Holy flying monkeys! The headline or lede has been everywhere in the Ontario media in recent days. A woman in her twenties has been charged with witchcraft, as well as fraud. Who knew that the crime of witchcraft still existed anywhere in Canada? It appears that she is a fraudster who scammed (bewitched?) a guy in his 60's out of $600,000, promising to break the spell of evil spirits in his life. While the fraud and theft is real it appears that she was actually just impersonating a witch.
This momentary fascination will pass but it got me thinking about witches as we approach All Hallows Eve. Kids aren't as enamoured of witches as they were but there will probably still be some naughty witches at parties this year.
Christianity hasn't been friendly to witches through history. There are only a few references to witches in the Older Testament but even they aren't that accurate. There isn't a Hebrew word for witch and these were sorcerers and what we might call psychics. The New Testament has even slimmer pickin's.
Witchcraft took on infamy during a period in European and American history where women were tried and executed for crimes which had more to do with male control and hysteria than any actual spiritual hocus pocus. Ruth, my spouse, has a relative who was a prosecutor in the Salem witch trials of the late 17th century, which she doesn't exactly brag about.The outcome was often brutal.
Witches are few and far between, yet we are living in a disturbingly regressive moment when white males in the United States seem intent of controlling women's reproductive processes and putting them in their place. Hmm. Perhaps it is the warlocks who need to be put in their places.
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