A view upon the evolution of religious and juridical perspectives on witchcraft
| Author | Gabriela Aura Fodor |
| Position | Master's student, Cluj-Napoca Faculty of Law of the 'Dimitrie Cantemir' Christian University of Bucharest |
| Pages | 321-324 |
A VIEW UPON THE EVOLUTION OF RELIGIOUS AND JURIDICAL PERSP ECTIVES ON
WITCHCRAFT
Fodor Gabriela Aura*
Abstract
As part of the cultural a nd spiritual heritage of the modern world, the belief in magical practices and
witchcraft has intersected through time not only with the gr eat curr ent religions, but a lso with the laic jur idical
order. Often treated as a form of frau, the practice of witchcraft has recently become a lega lly recognized
profession.
Key words: law, witchcraft, religious tr ials, fraud.
Introduction
The belief in the existence of super natural forces and their possibility to interact with the human world
has a lways represented a motive of unrest for r eason, as a reaction to the unknown. All the more, the a bility of a
person to contr ol these forces, for this is what witchcra ft claims to ena ble, will genera te a social r esponse either
of rejection, or of ca utious acceptance. The law gua rantees freedom of conscience, but it is a t the same time it is
called to ensur e social order, which some practices may enda nger. However, occult beliefs ar e perhaps the most
ancient a nd, on the other hand, all r eligions imply the existence of the supernatur al.
Witchcraft and its relation with official religions
Witchcraft is a concept hard to encase in a universally accepted definition, because the characteristics
and practices that could be contained by this vast term have varied not only from one another to another, but also
in different regions. In some situations it is even difficult for someone unacquainted with the subject to notice the
differences between accepted religious practices and rituals or their effects that could represent forbidden forces.
As Mircea Eliade ob served, “even a quick examination of Indian and Tibetan documents will convince an
unprejudiced reader that European witchcraft cannot be a product of religious or political persecution o r a
demonic sect devoted to Satan and the pro motion of evil…it is also believed about them [yogis and Indo-Tibetan
magicians] that they fly through the air, become invisible, kill from a distance, co ntrol d emons…”
1. However,
what seems to be unanimously accepted regarding witch craft is the malefic, forbidden character of these
interventions in human lives. Never theless, there didn’t always exist this definite blaming of all forms of its
current acceptation manifestations.
Starting with the primitive era, magical practices appear as an answer for the apparitions and
phenomena that co uld not yet be e xplained. The conviction formed, even if based only on grounds of
psychological nature, of security, that certain gestures or graphic representations have t he power to prevent some
events or sources of misfortune or on the contrar y, to generate favor able situations. The efficacy of magic
represented a fern belief, even without being of a religious kind. It had a comforting character, and the one who
professed it never even thought to transform the world in which he existed into a better one, as all major
religions suggest to their believers, b ecause it was mostly a logical explanation adequate to the primitive level of
understanding the phenomena2.
As I have mentioned, these belief evolved continuously, but they were still not associate only with a
prohibited occupation. The great ancient cultures k new and accep ted the existence of magi, prophets or
soothsayers. They were almost always me mbers of a sacerdotal college a nd practiced their profession being
regarded with the highest estee m by everyone3. Also, the Carpatho-Danubian-Pontic population did not know, in
their far past, o distinction between positive and negative magic, the generic name under which they were
referred to being “charms” (farmece)4.
Nevertheless, in time there appeared a distinction between those who used supernatural forces for or
against people. A good example is provided by the Latin writer Apuleius, who in his book Metmorphoses or the
Golden Ass, presents an episode where one of the characters must spend the night guarding the co rpse of one
recently deceased fro m the witches that co uld defile it for their magic rituals, but at t he same time, an Egyptian
prophet brings back from the world of t he dead the spirit of the same deceased so justice may be done regarding
the circumstances of his death, situation that does not rouse hostile reactions from those present 5.
* Master’s student, Cluj-Napoca Faculty of Law of the “Dimitrie Cantemir” Christian University of Bucharest, aura_fodor@yahoo.com
1 Mircea Eliade, Ocultism, vrjitorie şi mode culturale, Humanitas Publishing House, Bucharest, 2006, p. 92.
2 Gheorghe V. Brtescu, Vrjitoria de-a lungul timpului, Politic Publishing House, Bucharest, 1985, p. 20-21.
3Ibidem, p. 81.
4 Ibidem, p. 53.
5 Fragment consulted in: Apuleius, Metamorfoze sau Mgarul de aur, Leda Publishing House, Bucharest, 2005, p. 61-72.
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