History has shown that people always had the tendency to give an explanation to all their luck or misfortune. People always tried to explain everything that was happening in their lives. Therefore , for many years people throughout the world believed in witches with evil powers. They thought that certain persons were able to turn themselves into devils or demons. The acts that these "devils" performed were called witchcraft.
It is obvious that the term witchcraft is used for the principal means by which humans have been thought to work magic, that is , to bring about practical changes by their own will and employing supernatural means. Witchcraft actually needs to be distinguished from religion , in which humans are totally dependent upon divine beings to grant their wishes, and sorcery, in which supernatural skills are acquired by a process of study, usually involving books. Witchcraft was regarded partly as an innate power and partly as something that was handed on , by a wholly or largely unwritten tradition. Actually , persons who had "sinned" against accepted ideas of moral conduct were sometimes accused as witches. .
A witch is a person who believes in the "Old Religion" that is at the present called Wicca(Marwick 202) . This religion is one that emphasizes the unity of the natural world and the spiritual powers that it possesses. Witches believe that all living things have a "soul" and spiritual power, and that the world is composed of a network of spiritual forces. These forces cause rhythmic changes in all life, and the witch acknowledges these times of change by holding celebrations(Marwick 203). In order to give form to these celebrations and to provide a sense of personal communication with the life force that animates themselves and their cosmos , witches like members of other religions, personify the power they serve and worship(Skelton.
