Concept
Witchcraft
Overview
belief in possibility of or attempts to trigger supernatural processes not possible per natural laws; alleged or fictional practice of magical skills and abilities
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
But now that the Gospel is here you do not hear so much about it because the Gospel drives the devil away. Now he bewitches people in a worse way with spiritual sorcery. Witchcraft is a brand of idolatry. As witches used to bewitch cattle and men, so idolaters, i.e., all the self-righteous, go around to bewitch God and to make Him out as one who justifies men not by grace through faith in Christ but by the works of…
Martin Luther, Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians
The chapter “WITCHCRAFT” is titled for Witchcraft; states what Witchcraft is.
The eighteenth century makes an exception as regards this belief in Magic, and this is mainly because Balthasar Becker, Thomasius and some others, with the good intention of putting an end once for all to the cruel trials for witchcraft, declared all magic to be impossible. Favoured by the philosophy of the age, this opinion soon gained the upper hand, although only among the learned and educated classes.
Arthur Schopenhauer, On the Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, and On the Will in Nature
States what Witchcraft is; names Witchcraft twice.
The number of these stupid and mad things is great; in all of them without exception women are required to be the agent. Witchcraft is intimately connected with astrology; those that practise it assign each plant, animal, or mineral to a certain star, and believe that the above processes of witchcraft are different forms of worship offered to that star, which is pleased with that act, word, or offering of incense…
Moses Maimonides, The guide for the perplexed
States what Witchcraft is; names Witchcraft several times.
Related ideas
- Manchester University Press
- Ritual
- Fiji
- Yale University Press
- Early modern Europe
- German language
- Individualism
- Judaism
- Secret society
- University of Toronto Press
- Apuleius
- Neoclassicism
- Modernity
- Latin America
- Middle Ages
- Culture
- Middle East
- Dutch language
- Mesopotamia
- Heresy
- Superstition
- Western world
- Native Americans in the United States
- Occult
Opposing perspectives
Place in the tradition
Part of British philosophy.