Witches should be aware of their roots; aware of how and why the persecutions came about, for instance, and where and when the reemergence took place. There is a great deal to be learned from the past. It is true that much of history can seem dry and boring to many of us, but that is far from so with the history of Witchcraft. It is very much alive and filled with excitement. Twenty-five thousand years ago Paleolithic people depended upon hunting to survive. Only by success in the hunt could there be food to eat, skins for warmth and shelter, bones to fashion into tools and weapons. In those day’s people believed in a multitude of gods. Nature was overwhelming. Out of awe and respect for gusting wind, the violent lightning, the rushing stream, people ascribed to each spirit, made each a deity….a god. This is what we call animism. A god controlled the wind. A god controlled the sky. A god controlled the waters. But most of all, a god controlled the all important hunt….the god of hunting.
Most of the animals hunted were horned so people pictured the god of hunting also as being horned. It was at this time that magick became mixed in with these first faltering steps of religion. The earliest form of magick was probably of the sympathetic variety. Similar things, it was thought, have similar effects: like attracts like. Along with this god of hunting there was a goddess, though which came first (or they evolved together) we do not know, and it is immaterial. If there were animals to hunt, there had to be fertility of those animals. If the tribe was to continue (and there was a high morality rate in those days) then there had to be fertility of women. Some rituals consisted of clay models made of animals mating, and in accompanying were the members of the tribe and they would copulate. With the development of agriculture there was a further elevating of the goddess. She now watched over the fertility of the crops as well as of tribe and of animal. The year, then, fell naturally into the halves. In the summer food could be grown, and so the goddess predominated; in the winter women had to revert to hunting, and so the god predominated. The other deities (of wind, thunder, lightning, ect.) gradually fell into background, now of secondary importance. As people developed, so did the religion—for that is what it had become, slowly and naturally. People spread across Europe, taking the gods along. As different countries developed, so the god and goddess acquired different names (though not always totally different; sometimes simply variations on the same name), yet they were essentially the same deities. By now, people had learned not only to grow food but also to store it for the winter. So hunting became less important. The horned god came now to be looked upon more as a god of nature generally, and a god of death and what lies after. The goddess was still of fertility and also of rebirth, for people had developed a belief of life after death.
With development of different rituals—for fertility, for success in the hunt, for seasonal needs—there necessarily developed a priesthood: a select few more able to bring results when directing the rituals. In Europe these ritual leaders, or priests and priestesses, became known as the Wicca*---the wise ones. In fact, by the time of the Anglo-Saxon kings in England, the king would never think of acting on any important matter without consulting the Witan; the council of the wise ones. Indeed, the Wicca did have to be wise. They not only led religious rites, but also had to have knowledge of herbal lore, magick, and divination; they had to be doctor, lawyer, magician, and priest. To the people, the Wicca were plenipotentiaries between them and the gods. But, at the great festivals, they almost became like gods themselves. With the coming of Christianity there was not the immediate mass-conversation that is often suggested. Christianity was a man-made religion. It had not evolved gradually and naturally over thousands of years, as we have seen that the old religion did. Whole countries were classed as Christian when in actuality it was only the rulers who had adopted the new religion, and often only superficially at that. Throughout Europe, generally, the old religion, in its many and varied forms, was still prominent for the first thousand years of Christianity. An attempt at mass conversion was made by Pope Gregory the Great. He thought that one way to get the people to attend the new Christian churches was to have them built on the sites of the older temples, where the people where accustomed to gathering together to worship. He instructed his bishops to smash any “idols” and to sprinkle the temples with holy water and rededicate them. To a large extent, Gregory was successful. Yet the people were not quite as gullible as he thought. When the first Christian churches were being constructed, the only artisans available to build them were from among the Pagans themselves. In decorating the churches, these stonemasons and woodcarvers very cleverly incorporated figures of their own deities. In this way, even if they were forced to attend the churches, the people could still worship their own gods there.
