The History Of Witches
witchcraft , traditionally, the exercise or invocation of alleged supernatural powers to control people or events, practices typically involving sorcery or magic . Although defined differently in disparate historical and cultural contexts , witchcraft has often been seen, especially in the West, as the work of crones who meet secretly at night, indulge in cannibalism and orgiastic rites with the Devil , or Satan , and perform black magic. Witchcraft thus defined exists more in the imagination of contemporaries than in any objective reality. Yet this stereotype has a long history and has constituted for many cultures a viable explanation of evil in the world. The intensity of these beliefs is best represented by the European witch hunts of the 14th to 18th century, but witchcraft and its associated ideas are never far from the surface of popu...