Interest In Witchcraft Has Its Roots In Ancient Stories

Humans have always been drawn to viewing the world through the lens of superstition and magic - we like to believe that the world is full of some palpable energy that we can manipulate through witchcraft. Primitive cultures going back thousands of years have always had someone of great importance in the community that was thought of as having a connection to that hidden side of life where magic resides.

Much of the witches throughout history have been associated with healing rituals, but the stories of revenge and black magic have had their appeal. The figure of the witch or warlock has been prevalent in stories ranging from the Fairy Tales of the Grimm Brothers to their more present day incarnations in the movies and on television. For those today who are interested in actually being practitioners, many subscribe to the notion of being Wiccan which is influenced by a more ancient connection with nature and natural energies.

The cliched rite of passage for many teenage girls to be naturally drawn to experimenting with spells and the more superficial elements of witchcraft exists for a reason. It may be related to simple fact that the practice is rooted in feminine energies and has always been an outlet for women to assert a form of power that traditionally wasn't available.

The Earth itself is thought of as the mother of all life and witches respect its influence on all creatures including plants which are the main ingredients in most spells. Even without training the lay person can guess as to the intention of some ingredients, for example the inclusion of rose petals is often done in romantic love spells. Spells, however, are often a far cry from their depiction in stories.

Rather than being quick fixes for all problems - to do a spell means to release an intention out into the world. Many variables have to be accounted for beyond the ingredients, including the time of the month that the incantation is completed since the influence of the moon is often thought of as quite important. This lunar fixation isn't exactly silly, especially to workers in law enforcement and emergency medicine that often notice a huge uptake in bizarre behaviors and injury when the moon is full.

Back to the issue of intention- witchcraft actually condemns any sort of black magic or even serious love spells for the simple reason that whatever is released into the word comes back threefold. To have malevolent or even manipulative intention can result in some serious bad karma coming back on the person who created the spell.

More often than not, any kind of ceremony or spell is done for healing purposes just like the practitioners of old. More esoteric issues like dealing with bad dreams can be taken care of by putting a protection satchel underneath your pillow, or if you're looking for some more luck in your life, the addition of a charm to your wardrobe can infuse you with positive energies.

Real life witches are cut from a very different cloth than their fictional counterparts. Learning to live in alignment with the various natural elements is the number one goal and they take a zen like approach to life that has roots in the most basic tenets of religions like Buddhism. Instead of standing over bubbling cauldrons in the middle of graveyards, today's witch is crushing plants and spices in a mortar and pestle while reciting her own spells to protect the people in her life that she loves. Witchcraft, in the contemporary sense, is nothing to be afraid of.


Cultures Have Always Been Drawn To Witchcraft

There are stories that are constant throughout time and culture; stories about witchcraft have always existed. Human have always believed that there are elements to life that are unexplained and that certain people are able to tap into this other plane of existence. All ancient cultures had revered shamans or healers that would be indistinguishable from our ideas about what a witch or warlock would be.

The curiosity towards magic has manifested in stories like those found in Grimm's Fairy Tales, as well as in plays which include the witches of Macbeth, and even in the television shows of today. It is a source of interest that has never wavered and has even spilled into reality in frightening ways. The Salem Witch Trials were responsible for putting to death a number of innocent women. Indeed, when it comes to witchcraft, women have been the targets of persecution at the same time they may find themselves drawn to it.

The climate towards witches today is marginally more progressive, depending on where you are, but in countries with religious freedom those who are drawn to magick can congregate in ways they never could have before without fear of persecution. The choice of words that allude to religion is done on purpose, especially since many practicing witches align themselves with the practice of Wicca.

While it may sound like a New Age religion, the roots of Wicca are actually quite old and predate every religion on the planet with its pagan roots. Looking to nature and bestowing the Earth itself with a feminine, motherly energy - being Wiccan means that you respect all aspects of the natural world and this is incorporated in any spell casting or rituals.

The mention of the word spell invariably conjures up images of bubbling cauldrons and a general sense of dark dealing. The reality, however, is much more mundane. The ingredients of most spells instead of being body parts of various creatures, are usually the meshing together of various spices and plants. The energies of nature are strong in all life, but plant life is the most abundant and easiest to work with - even if you don't know anything about being a witch, you can actually make a guess as to how some compounds are used.

Binding a spell with love can mean employing dried rose petals, much like the burning of sage, with its acrid smell, is associated with the cleansing of energies from a space. In fact, many cultures like the Native Americans, burn sage for its association with cleansing and not for any witch like purposes. Plants have had meaning ascribed to them for thousands of years and modern-day Wiccans take this accumulated knowledge and apply it to their practices.

Getting involved in witchcraft today can mean that you join a group or work independently on your own. Regardless of the various literature, there is no real wrong way to explore magic unless you're going down a dark road towards black magic. If you're thinking about trying this other side of the magic coin it's best to remember the old adage that what you put out into the universe comes back to your three fold.

This is why it's generally frowned upon to engage in spell craft that has a manipulative or vengeful side - this is also why there are no true love spells. No, learning about witchcraft will show you that there are many ways to get to know this modern incarnation of ancient wisdom. Learning how to manipulate energies can give you a small leg up as you move through life with a little bit of created luck on your side.


Witchcraft Allows You To Explore Nature In A Different Way

There is no doubt that nature is the driving force of everything on the planet and as much as humans have strived for some control, or mastery, the forces of nature will always have the last word. While we are more technologically knowledgeable and protected today, our ancestors were living in a much more dangerous world that they couldn't control or even comprehend completely. As a coping mechanism, many ancient cultures turned to a more esoteric view of the world at large and this manifested in the emergence of witchcraft.

Now, unlike the evil queen transforming herself so that she can feed Snow White a poisonous apple, real witchcraft that was happening thousands of years ago was mostly centered around the ability to heal others. Indeed, there are shamans today that have positions of power in tribes that are living in jungles of the Amazon and they give us a window into what magic rituals were mostly like in the past.

Utilizing a number of methods from meditation to the ingestion of hallucinogenic compounds, witches and warlocks opened themselves up to what they thought of as another plan of existence that allowed them access to wisdom that wasn't available otherwise. This isn't a completely foreign concept considering that many fundamentalists in accepted religions throughout the world do similar exercises, with meditation, to get closer to their god.

When it comes to witchcraft, or as it is some times called today, Wicca - it isn't about one god that created us in his image. No, Wiccans believe that the Earth itself is our god in a sense and that it provides us with all of the energies to take us through this life and that learning about and respecting the various elements, can allow practitioners to manipulate nature in magical ways.

The essence of nature is inherently feminine and there is an overall goddess that many witches look to for guidance. It's no coincidence that women are more naturally drawn to witchcraft - it has almost become a cliche for teenage girls to get interested in leaning about spell casting. In the past, mastery over natural elements as a witch was one of the few ways in which women could garner any power in society.

Of course, this was not always a good thing. The Salem Witch Trials, for instance, were an exercise in the unnecessary fear that men felt towards women with any power and it led to the deaths of many innocent people. Dabbling in magic today is relatively harmless and many people enter into without any fears of outside retribution from others.

It's relatively harmless because there is always some danger involved when you work to consciously learn to manipulate energies and put out your intentions to the universe. Good witches are ones that work to help others through their spell casting using various household plants and spices. Satchels of various compounds and oils can work to protect those they are intended for from harm, or they can be created to give something as simple as a little luck.

Trying to manipulate others or get revenge can lead towards an imbalance for you, as a practitioner, that will come back to you with three times the strength. Witchcraft is, first a foremost, a craft. It requires those that are interested to take the time to learn about the ancient teachings that have inferred the current Wiccan religion. You can't just jump into casting a spell and assume things will work out as you plan.



