FID:A1020001


                             WITCHCRAFT 

   

   Witchcraft is known as the "Old Religion" and is an ancient  

 practice dating back to biblical times. Witchcraft can be defined as  the
performance of magic forbidden by God for non-biblical ends. The  word
witchcraft is related to the old English word (wiccian),  

"practice of magical arts." 

   It was during the Middle Ages that witchcraft experienced a great  

 revival. It was an age where everyone believed in the supernatural  and
superstition abounded. 

   If someone wanted to become a witch, there was an initiation  

 process. Some of the techniques were simple and some were  complicated, but
there were usually two requirements. The first  requirement was that the
would-be witch must join of his or her own  free will. The second requirement
was that the prospective witch must  be willing to worship the devil. 

 

   One writer decsribed a witch in the following manner: 

 

 Witches are those who, because of the magnitude of their crimes, are 
commonly called (malefici) or evil doers. These Witches, by the  permission
of God, agitate the elements, and disturb the minds of men  less trusting in
God. Without administering any poison, they kill by  the great potency of
their charms....For they summon devils and dare  to rouse them so that
everyone kills his enemies by evil stratagems.  For these witches make use of
the blood of victims, and often defile  the corpses of the dead....For the
devils are said to love blood, and  so when the witches practice the black
arts, they mingle blood with  water, so that by the color of blood they can
more easily conjure up  the devils (Gratian, Decretum). 

  

 WITCHCRAFT TODAY 

  

   The modern witch does not fit the stereotype of the old hag, for  

 many people who are practicing this art are in the mainstream of  society.
The question is why? Why a renewed interest in this ancient  art among both
the educated and the ignorant? Daniel Cohen list a  couple of possible
reasons: 

 

   First, there is the eternal appeal of magic, the promise, however  

 muted, that there are secrets available that will give a person  power,
money, love, and all those things he or she desires but cannot  seem to
obtain. Second, witchcraft is a put-down and a revolt against  some of the
establishment beliefs in organized religion, science, and  rational thinking.
The historic connection between witchcraft and  drugs and sex also has
undoubted appeal. Here is a set of beliefs  that claim to be part of an
extremely ancient religion. Yet this is a  religion in which drugs and free
sexuality are not condemned, but  might be encouraged. (Daniel Cohen, A
Natural History of Unnatural  Things, New York; McCall Pub. Co., 1971, pp.
31,32). 


   Modern witchcraft bears little resemblance to the witchcraft of  

 the Middle Ages or to witchcraft in still primitive, preliterate 
societies. Modern witchcraft is a relatively recent development (the  last
200 years), embraces hundreds of beliefs and practices and has  hundreds of
thousands of adherents. The one common theme running  through modern
witchcraft is the practice of and belief in things  forbidden by God in the
Bible as occultic. 

 

   Today, in a massive spin-off from the culture-wide interest in the  

 occult, this has changed. Tens of thousands across America - some of  them
with university degrees - are dabbling in witchcraft, Satanism,  voodoo, and
other forms of black and white magic. Witches sppear  openly on television.
Every high school is said to have its own  witch. In Cleveland you can rent a
witch to liven up a party. There  are some 80,000 persons practicing white
magic in the United States,  with 6,000 in Chicago alone. (George Vandeman,
Psychic Roulette,  Nashville TN}}}, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1973, pp. 99,
100). 

 

   Witchcraft is not dead today as can be observed by an article  

 appearing in the Los Angeles Times concerning the goddess movement: 

.....Eerie monotones...reverberated on the UC Santa Cruz camous.  

 Cheers and whoops went up for the goddesses of yore - Isis, Astara, 
Demeter, Artemis, etc.                                                       
       

     

...The event was indicative of a burgeoning spiritual dimension to  

 the women's liberation movement in America.... 

   Christine Downing, head of San Diego State University's religious  

 studies department, estimates that many - if not most - spiritually 
sensitive women in the women's movement are willing to replace the  biblical
God with a frankly pagan and polytheistic approach. 

   Witchcraft is aiding the women in their search for roots and  

 rituals - without the connotations of evil usually associated with 
witchcraft. 

   A Santa Cruz woman...said, "Some of the women think of themselves  

 as witches, but not all." 

   A brief, unscheduled appearance - met with enthusiastic applause -  

 was made by Z Budapest. A self-described witch...the goddess movement 
knows her more as a leader of the Susan B Anthony Coven No. 1 in Los  Angeles
and a chrismatic spokeswoman for a feminist brand of Wicca,  an ancient
women's religion (witchcraft). 

   The goddess movement, also called the women-spirit movement,  

 apparently considers its first major gathering to have been a  conference
attended by about 1,200 women at the University of  Massachusetts in late
1975..... 


   The ancient Mediterranean world, pagan Europe, Native America and  

 Hindu tradition are all sources for goddess imagery.... 

   A religious phenomenon virtually unknown outside feminist circles,  

"goddess consciousness" will be widely known in three to five years  

(Los Angeles Times, April 10, 1978). 

   

 THE BIBLE AND WITCHCRAFT 

   

   Both the Old and New Testament make repeated references to the  

 practice of witchcraft and sorcery, and whenever these practices are 
referred to they are always condemned by God. The Bible condemns all  forms
of witchcraft, including sorcery, astrology and reading human  and animal
entrils. The following passages describe the various forms  of witchcraft
which are condemned by God. You shall not allow a sorceress to live (Exodus
22:18, NASB). 

 

   You shall not eat anything with blood, nor practice divination or  

 soothsaying (Leviticus 19:26, NASB). 

 

   Do not turn to mediums or spiritist; do not seek them out to be  

 defiled by them. I am the Lord your God (Leviticus 19;31, NASB). 

 

   Now a man or a woman who is a medium or spiritist shall surely be  

 put to death. They shall be stoned with stones, their bloodguiltiness  is
upon them (Leviticus 20:27, NASB). 

 

   You shall not behave thus toward the Lord your God, for every  

 abominable act which the Lord hates they have done for their gods;  for
they even burn their sons and daughters in the fire to their gods  

(Deuteronomy 12:31, NASB). 

 

   There shall not be found among you anyone who makes his son or his  

 daughter pass through the fire, one who uses divination, one who  practices
witchcraft, or one who interprets omens, or a sorcerer, or  one who casts a
spell, or a medium, or a spiritist, or one who calls  up the dead....For
those nations, which you shall dispossess, listen  to those who practice
witchcraft and to diviners, but as for you, the  Lord your God has not
allowed you to do so (Deuteronomy 18:10,11,14,  NASB). 

 

   For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and insubordination is  

 as iniquity and idolatry. Because you have rejected the word of the  Lord,
He has also rejected you from being king (1 Samuel 15:23, NASB) 

 

   Then they made their sons and their daughters pass through the  

 fire, and practiced divination and enchantments, and sold themselves  to do
evil in the sight of the Lord, provoking Him (2 Kings 17:17,  NASB). 

 

   And he made his son pass through the fire, practiced witchcraft  

 and used divination, and dealt with mediums and spiritist. He did  much
evil in the sight of the Lord provoking Him to anger (2 Kings  21:6, NASB). 


   Moreover, Josiah removed the mediums, and the spiritist and  

 teraphim and the idols and all the abominations that were seen in the  land
of Judah and in Jerusalem. that he might confirm the words of  the law which
were written in the book that Hilkiah the priest found  in the house of the
Lord (2 Kings 23:24, NASB). 

 

   So Saul died for his trespass which he committed against the Lord,  

 because of the word of the Lord which he did not keep; and also  because he
asked counsel of a medium, making inquiry of it, and did  not inquire of the
Lord. Therefore He killed him, and turned the  kingdom to David the son of
Jesse (1 Chronicles 10:13, NASB). 

 

   And when they say to you, "Consult the mediums and the spiritist  

 who whisper and mutter," should not a people concult their God?  Should
they consult the dead on behalf of the living? (Isaiah 8:19,  NASB). 

 

   Then the spirit of the Egyptians will be demoralized within them;  

 and I will confound their strategy, so that they will resort to idols  and
ghosts of the dead, and to mediums and spiritist (Isaiah 19:3,  NASB). 

 

   Stand fast now in your spells and in your many sorceries with  

 which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you will be able to 
profit, perhaps you may cause trembling. You are wearied with your  many
counsels; let now the astrologers, those who prophesy by the  stars, those
who predict by the new moons, stand up and save you from  what will come upon
you (Isaiah 47:12,13, NASB). 

 

   But as for you, do not listen to your prophets, your diviners,  

 your dreamers, your soothsayers, or your sorcerers, who speak to you 
saying, "You shall not serve the king of Babylon." For they prophesy  a lie
to you, in order to remove you far from your land; and I will  drive you out,
and you will perish (Jeremiah 27:9,10, NASB). 

 

   "Then I will draw near to you for judgment; and I will be a swift  

 witness against the sorcerers and against the adulterers and against  those
who swear falsely, and against those who oppress the wage  earner in his
wages, the widow and the orphan, and those who turn  aside the alien, and do
not fear Me." says the Lord of Hosts (Malachi  3:5, NASB). 


   And when they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos,  

 they found a certain magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was 
Bar-Jesus, who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of 
intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear  the
word of God. But Elymas the magician (for thus his name is  translated) was
opposing them, seeking to turn the proconsul away  from the faith. But Saul,
who was also known as Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze upon
him , and said, "You who are full of all deceit and fraud, you son of the
devil, you enemy of all  righteousness, will you not cease to make crooked
the streight ways  of the Lord?" (Acts 13:6-10, NASB). 

 

   Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are: immorality,  

 impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, 
outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, factions, envying,  drunkenness,
carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn  you just as I have
forewarned you that those who practice such things  shall not inherit the
kingdom of God (Galatians 5:19-21, NASB). 

 

   But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers  

 and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their  part
will be in the Lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is  the second
death (Revelations 21:8, NASB). 

 .W#04?