Magick and Witchcraft
Stories of witches and witchcraft have been told throughout history – from old crones huddled over a cauldron, boiling toads and chanting incantations to green-skinned sorceresses, wearing pointy hats and cackling on their broomsticks.
More recently, the huge success of the Harry Potter franchise, alongside popular TV shows such as Charmed, Bewitched and Netflix’s The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, have brought modern tales of magick and enchantment into the twenty-first century.
Spell-casting may be back in fashion, but the past few centuries have seen witches suffer enormously at the hands of those who both fear and envy their power. Magick is not a fashion statement; it is a way of life that requires respect for the craft, honour for the earth, knowledge and understanding.
Do people still practice Witchcraft?
Yes. More than you probably realise! Sadly, many are still in the broom closet, surrounded by people who are too uneducated, too religiously biased or too misinformed about what it means to be a witch and therefore prevented from openly sharing their practice, but more and more people are embracing their natural magickal abilities.
As with most modern-day trends, the interest in witches and witchcraft has increased dramatically in the past few decades. Growing up I used to love watching Sabrina the Teenage Witch after I came home from school; I'd imagine how wonderful it would be to live in a magickal world of spells and witchcraft and wished I had special powers. Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone had the same effect on the next generation of children. The book was first released on June 26, 1997 and, according to Wordery, is one of the bestselling books of all time. Fortune.com states that more than 400 million copies of Harry Potter titles have been sold worldwide, translated into 68 languages.
These TV shows and books may be works of fiction but I believe they are the catalyst that brought magick back into the mainstream. We may not own a talking cat and owls don't deliver our post (well, not mine anyway!) but, as the number of modern-day practising witches is rising, so is the search for more information and, in turn, the opportunity to educate people on what it really means to be a witch.