The Image of the Witch

The Witch: A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present by Ronald Hutton
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

In our minds eye she flies across the nighttime sky on her broomstick . The embodiment of evil casting spells over a a cauldron of dark poisonous herbs. To those who have studied the witch you will have images of women dancing naked in the forest, serving the devil and his minions. What contributed to our negative vision of the witch? Do witches even exist? And if they do are they really that bad?

Ronald Hutton, scholar par excellence on the subject, has analyzed the image of the witch throughout history . Starting from our most earliest civilizations in a broad cross cultural context all the way to the early modern times. The author looks at a broad section of world wide society and combines the disciplines of anthropology and history .

All across the continents and different cultures the witch figure seems to cut the same image. Dancing naked in the night , meeting with other women to perform dark nefarious magic. Or perhaps they eat children or suck blood after they have flown through the night time sky. It seems that witches charge many characteristics across the board.

Witches no matter where they are in the world seem to have a lot in common. They use uncanny means to perform acts of evil against others. Within their community they are viewed as a threat to only those within. Societies believe that the witch must be resisted. Witches are usually part of a hereditary tradition or perhaps they are born with it.

Ancient societies were not stranger to magic. The Egyptian were rather cool with magic and it was ok to bind deities to your will or other entities. Mesopoatamia and the ancient Hebrews did have a fear of witches. In Persia practicing magic outside the official religion was akin to Worshipping the dark one. Greeks had a negative view of magic outside the official religion as well while the Hittities forbade magic outside the kings temple. The worst fear came from the Romans who despised witches and magic workers. They even had their own witch hunts.

Many negative attitudes towards the figure of the witch come from the Roman era. In fact the Romans had two points in their history. The negative attitude of the witch was carried forward into the Christian world. Was there is fact a conspiracy of witches and did they have a religion. Records state witches had familiars, flew at night, had nighttime procession with the devil.

Pre-Christian shamanism is examined as a source for the visionary experiences of the witch. Shamans had experience traveling to the spirit world and having spirit allies . They would cure people and help the community and sometimes they would fight spiritual entities. While elements seem to have shamanistic elements that have survived into the Christian Era it is rather difficult to prove. Even some Christian saints and other magic worker had the ability to leave their bodies in spirit form to do battle. Shamans never changed form. There are many similarities as there are differences.

Analysis sometimes leads to a pre-historic fertility cult or a cult of the dead that helped nurture the world. Thee author sites other authors who examined the visionary experience and so called religious practice of the witch. Most of these practices were conjured up by the Christian inquisitors. The night flight and the wild hunt are examined in detail.

Around the 13 century persecution began against magic worker in general . At first it was the ceremonial magicians and service magicians that were targeted later it went to the witch. Ceremonial Magic is believed to been started in Egypt and from there it went through the Greco Roman world all the way to the Christian world. It mostly consisted of binding demons using the name of god to the magicians will. THe persecution lasted well into the 15th century.

Other cultural item connected to the witch image is the faery lore of Europe and how faery kingdoms developed and how faeries were morphed into demon. Finally the witches relationship to animals is examined. Eventually after the 15th century these witch trials Came to an end. THe Church put in measure to limit the cruelty.

I am not convinced there was a witch religion. There were workers of magic in various forms. In any case this is an excellent book. Totally scholarly with well documented cases to support his points.

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