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| "Neo-Pagan" means "new pagan". |
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| Witches & Wicca | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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Witch Hunt
The Inquisition or “Burning Times” During 1450 to 1792 One of the most infamous medieval handbook called, "Malleus Maleficarum", or as "The Witch-Hammer" was to assist how to hunt for witches by asking specific questions in order to identify whether a person was indeed a witch, and by persecuting the witches in order to be convicted for executions. Surprisingly this book was popular as second to the Bible and written by German monks. In reality this book was not embraced warmly by experienced judges or people with a great knowledge of laws and rules.
Unfortunately a significant large percentage of male dominated societies was not widely educated and not familiar with the justice. So they did not know what to do but followed the witch hunt hysteria and however they adopted this book as their tool to detect witches in their villages.
On the positive side, the majority of countries escaped from the Witch hysteria. It occurred only in Europe, New England and few scattering countries. Those areas were in where the Roman Catholics came in and hoped to convert people to their Catholic religion. Wicca First, another term for witch is Wicca. This was used to be called pre-Christian religion as "old religion" with the goddess of fertility and the god of the hunt. Wicca is most popular among women. It is believed to be related to some ancient traditions such as the Druids and Celtics. Unfortunately some data were lost in the ancient times since there were Roman, Normanic and Viking invasions so the Wiccans went underground. In the recent years, Wicca is expanding more around in this country. In England and Europe there are a large number of Wiccan covens and communities growing fast than the USA. A main reason why Wiccans has became trendy and all the rage is that more women and feminists seek for womanly earth based religion in a positive way. Until Gerald B. Gardner joined to become Wicca in 1939, he published some books including a novel, "High Magic's Aid" and a version of rituals and traditions, "Witchcraft Today" . Some people called him as "Grandfather " of neopagan Wiccans. His books helped a great deal to "recreate" or revive Wicca tradition as neopaganism.
Wicca is 5th largest religion behind Christianity, Islam, Judaism and Hinduism but is unknown by general public.
Sad, today it is hatred and misinformation still remaining, no matter, some people are brave enough to announce that they are Wiccans in public. There are some assaults, arsons and economic attacks as reported yearly but it is suspected as massive as short of insufficient data at this moment. Some officers seize children from Wiccan family homes in fear of possibilities that children would be killed or abused in some satanic ritual. Wiccan rituals are conducted standing or sitting in a circle, either outdoors or indoors, depending on the seasons and ability to have the most privacy. Regular rituals coincide with the seasonal times and lunar holidays. The seasonal holy days are called as Sabbats:
Some Wiccans celebrate "esbats" or lunars as additional to eight major sabbats and their celebrations are held on the full moon.
Similar to the Catholic Cross Sign, the pentagram should keep tupmost triangle pointing upward as if toward heaven as called a seat of wisdom. A reversed or inversed pentagram with two points upward may mean something like a symbol of evil but causes misunderstanding. Sometimes the inverted pentagram is acceptable for use by Wicca or another religion groups for some reasons. Wicca use the inversed pentagram as symbol of "second degree" status that refers to a person who has been elevated from "initiate". This kind of inversed symbol is considered highly positive and has no connection to Satanism. Christians used this pentagram to represent five wounds of Jesus. Note: this section provides you a sketchy narrative of Wicca and Witch. If you like further research please feel free to try several sources; library, bookstores and Internet.
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Uncertainty about the statistics of people being accused as witches, it was assumed about approximately 30,000 to 300,000 victims being executed in most areas of Europe where Roman Catholics began to expand. This major purpose was to "eliminate religious heretics" by using the Witch Hunt as cover up. There were some possibilities for another purpose to reduce a role of leadership by women. Most victims were midwives, female healers, single women, women living alone, and women owning property. Others were neighborhood rivals, men who practiced pagans, and people who happened in wrong place at wrong time. 
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