Mention “Christianity versus witchcraft” and negative images of “the burning times,” the Salem witch trials and outbreaks of religious hysteria among superstitious people come to many people’s minds. http://abortionmatrix.com It is here where we need to dispel the Hollywood image of the old crone of fairy tales such as Snow White or the Wizard of Oz. There is no doubt that many of those executed for witchcraft in the Middle Ages were innocent victims of gross superstition. Such terrible measures are to be condemned as being in complete opposition to the Spirit of Christ and the clear teaching of scripture. With that said, however, it is wrong to dismiss the genuine instances of demonically inspired activity history records. 20th Century Wicca Dr. Gerald Gardner, an anthropologist, spent the early part of the 19th century studying groups that practiced magic around the world. At the time he believed that witchcraft as it had been practiced by pagan Europeans had been extinct for centuries. But in the 1930’s Gardner discovered a group in Great Britain that was still practicing the “craft.” Fascinated, Gardner was initiated into the coven, studied its rituals, and eventually became one of the foremost experts and advocates for the ancient religion. At the time of Gardner’s discovery, witchcraft was, in fact, on the edge of extinction. There were no known covens in the United States and some countries such as England had laws on the books outlawing witchcraft. On the publication of his book, Witchcraft Today, Gardner began to hear from other covens throughout Europe which had also survived. He spent the rest of his life writing on Wicca and promoting witchcraft throughout the world. Today, Gardner is regarded as the grandfather of modern Wicca and the primarily force behind its revival in the latter part of the 20th century. One of Gardner’s followers, Raymond Buckler, was initiated into the craft one year before Gardner’s death in 1964. He introduced Wicca into the United States during the cultural sea change that was the 1960s. Buckler, like Gardner before him, believed that in modern-day Wicca, the rituals of the ancient earth religion had survived. What exactly then, is modern Wicca? Wiccans today draw their religious ideology from the Mother Earth cults of the Celtic and Nordic peoples of pre-Christian Europe. The word “Wiccan” first appears in an early manuscript of an Anglo-Saxon scribe in the alliterative phrase: wyccan and waelcyrian, “witches and valkyries.” The word in Old English denotes both men and women using magic arts. Modern Wiccans claim that their name means “wise one” and was the name of a matriarchal leader of a tribe skilled in healing, herbal lore and magic arts. Although Wiccans deny using animal and human sacrifices in their rituals they do admit that they “pour out libations … Some female Witches use their own menstrual blood in spells; other witches may prick themselves … and offer a drop or two of their own blood. But the only blood a Witch has the right to offer is her/his own.” Do modern Wiccans view abortion as child sacrifice? To be fair, we must say that in our research we’ve received literally hundreds of letters and electronic communications from Wiccans around the world. The vast majority of Wiccans and Pagans deny that they have anything to do with human or animal sacrifice. They also deny that Wicca has anything to do with the abortion industry, nor do they view abortion as the sacrifice of the unborn in their rituals. But all modern day Wiccans freely admit that the modern religion is traced to ancient Celtic and Northern German people, the very people who practiced human sacrifice. Although the vast majority deny that they have anything to do with the practice of child sacrifice, Wiccans are hard pressed to explain a growing number of witches who argue that abortion is a witch’s prerogative.