Witchcraft: The Old Religion

THE POPULAR IMAGE OF A WITCH AS A HAG MOUNTED ON A BROOM IS BASED ON fact. In the old days it was considered an act to promote fertility for people to go to the fields riding on broomsticks and pitchforks when the moon was full. They would dance around the fields, jumping high in the air to encourage the crops to grow tall and straight. This typical magic act of the old religion later became known as witchcraft.

The term witch is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word wicca, meaning the wise one. In the beginning this word was used only in reference to the priests of the old religion, who were doctors, farmers, lawyers, and hunters, as well as priests. Wicca later became the name given to all the believers and practitioners of witchcraft and to witchcraft itself.

If we want to search our dim past for the early beginnings of this, one of the oldest of all religions, we must retrace our steps more than thirty thousand years to the Paleolithic Age, when the Horned God of the witches first made his appearance as the god of hunting. Before going on a hunt, primitive Paleolithic man would enact a hunting scene where the prey was invariably caught, in front of a priest, who would be dressed in animal skins and a headdress of horns. This priest represented the god of hunting, and the ceremony was a form of sympathetic magic, where a situation is mimicked in order that it may happen in reality.


By the Bronze Age, horns had become a symbol of the godhead. The quantity of horns was believed to be an indication of the power of a god. In the Book of Revelation, for example, the divine lamb is depicted with seven horns, probably symbolic of the seven planets. The great archangel Metraton, God's principal assistant according to Kabbalah, is also depicted with horns in most magical treatises.

Soon after the Horned God became the subject of worship, the goddess of fertility, the Great Mother, made her triumphant appearance. At this stage of man's development, survival meant both food and fertility, and thus the Great Goddess reigned for many years beside the Horned God, with equal strength. Later, with the coming of agriculture, the goddess became the more important of the two deities. Hunting was still necessary, especially during the winter months, but most of the year life was sustained by agricultural products. Thus, the goddess of fertility was called upon to extend her bounteous blessings upon the crops, as well as on man and beast.

The goddess was worshiped under three different aspects. As a young maiden, she was invoked in love problems; as a matron, to bestow fertility and protect the young; and as an old woman, for wisdom and guidance. But in all these aspects, she was still recognized as the Great Mother. Her predominance has been maintained, and today she is still the leading deity of modern witchcraft.