The practice of
magic or sorcery is called “Witchcraft”. The word witch is
derived from the Old English wicce, meaning “a female magician or
sorceress,” but although the terms “wizard” and “warlock” are
available for male magicians, “witch” and “witchcraft” are generally
applied to both sexes and their magical activities. Among many peoples
accidents, sickness, death, and other untoward events have been thought to be
caused by witches—individuals who had magical power that they used for evil
purposes.
Magic could, in primitive
belief, be used for good; the practitioners of beneficent magic were often
regarded as priests, using their power for the common good; or a distinction was
made between white or beneficent magic and black, malevolent magic.
Among the practicing witches, one should distinguish
between women who dealt in herbs and charms to help their fellows as well as, on
occasion, to injure them, and the ever-decreasing number of persons who clung to
pagan religious rites. A belief in witchcraft persisted long after the
witch-hunt subsided. There may have been witches who believed themselves capable
of supernatural acts, for the drug plants they are recorded as using—opium
poppy, mandrake, belladonna (deadly nightshade), and Indian hemp—are known to
produce hallucinations and vascular excitement. The use of charms to cause
illness or death has not completely died out: there is record of a man dying of
witchcraft in New York in 1940. This last may seem strange, but it is well
established by observers of primitive societies where witchcraft prevails that
people can die of witchcraft. The belief that one is a victim of witchcraft is
psychologically as potent as actual magic could be. As for the great witch-hunt
that shook Europe for several centuries, it has bequeathed to the English
language the term witch-hunt in the meaning of “searching out and
harassing proponents of an incompatible political philosophy.”