Traditional Witchcraft

Swedish Easter Witches by Jenny Nyström (1854-1946)

What is a witch? An old woman on a broomstick? There is a treasure trove of Renaissance folklore about witches, to tell us about these creatures. It was between the 14th and 17th centuries that a fear of Witchcraft gripped Europe. People had a lot of funny ideas about what witches did, and this caused a lot of men, women and children, to be tortured and executed for the suspected crime of Witchcraft. It was imagined that witches belonged to a demonic cult, worshipping pagan gods and goddesses. Of course, any Christian knew that the gods and goddesses of other religions were all devils, out to seduce the weak minded into handing over their souls to Satan. How could Satan convince someone to become a witch? He could promise them all sorts of supernatural abilities such as flying through the air, attaining wealth, fame, beauty, or anything they desired by performing magical spells. There would be nothing to stop a witch from using their evil powers to trick, curse, and inflict their neighbours with famine, disease, or even death. The only hope was to identify these witches, usually by means of torture, and exterminate them. A good Christian healer might help with prayers, but you better be careful that it wasn't of the Catholic sort, because Catholics were sure as hell in league with the devil too!

15 years ago, or there abouts, I was new to the world of Witchcraft, and relied heavily upon the books in my mother's book case and the websites I scoured from our home computer. Whenever I was home alone, I would be in the study, learning as much as I could. Modern witches proudly procalimed that they were not the devil worshipping monsters they had been portrayed as during the Renaissance, and that in fact they were kind and harmless folk, who merely wished to help people with their magic. Witchcraft (also referred to as the Craft of the Wise or Wicca) was presented as an ancient religion which had been preserved from pre-Christian times. I was under the impression that this secret tradition had been carefully preserved since "The Burning Times" and resurfaced when it was safe to do so, in the 1950s. Witches started popping up out of the woodwork, all claiming hereditary lineage to Renaissance witches.

Gradually I started to learn that the tradition was not as ancient as it seemed. I started to get irritated as the more I digged, the shallower the hole got! Where was the really old stuff? Where was the really genuine traditional stuff? Somehow, antiquity bestowed validity, and so I wanted to find the really traditional witches. I found them online and I bought their books. They proudly announced that what they had was the genuine stuff.  They claimed that those folk who had previously claimed ancient lineage, the Wiccans, were frauds, and so the word Wicca represented a fantasy dreamt up by the likes of Gerald Gardner and company. I wanted to rid myself of this fake stuff called Wicca, and get to grips with this really old Traditional Witchcraft.

Well ok then, what is this really old stuff, and how can I be a traditional witch? The more I looked into it, the more I wasn't sure whether this camp was any different to the first lot of witches. Both claimed to be inheritors of something ancient and mysterious. Neither seemed to have any firm foundation in the distant past. That's when I realised there wasn't actually any difference between the two factions of modern witches, other than superficial flourishes. Witchcraft, the Craft of the Wise, Wicca, whatever you want to call it, the game has different rules for everyone who plays it. People can argue that their way of doing it is the correct way as much as they like, but at the end of the day, if it works for you then it works correctly. Laying a claim to ancient roots could give you an air of credibility, but anyone who digs the dirt will find you standing in a very shallow hole.

What does it actually mean to be traditional? A tradition literally means a "transmission, handed down" from generation to generation. How old does something need to be, to be considered traditional? Some say three generations is what it takes, and so there are a lot of "my grandmother was a witch" claims floating about the internet, in order to bestow traditional validity to an individual's practices. Do you need witch-blood in order to be a traditional witch? This is where covens come in, who are able to initiate worthy postulants into Witchcraft traditions. Once you have been formerly initiated, you become the inheritor of a tradition. What if you "self-initiate"? Does that count? Some authors claimed that a tradition could be transmitted through books, written correspondence, websites or online courses. You're sat in front of a computer, perhaps a tablet or your phone, and you've inherited a tradition, a body or practices and beliefs has been transmitted to you.

What if you don't fancy following someone else's tradition? I mean, if great granny could dream something up, then why can't you? Great granny represents a fount of ancient wisdom, but her tradition could just be a collection of old wives tales, wrapped up in the fantasy of Witchcraft. What did those Renaissance witches really get up to, and is it possible for their practices to have been handed down the generations? What we have today is a lot of guess work as to how magic and paganism may have been practiced in the past. Does it actually matter whether the stuff you're doing is an ancient tradition or not? Your practices might be inspired by an idea of what witches supposedly did. Everyone has their own idea of what witches were and how they operated, but what matters now is how today's witches operate. Are you creating something now which will become a tradition in the future? If you have something constructive to offer, something that you think will help people, then go for it, get creative and invent a new way of doing things. But you don't need a clandestine lineage of traditional heritage to be a valuable source of wisdom.