For nearly two centuries, witchcraft seemed to have disappeared. Although it was driven underground for a time, it is now the fastest growing religion in the United States. There are several reasons for its disappearance and now, for its return.Until the fifteenth century, witchcraft was not considered an "evil" practice. It was about that time that the Catholic church started labeling witches as heretics and sinners because of their belief in social rebellion. The idea of social rebellion was also a rebellion against the church, which taught that "It was the duty of the common people to endure the tyranny of authority, no matter how oppressive." (Donovan 118) There were also the other acts in the rituals of witchcraft which included feasting and dancing, both of which the church considered rebellious. But, it was not until the end of the fifteenth century that witchcraft got the reputation of being a satanic religion. The idea of a purely diabolical witchcraft was said to have been invented by the Roman Catholics to supply a way to destroy the threat of the heretic Germans. The idea of satan as an evil figure in religion was not even in the Old Testament, it was put there for an easy way to accuse people. Witches were seen worshipping a horned God, so the church created a horned figure that they related to evil, they called this figure satan. But the creation of this figure did much more than kill just Germans. The theory that witches were devil worshippers gave the church license to begin persecuting them as heretics, and they did. It was the beginning of two hundred years of torture and execution.In those two hundred years it has been estimated that anywhere from 200,000 to 9,000,000 people were executed or met their death. These people were cruelly tortured, tormented, and harassed until they confessed, and then they were tortured again to be sure that they had given a full confession and that they had been properly ...
