On Witches versus Satanists

				  by

			    Scorpion / Edge



Nowadays witches are often mistaken for being equivalent to Satanists.
The word witch- or witchcraft, as it were, is often used to specify
two concepts that differ widely. On the one hand it is a survival of
ancient paganism, on the other hand inverted Christianity.

  Let me cut it out in cardboard here: A Satanist is a renegade
Christian that rebels against the authority of the church by 
worshiping Satan rather than Christ. These people are, every now and
then, referred to as witches in popular literature and vulgar films.
In truth, they have very little in common with pagan witches. Firstly,
a Satanist accepts the Christian duality between good and evil- the
pagan witches do not. Possibly, the Satanists DO choose to worship
evil rather than good, but they have still fully accepted the Christian
outlook. The pagan witches percieve good and evil as being very closely
connected, unseparable even. They view the concept of the divine as
being made up of several aspects- creation, destruction, the sustaining
of life- rather than ascribing all destructive powers, the forces of
evil, to an exterior exsistance in the shape of devils.

Modern heathens, or rather, those who worship the threesome goddess of
(re)birth, initiation and death, as described by Miriam Simos a.k.a.
StarHawk, prefer to refer to themselves as "Wicca(s)" (and ancient
Celtic word meaning to bend or shape) because they realise how
degrading the word witch has become. The negative associations that
stick to the word today is due to centuries of Christian propaganda.
The religion of the witches is, according to anthropologist Margaret
Murray- authoress of the renowned book: The God of the Witches, in
which she puts forth her theory of a prehistoric religion of Western
Europe that has pulled through to the sixteenth century, inspite
of attempts (like the Inquisition) to Christian all of Europe- the
purest form of Western European nature worshipping; a cult of
nature healers. The only trouble is that the "purest form" is
virtually nowhere to be found. 
  
Now we are getting to the greatest problem to overcome when one
wishes to study the history of witches/witchcraft: During the
twothousand years this ancient nature-religion has survived 
under ground in a Christian world it has been confused by Christian
sybolism. Here, the poet and the artist is capable of giving us
a clearer picture of witches/witchcraft than any down-to-earth,
rational historian.

Satanists, on the other hand, are trapped in Christian definitions,
names and paranoia. They turn the cross up side down, use black
instead of white, spell holy names backwards etc etc... Christ
dominates their thoughts completely, why else would they constantly
aim at waging war on him? To Wiccas, which are interested in 
transcendence and NOT revenge on any god, Christ is a prophet- one
of a number of masters that point towards spiritual liberation.
The church is percieved as a secular organisation- owners of
property and a powerful pressure group on the oppression of women,
for instance, that has very little- or nothing at all- to do with
spiritual growth. It would, undoubtedly, have banned this article,
had it been written only 250 years ago (and I would probably have
been burned at the stake!)

For those of you who wish to investigate further into the world of
witches, witchcraft and/or Wicca, here's some literature for you
(some in English and some in Danish. The commentary is accordingly):

Margaret Murray: Heksenes Gud - The God of the Witches
		 + The Witch-Cult in Western Europe 
		 (these books started the revival of witchcraft)

Wicca : A guide for the solitary practitioner
	(speaks for itself, now doesn't it?)

Gerald Gardner : Witchcraft today
		 + The Meaning of Witchcraft 
	       (first acclaimed, reformed British witch, I think!)	 

Robert Graves : The White Goddess

Michael Harrison : The roots of witchcraft

Barbara Walker : The woman's dictionary of symbols and sacred objects

Bente Alver : Heksetro & trolddom 
	      (heksetroens grundelementer.)	

J.J. Bachofen : Myth, Religion and Mother Right 
	        (on matriarcal societies.)

Jessie Wicker Bell : The Grimoire of Lady Sheba 
		     (Spellbook of the Gardner tradition.)

Jeanne Favret-Saada : Deadly Words- Witchcraft in the bocage 
		      (pioneer work on the psychology of Wicca.
		      The authoress, who is a psychiatrist, ended
		      up as a Wicca herself!)

Sir James G. Frazer : The Golden Bough 
		      (classical work on comparative mythology)

Justine Glass : Witchcraft, the sixth sense
		(introduction to the oldest religion in the world)

Heinrich Kramer
& Jacob Sprenger : Malleus Maleficarum 
		   ("The Witch-hammer"- book used during The Inquistion
		   to determine whether or not a person was a witch
		   <and indeed how to deal with her/him accordingly!>
		   Truely horriffic literature!)

T.C. Lethbride : Witches, Investigating an ancient religion 
		 (investigation based on the theory of M. Murray)

Ilse Maja & Henrik Olsen : Satan-kult og heksetro 
			 (Paastande om moderne heksekult i Danmark,
			 forfatterens maal er "en genoplivning af
			 "den gamle religion")

Elaine Pagels : Tabernes evangelier 
		(om tidlig kristen fordrivelse af det kvindelige 
		aspekt fra den organiserede kirke)

Anyone with further information on Wicca should either try writing to
this magazine- or better still- my home address:

Scorpion / Edge
Samsøvej 7
3140 Ålsgårde
Denmark