Witchcraft

Origin and history

The word "bruja/brujo" (witch/warlock) appears in Spanish from bruxa (Galician-Portuguese, related possibly to a pre-Roman root). The historical practice — known with different local names: strega Italian, sorcière French, witch English, hexe German — is much older than the term: millennia of popular tradition of women (and men) who knew healing herbs, incantations, fertility rituals, channelling of spirits and folk magic.

In Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries, the persecution of witches killed tens of thousands of people (mostly women), accused — generally falsely — of pact with the devil and harmful witchcraft. The Malleus Maleficarum (1487) was the inquisitorial manual that legitimised this hunt. Many traditions of pre-Christian popular witchcraft were violently destroyed; others survived underground. In Spain and Latin America, the tradition mixed with Christianity to give rise to popular curanderismo, the saint with herbs and amulets, the brews and cleansings still alive today.

Modern witchcraft

In the 20th century, several reconstructive movements arose: Wicca (Gerald Gardner, 1950s, modern neo-pagan religion); Traditional Witchcraft (less neo-pagan, more linked to the actual European folk tradition); Eclectic Witchcraft (free combination of multiple traditions); Latin curanderismo (alive and respected in many Hispanic-American communities). All have in common reconnection with the natural-magical-feminine tradition that institutional Christianity had marginalised.

The contemporary witch generally works with: medicinal herbs (medical herbalism with intentional energetic use), candles and ritual incense, energetic crystals (cleansing, charging, protective), moon work (rituals of new and full moon), stations of the year (the 8 sabbaths of the wheel of the year — Samhain, Beltane, solstices, equinoxes), ancestor work, cleansing and protection of spaces and people.

Living witchcraft today

Modern witchcraft is much more open and diverse than its medieval prejudice. Most modern witches: do not work with "evil" or harm; cultivate ethics of "do no harm" (Wiccan rede: "an it harm none, do what you will"); honour nature; develop medicinal herbal knowledge; practise rituals of self-empowerment and personal healing; revive feminine and ancestral traditions. Cultural reclamation: for many women, identifying as a witch is a political act of recovery of the persecuted feminine wisdom.