Modern Theories and Criticism
Further information: Witch-cult hypothesisThe old liberal view of European Witchcraft holds that witchcraft never existed at all, but was invented by the Catholic Church and other authorities to gain power and prestige.
Margaret Murray claimed that witchcraft was a holdover of a worldwide ancient fertility cult; however, modern scholars have rejected this as unfounded due to a "deliberate misinterpretation of the evidence".
Another school, currently the most influential, emphasizes the social history and social patterns of witchcraft accusations. This assumes that witchcraft never existed, but blames widespread superstition rather than the Church for the craze.
Yet another school of thought emphasizes the history of ideas and argues that witchcraft is a composite of superstitions collected across the centuries; of these, the most influential are Christian heresy and theology rather than actual pagan practices.
Rossell Hope Robbins, among others, contends that the chief motive behind the prosecutions was the desire for the property of the condemned; however, the number of confiscations overall was relatively small, and a disproportionately great number of people convicted were of small means.
For more information, see the extensive discussion under witchhunts.
Read more about this topic: European Witchcraft
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“Whatever practical people may say, this world is, after all, absolutely governed by ideas, and very often by the wildest and most hypothetical ideas. It is a matter of the very greatest importance that our theories of things that seem a long way apart from our daily lives, should be as far as possible true, and as far as possible removed from error.”
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“I consider criticism merely a preliminary excitement, a statement of things a writer has to clear up in his own head sometime or other, probably antecedent to writing; of no value unless it come to fruit in the created work later.”
—Ezra Pound (1885–1972)