Discrediting modern Witchcraft

Sosthenes · Joined: 18 Feb 2008 Posts: 60

I happened to read some material which discredits modern Witchcraft:

"A more recent theory relating to the so called European witch craze in the 16th and 17th centuries (the craze lasted from the mid-15th to the mid-18th centuries) is that of H.R. Trevor-Roper, a British historian. He views witchcraft as an outgrowth of the systematic "demonology" that the medieval church constructed out of the scattered folklore of Peasant superstitions and that acquired a momentum of its own in the centuries of political and religious strife that transformed Europe from the so-called Dark Ages to the modern period.

Theories of more general applicability include the diffusionists (Psychological and Sociological theories), psychological, and sociological theories of various anthropologists and historians. Diffusionists theories are concerned with accounting for the distribution, either at present or in historical times, of beliefs and practices relating to witchcraft; E.g., viewing Pueblo witch beliefs as an amalgam of Spanish and Indian influences.

Psychological theories stem ultimately from Freud's doctrine of the displacement of affect (that emotions repressed in one situation find another outlet in another), as exemplified in the theory of Bronislaw Malinowski, an anthropologist who regarded magic (including sorcery) as institutionalized 'substitute activity,' restored to when urges for survival or for revenge are blocked by the inadequacies of technology or (following Kluckhohn's development of the theory) are limited by the closeness of social relationships that can be ended only with great difficulty."-Encyclopedia Britanica Macropaedid Knowledge in Depth #19 (p.896-897)

As a believer, I ran across this claim from a Wiccan. He wouldn't accept a Christian definition so I asked a Jew on another Bulletin Board. First, I will show the claim. I will give a little background on the Bible and then I will give my Jewish brother's response.