A Brief History of Witchcraft -

https://www.facebook.com/HumanOdyss...8971832228408/588574747934779/?type=1&theater

 

Modern witchcraft has drawn much of its ideology from ancient religions and esoteric schools.

It can be argued that the roots of this revived faith go back as far as the Stone Age,

when humans began to conceive their world as a spiritual construct.

1. Shamanism appeared some time during the upper Paleolithic (50,000 – 10,000 years ago).

The shaman would often enter trance states to follow the migration of herds (ensuring a successful hunt),

heal people from illness, and protect their tribe from evil spirits.

Many cave paintings depict shaman dancing in animal costumes,


as though taking on the spirit of a particular animal.

2. As the nomadic tribes began to settle, new civilisations emerged, the earliest known being Sumeria (3500 BCE).

From the translation of cuneiform tablets we know that the Sumerians believed in a wide range of celestial beings
such as gods and spirits, many of which were hostile, so each person was guarded by spirit to protect them
from demons.

Their magic system was known as invocation, which allowed them to summon, bind and vanquish dark spirits
using amulets, incantations and exorcism.

3. In ancient Egypt (2500 BCE), priests became skilled in Heka (the ‘activation of Ka’ or spirit energy).

The Ka was the aspect of the soul which embodied personality, and the priests believed they could manipulate

this spiritual fabric to influence the gods, gain protection, heal the ill and transform themselves into immortals.

During the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt (1069–653 BC), the art of Heka was adopted by midwives

and nurses, allowing women to explore the secrets of Ka for the first time.

4. The Mystery cults emerged in ancient Greece (1500 - 1100 BCE) and were eventually passed onto the Romans.

These secret schools required an initiation process to gain entrance.

Worshippers believed that the gods of Greece (such as Demeter, Dionysus and Orpheus) had passed

on their magical secrets to humans during the Bronze Age. This included the art of shamanic travel,

invoking the gods, reincarnation, and even the ingredients for making ambrosia (an immortalising food).

5. The Celts (decedents of the Indo Europeans), formed a priest class known as Druids by around 350 BCE.

These nature worshippers acted as teachers, judges, astrologers, healers, and bards.

They were pantheists, meaning they revered many aspects of a single deity (in the forms of nature gods,

trees and standing stones).

All of their rituals were based around reincarnation, creating potions and crafting spells,

which would eventually form the backbone of medieval witchcraft.

6. Another branch of Indo-European magic can be found in the Anglo-Saxon culture (400 CE - 1100 CE).

Their magic was based on Norse Mythology, where legend says the god Odin had passed the secrets of the runes

to humanity.

These sacred symbols are used for healing, creating charms, crafting magical artefacts and hexing people.

Due to the Christianisation of their religion in the 6th - 8th century, the Anglo-Saxons came to fear

the practitioners of rune magic, believing them to be guided by evil.

7. Gnosticism was a mystic religion that originated in the Middle East around 100 CE.

Gnostics believed the material world was inherently evil and that realm of spirit was fundamentally good.

They claimed the creator god of the Old Testament was corrupt and had created a flawed world.

Instead they directed Christians toward an inner experience of the true god via spiritual transcendence.

Their ideology outraged other Christian and Jewish faiths that saw this as an affront to their religion.

8. Gnosticism later influenced the mystic tradition of the Kabbalah.

This Jewish sect believed that God’s divine knowledge had been shared by the angels to humans 5000 years ago.

His spiritual principles were then passed down the generations via oral tradition until emerging as a sacred text

known as Sefer Zohar ("Book of Radiance"), written by Moses de Leon, 1290 CE.

Practitioners guide their followers via meditation toward a direct contact with the divine.

Like Gnosticism, the Kabbalah speaks of divine beings, a tree of life and multiple cosmic realms.

9. Throughout the early middle ages, the Catholic Church tolerated pagan faiths.

However, after the devastation of the ‘Black Death’ (bubonic plague 1347-1349),

a paranoia swept through the minds of Christians, believing it was the heathens and heretics

who had tainted humanity with their dark sorcery.

What followed was 300 years of persecution toward anyone practicing magic and mysticism.

1401: Witch Trials began in England, proclaiming that anyone who practiced witchcraft

was to be burnt at the stake.

1487: The notorious ‘Malleus Maleficarum’ ('Hammer against the Witches')
was published by Kramer & Sprenger, inciting Christians to hunt down and kill witches.

1515: Authorities in Geneva, Switzerland burn 500 accused witches at the stake

1526: Como, Italy, a spiral of witchcraft charges lead to around 1000 executions.

1644: In England, Matthew Hopkins (self proclaimed "Witch-finder General”)
began an intense witch-hunting campaign, torturing and killing around 300 women.

1692: The Salem witch trials arrest 150 people, convicting twenty-nine of the felony of witchcraft.
Nineteen of the accused were hanged.

Between 1400 and 1700, an estimated 50,000 suspected witches were executed (around 75% of them women),
in countries such as France, Britain, Germany and America.

After what became known as "The Burning Times”, the practice of witchcraft survived in pockets,
particularly in the countryside, cut off from interaction with witches from other areas, or through secret societies.

10. The occult, (knowledge of the paranormal) was studied and practiced throughout the witch trials,
often within secret societies sworn to silence. Intellectuals drawn to forbidden lore and mysticism
began to study ancient texts related to invocation, ancient mythology, Egyptian mysticism, Gnosticism
and the Kabbalah.

Throughout this era, societies such as the Freemasons and Rosicrucian’s began to develop new schools
of thought in astrology, alchemy, tarot, mediumship and sacred geometry.

11. In 1887, the works of the occult reached their pinnacle in an English society called ‘The Golden Dawn’.

The Hermetic Order was an organisation devoted to occult practices, metaphysics, and paranormal activity.

Many present-day concepts of ritual magic have been inspired by the Golden Dawn,

which became one of the largest single influences on 20th-century Western occultism.

12. Wicca is a modern pagan, witchcraft religion.

It was developed in England during the first half of the 20th century by Gerald Gardner.

It draws upon the mystic traditions of the golden Dawn as well as ancient pagan practices.

Wiccans typically believe in reincarnation, the use of magic to influence specific outcomes,

a moral responsibility toward others and an appreciation for natural cycles

(they have eight festivals known as Sabbats that revolve around the changing seasons).

Wiccans often worship a variety of nature deities, the most important being the mother goddess
and the horned god.

These two deities are sometimes viewed as facets of a single godhead.

1. Shaman - Susan Seddon Boulet
2. Invocation by Slawomir Maniak
3. Heka by Wojciech Ostrycharz
4. Mystery Cults by Slawomir Maniak
5. Druidism by Grosnus
7. Rune Lore by Ashley Bryner
6. Gnosticism: NA
8. Kabbalah by John Collier
9. Witch Hunt by Kiri Østergaard Leonard
9. Witch Hunt by Thomas Satterwhite Noble
10. Alchemy: NA
11. Photo of Aleister Crowley (public domain)
12. Wicca: NA

https://www.facebook.com/HumanOdyss...8971832228408/588574747934779/?type=1&theater

 

The switzerland burnings in 1515
also LOOK like the word ISIS
and, definitely were some kind of satanic type of sacrifice
~ Susan Lynne Schwenger

 

A lot of info here:

• Huntress' Uncommon Sense I was wondering, shamanism seems to predate mother goddess worship
  from your preceding chart and has an end date. Does this mean that modern shamanism in the Americas
  that had no contact with Christianity etc is in some way majorly different from the original?
  
  I am trying to determine if shamanism is the oldest single type still in existence in many parts of the world including Inuit, American Indian, and many Central and South American areas.
  
  • 
    Human Odyssey Hi Huntress, I like your question. I based the date of Shamanism
    on the emergence of stone age art which depicted shamanic like characters in trance
    as far back as 45,000 years ago.
    
    This shamanic art spread across the continents from Africa to Australia,
    and eventually crossed over into the America's around 24,000 years ago.
    
    As far as I can tell, all the shamanic tribes around the world are linked by similar features
    such as trance, chanting, spirit healing, dream visions etc.
    
    I would definitely class it as the oldest spiritual system still in existence today, practiced
    by the aboriginal Australians, Indonesian Dukun, Indigenous American tribes
    and even the Sami people of Scandinavia.
    
  • 
    Helen Yearwood I'm not seeing the end date on Shamanism.
    I took this as a 'family tree' of Wicca, not as a complete history of spirituality.
  • 
    
    Human Odyssey Hi Helen, the article is more a brief history than a 'family tree'. Have you seen my evolutionary tree of religion?
    
    It includes the origins of Wicca and details all the faith systems and cults that influenced it over the millennia.
    
    
    
    Human Odyssey
    The Evolutionary Tree of Religion 2.0
    UK poster: http://bit.ly/ZAQR4x
    USA poster: http://bit.ly/1zgMsnX
    Australia poster: http://bit.ly/1oiK3o9
    
    Since the dawn of mankind, humans have tried to make sense of their world,
    especially when faced with unknown phenomena such as 'what causes storms',
    'what happens to us after we die', and ‘how was the world formed’?
    
    It is plausible that from such questions, our first primitive religions were formed.
    
    The earliest evidence of a religious practice can be traced back 100,000 years ago
    when we began to bury our dead. Although we cannot define this as the origin of faith,
    it does suggest that at the dawn of humanity, we had begun to consider some kind of afterlife.
    
    Over time, this religious practice gave rise to a new ideology which spread across the continents,
    known today as ‘Animism’.
    
    This emerging faith was the root belief system that would evolve and branch out into numerous
    other ideologies all over the world.
    
    The journey of these evolving religions can be broken down into three classic periods.
    
    It should be noted that these periods are not indicative of a new ideology improving upon previous faith systems. Religions change over time, they go extinct, and they split into distinct traditions.
    
    They adapt to their environment, they construct their environment in part, all just like organic evolution does.
    
    Period 1: Animism (100,000 BCE – Present)
    Humans began to believe that natural constructs (e.g. plants, animals, rocks and wind) possessed a spiritual essence. These spirit entities were believed to have powers and temperaments that influenced our everyday world. By worshiping these divine beings, it was believed we could maintain harmony
    with this spirit world and gain favours from them.
    
    Period 2: Polytheism (15,000 BCE – Present)
    The roots of Polytheism may lie in the Epipaleolithic era. Linguists and historians have defined a hypothetical language family called Nostratic, which seems to have influenced all the African and Eurasian dialects. Many of the words that can be reconstructed involve nature gods (such as mother earth and father sky). This suggests that the nature spirits of animism had evolved into a new generation of Gods (giving abstract beings of thunder and water a more human form). During the Neolithic revolution, civilisations began to emerge requiring new areas of expertise (e.g. lawmaking, metallurgy, agriculture
    and commerce). It was the descendants of the Nostratic Gods (e.g. the Indo-Europeans and Sumerians) who took on the role of guide and leader to the civilised world.
    
    Typically these divine beings were divided into several classes, overseeing the heavens, the mortal realm and the underworld. Each deity possessed their own powers, religious practice and domain (e.g. trading, diplomacy, war craft etc). Man could either worship one or all of these beings, gaining favour from them via offerings, prayer and even sacrifice.
    
    Period 3: Monotheism (1348 BCE – Present)
    In the Bronze Age, a new movement took shape that prioritised one God over all other deities.
    This system is known as Monotheism - a belief in one Supreme Being. In 1348 BCE, the pharaoh Akhenaten, raised a lesser known God called 'Aten' to supreme status, downplaying the role of all other Egyptian deities. A little later in Iran, Zoroaster (a Persian priest) claimed 'Ahura Mazda' to be the one supreme deity. This newly emerging system posited that one creator god had formed the known universe, and was totally self-sufficient, capable of ruling over all other domains. This idea became prominent in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism.
    Most monotheistic systems tend to be exclusive in nature, which meant the gods of the Old world had to be purged from mans consciousness. As a consequence, monotheistic religions displayed less religious tolerance than polytheistic religions, resulting in many wars and political disputes.
    
  • 
    Helen Yearwood I guess what I meant was that your brief history of witchcraft would not need to comment on the scope and current status of shamanism since that was not the focus of your effort.
    
  • 
    Human Odyssey I included shamanism as a starting point as it influenced nearly all
    of the Indo-European religions.
    
    They were very shamanic in nature, often you can read of mythical characters like Circe, Loki and Sadbh who could change themselves into animals (one of the core experiences of shamanic magic).
    
    I also wanted to illustrate how ancient the roots of witchcraft go, as far back as the Paleolithic.
    
  • 
    Huntress' Uncommon Sense Ok, looking at it again I misspoke the end date, as there is none listed.
    I should have said it doesn't have an end date of "today" like 11 and 12.
    Thank you very much for your answer!
    
• 
  Tom Phillips There were many Native American (North, Central and South American) practices
  that would also fall under the definition of "witchcraft" as well as "shamanism".
  These are missing from your history. Possibly this would better titled as being of European Witchcraft.
  • 
    Human Odyssey Hi Tom, out of interest do you know who labelled their practices as "witchcraft".
    I'd be interested in looking into that, as I have always considered them a shamanic people.
    
  • 
    Tom Phillips Not all their practices are shamanic.
    
    Many do not involve interactions within the spiritual realm.
    
    When they work with energies of elements and other natural things such as plants or animals
    it can better parallels European witchcraft. Not all healers are what we call shaman
    and in areas such as Sonora, Mexico they have some practices that directly involve altering perceptive energies and awareness of others without any spiritual contact.
    
    They themselves refer to it as witchcraft.
    
    Many NA oppose the English terms such as shaman and witchcraft with rising tendencies,
    preferring their own language references however based on the practices it still would be identified
    as such when English is used.
    
  • 
    Human Odyssey I'd be interested in finding out what influenced this 'energy magic'
    used by the indigenous people of Sonora and Mexico.
    
    Do you know if it developed before or after the arrival of westerners in the Americas? Thanks Tom.
    Like · 1 · October 30 at 5:58am
  • 
    
    Tom Phillips I am not sure when it developed.
    
    I understand that they were very selective about who they share any information with.
    
    I just stumbled across someone who had some contact with a small group a little over 30 years ago
    when I was looking for information about native prophecies.
    
    Didn't find much prophecy information but did find a couple interesting people who called themselves "witches" when they spoke English.
    
    There was no way to really keep in contact because they were nomadic.
    
    Another group you may look at and may be able to find some info is the Lakota.
    
    They do have a more shamanic perspective but if you can find someone
    who has knowledge about shaman who associate themselves with Iktomi the trickster.
    
    Iktomi was a magic user.
    
    
    His symbol is the spider and legend has it he gave a shaman the dream catcher.
    
    A shaman who follows a path of Iktomi is generally also a magic user so they are both combined
    similar to what I understand the ones in Sonora Mexico work with. Iktomi (spider) magic
    definitely predates the arrival of Europeans.
    
    It is rare but if you find someone who refers to a dream catcher as an Iktomi net
    there is a good chance the net has been worked with magic.
    
    The problem with finding a shaman who follows Iktomi is that they tend to be secretive about it.
    
    Others may know they are shaman but not the iktomi side because of the trickster part.
    
    
• 
  Rose Bounds I like the idea of this pic, but it occurs to me that even in pictograph form
  there is simply no "brief" history of Witchcraft.
  
  Once I tried to sit down and list all the "types" of magick I personally knew,
  and compare it to a list of all the types of magick I knew of.
  
  The project was doomed from the beginning.
  
  There were more types of magick out there than I had truly realized, and I think the same is true
  for the history of witchcraft.
  
  Eastern Magick never gets the space it deserves in these Histories, and the unfortunate result of Christian dominance in the west has been a near total eradication of Native American magicks from the public discussion.
  
  Hel knows we could probably write volumes just on the history of Kabbalah alone.
  
  Still, its a nice little synopsis and I love the pics. Totally sharing.
  
  
  • 
    Human Odyssey Thanks for your input Rose.
    
    There are quite a lot of magical schools and cults missing from this infographic,
    but I'm hoping I managed to capture the major movements which influenced modern day Wicca.
    
    Have you seen my Evolutionary Tree of Religion?
    
    It manages to show a lot of magical and mythical systems that I wasn't able to mention in this article.
    
    
    Human Odyssey
    The Evolutionary Tree of Religion 2.0
    UK poster: http://bit.ly/ZAQR4x
    USA poster: http://bit.ly/1zgMsnX
    Australia poster: http://bit.ly/1oiK3o9
    
    Since the dawn of mankind, humans have tried to make sense of their world,
    especially when faced with unknown phenomena such as 'what causes storms',
    'what happens to us after we die', and ‘how was the world formed’?
    
    It is plausible that from such questions, our first primitive religions were formed.
    
    The earliest evidence of a religious practice can be traced back 100,000 years ago
    when we began to bury our dead. Although we cannot define this as the origin of faith,
    it does suggest that at the dawn of humanity, we had begun to consider some kind of afterlife.
    
    Over time, this religious practice gave rise to a new ideology which spread across the continents,
    known today as ‘Animism’.
    
    This emerging faith was the root belief system that would evolve and branch out into numerous other ideologies all over the world.
    
    The journey of these evolving religions can be broken down into three classic periods.
    
    It should be noted that these periods are not indicative of a new ideology improving upon
    previous faith systems.
    
    Religions change over time, they go extinct, and they split into distinct traditions.
    
    
    They adapt to their environment, they construct their environment in part,
    all just like organic evolution does.
    
    Period 1: Animism (100,000 BCE – Present)
    
    Humans began to believe that natural constructs (e.g. plants, animals, rocks and wind)
    possessed a spiritual essence.
    
    These spirit entities were believed to have powers and temperaments that influenced our everyday world.
    
    By worshiping these divine beings, it was believed we could maintain harmony with this spirit world
    and gain favours from them.
    
    Period 2: Polytheism (15,000 BCE – Present)
    
    The roots of Polytheism may lie in the Epipaleolithic era.
    
    Linguists and historians have defined a hypothetical language family called Nostratic,
    which seems to have influenced all the African and Eurasian dialects.
    
    Many of the words that can be reconstructed involve nature gods (such as mother earth and father sky).
    
    This suggests that the nature spirits of animism had evolved into a new generation of Gods
    (giving abstract beings of thunder and water a more human form).
    
    During the Neolithic revolution, civilisations began to emerge requiring new areas of expertise
    (e.g. lawmaking, metallurgy, agriculture and commerce). It was the descendants of the Nostratic Gods (e.g. the Indo-Europeans and Sumerians) who took on the role of guide and leader to the civilised world.
    
    Typically these divine beings were divided into several classes, overseeing the heavens, the mortal realm and the underworld. Each deity possessed their own powers, religious practice and domain
    (e.g. trading, diplomacy, war craft etc).
    
    Man could either worship one or all of these beings, gaining favour from them via offerings,
    prayer and even sacrifice.
    Period 3: Monotheism (1348 BCE – Present)
    In the Bronze Age, a new movement took shape that prioritised one God over all other deities.
    This system is known as Monotheism - a belief in one Supreme Being.
    
    In 1348 BCE, the pharaoh Akhenaten, raised a lesser known God called 'Aten' to supreme status, downplaying the role of all other Egyptian deities. A little later in Iran, Zoroaster (a Persian priest)
    claimed 'Ahura Mazda' to be the one supreme deity.
    
    This newly emerging system posited that one creator god had formed the known universe,
    and was totally self-sufficient, capable of ruling over all other domains.
    
    This idea became prominent in Judaism, Christianity, Islam, and Sikhism.
    
    Most monotheistic systems tend to be exclusive in nature, which meant the gods of the Old world
    had to be purged from mans consciousness.
    
    As a consequence, monotheistic religions displayed less religious tolerance than polytheistic religions, resulting in many wars and political disputes.
    
  • 
    Rose Bounds super cool. Thanks for sharing!
    
• 
  Hillary Williamson You left out Hermeticism! You can't have the Medieval Alchemical schools
  without the influence of Hermes Trismegistus on Western Estoricism in 10th century.
  And the Islamic schools started way earlier than 1450. Sorry! Not meant to be pedantic!
  
  • 
    Human Odyssey That's a fair point. I'll be bringing this post out again with a few other "brief history"
    titles (e.g. vampires, zombies, werewolves, merfolk etc).
    When I do, I'll update the witchcraft post with Hermeticism. That is a pretty fundamental part.
    
• 
  The Gray Witches Grimoire I love this! Well, I love ALL of your great images you make!
  Thanks so much for remembering us and for sending us a copy!
  I am going to share it from here to my page though. Blessings and a Merry Samhain to you! Lady Raven~
  Like · Reply · 5 · October 29 at 2:15pm
  • 
    
    Human Odyssey you're welcome Gray Witch, glad you like it.
    
• 
  Arianna Rava the part on Kabbalah is incorrect: Kabbalah did not originate by gnosticism, it generated itself.
  The Zohar is the sacred book that contains all the knowledge of the Universe, and the codes to decode
  other sacred text.
  
  Zohar means "Splendor". It was written by Shimon Bar Yochai and not Moses De Leon.
  
  The Zohar was written by Shimon Bar Yochai while he was in a cave: he channeled the Light Force of Creation
  and written the secrets of the Universe. it was not written while listening to Angels talking to him.
  the date is presumed to be around the 2nd - 3rd century ce (100-300 ce) , way before 1290.
  
  • 
    Human Odyssey Hi Arianna, the origins of the Kabbalah do go back to around 300 CE as you say
    (and the mythology goes back as far as 4000 BCE). The date I put forward is based on the medieval emergence where the major scriptures were produced (the "Treatise on the Left Emanation"
    and the "Bahir" (Book of Brightness") etc.
    
    Also, many core Gnostic ideas did influence the Kabbalah, which were used to dramatically
    reinterpret earlier Jewish sources according to this new system. Gnosticism, which was Jewish
    before it became Christian, was an attempt to harmonize the New Testament
    with heathen speculative thought.