Summary: Author and researcher Mitch Horowitz discussed the growing popularity of witchcraft, and the worldwide revival of Wicca and pagan traditions. Yet, with this upsurge, there has been an unfortunate increasing wave of violence against witches. Here in the West, in the US, Canada, and Europe, practitioners are generally peaceful 'New Agers' who practice Wicca, as a form of nature-based spirituality. But "in other parts of the world, including Africa, Latin America, and the South Pacific, people are practicing ancient traditions of witchcraft that sometimes get them accused of performing black magic or Satan worship, and they are being harassed and murdered by mobs, in the thousands, and that's why I'm talking about the existence of a war on witches," he said. This is the secret human rights crisis of our times, he continued, with the majority of the accused being women, and sometimes kids, and most of them completely innocent of any wrongdoing. We have to start compiling statistics and encourage law enforcement to do something about it, Horowitz proposed. Violence is also cropping up in the US and UK, as migrant populations move in with their "witch hunting traditions," he detailed.
