There is a growing national fascination with witchcraft.  It is believed that there are somewhere between four hundred thousand and three million practitioners of witchcraft in the United States. Adherents to wicca, the most common form of witchcraft call themselves wiccans or witches.  There is an active battle going on right now for acceptance and tolerance for their beliefs.  It is believed that Wicca is the religion which is growing most rapidly in the country.

Witchcraft is practiced by four different types of witches in popular Western viewpoints.  The satanic witch was tormented as a worshiper of the devil during the Spanish Inquisitions and also during the witch hunts in this country.  Evangelical Christians still categorize satanic cults in widespread distribution as being endemic to this country.

The second type of witch is the tribal witch.  This is the type of witch from the American Indian, Pacific Islander, and African Caribbean religions.  The tribal witch is the scapegoat of the benevolent healer and shaman. In South Africa and Java both.

The hideous hags in fairy tales such as The Wizard of Oz and Hansel and Gretal are the third type of those who practice witchcraft.

The final kind of witches and witchcraft is the neo-pagan witch includes those who are known as wiccans. Wiccans trace their roots to pre-Christian history and to the druidism of the Celts.  There is no connection with Satanic witchcraft, in fact wiccans don't believe in Satan or the Judeo-Christian God. bit in a female goddess of all natural things.

Wiccans believe in spirit communication, psychokinesis and other psychic ability such as clairvoyance.  Feminists grab hold of the tenets of wicca in order to emphasize self empowerment, female spiritual leaders and matriarchal deity.

Hollywood and other media forms have embraced the rich lore of wicca and of connected witchcraft in a number of magazine works, films and books.  Practical Magic with Sandra Bullock and Nicole Kidman, the ABC sitcom Sabrina the Teenage Witch, Charmed on WB Network. Book sales both fiction and nonfiction dealing with the subject of witchcraft have soared. Advertising campaigns for Finesse Shampoo, Camel cigarettes and Cover Girl makeup have used featured witches.

Teenage girls especially are buying into the concept of wicca through word-of-mouth and Hollywood hype.  It is unfortunate that these young women are being pushed into witchcraft instead of encouraging girls on science and math.  Girls don't perform as well as boys in math and science and haven't done so even before witchcraft entered the cultural scene.  Science and engineering degrees go to men at a far greater rate than to women and girls score significantly lower on the SAT exams.

The blame can be placed not only on advertising campaigns and television and movie releases, but on the emphasis on paranormal, fantasy and pseudoscience.  Witchcraft is a paranormal fad, certainly, but parents and teachers must take some blame alongside that of the media for the emphasis in educational and cultural areas for the focus on the seductive world of witches.