-Caveat Lector-
In a message dated 10/17/1999 12:31:22 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
[EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
<< Today, there are modern "good witch" movements, like Wicca. Stephens argues
that voluntary participation in "witchcraft" is the same old question asked
in a new way. It is another attempt, by people who find Christianity
unsatisfying, to make the spirit world seem real. The difference between
inquisitors of yore and modern witches is that the latter are unafraid --
indeed eager -- to admit their dissatisfaction with Christianity.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/1999/10/WITCHES.JHU.html >>
Apparently all are not dissatisfied with Christianity. One of the most
interesting things I ever read about witches was in a little, rather
autobiographical book by
Elizabeth Gouge (one of England's really good novelists of the
forties-fifties era). I don't remember exactly the name of the little book,
and I have never been able to get my hands on a copy, but she wrote it rather
near the end of her life, and in it was a bit about witchcraft. She was the
daughter of a vicar, and the incident she spoke of was related to her by her
school friend who was also a vicar's daughter. According to Gouge, black
magic was too disgusting to speak or write about, but white magic was a good
thing, and every village in England had its white witch who was an
herbalist/seer type. Anyway, it seems that these white witches attended
church like everyone else, and felt that their practice of the craft in no
way alienated them from the community. It also seemed that a woman had to
instruct a man and a man a woman when passing on the art/craft. Well, the
very dignified, churchgoing elderly lady who was the white witch in the
village where the friend's father was vicar, came to him and told him that
she had carefully looked over all the men in the village, and had finally
decided that the most truly good of all of them was he; therefore she wanted
to instruct him in the art as she knew it. She left in tears when he
explained to her that he was forbidden to practice witchcraft, and that
witchcraft was not acceptable to Christianity. Apparently it had never
occurred to her that spells and herbalism were not compatible with the
Christian faith. Prudy
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