Women and Witchcraft: True or False?

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as well as the clergy, needed to associate witches with evil that in return would prove that demons existed; when you believe in one then you must believe in the other, God. In this essay we shall go over the how the links were made and the steps that were led to prove that witches were in fact evil that in return would prove that both the Devil and God exist.
There are numerous theories in regards to why witchcraft became so popular in the 16th and 17th century Western Europe. Witchcraft was often used as an excuse to explain the unexplainable; from different religious beliefs that people had to dead cows. John Klaits explains the reasons in why the witchcraft became so popular by stating that “many accusations of witchcraft resulted from ordinary village quarrels” (Klaits, 1985, 86). Witchcraft was often used as an explanation for random events. For example, “when a cow stopped giving milk or a child grew ill, the farmer/parent might conclude that a witch had cursed the ...

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evil and in league with demons; whether it was to become one of them or to receive powers from them. The acts in itself where the witches would perform were called witchcraft. The term witchcraft is interpreted as witches who would use “magic” or “sorcery” to do their bidding by supernatural means (Krige, 1970, 238). The way that witchcraft would work is by being completely dependent on a divine being; since God condoned these acts it would only mean that the Devil would be involved (Thomas, 1970, 48). However there is a considerable difference between “witchcraft” and “magic”. Magic was for those who were born with the supernatural gift and most often than not, did not know they harness ...

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