Where did witchcraft origin?

Answer 1

Witchcraft & magic are as old as mankind. Anything, beyond your understanding or comprehension can be considered magic. A cell phone to a primitive is magic.

When mankind first started being self aware, we looked beyond ourselves and needed answers to things like, where does the sun go at night? How do we insure it will come back? How do we heal wounds and illnesses? How do we find food?

Eventually members of the group who discovered things, like which plants helped an upset stomach, where to find water, what the migration patterns of the local animals were and other things, became the ones others turned to for answers. These were the Wise Ones...

As we became more evolved the amount of knowledge expanded, and those with the answers learned a few tricks of their own.

If someone tells you a certain herb will cure your cut, you may or may not believe them, if they are well respected and do a little spell/prayer over the cut at the same time as using the herb, you tend to believe... Particularly if it works... you then tell others of the "power" of the Wise One... Eventually a name gets made, and expectation are raised...

It is a commonly accepted fact that your mind has a strong influence on your body... If you believe in something it has a better chance of working. the Wise Ones figured this out early on, so a little "showmanship" helped their reputation...

As spell/prayers/magic/ became standardized and passed on from generation to generation, the words became of equal importance to the practical application...

Magic became accepted as something that worked...

Science is today what magic once was, a practical, evolving set of standard results from repeated experimentation...

Even modern medicine can't tell us everything the mind is capable of, so some of us still believe in and practice Magic...

Answer 2

The word Witch and Witchcrft was introduced by the Catholic Church to label those people who practiced old religions. There are some people who do rituals and spells to manifest what they want or someone else wants. They are believed to have supernatural powers. These people are labeled Witches. The idea of being able to manifest something in supernatural means comes from ancient shamanism. "Magic is the ability do change the confirmity by will" - Aliester Crowley

Answer 3

Witchcraft originated in the fertile and wonderful human mind. Magic is the manipulation of naturally occurring powers by the mind and will of a practitioner. Therefore witchcraft continues to dwell and grow in its place of origin.

Answer 4

Witchcraft, in its rawest sense, developed in Paleolithic times.Ancient women and men were in great awe of nature. They recognized the power of nature, its spirit, in all its forms, be it the storm, fire, or the stream that they drank from. They ascribed each a name. This practice is called animism and is a part of human history that predates Christianity. Ancient women and men would say prayers or conduct rituals to these spirits to try to bring about a desired outcome.

One such example of these rituals can be found in cave paintings of people dressed in animal skins and wearing horns enacting a mock hunt. This was done because they had the belief that like attracts like. If they enacted a mock hunt that ended successful than so would the actual hunt. This is what is known as sympathetic magic and is the foundation upon which witchcraft and other magical belief systems were built on.