by Natalie Case

Created on: November 03, 2009   Last Updated: November 05, 2009

Magic and witchcraft in modern society

A full moon fills the sky, fog curls around the base of the trees, a fire burns deep in the woods, a cauldron hung over the flames bubbling with viscous fluid while a woman in robes stirs the pot, murmuring dark incantations in a dead language

For a lot of people, when you say witchcraft, this is the image that comes to mind. It's an image fostered by movies and television and books and even to some degree by those who practice magic and witchcraft. It's sort of a romanticized view, one that touches on the broad themes of what witchcraft and magic are, but like so many archetypes from our past, it doesn't really represent who we are today.

Here's a more accurate picture of a witch at work today.

A well lit kitchen, a pot on the stove filled with a thick, hearty stew that's been cooking for hours, built slowly from fresh, raw ingredients, fingers stir through a mix of herbs and spices in a bowl on the counter, then lift a pinch of the mix and sprinkle it over the pot, infusing it with the magical intent of the witch's will.

Not quite as romantic, but probably a lot closer to accurate in today's world.

Of course, a lot of the confusion is tied up in what we understand magic to be. For much of the modern world, magic is a concept out of fairy tales at best, or possibly the illusions of stage magic. It's make-believe; hocus pocus and those who believe it are deluded.

Magic, like our stereotypical witch, is not what the movies and television make it out to be. Modern witches do not believe they can twitch their noses to make things happen, or snap their fingers or any of those other make believe instant-fixes of Hollywood's movie-magic.

So what is magic then? And for that matter, are witchcraft and magic the same thing?

This is where we take a turn into the world of opinion and belief.

Magic is, in my own opinion, a part of the natural world. It is elusive and slippery to define, but to me it is part of the collective unconscious, a form of energy that surrounds and infuses us. Witchcraft then is the method we use to access and tap into that energy.

Witchcraft is the vehicle and magic is the fuel is one way to look at it.

So what is witchcraft then?

Let's leave off the first part of the word for a moment, and look at the second part; Craft. Think about the example of the modern witch above. Her craft is cooking. She has studied and learned which ingredients go together, what spices serve not only to make the meal

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