Witches In Judaic-Christian Religion

What is a witch and are they really as bad as people portray them? A witch is a person who follows the 'Old Religion', which he or she believes to predate the Judaic-Christian religion and which is nowadays called Wicca. 'Wicca' may be the wrong word to use to describe someone who follows the Old Religion, but it seems to have come to stay. 'Witch" may still be used as an abusive term, but then, once upon a time, so was the label Christian, and the term Jew is still, unhappily, used abusively in some circles. (Buckland) The most common complaint about Christianity by witches is that there is the worship of the male deity to the exclusion of the female.

This is one of the main reasons people (women especially) leave Christianity and follow
All witches revere the story of Jesus Christ and his gospel of love; although it is couched in the terminology of the patriarchal society into which he was born, and therefore makes use of concepts of monogamy and of monotheism which are not part of all witches' beliefs, his wisdom is awe-inspiring. Moreover, his miracles reveal him to have been an adept in the use of powers that all witches recognize and use in the service of their worship of love and the all-encompassing spirit. The organizations which have grown up around Christ's teachings and which have so often denied them, or elaborated them in a fashion quite alien to his message, are another matter. It was not Christ, but the church that first stated that witches did not exist and that to believe in them was heresy, and then that witches did exist and that not to believe was heresy.
In this ritual the witch, by means of light hypnosis, sends the mind of the subject through the birth barrier back into time, and the subject recalls past lives. (Snow) Sometimes these past lives are so clearly envisioned that they can be checked out by searching historical records; most times they are not. In some instances it seems likely that the subject does not so much recall as imagining a past life, but as William Blake pointed out, "Anything possible to be imagined is an image of truth." (Blake) Witches therefore do not grieve for the dead. Like everyone else they grieve for their own loss of friends and family, but this grief is soon overcome by the feeling of gladness at the new opportunities the dead one is being given. (Snow)

So are witches good or bad? These terms irritate witches enormously. Witches, who have utilized their legal right to freedom of religion and announced themselves as believers of the Old Religion are always asked this. The truth is simple. Acts of witchcraft, which run counter to the Wiccan credo of 'Love, and harm none' are wrong are indeed bad. Other acts are not.