Witches - Desire and Condemnation

Witches and other such magic users have become a catalyst for imagination in popular culture. As science has advanced, the belief in users of magic has diminished. We no longer condemn witches as demonic worshipers; we now observe them with envy. The desire of obtaining magic powers now likely outweighs the fear of it. We now dream of having magical powers of our own to do with as we please. While the fear of the unknown still exists, the ability to use magic is seen as more of a wondrous gift. This gift serves as a spark for our imagination, leading us to amazing new worlds full of wonder.

The modern portrayal of witchcraft can also be seen as a reversal of the condemning our society once directed toward these individuals. One such contemporary representation is the Harry Potter series. In Harry Potter, wizards and witches are taught to harness their magic abilities in magic school. If a child without the ability to use magic is born, they are treated as second-class citizens and “encouraged” to live in the muggle (non-magic) world. This is a turnaround from how witches were depicted in the early modern period. Witches appear to now have a society of their own and prosecute those they deem abnormal and monstrous. Magic is still depicted as something mysterious, but the use of it is shown as something that must be explored and understood. Witches are no longer ugly hags, but ordinary people that happen to have a capacity to harness magic. The contemporary way in which witches are portrayed encourages us to sympathize with the witch and view the world that they live in, in the way they live it. This can be interpreted as a rise in status of the lower “peasant” class. As the peasant class was discriminated against, so were witches. Peasants and witches both lived in the night which caused witches to be labeled as “mental rubbish of peasant credulity” (Palmer, p.52). With the knowledge that magic isn’t real, the lower class no longer jumps to the conclusion that someone is a witch, and with that change disappeared the condemnation of witches.