My Cousins Coven

Survival & Reclamation

To speak of witchcraft is to step into a river that runs far older than the names we now give it. Before it was “witchcraft,” before the word was feared or outlawed, there were hands in the soil, voices in the wind, charms whispered over bread and water. There were offerings to unseen powers — not as an abstract theology but as part of the rhythm of living. In the earliest human societies, magic and religion were not separate spheres; they were the same weave, an unbroken conversation between people and the forces of the world.

Archaeological traces of amulets, carved figurines, painted caves, and seasonal ritual sites point to a deep lineage of magical practice. These were acts not of superstition but of survival — rites to ensure the hunt, to guard the newborn, to honor the ancestors and the seasons’ turn. Many of these customs evolved into the folk practices that would survive for centuries, especially in rural Europe, where pre-Christian beliefs intertwined with the new faith brought by missionaries. The gods became saints, the old festivals were dressed in new names, but the underlying logic — that the land was alive, that relationships with it mattered — endured.

It is here, in these remnants of ancient pagan and animist practice, that witchcraft’s roots lie. The cunning woman gathering herbs for healing, the wise man marking the sky’s omens, the midwife tending both birth and death — these figures were heirs to a body of knowledge passed orally, adapted to each generation. Much of it was not “witchcraft” in any pejorative sense, but part of the normal work of life in village and field.

The rupture came with the rise of centralized religious and political authority, especially in medieval and early modern Europe. Here the witch was reimagined not as neighbor or healer but as a threat to be rooted out. The publication of Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) in 1487 marked a turning point. Ostensibly a legal and theological manual for identifying and prosecuting witches, it was in truth one of the most effective pieces of propaganda ever written. Its lurid descriptions and sweeping accusations blurred rumor with doctrine, encouraging suspicion where none had existed. In the centuries that followed, tens of thousands — mostly women, but also men and children — were tried, tortured, and executed under charges of witchcraft.

And yet, despite this machinery of fear, certain threads of knowledge persisted. Not every herbal charm or moonlit prayer was forgotten. Old women who remembered the uses of plants, male magicians who studied astrological tables, shepherds who muttered over their flocks — they carried forward fragments of a much older heritage, sometimes without knowing its origin. Even when practices were misunderstood, misquoted, or reframed to fit new beliefs, they sparked discoveries and sustained lines of magical thought. A misunderstood ritual could lead to an innovation; a misremembered spell could open new pathways of meaning.

By the 18th and 19th centuries, the witch had receded somewhat from the courts but lived on in folklore — as both bogeyman and folk hero. Romantic and nationalist movements sometimes reclaimed her as a symbol of local heritage, while occult revivals such as ceremonial magic absorbed certain folk elements into their own elaborate systems. The Victorian fascination with spiritualism, Theosophy, and esoteric societies laid groundwork for a modern reimagining of the witch: not simply as a figure from the past, but as a practitioner of a living, evolving craft.

In the mid-20th century, Gerald Gardner and others in Britain brought forth what would become Wicca, framing it as the survival — however reconstructed — of an old pagan religion. Wicca codified ritual structures, seasonal festivals, and ethical guidelines such as the Wiccan Rede: An it harm none, do what ye will. This was a striking departure from centuries of association between witchcraft and malice. It asserted not only that witches could be ethical, but that their ethics were self-defined and rooted in personal responsibility. The Rede, while never universally accepted, became a touchstone for many who sought a moral compass in magical work.

Yet Wicca was only one flowering from a much larger root. Folk magic continued, often separate from formal initiation or ceremonial systems. The counterculture of the 1960s and 70s embraced witchcraft as a banner for personal freedom, feminism, queer identity, and environmental activism. Here the witch became a subversive figure again — but this time by choice, reclaiming the very word once used to condemn.

Today, witchcraft is more diverse than ever. It is practiced in covens and in solitude, in urban apartments and forest clearings, in ways that draw from ancestral traditions, personal gnosis, pop culture, or all three. Some witches are deeply polytheistic, working with specific deities; others are animist, spirit-worker, or entirely secular. The craft has been shaped by neopaganism’s earth-based spirituality, by global exchange of magical traditions, and by the digital age’s unprecedented access to information.

And yet, for all its diversity, witchcraft retains certain through-lines. It begins with relationship — to the land, to the seen and unseen, to cycles of life and death. It values knowledge, whether inherited, discovered, or created anew. It recognizes that power flows in many directions, not only from thrones or pulpits, but from the ground beneath our feet, the air in our lungs, the will in our bones.

This is where ethics enter the conversation. Without a single shared code like the Wiccan Rede, many witches must define their own compass. For some, this means drawing from multiple traditions to shape a balanced set of principles; for others, it means trusting an evolving relationship with spirit allies, ancestors, or the land itself. This freedom demands accountability — to the self, to the spirits invoked, and to the communities touched by the work.

Witchcraft ethics are not abstract. They live in the choice to curse or not, to heal or withhold, to share knowledge or keep it guarded. They live in the awareness that magic is never without consequence, and that “harm none” is easier said than defined. Justice magic may harm those who have harmed others; protective wards may reflect malice back upon its source. The craft demands discernment, not blind adherence to rules — an art of weighing intentions against outcomes in the ever-shifting weave of life.

Against this lived reality, popular culture’s portrayals can seem either shallow or strangely potent. Film, television, and literature have perpetuated misconceptions — that all witches are in league with evil forces, that spells are instant shortcuts, that the craft is about spectacle more than substance. But they have also opened space for new imaginings: the witch as feminist hero, as ecological guardian, as queer icon, as seeker of personal sovereignty. These archetypes, while imperfect, invite the public to see witchcraft not only as threat but as possibility.

We would be naïve to ignore the dangers that still linger. In many parts of the world, accusations of witchcraft are not metaphorical; they can lead to exile, violence, or death. The witch hunts of history are not as far behind us as we might wish. Remembering this is part of our ethical inheritance: to honor those who died under the name “witch,” and to stand in solidarity with those who still face persecution today.

And so we arrive at the present moment — a time when the word “witch” can be spoken openly in much of the West, when it can be a personal identity, a political statement, a spiritual calling. But with this freedom comes responsibility. The craft we inherit is not pure; it is a patchwork of survivals, inventions, and reclamations. Its strength lies not in some imagined unbroken lineage, but in its resilience — in the way it has adapted, disguised itself, crossed boundaries, and emerged anew.

We reclaim the right to speak to the land and to the unseen. We reclaim the power to work with herbs, stones, and symbols without fear of the noose. We reclaim the name “witch” from the mouths that spat it as insult and wear it as a title of honor. And we reclaim, too, the responsibility that comes with it — to work with awareness, to honor our sources, and to remember that every act of magic shapes not only the world but the witch who casts it.

Witchcraft is not a monolith. It is a living, spiraling path that resists final answers. It demands of us both humility and daring. It asks us to remember, to adapt, to create. It is a tradition of survival, of refusal, of shaping ourselves and our reality in mutual transformation. And if we keep faith with that tradition — not as fixed dogma, but as a living conversation with the world — then the witch’s craft will continue to be what it has always been: a way of being in conscious, ethical, and creative relationship with the powers that move through all things.

The work is never finished. And that, too, is part of its power.