"Are you a Good Witch, or a Bad Witch?" "I'm a Sand Witch. Eat Me."

I've been watching season 1 of Salem, and I gotta tell you, I love it. I'm kind of over zombies. But I'm a little pissed off about some of the inaccuracies about the Craft, and my biggest bitch is the whole Satan thing.

Here's a quote that sums it up:

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 ~

The term "Satanic Witch" is a pernicious epithet used by those who wish to demonize practitioner of the Craft. Satanic worshippers are not witches; Traditional Witches do not worship Satan as this is a Christian concept not recognized in traditional pagan beliefs. Accordingly, the labels "white witch" and "black witch" (popularly meaning a "good witch" as one who practices "white magic" and a "wicked witch" as one who practices "black magic"), are also misnomers, as Traditonal Witches practice a "natural magic," drawing on the forces of Nature, and they refrain from attempting to manifest any form of black magic and the drawing down of negative or demonic energies.

So the whole going off into the woods and deeding your very soul to the Dark Lord is hilarious to me on one level, but on another level it pisses me off. The Salem witch hysteria was just that - hysteria. Many of the men and women hanged or burned (yeah, we burned witches here, it was a shameful time in a country founded on the desire to be free from the religious oppression of the Old Country, about as shameful a time as the one we find ourselves in today) weren't even witches at all; the large majority of the women were merely midwives or women with some kind of voice, a rarity in those days and thus viewed as some kind of an allegiance with the devil. There were also little girls playing games with forces they did not understand, and that invariably leads to trouble (Ouija board, anyone?), but that doesn't mean they were in league with the Christian devil, or Satan, or whatever you want to call that Christian invention. Mercy Lewis was probably half crazy due to her father's treatment and abuse of her mind, soul and body, and her little friends were undoubtedly just hysterical.

I will post more in other articles about various types of witches and their traditions (including a piece about Wicca, which is a new age amalgam of a religion and has nothing to do with the Craft), but for now, please know that I don't worship Satan, and neither do any of the true witches that I know (I don't know about Wiccans - they're not witches). Because we don't believe in Satan.

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