WITCHES
What would Halloween be without witches? Witches and witchcraft date back to at least ancient Greek and Roman times. Even then there was a distinction made between "white" witchcraft (benevolent) and "black" witchcraft (evil), the former of which was tolerated by the government of ancient Rome.
With the spread of Christianity in the 4th century, witchcraft was more and more associated with devil worship, an association it never truly had. But because witchcraft - or Wicca - was practiced by pagans who worshiped pagan deities, the Church demonized the religion and those who followed it. The association stuck and resulted in hundreds of thousands of innocent men and women being tortured and killed as witches over hundreds of years, including during the well-known witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts.
The association with evil created the Halloween caricature of the witch as an ugly, wart-studded hag with an evil, toothless grin.
There really are witches, of course, but they have no supernatural powers in the conventional sense (like the characters on Bewitched, or Charmed) and are no more homely than the general population. And over the last dozen years or so there has been a revival of Wicca and Paganism, making it one of the fastest-growing religions in the US.
The reality is that witches do not worship Satan and have no particular inclination toward evil. On the contrary, the Wiccan Rede - their code of ethics - forbids them to do or wish harm to anyone. Patti Wigington, About.com's guide to Paganism & Wicca religion, provides a lot of expert information about modern Wicca, dispels the myths and explains the rituals and practices.
Happy Halloween! And don't let the monsters get you!
