Witchcraft, Debunking Myths Of

"You have been accused of witchcraft. The torturers have found hard evidence, in the form of markings on your stomach, proving the accusation. You will be burned at the stake, at dawn tomorrow."

The first quote was from the Salem Witch Trials, supposedly. The second, was (again, supposedly) a routine witch-trial in front of the Inquisition. The Inquisition was a person or persons assigned to `inquire' into acts of heresy. For some reason witchcraft was a heresy. There was never actually an organization called the Inquisition.

For those of you unfamiliar, witchcraft was an offense punishable by death back in the "Dark Ages". While we have long since abandoned that law, and you can no longer die for being Wiccan, still the rumors and myths abound, about how Wiccans are satanists, how they pray to the Christian Devil and use the blood of infants in their routine magical workings.

This can be no farther from the truth. I know firsthand. I am a practicing Wiccan. These stories are nothing more than that, stories, fables, myths, invented by the church, in the dark ages, to convert people to Christianity. Here we outline a few myths, and then proceed to totally wipe them clean.

1. Myth: Wiccans worship the Devil/Satan/Lucifer/(whatever you call your god of evil).

   Debunked: This one was probably invented by the church [3] to steer people away from witchcraft. Truth be told, Wiccans don't even believe Satan exists! I ask you, how can someone worship an entity they don't believe exists in the first place?

2. Myth: Wiccans practice magick [4] for the purpose of harm against others.

   Debunked: Again, this isn't right at all. Wiccans are morally opposed to that. In fact, there is a `law' (using the word very loosely, for witchcraft isn't an organized religion), called the Rule of Three, or the Rule of Karmatic Return: "Any energy you send out will come back threefold" [5].

3. Myth: The pentagram [6] is the sign of the Devil.

   Debunked: Not hardly. Refer to the second entry for the reason. The points of a pentagram/pentacle stand for the four elements: Earth, Air, Fire, Water; and for Spirit. It can be drawn two different ways. One way is to start the star at the top; this is for invoking things or making things happen. The other way is to draw the star starting at the bottom-right hand corner. This is used to evoke, or take away, things.

   The pentagram is, yes, also the sign of Satanists. But there is a difference. The top point of the star, when drawn the witchcraft way, signifies Spirit above all else. Satanists, with proper respect to their religion, invert the pentagram, to show that they place the Spiritual point below the physical realm.

I'm hoping that some of you were educated a little in reading this article. Sorry if it was a bit boring, but, I got tired of close-minded persons screaming insults in my direction based on my religion. I don't disrespect your religion, and I certainly don't want you to disrespect mine. [7]