Witches come in a variety of flavors. There is the witch of medieval lore who poisoned wells and killed cattle, who pledged her soul to the Devil and ate the flesh of murdered babies. There is the witch of the countryside who lived alone on the edge of the forest and sold love potions and charms to earn a living. There is the witch-priestess of a fading pagan religion who worshipped the goddess of the moon in crumbling stone circles. There is the male witch who practiced complex rituals of ceremonial magic and summoned demons forth within a triangle. There is the natural witch who can read thoughts, foretell the future, and has an evil eye. There is the hereditary witch who learned the art of charms and spells from her mother or grandmother. There is the good witch of white magic and the evil witch of black magic. There is the modern witch who yearns for a return to the worship of nature.

The witch you are most familiar with, she with the wart on her nose, the long hair and crooked fingers, who wears a conical black hat and rides through the air on a broom, never existed. By this, I mean that the original medieval source for this modern stereotype never existed.

Thousands of women were burned alive or hanged in Europe during the Middle Ages for the crime of heresy, specifically a heresy which involved the worship of Satan instead of the Christian God. Among the charges declared by accusers against them was that they kissed the Devil on the ass (under his tail), urinated on the cross, pledged their services to all works of evil, including murder, met in secret at night for wild orgies in which they had sex with demons and members of their immediate family, blighted crops, killed pigs and cattle, smothered babies and ate their corpses, or used their fat for making evil charms, invoked hail storms and tempests that sank ships, and a host of other indiscretions, which if true would certainly have merited the sentence of death.

A case could be made that not one of the women executed as a witch actually was guilty of the charges directed against her. Undoubtedly, a small portion of the women tried and condemned as witches had actually committed crimes, or had attempted to commit crimes through the use of magic. This malice does not make them witches, however -- merely criminals. Since the litany of sins charged to witches would be impossible for anyone to accomplish, we can say that no witches ever existed, within the definition of a witch used by the Holy Inquisition.

Most so-called witches were totally innocent, or at most, were guilty of being unpopular in their village and friendless. A charge of witchcraft was an easy way for a rural woman, who usually possessed little or no power, to destroy another woman she hated. Hysteria and fanaticism feed upon themselves. Some of the accusers genuinely believed that the poor innocent women they pointed the finger at were guilty of the charges. There was no organized, rational group or society to quell this madness -- just the opposite, many groups in society profited from the persecution of witches. Witch-finders were paid for their work, and the estates of condemned witches, small though they might be, were confiscated.

Most of the individuals killed during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance for witchcraft were women, but some were men. Most were peasants, but a very few were nobles or members of the Church. Wild numbers of those executed have been circulated by various writers who should know better, some in the many millions, but the total number of persons executed in Europe for witchcraft over a span of several centuries is probably around forty thousand -- still a huge number of innocent lives lost.

The term witch has always been used in a completely negative, pejorative way throughout history, going back to the Dark Ages. Contrary to popular opinion, it was not used in this way in the Bible -- the word witch was applied to Hebrew words describing those who poisoned or committed other crimes. Historically, there was no such thing as a good witch. The word denoted someone who practiced magic for evil purposes. Witches were not connected with the Devil until comparatively late in their evolution as a cultural phenomenon -- until around the fourteenth century the practice of natural magic was frowned upon, but was regarded as a minor crime by the Church. It was not until witches became reputed to worship Satan that witchcraft entered the big league of crime, and became a heresy.

Were there really any witches at all, in any sense? The anthropologist Margaret Murray believed there were. In 1921 she published her seminal work, The Witch-Cult in Western Europe, in which she put forward the theory that the hysteria of the medieval witch crazy had its foundation in the survival in rural parts of Europe of a pagan religion that worshipped a horned god and practiced magic. Murray believed that all the stories of witches meeting in secret in the forest were based in fact -- that members of this pagan religion met in secret to avoid the persecution of the Church. Murray also believed that the horned god of the witches had been mistaken for the horned Devil of Christians by the Inquisition.

As attractive as Murray's theory is, modern archeologists have universally dismissed it as fantasy. In my opinion, there probably was not a survival of a pagan witch religion, in any organized sense -- however, the folk teachings and methods of easing childbirth, healing and the making of charms used by rural wise women and cunning men did descend from pagan teachings indigenous to the regions where they were practiced. There were men and women in medieval Europe, usually solitary or hereditary practitioners, who used magic for various purposes, good and evil, and whose services were sought out by the general population. In this sense, witches did exist, although they probably never called themselves or thought of themselves by this name.

In occult circles, Murray's theory is embraced as dogma by the majority of those who claim to be witches today. Many modern witches, such as the late Sybil Leek and Alex Sanders, claimed to be the hereditary descendants of an unbroken line of witches stretching back to pagan times. This is nonsense. Modern witchcraft began in 1954 with the publication of the book Witchcraft Today by Gerald B. Gardner. In this book Gardner claimed to have been initiated into a witch coven in England during the Second World War. He embraced Margaret Murray's theories of the survival of a pagan religion (she wrote the foreword for Witchcraft Today). His book, though almost unreadable, was a huge hit.

I believe that Gardner was accepted into an occult group during the War, but not a witch coven. I suspect it was a group practicing ritual magic in the Golden Dawn tradition. Perhaps the members of this group were not too clear themselves about the origins of its magical techniques. Gardner may have believed them to be witches, although it is highly unlikely that they ever referred to themselves as witches.

Gardner's books, and his subsequent establishment of a witch coven of his own where his personal brand of witchcraft was taught, sowed the seeds for the modern witchcraft revival. Those who work Gardner's style of witchcraft are generally termed Gardnerian witches. Those who work the magic and rituals of another self-proclaimed prophet of the witch religion, Alex Sanders, call themselves Alexandrian witches. Until the 1970s these were the two main styles of modern witchcraft, but since the Age of Disco modern witchcraft has split into countless different currents.

Modern witches call themselves Wiccans, and they refer to their religion as Wicca. Central to the teachings of Wicca is the worship of the Goddess. Many modern witches will tell you that worship is equally given to the god and goddess of Wicca, but in fact the emphasis in Wicca is always on the Goddess. Wicca holds a strong attraction for women because, historically, most accused witches were women, and because Wicca pays supreme devotion to the Goddess in her many forms as the highest active power in the universe, and because Wicca is a nature religion that celebrates motherhood, childbirth, growth, nurturing and healing. Many women find the teachings of Wicca liberating.

A good way to understand the Goddess of Wicca is to think of her as Mother Nature. The Goddess is the benign, loving, active power that shapes and animates the world and all living things. Lunar goddesses are especially associated with the Goddess, who is variously identified as Hecate, Artemis, Selene, Persephone, and Isis, among other goddesses. She is all of these. She is the Shakti of Hinduism. Various branches of Wicca have given the Goddess a secret name, which is supposed by the sect using it to be her only true name, but most Wiccans believe that she has many names and many guises.

Modern witches meet in covens, which often but not always contain thirteen members. They are led by a High Priestess, and frequently also by a High Priest. Sometimes this leadership is shared among the members. Wicca has eight great festivals called Sabbats that fall on the equinoxes and solstices, and dates in between on the wheel of the year. Covens meet more frequently for the practice of magic and for socializing on what are termed Esbats. These often, but not always, are linked with the lunar cycle -- for example, they may occur once a month on the night of the full moon. There is no set time for Esbats.

Witches practice a simplified form of ceremonial magic laid down by Gardner, and elaborated upon by his followers. Their rituals are contained in a book called the Book of Shadows which for many years was kept secret, but which is now freely available. It is probably not true that the magician Aleister Crowley helped to write these rituals, although this fable is enormously popular. Alexandrians also have their own version of this Wiccan bible. This term Book of Shadows is also applied to an individual witch's magical diary and workbook. The main magical instrument of witches is a knife called the Athame. This very likely was derived from the black-hilted and white-hilted knives described in the medieval grimoire known as the Key of Solomon the King. It is worth noting that Gardner was a fanatic collector of knives, and wrote a book on this subject in 1936. Witches prefer to work their rituals outdoors in a magic circle, weather permitting. Gardnerian witches used to practice naked, but in recent times this has given way to robes or everyday clothing. Gardnerians also used to ritually scourge each other, and to kiss the vulva of the High Priestess during initiation, among other places, in what was known as the Five-fold Kiss, but these practices are less commonly observed today. Witches dance in a circle, chant, and share a meal of oat cakes and ale.

In its beginning modern witchcraft contained a strong component of practical magic. This has grown steadily less evident over the years. Wicca is declared to be a religion by its leaders. Often little mention is made of magic by witches. It is the natural evolution of magical organizations such as the Golden Dawn, the Ordo Templi Orientis, and Theosophy that magic gradually diminishes in importance as new members strive for respectability in mainstream society. In my opinion, eventually Wicca will become merely a nature religion, with no teaching or practice of practical magic. The signs of this evolution (or devolution) are apparent. This will, of course, rob Wicca of any value it might presently possess.

Time to dispel some modern myths. Wiccans do not engage in wild sex parties. They do not, as a rule, dance naked or lash themselves or others with whips and birch twigs. Initiation does not require sexual intercourse with the High Priestess. All of these things have occurred in the past, and still do occur from time to time, but they are not the norm. Wiccans do not pledge their souls to the Devil, whom they say is merely a Christian myth and does not exist. They do not use their magic for evil purposes. They do not force their children to join the coven (most kids would rather listen to rap music or play video games). They are not branded with a witch-mark at the time of their initiation. Male witches are not called warlocks by other witches -- this is considered the height of ignorance and bad taste.

Modern Wiccans are sensible, decent human beings who love Nature and who worship the divine creative force in the form of a feminine principle. They are generally quite liberated about sex and sensual pleasures, but they have their own prejudices and hang-ups which stem from their system of beliefs. They are convinced that their way is the right way. It is certainly a better way than many available alternatives.