The Origin of Witches

Witches are today most traditional as well as mysterious entities we associate with Halloween. When you think of a Witch, it’s easy to conjure up an image of an old, ugly, hook-nosed woman, stirring up a steaming potion that is brewing away inside a cauldron. Have you ever wondered where this sordid image of a witch actually started? Did such vile beings really ever exist, or is this whole business of a hideous, green-faced, evil sorcerer just one fabricated myth? Carole Fontaine, an internationally recognized American biblical scholar, argues in an interview that the idea of the witch has been around as long as humanity has tried to deal with disease and avert disaster. In the earliest centuries of human civilization, witches were the women who served the goddesses and therefore were revered throughout their communities. In the Middle East, ancient civilizations not only worshiped powerful female deities, but it was often women who practiced the holiest of rituals. Trained in the sacred arts, these priestesses became known as wise women, and may have been some of the earliest manifestations of what we now recognize as the witchThese wise women made house calls, delivered babies, dealt with infertility, and cured impotence.