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Originally Posted by nightowl
I am interested in what a witch really is. I am not looking for information about how evil they are, so please don't go there. 
Do you believe the abilities that a witch has is learned, inherited or both?
Do you believe these abilities come from a higher source or a source outside yourself?
Do you as witches have sacred text or books that are a standard in your belief system?
Do you consider your beliefs as a religion?
What is the history of your beliefs?
Are there signs a person exhibits that could indicate that they may be a witch?
Thanks for sharing with me I appreciate it 
nightowl |
Nightowl
I was going to answer all these questions, however reading another post that is in the same vein I thought to remind you of one thing.... ask 10 pagans/witches/wicans these questions and you are likely to get 11 sets of answers.
Imho there is no "one way" with paganism/witchcraft. They are not even always seen as the same thing, pagans may or may not consider themselves witches and some witches may say they are not pagan (and when you throw wicca into the mix it gets even more confusing). It also depends on what country you are in as pagan/witch/wiccan mean different things in the UK as they do in the US.
Within the umbrella term Pagan there is a whole host of ways to follow the path, and they are called different things with different people.
As Norsy says, there can be a lot of infighting between some groups about what these lables mean... personally I prefer to stick with a blanket term of pagan and leave all the rest to people it matters to.
Of course there is the difference between what people who call themselves witches believe it means and what people who know nothing about witchcraft
think the word witch means.
There isn't one text either, although some may say there is in the wiccan rede.
What there is is a shambling group of people who have some beliefs that are similar and some that differ greatly. Some will say theirs is the only way, some will say that they are happy for people to believe what they like.
Personally I would say anyone interested in witchcraft as a specific lable should do a LOT of reading about both witchcraft but also paganism in general to understand the difference and the similarities. Then, bin the idea of having one lable and follow a path that makes sense.