#witchcraft history

[banecraft]

Remember when historian Diane Purkiss chose violence? 🤣

“In this essay, I will show that medieval and early modern witchcraft was for the most part not a pagan practice, but a dissident form of Christianity. I will also argue that modern pagans and modern witches are themselves products of the very globalized, commercial, urban and anywhere culture which they set out to resist.”

[lunasapphire]

Know The Difference✨

[coinandcandle]

Coin's Research Tips

As you may know, I do a lot of research for my posts, to the point of adding references and citations. So I know very well that occult and witchy history is murky at best and full of nazis at worst. Here are some tips I've come up with for those of you who want to do your own research.

Cross-reference. Especially when you're looking into something that isn't widely accepted as fact or truth. For example, correspondences vary by region and culture, but a lot of times you'll be able to find similarities in the meanings of correspondences by looking at multiple sources. Cross-referencing also helps keep biases in check!

Use Wikipedia as a starting point. High School may have scared you away from using Wiki as a source, but it can be really helpful! Go to the citations and reference sections at the bottom of the pages and you'll see a few, and sometimes a lot, of references that you can go off to read!

Check for references and citations, and then check those references and citations. There can be dozens of links in someone's reference section or on their blog, but if none of them are valid or have any historical relevance to the post, then they're useless.

Look for reputable sites. These are often sites created by experts or consult experts. (Check below for resources)

Look into the author. Sadly the occult has a long history of bigots weaseling their way in, be sure you know who you're reading from.

Know that researching a bad person and why they're bad is not a bad thing and you are not bad for doing it.

Look for credentials. Why should you believe this author? What cultures and circles are they a part of? Are they academics, scholars, or historians? Find the credentials needed for whatever you're researching.

Fact check. Especially if it's your first time seeing the statement somewhere, see if there are other credible sources that back this statement up.

Ask for references. This really only goes for blogs or social media. No one who researches and writes about it should be offended by you asking for references.

Ask around. If you're looking into something but don't know where to start, ask your witchy friends! You can also send me an ask and I'll do my best to send you resources if I can find them.

Talk to people who actually practice what you're looking into. If you're researching a culture or practice, talk to practitioners and see what they have to say before proceeding further.

This doesn't just go for those of us that love research, at some point in everyone's path, they will stumble across something that needs to be looked into. You can also use these tips for casual research!

Here are a few of my favorite resources:

Sacred-texts.org

Your local library

worldhistory.org

@s-n-arly shared a list in this post of useful research sites such as:

refseek.com

worldcat.org

linkspringer.com

base-search.net

pdfdrive.com

If you're a person who also loves to research witchcraft and the occult, please add your favorite sources and tips in a comment or reblog!

Enjoy my posts? Consider leaving me a tip on my ko-fi!~

[cosmicvenusnebula]

I need trustworthy resources to study the history of witchcraft please

[dutchpagan]

New brainfood! I updated my Thimsternisse-website with 19th century Dutch folklore about witchcraf

Witchcraft and magic in Northwest Europe | thimsternisse

[artschoolglasses]

Continuing with posting about what I'm reading so I feel pressure to actually finish things...

We’re moving on from The Vikings to Popular Magic: Cunning-Folk in English History, by Owen Davies. Annoyingly difficult topic to find an affordable book on, by the way. Cunning folk are typically only a footnote in books on the history of witchcraft and witch trials, so this was a nice Christmas gift.

[nexusofsorcery]

From The Depths: The Enchanting Secrets of Sea Witches

What are Sea Witches? Sea witches are mystical beings who have a deep connection to the sea and its elements. They are often depicted as powerful sorceresses who possess magical abilities related to water, storms, and marine life. Sea witches are believed to harness the energy of the ocean to cast spells, perform rituals, and communicate with sea creatures. They are known for their knowledge of…

[nbwitzler]

Who Was The Goddess? Or Goddess Who?  Part 3: Hecate

A goddess, probably Hecate (possibly Artemis), is depicted with a bow, a dog and twin torches.

Hi there! I'm back today with another post from the series " Who Was The Goddess? Or Goddess Who?", this series where I analyze the mythology of the Furious Hord and try to find out who was its leader and if she had any relation with the persecutions against witchcraft in the Middle and Modern Ages. And today I'm going to talk about a character that is well known: the goddess Hecate!

Hecate durig the Ancient Times 

 She was a goddess possibly of Middle Eastern origin, but her most widespread and worshipped version is that of the ancient Greeks, and later, of course, she was also worshipped by the Romans. And for being a very old goddess, she ended up going through some transformations throughout her history and also depending on the region where she was worshipped. According to archeological studies, everything indicates that at the beginning, she was a goddess related to the earth, the sea and the skies. Hecate, therefore, will always be closer to Artemis - both related to wild nature, beasts, fertility, and uncivilized (in the sense of unmodified by man) places.

A goddess, probably Hecate (possibly Artemis), is depicted with a bow, a dog and twin torches.

In the "Homeric Hymn to Demeter" from around 610 BC, Hacate appears as the only goddess who helps Demeter find her daughter Persephone in the Underworld. She did this by carrying torches to light the way to Hades. Because of this, Hecate became Persephone's guide every year, when the goddess returns to her May in the spring and returns to Hades in the winter. Therefore, not only did the lit torch become one of the symbols of Hecate, but it also became associated with the attribute of the key, the one that opens and leads the way, the intermediary between the spaces (physical and supernatural).

Hecate battles Clytius next to Artemis, Gigantomachy frieze, Pergamon Altar, Pergamon Museum, Berlin.

 That is why it was also very common to find monuments and offerings to her at crossroads. Because of this association with the underworld, she also became associated with magic and witchcraft. If Artemis/Diana was associated with bright, full moon nights, favorable for hunting, Hecate was associated with the new moon and the darkest nights. She also came to be associated with the manipulation of herbs both to make medicines and poisons, and there she was also related to the god Helios, the Sun. The great sorceresses descended from Helios, Medea and Circe, had learned to manipulate herbs from Hecate. Although she inhabited the nether world and was sometimes represented as being able to raise the souls of the dead by making a procession of souls, she was also associated, like Artemis, as the protector of childbirth and babies. It is because of this mobility between life and death that she is often shown as a triple goddess, that is, a three-faced entity. 

Gilt bronze Hekataion, 1st century CE. Musei Capitolini, Rome.

In her earliest iconography she is sometimes alone on a throne, but in later Greek images she already appears in her triple form, holding a torch, a key, a dagger, all three supported on a pillar, representing the crossroads, that is, each one looking at a different path. It is common for her to be surrounded by some animals, like snakes, birds, horses, but the animal that was really related to her were the black dogs. Although Hecate is considered a moon goddess, she was never depicted together with the moon. So if you see a statue or image of a goddess with a moon diadem, she is the other face of the satelite: Artemis and then Diana.

Hecate During the Meddle Ages   

According to historian Ronald Hutton, it is very tempting to place Hecate as the leader of the Furious Hord: she was a goddess related to witchcraft and ghosts, since she was one of the guides of souls to the land of the dead and also the opposite way, she carried to earth the souls of babies that were born. Her triform image, sometimes representing 3 different goddesses: Hecate, Artemis and Persephone, or else Hecate, Artemis and Luna (all related to the moon and the underworld); or else 3 faces of the same goddess Hecate: either representing the agricultural division or even the phases of women.  But for Hutton, Hecate was never depicted as a leader of spirit processions, and this also never appears in her iconography, i.e. in paintings or statues. The Furious Hord was a Germanic myth, and therefore we should look for some goddess who was more popular in that region than the Greek and Roman gods. 

Please check out Hutton’s wonderfull book The Wich, it is one of the bases for my researchs! 

But I wanted to show here some possibilities of a relationship with Hecate not in the Furious Hord, but in another region that from very ancient times was already well known to the Greeks: the Iberian Peninsula! And at the same time, to show how difficult it is to come to a definite conclusion when it comes to the survivals of any kind of belief.

So first; we do find references to the goddess Hecate in medieval and Renaissance texts, and perhaps the most famous of these is the goddess' appearance in Shakespeare's Macbeth. But when we look at religious texts or at legal cases against witchcraft and sorcery, the goddess is curiously absent. When they mention some pagan goddess, it is always Diana (which I even have posts about Diana here, so if you haven't seen it, go back to the feed and check it out). But then there is a doubt: did these writers know Hecate because they were erudite and studied Greek mythology but then when people went to watch the plays nobody understood who that person was but they just kept watching, or did they put these characters in the plays because they knew the audience knew them and they knew there would be an identification?

Macbeth meets the Three Witches, by John Boydell, 18th century

Another crucial aspect of the goddess are the crossroads. All over Spain, but mainly in Valencia, Catalonia, Castilla and Galicia, it is very common to see the Crosses of Ends (Cruces de Términos), these crosses here on the edge of a road or a crossroads, which were used to mark the way to a city or a pilgrimage, or the limit of a city. But there are researchers who say that they are there for a somewhat magical and macabre purpose. On the magical side, until the Middle Ages crossroads continued to serve as a place where people left offerings or made sacrifices and/or penances in search of some gift, luck, or to be healthy. On the more macabre side, in ancient times the crossroads could be used both to bury people because of their proximity to the other world, but they could also serve as a place to execute criminals for the same reason. And in the Middle Ages, this relationship continued.

Pairón in Torrubia, Guadalajara, Spain. 

In Valencia, the Almassera cross, for example, is where the gallows were also placed. 

Cruz de Almàssera, Valencia, Spain

In 1252, King Alfonso X the Wise forbade Jews, Moors, heretics and criminals to be buried in Christian cemeteries, so these crosses sometimes served as burial places.  

If you are just like me and like to take a look at the characters even knowing that medieval ppictures are not the most acurated of them all, here it is! (And totaly unrelated, but if you like medieval chants and music, please check out those “Cantigas de Santa Maria”, one of the greatest musical productions of the Medieval Europe! Alfonso X the Wise and collaborators. Miniature of the Cantigas de Santa María.

The purpose of the crosses seems to be, besides indicating a path, to sacralize a marginal terrain. They would serve to prevent the departed soul from wandering among the living, so the cross would serve to mark that place as a consecrated resting place in some way. AND WHO WAS THE GODDESS OF THE CROSSROADS AND OF THE PATHS BETWEEN HERE AND THE OTHER SIDE? WHO WHO????

 AAAHHH, so does that mean that this is proof that the cult of the goddess Hecate survived into the Middle Ages by means of the crossroads? Not exactly. As I said, this belief of the crossroads as a communication with the other side is very old and it is possible that when the Greeks, and then the Romans, arrived in Spain, they found beliefs and rituals of the Iberian Celts or the Galicians that were similar to theirs, and they ended up relating these places to places of worship of the goddess Hecate and sometimes also to the god Mercury, since he was the god of travelers. 

Andrea Alciato's Liber Emblematum/Kunstbuch,Frankfurt am Main, 1566/67 Liber emblematum ... Kunstbuch* (1567), Franckfurt am Main

And then when Christianity arrived, it didn't destroy these rituals, it just modified and transformed them into something Christian. So the idea is that first there was a statue for a goddess, let's say a Celtic goddess, then there was a statue for Hecate, and now we have a cross with the image of the Virgin Mary. By the way, if there is any procession of the dead led by a "goddess" that has survived until today, it is the Holy Campaign  (Santa Campana/Campanha), a retinue of spirits of the dead that travels all over Spain, Portugal (and Brazil, of course) often led by a kind of a "goddess" - the Virgin Mary herself (but this is subject for another post). 

A Santa Compaña. Camilo Díaz Baliño. 1919.

Not surprisingly, the image that appears most often on those crosses of the Termino I just mentioned is that of the Virgin. It is she who now guides the souls and protects the living along the way.

Coronation of the Virgin - Monasterio de Silos. Guide to the Romanesque of the Monastery of Santo Domingo (Burgos).

[lunavenefica]

Witches of History-Pt.2

⛤Hello fellow friends ⛤

This week's history on famous witches is about Marie Laveau, also known as the "Voodoo Queen".

Born in New-Orleans, Louisiana, at the beginning of the XIX century, she was a free woman in a slave state.

At this time, Louisiana's slave population raised to 13%, reaching one of the highest percentages in all of the USA.

After getting married and losing her husband, she got herself called the "Paris Widow".

It's after the death of her mother that Marie started to practice the Craft ; From occultism, to herbalism, magical healing and divination. However, her main power is in Voodoo practice and she was called a Mambo.

She organized secret celebrations, and her reputation went further than the borders of Louisiana; she worked to bring luck or to shield curses in love, justice, financial, fertility and even health affairs.

She died in 1881 and was buried in New Orleans.

This is our little attempt to give some justice to the powerful women that practiced the Craft in the past.

Witchfully Yours,

⛤ Isidora & Bleiz ⛤

[the---hermit]

I Benandanti by Carlo Ginzburg

This book has been in my tbr for so long. I read this in preparation of my thesis, although I won't be writing about this specific event. This is one of the most famous works in the history of witchcraft, and in general it's a very highly acclamated historiographical work. It's an absolutly iconic book.

In this work of his Ginzburg exposes a very peculiar rural belief that was apparently really strong in around the 1600s in the north-east of Italy. With the documents left by the inquisition he traces this ancient belief of the so called benandanti. These people were belived to be fighters of witches, who battled them to make sure the harvest was good. The book analizes how this well spread belief, that could be considered a sort of ancient agrarian cult, was slowly transformed into just another witch belief. In the span of a few decades, the benandanti go from being enemies of witches and protectors of the Christian faith, to being just another branch of demonic witches who went to sabbaths to worship the Devil. This book was so interesting, if you are interested in history, and in the history of witch hunts I absolutely recommed it. It's a very easy read, it's really clear and doesn't feel too academical, but it explains its arguments very well. The only couple of things I didn't really like are the fact that in a couple of places it feels a bit repetitive, but it's probably due to the stucture of the book. And there's a few quotes of the documents that were in latin, I have a very rough knowledge of latin, and a written translation would have been very helpful, but I don't feel like I missed any important points. There two things are just little things compared to the amazing work this book is. It's a great non fiction book I am really happy I finally got around to read.

[arcane-offerings]

Valerie A. Kivelson and Christine D. Worobec, editors. Witchcraft in Russia and Ukraine, 1000-1900: A Sourcebook. Northern Illinois University Press, 2020. Paperback edition. 506 pages. 

Shop link in bio.

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[traegorn]

Both the video version and audio version of this month's episode of BS-Free Witchcraft are up on Patreon for early access right now!

This month's episode is actually a panel from CritWitchCon 2022, where @upthewitchypunx, @breelandwalker, @lozziestardust, and I discuss modern witchcraft history -- including my doing this speedrun of everything that came beforehand. It's super fun.

(The episode goes public November 26th, but you could watch it early for just a dollar RIGHT NOW)

[lunasapphire]

Wicca

Spellbook starter kit

A book of candle, crystal, and herbal spells

By: Lisa Chamberlain

Page: 290

[coinandcandle]

I feel the need to mention, because I see it all too often, that those who practiced what we would maybe call "witchcraft" nowadays most likely (almost certainly) didn't call themselves witches, nor would they call what they did witchcraft.

They were healers, wisemen/women, doctors, herbalists, and so on. Some of them would probably even be very upset or offended that folks brand them as witches.

Above all else they were humans first, so it's polite to be aware of their titles when referring to them. This may take some research but it will not only show that as a writer you are well read on the topic you're writing about, but also that you are an empathetic and caring person who respects those you write for and about.

[misssomniferum]

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔰𝔢𝔠𝔬𝔫𝔡 𝔦𝔫𝔰𝔱𝔞𝔩𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱 𝔦𝔫 𝔬𝔲𝔯 𝔓𝔩𝔞𝔫𝔱 𝔐𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔠 𝔰𝔢𝔯𝔦𝔢𝔰, 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰 𝔱𝔦𝔪𝔢 𝔣𝔬𝔠𝔲𝔰𝔦𝔫𝔤 𝔬𝔫 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔪𝔞𝔤𝔦𝔠 𝔬𝔣 𝔣𝔯𝔞𝔫𝔎𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔢𝔫𝔰𝔢 🪔

[thesorceresstemple]

Ram’s head pendant, 4-500 BC.

The ram has always enjoyed favor as a potent symbol because of the animal’s legendary strength and virility, hence its creative powers, and its characteristics as a leader and protector of his flock. Documented finds of amber rams heads have come exclusively from female tombs. Amulets engraved with a rams head and the sun were associated with the Amun Ra, also connected to the uterus. These amulets were thought to protect women’s reproductive organs and ensure fertility.