86 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
86 lines
4.5 KiB
Plaintext
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History of Witchcraft
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As I am trying to put this all together, I hope to bring about an
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understanding that Witchcraft, like any religion, has undergone
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it's changes throughout the centuries. It is my personal
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feeling, however, that the religion of Witchcraft has undergone
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far fewer changes than any other in history.
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As the song sung by Neil Diamond starts:
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" Where it began, I can't begin to knowin..."
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Witchcraft, sorcery, magic, whatever can only begin to find its
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roots when we go back as far as Mesopotamia. With their dieties
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for all types of disasters, such as Utug - the Dweller of the
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Desert waiting to take you away if you wandered to far, and
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Telal - the Bull Demon, Alal - the destroyer, Namtar -
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Pestilence, Idpa - fever, and Maskim - the snaresetter; the days
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of superstitution were well underway.
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It was believed that the pharaohs, kings, etc. all imbued some
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power of the gods, and even the slightest movement they made
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would cause an action to occur. It was believed that a picture,
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or statue also carried the spirit of the person. This is one of
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the reasons that they were carried from place to place, and also
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explains why you see so many pictures and statues of these
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persons with their hands straight to their sides.
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In the Bible, we find reference to "The Tower of Babel" or The
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Ziggurat in Genesis 11. "Now the whole world had one language and
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a common speech. As men moved eastward, they found a plain in
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Shinar (Babylonia) and settled there. They said to each other,
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`Come, let's make bricks and bake them thoroughly.' They used
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brick instead of stone, and tar instead of mortar. Then they
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said, `Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that
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reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves
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and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth.' But the
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Lord came down to see the city and the tower that the men were
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building. The Lord said,`If as one people speaking the same
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language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do
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will be impossible for them. Come let us go down and confuse
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their language so they will not understand each other.'" It goes
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on to say that the tower was never finished.
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In other references, we find that the "Tower" was in fact
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finished, and that it was a tower that represented the "stages"
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between earth and heaven (not a tower stretching to the heaven in
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the literal sense.) From this reference, it was a tower built in
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steps. A hierarchy on which heaven and hell were based. It was
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actually a miniature world representing the Mountain of Earth.
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.pa
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Each stage was dedicated to a planet, with its angles symbolizing
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the four corners of the world. They pointed to Akkad, Saburtu,
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Elam, and the western lands. The seven steps of the tower were
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painted in different colors which corresponded to the planets.
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The "Great Misfortune:, Saturn, was black. The second was white,
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the color of Jupiter. The third, brick-red, the color of
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Mercury, followed by blue, Venus; yellow, Mars, gray or silver
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for the moon. These colors boded good or evil, like their
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planets.
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For the first time, numbers expressed the world order. A legend
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depicts Pythagoras traveling to Babylon where he is taught the
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mystery of numbers, their magical significance and power. The
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seven steps often appear in magical philosophy. The seven steps
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are: stones, fire, plants, animals, man, the starry heavens, and
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the angels. Starting with the study of stones, the man of wisdom
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will attain higher and higher degrees of knowledge, until he will
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be able to apprehend the sublime, and the eternal. Through
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ascending these steps, a man would attain the knowledge of God,
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whose name is at the eighth degree, the threshold of God's
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heavenly dwelling.
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The square was also a "mystical" symbol in these times, and
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though divided into seven, was still respected. This correlated
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the old tradition of a fourfold world being reconciled with the
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seven heavens of later times.
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It is thought that here was the start to numerology, but for this
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to have developed to the point where they had taken into
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consideration the square as the fourfold world, it would have had
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to have developed prior to this.
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From Mesopotamia lets move over to Persia.
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