The Decline of Witchcraft, Essay Example

The Decline of Witchcraft and Demonic Activity in England

According to Keith Thomas, the decline in the practice of witchcraft and the worship of Satan began sometime around the late 1600’s in England, “long before the repeal of the Witchcraft Act of 1736” (570). There are two basic reasons for this gradual decline–first, skepticism among the common people began to spread, meaning that many had come to believe that witchcraft and demonic activity did not truly exist, due in part to the influence of the Age of Enlightenment which placed the supernatural in its proper place, being outside of the realms of reality and the figment of the human imagination; and second, the educated masses or those who had been fortunate or wealthy enough to afford an enlightened and liberal education at a prestigious university, drastically altered their attitudes and beliefs about witchcraft, Satanic worship, and the existence of the supernatural. Thomas notes that many of these educated individuals ended up as judges and solicitors which greatly influenced how the few witchcraft trials that came before the bench were dealt with in court, a sort of “collective resistance” that eventually brought all witchcraft trials to an end in England (Thomas 570).

Also, due to the influence of the principles and ideals associated with the Age of Enlightenment during the late 17th century in England, the power, influence, and teachings of the Roman Catholic Church began to decline. Thomas refers to this as a “new current in contemporary philosophy,” headed by British philosopher Thomas Hobbes and the followers of the philosophies of Rene Descartes, both of whom fully “rejected the whole concept of incorporeal substances” (571) or in other words, the existence of the supernatural. Thus, the supernatural foundations of witchcraft and demonic worship began to be seen as illogical and, as Hobbes once remarked, as mere metaphorical symbols for the “idols or phantasms of the brain” (Thomas 571).

Works Cited

Thomas, Keith. Religion and the Decline of Magic. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1971.