term witch is not particular to a gender. Witch was originally interchangeable with terms such as cunning people, wise people, sin eater, and fairy doctor, and many other names in pre-modern Europe. Their characteristics, talents, and spirit relationships all form a very broad framework for how one became a witch. In fact, their experiences broadly mirrored and paralleled one another.
Becoming Other
A person became a witch after a process of othering, usually through some sort of loss or extreme disempowerment that led to initiation and ecstatic experience.
The othering was a pairing of the:
Social - becoming a widow, painfully losing a beloved, becoming destitute and impoverished, going through extreme illness or a near death experience, occasionally just being born into being treated like an outsider, as a few examples. It is important to note that undergoing mundane trauma or feeling/being treated like an outsider alone was not enough to qualify one as a witch (otherwise the majority of the world would be considered a witch, and that historically, to the present day, is absolutely not the case).
Spiritual - usually there was a confusing and often painful ordeal experience in a meditative-sleep or trance state. This was the first experience of spirit flight to the Otherworlds. Typically this was induced by a spirit wanting to get the attention of the person, usually to start a close relationship with that person. That spirit would then become the person’s spirit familiar. All of this occurred in spirit flight (an alternative form of consciousness). The spirit was only visible or sensed by the witch, even after the initiation ended.
Spirit flight is a form of ecstatic out-of-body experience. It is described as the soul temporarily separating from the body. Usually this is done in a meditative-sleep state. In some places it has been achieved with mind-altering substances (such as the ancient Scythians and their smoke tents of cannabis).
Most spirit flight resulted in a visiting Otherworlds. These are worlds parallel but different to the corporal waking world of the witch. Time, distance, and many other things were different in the Otherworld. (We see this frequently in fairy tales, when someone visits fairy land for what seems like a only day. Yet, when they return to their normal world it’s been years.)
Witches taking spirit flight are either accompanied by a familiar spirit, or the familiar spirit would meet them in the Otherworld. A familiar spirit is a spirit that has an ongoing relationship with a person. That spirit is not part of that person, but is distinct from the person themselves. Some familiar spirits have a long term active relationship with a person. Others only have a temporary relationship with a person. Familiar spirits are distinguished from general spirits, in that they have a vested interest in being familiar (intimate, close) with a person.
Ordeal experiences are like challenging spiritual quests. For example, while in spirit flight someone has to journey through the Otherworld for years. (Remember that time, distance, and even physics are different in the Otherworlds.) During that journey, the initiate has to battle monsters. Or they become mortally injured. Or they are captured, having their bones removed and then replaced.
Ordeal experiences were not usually pleasant, and were often frightening and painful. And while this is "only" in an alternative spiritual world, it still has a profound affect on the person experiencing it.
Othering is a central part of the witchcraft initiation process. In order to regularly have contact with spirits and Otherworlds, one must have a body made for the work. The Otherworld is demanding and dangerous for the normal human body and mind to encounter on a regular basis. Othering is the process of gaining a witch's body, so as to be capable of frequent spirit interaction and Otherworld journeying. Vital skills and knowledge are also encoded and given to the witch through this process.
Initiation usually happens through multiple spirit flights or journeys to the Otherworld. Usually, a person undergoes this process spontaneously. A successful initiation was evidenced by the person returning with new skills, and/or their life changing in profoundly tangible ways.
Within fairy and folk tales we have many encoded specific details regarding this process. These details are mirrored by the initial testimonies in early witchcraft trials. This points to a practice that was long ingrained and encoded in these tales and their subsequent folk beliefs and practices. (I'll be writing more about this in the future!)
To that end, several people still undergo this process, but without the context for what it means or what to do. And this tends to wreak havoc on their lives in countless ways, at the very least.
An initiation that does not complete was linked to madness, physical illness, general life chaos, and more. (If you suspect this has happened to you, it is a good idea to seek professional spiritual help. You can contact me for recommendations.)
A witch may undergo many different initiations in their lifetime. They may also gain many different spirit familiars as time goes on. (We’ll talk more about spirit familiars in another article.)
Skills are Craft
Through the recently gained skill of regular spirit flight and communication, a witch is taught her craft. The spirit familiar teaches the witch how to utilized their newly gained supernatural skills. The spirit familiar also empowers their folk magic, gives them divinatory insight, and much more.
The skills a witch gains from initiation varies. Some become skilled in healing and knowledge of plants. Others are spirit mediators (the ability to see and communicate with spirits) for their community. Others work intimately with the dead and ancestors. Others become highly skilled in methods of divination and prophecy. Others become skilled in creating powerful charms and talismans. Most of them, if not all, develop highly effective folk magical skills to deal with the challenges of everyday life.
These skills are the craft of the witch, otherwise called witchcraft. The witch strives to improve and expand these skills as time goes on. Some skills are not spontaneously given to the witch, but something the witch is prompted by their spirit familiar to acquire. For example, they may not spontaneously know everything about plants. Instead they suddenly feel the urge to learn occult herbalism.
It’s important to know that you can study and learn folk magic, without going through the process of becoming a witch.
Many people throughout time have practiced folk magic who were not considered witches. For more on the difference between a general occultist (aka a magician or sorcerer) and a witch, check out the article I wrote here.
Historically, most people who became witches did not do it on purpose. It was a spontaneous process that happened due to a culmination of certain circumstances. Those circumstances varied based on the region and culture of that person.
The Pros and Cons of Becoming a Witch
The benefit of becoming a witch is an increase of personal power. As I stated in my earlier article on the fundamental beliefs of a traditional folk witch: power is morally ambivalent. It can be used for good or bad. Power is simply agency--choice and sovereignty. Power is the ability to act and create change as you desire or need. Whether that is morally good or bad is up to you.
During the development of traditional folk witchcraft, common people desperately needed more agency and sovereignty. They were not educated nor were they financially privileged. The governing system was designed to exploit them for labor and oppress them. Circumstantially, the common pre-modern people had many of the same challenges that we have today. Gaining more power was revolutionary to common people then, just as it is now.
On a less transactional note, even historic witches found their relationships with their spirit familiar to be profoundly important. Intimacy with the supernatural and the ability to have ecstatic experiences was highly prized. Today, I believe, people are looking for personal relationship with the divine and ecstatic experiences more than ever.
The downsides to becoming a witch is that by becoming othered, the witch is often treated like an outsider. What happens when your body and mind is fundamentally changed? What happens when you can see or sense things that others cannot in waking life? What happens if your dreams often come true, like prophecy? What happens when you have relationships with beings that no one else believes exist? What happens when you have skills that defy the rules of reality?
Many may come to you for assistance, but otherwise keep you at a distance. There is an inherent dual feeling of awe and fear for those who have direct connection to the spiritual world, or supernatural skills. It’s an almost instinctual reaction humans have to things they find different.
At the very least, witches profoundly feel different to those around them. How could they not? When you experience spiritual ecstasy and have intimate relationships with non-human spirits, relating to humans can be a challenge.
On top of it, there are often physical changes related to becoming a witch. One of the most common motifs of pre-modern witchcraft initiation is the replacement of bones while in spirit flight. While this was a spiritual experience during an altered form of consciousness, often the waking mundane world would parallel it. That person would need surgery for an injured limb, or would grow deadly sick. This fundamentally changed a person, as well as marking them as different to their community.
While this all may sound fantastical, many modern witches report similar experiences.
When someone is unaware of the meaning of this process, it is disorienting and scary. Well, to be fair, it can still be disorienting and scary even if you do know.
The Modern Folk Witch
Today people still spontaneously undergo this process, and others actively seek it out. There are many modern processes for inducing a spirit initiation. Within these modern lineages, you can attempt initiation with supervision and assistance. It's important to note that even if you go through all the steps of a human designed initiation, there is no guarantee it will work.
This makes sense when you consider the process I've just described. It's difficult, sometimes even dangerous, and has many risks. We all have spirit courts that are watching over our life and destiny. They will often protect you from undergoing such a risky process if it is not your path. And this path is not for everyone.
Before deciding to undergo witch initiation, I suggest reading some of the books I've listed in the recommended resources section at the end of this article. It's important that you are of sound body and mind before attempting witch initiation or spirit flight.
Becoming a witch is not for everyone, and that's okay! There are other magical spiritual paths to walk that do not require this difficult process.
For those who feel you may have already undergone this process spontaneously, I hope this article gives you reassurance. I went through initiation (involuntarily) several times from childhood to my mid-20s, without knowing what it was. It was terrifying and so lonely not to have any resources or peers to talk to. I've written these articles with my younger self in mind. If that's you, may this help you carve out your own crooked path with greater confidence.
Recommended Additional Sources:
Standing and Not Falling by Lee Morgan
Folk Witchcraft by Roger Horne
Traditional Witchcraft: A Book of Cornish Ways by Gemma Gary
Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg
Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade
Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages by Claude Lecouteux
Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Dead by Claude Lecouteux
The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of the Invisible Realms by Claude Lecouteux
Travels to the Otherworld and Other Fantastic Realms: Medieval Journeys into the Beyond by Claude Lecouteux
Between the Living and the Dead by Eva Pocs
The General Beliefs of Traditional Folk Witchcraft
Witchcraft is often confusing, simply because the beliefs and ideas behind it are not clearly defined. So, before we talk about what a witch is, I want to focus on the fundamental beliefs of traditional folk witchcraft.
Before you jump into this article, I recommend reading these first:
Witchcraft is often confusing, simply because the beliefs and ideas behind it are not clearly defined.
It’s also difficult because the modern Western world was shaped by imperializing Christian colonists. Today we vastly underestimate the influence that Christianity had (and still has) in shaping our contemporary overculture—whether it is the doctrine of Protestant work ethic (which is now refashioned into hustle culture), purity doctrines (which is utilized in wellness and new age spirituality spaces), the idea that we are very powerful or chosen and the world is ours to plunder, or the driving savior/villain narratives inherent in most modern story telling where morality is a binary black and white with no grey between.
Note: This is something I plan to address in an upcoming workshop, as decolonizing these ideas is a deep part of returning to an animist worldview, for any spiritual path—not just that of the witch.
However, in this article I want to focus on the fundamental decolonized beliefs of traditional folk witchcraft, using as little Christian diabolizing language and principles as possible.
This framework helps us understand what a witch is and how witchcraft is practiced. Below is what I understand from my own spirit communication, practices and experiences, and ongoing research.
I am not aiming to outline the beliefs of a specific region of folklore, but instead want to show the common and general tenants that emerge where different cultures intersect in the broad category of pre-modern European witchcraft.
These tenants are rarely ever explicitly stated in historical record. Instead they have to be extrapolated from the information available to us. Information on pre-modern (non-Christian) European folk beliefs is easier to find, as more microhistorians and anthropologists decode them.
Disclaimer: There is no completely accurate reconstruction of pre-modern beliefs and practices. While we continue to gain more information as time goes on, it is still fragmented.
The goal is not to recreate what happened previously, but to honor it with our modern witchcraft. This means that our practices are rooted in the fundamentals we can identify from the past. From there we continue to add to that framework within the context of our present location and time.
It's also important to know that witchcraft has always been a flexible practice. Historical witchcraft reveals surprising similarities and parallels between cultures. Yet, every practice is still unique to its place and time.
Setting the roots of our witchcraft in the past while also updating it for our present time and place, continues this tradition.
By following these basic principles, we can understand and draw inspiration from traditional folk beliefs for our modern witchcraft.
In no particular order:
The mundane and spiritual are intertwined and parallel, rather than distinct and separate. They interact with one another, affect one another, and change one another. It's important to see that our spiritual world is an active component of our mundane lives. For all intents and purposes, the world is spiritual.
The world is animate. Intelligence, sentience, and soul are not exclusive to only human beings. There are various layers of reality full of intelligence, soul, and specifically spirits that are both seen and unseen. Whether we are aware of it or not, we are constantly interacting with other living, sentient beings. By living in the world, we are constantly in active relationships with those beings.
Non-human spirits and beings are not inherently good or bad. Spirits are ambivalent with their own agency, personalities, beliefs, agendas, needs, and desires. We should learn to interact respectfully and thoughtfully with spirits. We should try to learn how to have safe relationships with consenting spirits.
Spirits have a direct impact on the human world. This is evidenced in natural and supernatural events. These events include: harvests, weather events, sexual fertility, sickness, good or bad luck, conflict in our lives or a lack thereof, experiences that cannot be explained mundanely, recurring nightmares or dreams, and much more.
Living in a spiritual world, it is our responsibility (and in our best interest) to be good neighbors and take care of our surroundings. To do this, we should learn or create customs to appease spirits, draw closer to spirits, or push spirits away. We should understand, respect, and steward our local place.
Folk stories, beliefs, and practices, are not outdated primitive superstitions. The tales are transmitters of important knowledge regarding initiation, belief, and practice. They also relay important regional knowledge for how to have a good relationship with the animistic world, and how to care for our physical world.
Regional location is the defining force of folk stories, beliefs, and practices. The land and its specific flora and fauna, particular cycles of weather and seasons, and its resident spirits are the first informants for this spiritual reality. When you have a deep understanding of a region, you can fully absorb and live the spiritual meaning of its folklore and traditions. This also pertains to celestial spirits, who communicate distinctly with people from different areas.
Each human contains a soul complex, which means a multiple-part soul. It's typical that there are 3 parts of the soul or more in various folk beliefs. Each different part of the soul have various manifestations, some of them physical and others non-physical.
The spirit of a human is capable of temporarily separating from the body. When doing so, this is called spirit flight, which is more broadly considered a form of spiritual ecstasy. (Should the spirit not return to the body, physical death of the body occurs. As far as whether the spirit itself dies or disappears depends on several factors.)
The world of our dreams and states of alternative consciousness are just as valid, important, and real as our waking lives. Paying attention to them is vital in folk witchcraft practice.
There are many worlds, which I refer to as Otherworlds, that intersect, interact, and run parallel to our material mundane world. Often we make contact with those worlds through spirit flight, in dreams, and in alternative states of consciousness.
Death is not the end of life, but rather the beginning of another way of being in a different layer of reality. Some of the dead have gone on to exist in Otherworlds. Some have remained close to our mundane waking world for various reasons. The most important part: the soul does not disappear into the void after the body has died, generally speaking (there may be some exceptions).
The general world/universe/layers of reality are impersonal, like an ecosystem. They are neither for or against you. They are not your candy machine, nor are they watching to see that you behave by some pre-existing moral code. Rather, this ecosystem runs on cause and effect, in an attempt to maintain equilibrium through deep time. We sometimes do not understand the methods of cause and effect, because we cannot fully fathom the complexity of this ecosystem.
There is no singular organized practice of witchcraft in history or at present. As Gemma Gary has written: “A traditional witch’s practice is born from their own response to the ways of their particular locality and landscape, and an individual's instinct, insight, inspiration, and creativity.” I would also add that it depends entirely on the spirits relationships of a practitioner. Where those spirits guide and teach you will be unique to you. This is demonstrated in historical record, as well as modern transmissions of personal practice.
Witches are morally ambivalent. This means they are neither purely good or purely bad. Historically, witches have always acted from what Morgan Daimler calls "situational ethics". This means that they choose the actions they take based on the situation and relationships at hand. If it made sense to help someone, they would. If someone tried to harm them, witches had no problem protecting or defending themselves. Some witches would also act to harm others, without being instigated first. This is why witches would be consulted for so many different needs in a community. They were also feared, as it was usually a very bad idea to screw over a witch.
Witches are mediators and agents of power. Historically, most people did not seek to become a witch. However, they benefited from the power that witchcraft and spirit communication gave to them.
Power is also morally ambivalent. It can be used for good or for bad. It depends on the choices we make. Power is simply agency--choice and sovereignty. Power is the ability to act and create change as you desire or need. Whether that is morally good or bad is up to you.
Witchcraft is just that: a craft. Craft is an action, something you do. It is an art that someone strives to improve over time. There are many people undergoing witch initiations who do not go on to perform the craft given to them. To not move forward with craft is harmful to a witch. It's like damming a very powerful river. It disrupts the wellbeing of a witch, as well as their mundane world. Our goal as witches should be to move forward in craft over time.
Witchcraft is historically not a formal organized practice. Until recently it was not a literal group practice either. Because of this, there is no defacto authority on witchcraft. There are facts about the history of witchcraft. (Which I try to share in the easiest to understand manner possible through these articles.) There are modern groups of witchcraft that have their own processes for initiation. But it is not necessary to join a group of witchcraft, unless you desire to follow their framework. The contemporary practice of witchcraft comes down to individual preference and experience.
Broadly speaking, pre-modern European witch initiation was spirit-induced. This means it was not governed or facilitated by human authority. Instead, it was induced by a spirit choosing to interact with a human being. Sometimes this was confirmed by another human at a later date. But most of the time it was a solo experience for the witch. The evidence that initiation was successful was whether a witch gained special skills, and/or their world changed in profoundly tangible ways.
If you prefer having a witchcraft that is rooted in the past through decoding the original beliefs of our pre-modern European ancestors, I hope to provide overviews and resources for you to track your own path. If nothing else, it may give an entirely new and enlightening perspective on what all those strange tales were secretly teaching, once upon a time.
Additional Sources Worth Checking Out:
The Wakeful World by Emma Restall Orr
Animism: Respecting the Living World by Graham Harvey
Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy by Mircea Eliade
Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbat by Carlo Ginzburg
The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth-Century Miller by Carlo Ginzburg
Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages by Claude Lecouteux
Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Dead by Claude Lecouteux
The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of the Invisible Realms by Claude Lecouteux
Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green
Between the Living and the Dead by Eva Pocs
Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby
Traditional Witchcraft: A Book of Cornish Ways by Gemma Gary
Folk Witchcraft by Roger Horne
Standing and Not Falling by Lee Morgan
A Brief History of Pre-Modern Witchcraft
To understand how witchcraft became what it is today, we must look back into the past, first. The beginning of our story starts with the emergence of the Christian church within local pre-modern cultures in Europe (1100 - 1700 AD).
To understand how witchcraft became what it is today, we must look back into the past, first. The beginning of our story starts with the emergence of the Christian church within local pre-modern cultures in Europe (1100 - 1700 AD).
To be clear, this is not an anti-Christian rant. This article is a brief history of the witch hunts committed by the Christian church. These historical events led to the modern idea of witchcraft and the use of the word "witch" today.
Outlining the factual history of something is not a form of disrespect or an attack on a belief. We all have a responsibility to know the history and heritage of our beliefs and practices, and it’s our choice what to make of it. If history offends you, I encourage you to leave my site.
This also lays the fundamental groundwork for what I personally believe and practice, which influences my writing on the topics of folk witchcraft.
As an article, this will be an intentionally brief overview of a complex part of history. If you want more detailed accounts, I recommend the pioneering work of microhistorians such as Carlo Ginzburg, Claude Lecouteux, Eva Pocs, and Emma Wilby (amongst others).
Up until the 1970s, most historians of the witchcraft trials took the stance that the trials were a result of religious superstition, mental illness, and a public need for a scapegoat when bad events happened (such as plagues) which could not be explained at the time.
Yet, this was only part of the story.
Let's go back… Back to the beginning…
Let’s go back to the pre-modern era of 1100 to 1700 AD in Europe. The Christian church is starting to spread in Europe because of the falling Roman Empire's conquests.
During that time, most Europeans were not familiar with Christianity, its morals, beliefs, or theology. In fact, a definitive Christian theology was still a work in progress. The development of Christian theology was actually partially driven by the conflicts the church faced from common folk beliefs.
Imagine for a moment what this was like. Christianity has deeply influenced Western culture, shaping the modern Western world in ways we may not fully realize.
But, at the beginning of the pre-modern era, none of this was present. As a new religion, Christianity was championed by the highly privileged who were educated, literate, and financially resourced.
Common people, aka folk people, did not have any of these luxuries. Folk people of Europe were not formally educated, let alone literate. They were also not financially secure, nor did they have much power or agency. More importantly, they did not know much about Christianity.
Instead, they had their own stories and beliefs. These were orally transmitted through generations and embedded into their culture of craftsmanship and farming.
The folk and fairy stories were bursting with magical and spiritual symbolism. They also encoded important animistic beliefs about their local place.
Amongst these common people there were specialists who dealt with this spectrum of interconnected spiritual-mundane life. Someone became a specialist through visionary experiences while in spirit flight, a type of ecstatic meditative sleep.
During their spirit flight, they would visit Otherworlds and meet spirits. They would then form relationships with these spirits (become "familiar" with them). Spirit flight facilitated the spontaneous development of magical skills. Relationships with spirits trained and empowered the practitioner in their magic. Folk and fairy tales are encoded with these beliefs and practices.
The complex ceremonial sorcery and magic in books accessible to the privileged elite, such as the clergy of the church, had little in common with these practices. In fact, many scholars assert that the spiritual folk customs of pre-modern people are remnants of European shamanism (or something similar).
At this time the common (non-Christian) belief was that there were countless wide variety of spirits. The belief and propitiation of land spirits, fairy folk, and ancestors was common practice. The mundane and spiritual were intertwined and parallel rather than distinct and separate. The world was living and it was important to learn the best way to interact with it. Even the soul had many different parts and could separate and then return to the body.
The practitioners who acted as spiritual mediators for the community went by many names: benandanti, cunning people, fairy doctors, pellars, wise people, and more.
Why would someone not call themselves a witch?
The pre-Christian idea of the witch seems to be a supernatural entity, sometimes the unwell dead, trying to undermine society through spiritual means. This is evident not only in early witch trial records, but also in folk and fairy tales. Very rarely is a human person a witch--it is instead a supernatural spirit of some sort. So it wouldn’t be a name people voluntarily called themselves.
Many of the practitioners accused of witchcraft would state in their initial unmanipulated testimonials that much of what they did was to protect the community from witches. (For example, the benandanti were spiritual mediators who battled in spirit flight against witches for a good harvest every year.)
It was not until the late 1600s that church indoctrination had saturated common culture enough for people to voluntarily use the term "witch" for themselves. (For an example of how this occurred in society, I recommend the book The Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg.)
This gives us the lens which the common folk people saw the world and responded to it. It also begins to explain the reason the church was in continual conflict with the common people throughout the pre-modern period.
Much of the common folk beliefs contradicted the authority of the church. Then again, in order to be considered an authority the common people would have to understand the theology of the church, at all.
The Struggles of the Early Church
From the beginning the church's prime focus was the state of the soul and what happened to it after death. The Christian concept of the soul was contradictory to the widely accepted folk belief of the soul. And the Christian concept of death was contradictory to the widely accepted folk belief of death.
These folk beliefs had been around a lot longer than the newly introduced Christian church. Passed down from generation to generation. This spelled a recipe for conflict. And it was because of the ongoing conflict with folk beliefs that the church began to fully flesh out it's theology.
A few examples of how this ended up shaping Christian theology:
There was a long extant cult of the dead and ancestral veneration throughout Europe. Even the newly educated clergy had concerns regarding the dead that the church failed to address. In response to this spiritual service gap, the 12th century church created the concept of purgatory and performing Mass for the dead.
A more commonly known example is how the church created saints. They were originally folk spirits and gods that were relative to their local areas. The church absorbed them into itself to create canonical saints. They also often built their churches around the places of power associated with these old spirits and Gods. And of course they rewrote the related folk stories through the Christian lens. (This is highly prevalent in the country I live in: Ireland.)
Another issues is that the early church didn't really address earthly and material matters. At the time, it was actually considered heretical to pray to God, Jesus, Mary, saints, or angels for earthly matters. However, everyone, including the wealthy, had everyday worries that required regular assistance.
It was typical belief (even in the church) that illness was not merely physical, but also spiritual. Common folk could not afford to pay for the medical doctors of their time. So they would go to a cunning person to not only receive herbal cures, but spiritual remedies as well.
A pressing concern was when objects went missing. The harsh conditions of the pre-modern era meant that when your plow disappeared you might starve. In most cases it was too costly to merely replace the object. Unfortunately, the local constables did not normally assist people who lacked money or power. As a result, common people would ask a cunning person to help them locate and regain the lost object through divination and magic.
Some other examples include: accidentally disturbing local spirits, being plagued by the remnant dead, a desire to know the future, the desire to gain someone's love, wanting to know if your partner was cheating, punishing those who screwed you over, needing a better crop or harvest, getting your cow to produce more milk, diagnosing and curing the sickness of your farm animals, and much more.
These were things the church either did not address or outright condemned. But they were the concerns of most people, the common and nobility alike... and they weren't going away anytime soon. So, people kept relying on their traditional customs and spiritual mediators for these challenges.
Laying the Groundwork for Persecution
Leading up to the witch hunts in Europe there were a few defining events that would set the tone going forward.
An example of one, is that there was a shared conspiracy between the church and local governments. They believed that lepers who were supposedly sponsored or led by the Jews, who were in turn supposedly sponsored and led by the Muslims, were attempting to poison the water. In doing so, they hoped to effectively cause the entire population to become ill. This would allow the lepers, Jews, and Muslims to step into positions of power and destroy the Christian church.
Some of this conspiracy was a money grab both on the church and local governments part. In the 1300s there was a significant famine. During that time the Jews became financially powerful as creditors and money lenders. The church hoped to disrupt the Jewish credit monopoly for their own gain. The local governments hoped to take the craft items made by the lepers for their own gain.
This conspiracy that the lepers, Jews, and (by proxy) Muslims were trying to disempower European society became known by the common population. Shortly after there was an outbreak of a plague-like disease. The disease was killing everyone, including the lepers and Jews. Because everyone knew about the conspiracy, the lepers and Jews got blamed. As a result, the locals circumvented the authority of the government and church, and held pogroms where they burned groups of lepers and Jews alive.
(This is a super condensed summary. For a detailed account, I recommend the book Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches Sabbat by Carlo Ginzburg.)
This event, and others, set a dangerous precedent leading to the witch hunts. The local government and the church thought that people who weren't Christians were plotting against Christian society. When regular people heard these stories from others, they started to blame and harm innocent people whenever something bad happened that they could not explain.
Vitriol against Jews in particular fueled what became a doctrinal framework for the witch hunts. As far back as the time of the early Egyptians there was written antisemitic propaganda. The literate elite of the church republished and spread this amongst their clergy.
This propaganda stated that Jews were shapeshifters who sucked the life out of people, desecrated the sacred host and decried baptism, engaged in blood drinking and cannibalism (especially of babies), had unholy congress (sex) with the devil, committed incest, bestiality, and pedophilia… Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
Between this antisemitic propaganda and the interactions of the church with local folk beliefs, the witch hunt doctrine emerged.
Double Double Toil and trouble
The church began to assert there was an organized conspiracy of witches.
The definition of witch changed from what the common people believed (see above). The church said anyone who practiced non-Christian beliefs or spirit communication was a witch. If a spirit wasn't approved by the church, it was seen as a demon from the devil. According to the church, witches made pacts with these demonic familiar spirits and attend group Sabbats.
These Sabbats included cannibalism, bestiality, sex with the devil, desecrating the sacred host, and worse. This was allegedly an attempt to overthrow and destroy Christian society. The Christian church was very focused on proving that the Sabbat were meetings where witches gathered in person and performed these diabolical deeds.
This is very particular wording and differences in belief to pay close attention to.
As stated earlier, the regular people accused of being witches didn't know the church's definition of witchcraft. Regular folk didn't call themselves witches until the late 1600s, after church indoctrination was common knowledge. They instead called themselves cunning people, fairy doctors, wise people, sin eaters, and other names.
Common folk also did not use the specific word “pact”. Establishing that a perpetrator had a pact with the devil was key to the church's ability to persecute someone. If they could confirm that someone had entered a voluntary agreement with a non-Christian spirit, that basically made the entire case. So any implied agreement between a person and a non-Christian spirit was labeled as a pact.
For example, if you met a spirit while in spirit flight and they asked you to trust it and you said yes, that was considered an explicit agreement. That explicit agreement in turn meant that you had sold your soul to the devil, according to the church.
This was a slippery slope. The belief in land spirits, fairy folk, and ancestors were widespread amongst the common population. More importantly, the uneducated did not know the church considered all of it to be devilry.
When the church became aware of folk stories regarding being taken away to Otherworlds to dance and feast, this cemented their idea of the witches Sabbat. In folk and fairy tales it is common that people are whisked away to Otherworlds to dance and feast. This iconography was also a commonly described experience when someone had taken spirit flight. As the church became aware of these beliefs and ideas, they folded it into their idea of the witches Sabbat.
Going to an Otherworld and feasting with spirits becomes unholy communion with the devil. Dancing in the Otherworld is conflated with blood-bath orgies with the devil. Eventually the church had twisted many fairytale motifs into diabolical meetings with the devil.
(For a book on how fairy beliefs were turned into theological demonology, I recommend Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green.)
At one point this causes such a craze within the church that they attempt to outlaw almost any revelry whatsoever, in daily life. You can imagine how well that was accepted by the population.
The Order of a Witch Trial
The usual order of events for someone being put on trial as a witch, were the following:
First, someone would become upset with or scared of a local practitioner and report it to their local government or church. Typically the church would call that person in for interrogation.
Interrogation would usually start unmanipulated. There was no violence or coercion. Instead the accused witch would be asked to describe the work they do in their own words. Little did they know that this was a trap. Because their beliefs were not the same as the church, and they did not know that. (It is from these initial confessions that we gather a surprisingly consistent framework for pre-modern folk witchcraft, especially given it's individual and unorganized nature.)
The next stage of interrogation was the church taking the initial confession and asking leading questions. These questions were designed to entrap the accused within the framework and language of the Sabbat the church had created (see description above).
If they couldn't confuse someone into confessing the diabolical things described by the church, they would torture them. The accused would eventually change their story. The accused would inevitably match the blueprint narrative and specific language of the church. Or die.
Depending on the area this was taking place in, a prosecuted witch might go to jail for a period of time. Or they might die in some horrendous fashion, such as burning at the stake.
Despite their great efforts to prove there was an organized witch cult working to undermine the church, there was never any substantial evidence to prove it.
The initial uncoerced testimonies explicitly describe a state of spirit flight or spirit communication that is non-corporeal. In this spirit flight the accused may gather with other disembodied practitioners or spirits in an Otherworld. But this was never in physical reality. There were never any confirmed in-person gatherings of witches. And there certainly was never an organized effort to destroy Christian society.
By the mid 1600s into the 1700s the testimonies of the accused changed. The church had effectively disseminated its doctrine of witchcraft to scare the population. Suddenly the accused are openly and immediately using the language of the accuser from the beginning of the interrogation process. One of the best examples of this is Isobel Gowdie. (You can read her detailed confessions in the book The Visions of Isobel Gowdie by Emma Wilby.)
However, it's important to note that for the grand majority of uncoerced testimonials, the accused rarely used the language of the church. The common people simply do not use the wording related to devilry, pacts, or Sabbats. By communicating their actual beliefs in their own words, this puts them at a distinct disadvantage when trying to prove their innocence.
The Final Nail in the Coffin
As the Enlightenment unfolds (1700s to 1800s) the church changes its approach to witchcraft. At this point they have accomplished what they set out to do. The beliefs and practices of common people have relegated itself to hiding in the shadows. The overwhelming majority of the population takes on the beliefs and customs of the church. The church effectively undermined and delegitimazed folk beliefs and customs throughout Europe.
Instead of continuing to pursue witches violently, they take a new approach to delegitimizing and stigmatizing folk practices. They begin to say that people who claim to have a witchcraft practice are mentally ill and need help. Which is certainly an effective way to destroy non-Christian beliefs.
Sadly, academics in the 1800s and 1900s who began to study the witch hunts took up this same perspective. This is why witch hunts are still widely described as the church's "uneducated" response to mentally ill people (as one example).
This completely ignores and erases the rich consistency of belief and practice described in non-coerced witch testimonials. It also fails to connect the dots between the folk stories and beliefs of a people with their actual practice. But it’s also par for the course as it pertains to the early studies of non-dominant belief systems.
Thankfully, Carlo Ginzburg pioneered a new academic approach to the topic in the 1960s. This is what has allowed the flourishing niche of witchcraft microhistory. It's also what has given the understanding that my (and your) non-Christian ancestors deserve.
It is a revival that empowers us to study, understand, and find connection with the experiences, beliefs, and practices of our pre-modern European ancestors.
What is in the word Witch?
To conclude: the witch hunts were essentially a war of differing belief cultures between the educated and resourced elite church, and the culture of the uneducated and poorly resourced common European people. The intensity of this war varied based on the given area and the zealousness of the clergy in that area.
The result of this war was an iconography and vocabulary of diabolical activity for anyone practicing folk beliefs or honoring folk customs outside of the approval of Christian theology. Today this practice and belief system is simply called witchcraft.
It also resulted in many versions of a “dual faith” and folk Christianity. This is a synthesis of folk belief and customs with Christian saint veneration found throughout Europe (and many other places).
(My articles won't focus on folk Christianity or saint veneration, as they're not part of my practice.)
Words are like myths. They are promiscuous. They change with time and use and context, not to mention dominate culture and the way it molds our language like clay.
I don't think we can or should avoid using the word "witch" today. It has changed meaning and the charge it carries; and yet it also has not. This paradox in itself is powerful.
However, I still believe that it is otherwise important to separate witchcraft from the language of it's oppressors.
In this article I specifically define what made someone a witch, based on the many unaltered un-Christianized initial testimonies that pre-modern people recorded during the witch trials. They were surprisingly consistent across regions and time, though details may vary. Today, some modern people today describe the same experiences in their own life (Lee Morgan’s book, Deed Without a Name provides some modern examples).
In these two other articles I specifically define what differentiates a witch from other occult practitioners:
Recommended Additional Sources:
Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches’ Sabbath by Carlo Ginzburg
Night Battles: Witchcraft and Agrarian Cults in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries by Carlo Ginzburg
The Visions of Isobel Gowdie by Emma Wilby
Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits by Emma Wilby
Elf Queens and Holy Friars: Fairy Beliefs and the Medieval Church by Richard Firth Green
Witches, Werewolves, and Fairies: Shapeshifters and Astral Doubles in the Middle Ages by Claude Lecouteux
Phantom Armies of the Night: The Wild Hunt and the Ghostly Processions of the Dead by Claude Lecouteux
The Hidden History of Elves and Dwarfs: Avatars of the Invisible Realms by Claude Lecouteux
Demons and Spirits of the Land: Ancestral Lore and Practices by Claude Lecouteux
The Tradition of Household Spirits: Ancestral Lore and Practices by Claude Lecouteux
Return of the Dead: Ghosts, Ancestors, and the Transparent Veil of the Pagan Mind by Claude Lecouteux
Travels to the Otherworld and Other Fantastic Realms: Medieval Journeys into the Beyond by Claude Lecouteux
Between the Living and the Dead by Eva Pocs
Fairies and Witches at the Boundary of South Eastern and Central Europe by Eva Pocs
Before You Start - Folk Witchcraft edition
This FAQ is by no means an exhaustive exploration of the idea of the Witch or Witchcraft. This is my personal perspective, based on research with the specific intent of untangling pre-modern European supernatural folk and witch beliefs and practices from the heavy handed cover job of colonizing Christian theology.
This FAQ is by no means an exhaustive exploration of the idea of the Witch or Witchcraft.
This is my personal perspective, based on research with the specific intent of untangling pre-modern European supernatural folk and witch beliefs and practices from the heavy handed cover job of colonizing Christian theology.
Within this perspective, a witch has a specific definition that differentiates them from other occultists. It also greatly simplifies the practices and clarifies the beliefs behind such a person and their part in the wider spiritual world.
The language of the Christian church was absorbed into popular culture and utilized by some modern practitioners of the witch’s art.
I do my best to not utilize that language or practices heavily influenced by the church. I find absorbing the violently forced assimilation of Christian ideas that killed thousands of people accused of being a witch throughout the whole of Europe to be distasteful… but also, missing the point.
Why would it be our goal to take up the “diabolism” that Christianity painted on thousands of people so that they could justify their deaths?
My goal is not to invalidate other modern forms of witchcraft and definitions of the witch, but instead to share history both of the past and of the present moment. This was a vital guidepost and foundation on my winding journey to fleshing out what I personally have embraced after much consideration, spirit communication, practice, and personal experience.
A wild witchcraft that returns to its animistic roots, telluric connection to natural cycles and forces, forgoes the costumery forcefully imposed by the Christian church, and returns to spirit relationship as a primary vehicle for ecstasy and empowerment.
