This seems less about witchcraft as such and more about defrauding people.
Having said that, is there any other kind of witchcraft than fake witchcraft?
Having said that, is there any other kind of witchcraft than fake witchcraft?
When Christian churches tell congregants that tithing 10% saves your soul, are they engaging in fraud?
Now days it’s not mainstream, but I suspect a few preachers/televangelist has suggested such things more recently.
And, in any case, many modern churches and denominations are only tenuously connected to Catholicism of any era.
'Luther came to reject several teachings and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. He strongly disputed the Catholic view on indulgences. Luther proposed an academic discussion of the practice and efficacy of indulgences in his Ninety-five Theses of 1517.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther
Now, I am not saying the church selling indulgences from a specific menu of sins > prices was mainstream. But, the idea of good works on earth and specifically giving to the church being a good work was very much so. There are also cases of rather significant donations to the church connected to this idea.
PS: Note, this is about reducing time spent in purgatory, not buying your way into heaven. Purgatory was supposed to be a very unpleasant place, but your stay was going to be temporary either way.
The Catholic church today encourages giving "from the heart" without a specific tithe, and doesn't have a concept of indulgences. Mainline protestant churches fundamentally rejected the practice of indulgence. Evangelical churches are different from church to church by nature.
I assume the distinction would be that the law targets people who pretend to practice witchcraft for the sake of defrauding people, rather than people who practice witchcraft "in good faith" because they are adherents of the religion.
It seems like an obvious question for a skeptic (it's all fake) but from a cultural and anthropological point of view, what constitutes "real" and "fake" witchcraft is an interesting question. There doesn't seem to be a lot of evidence linking beliefs about witches during the times of witch-trials to any particular pagan or old-world religions - such beliefs being predicated on the Christian premise that witchcraft was explicitly Satanic, and practices like fortune telling tended to persist across cultures.
The same can be said about most religious practices and superstitions. It really doesn't matter what you (or I) think about other's personal practices so long as it isn't affecting others much.
(I'd argue they all affect others, but so does any set of morals a person has whether religious or secular. Most of these don't actively harm other folks).
This article is about prosecuting people for pretending to be a witch, rather than being a witch, which people were prosecuted for in the past.
Adding some trappings let people open up because of assumed authority. Same as most religions, though I know she told a decent share of people to go get medical help.
Very similar to the Terry Prachett version of witchcraft. Worked great. Not sure how much actual magic was involved, but I'm not sure how much needed to be.