Why was therea witch craze?

Answer 1

First, do you mean a craze with the thousands of killings or do you mean a craze with the popularity of the religion? If you meant the popularity, it's because people fear what they do not understand. Instead of asking question (which would take personal accountability and balls) people find it easier to hide, point, and proclaim death. If you meant the killings, it is because the world is slowly opening up. People aren't hiding away in narrow minded views anymore. Minorities are struggling to be heard and understood. They don't have to be loved and embraced and celebrated, they just need to be heard, acknowledged and left to worship with respect. What is interesting if you read up on your history - is that most religions, when they come into power - are done so at knife point. Wouldn't it be so much nicer if people instead said, "listen, I know you're a witch/buddist/muslim/jew and I respect that - but think about coming to see what my Church is all about if you'd like." instead of, "You will be damned if you don't accept jesus as your savior now!" Wouldn't conversions go so much nicer this way?

Answer 2

Because king Henry v111 believed that witches were involved in plots to kill him in the 17th century. as after the death of Charles 1 people expected that witches had something to do with them. Also they were taught about them in church by the puritans. during the civil war people believed that there was also a war between god and the devil and that the devil had sent the witch as revenge and punishment.

Answer 3

Witchcraft started pretty much where and when humankind did.

It has been said that magic and witchcraft are simply things that seem impossible as long as you do not know how or why it works.

Things like: finding water in arid lands; putting what seemed like small stones (seeds) in the ground and having plants grow; finding your way across large areas using the stars for navigation; knowing what bits of which plants can ease a fever or alleviate pain; being in the right place at the right time to take advantage of herd migrations, all things we now understand, but to our ancestors, this had to be magic.

The people with these bits of knowledge guarded their secrets, as any smart person would and they became the practitioners of witchcraft.

Answer 4

Witchcraft, the practice of Magic and Paganism has been with us as long as mankind.

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...

The cycles of the seasons where in our blood and instincts, as they governed our survival. The wise ones were the ones who kept track of the right time to plant, and harvest, ensuring the continuance of the people.

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

Magic and its practitioners became accepted and witchcraft became known as something that worked...

Answer 5

Witches, or Wise Ones, have been with humankind as long as we have been self aware. Long before humankind developed the need for or idea of a written language, these people (both male and female) were the keepers of the histories, legends, genealogies, and useful facts of the earliest groups of our ancient ancestors.

As humankind expanded, and developed there was more and more for the Wise Ones to remember. If a specific need didn't occur regularly, most people wouldn't remember the solution to the need, but by having Wise Ones, the information was still available for use, thus the "magic" began.

By the time humankind had expanded to cover large areas of the world, there was a movement toward organised belief systems that would eventually develop into organised religions.

That did not mean, however, that the Wise Ones went away.

Long after the beginnings of organised religions, people continued to go to the local Wise One for healing, for information on when to plant crops, where to find deer and other prey animals, and explanations of such apparently frightening thins as lunar and solar eclipses.

At some point the organised religions chose to exert their power and told their followers that the Wise Ones, had "broken their oath with God" or "sold their souls to the Devil," as an explanation for their "un-Godly" knowledge.

This was blatantly untrue, as the Wise Ones were usually outside of the faith and therefore could not have "broken oath," nor did the wise ones believe in the Devil as he was a construct of the organised religions.

Times did get pretty ugly, persecutions and atrocities happened, many were killed, information was lost, and the remaining Wise Ones became very secretive.

Today, with religious tolerance becoming more prevalent, the Family Tradition Wise Ones, or Witches, are once more taking their places in the world.

There is much we may never reconstruct or recover of human history, and I feel that is a shame, but there is much we can contribute, even today.

Old ways and crafts, herbs and healing, the cycles of the moon and seasons, a re-connection to the planet we live on and with, are all parts of what modern day Wise Ones are seeking for themselves, their friends and families and their community.

We aren't hoarding the information, like days of old, you just have to find one of us and ask.

Answer 6

Witchcraft is the oldest form of religion and has existed since the beginning of man.

Answer 7

It all started because Henry VIII suspected that witches were involved in plots to kill him so in 1542 he made a law that all witches should be punished to death.

Answer 8

Generally attributed to witch Hazel.