Why Witches Outnumber Presbyterians In The US

Witches have actually outnumbered the amount of Presbyterians in the United States for the first time.

Witches outnumber Presbyterians right now and this is because Paganism plus Wicca, astrology and other related "self-awareness" groups have soared over recent decades and it's still soaring as an alternative religion which has become so mainstream now and people are putting it down to self-awareness and a conscious awakening?

Self-awareness groups.

I call it an awareness group because it is, it's a group of people who are becoming more aware that there are more choices in beliefs which are "more personal to you" than just the prescribed religions which are usually state-sanctioned or have government approval and which have nothing in common with them? So people are looking.

Other religions have existed in countries for thousands of years and people have "realised or are beginning to realise" even awaking to the fact that there are indeed other religions and belief practices plus different styles of self-dedication to a higher being than just good old faithful Christianity (mainly in the west). Christianity by the way is and always will be a beautiful thing for everyone.

Anywhere that allows the spreading of individualism or for "real opinions" to flourish and where people can be themselves without fear or intimidation from the state interfering will find all these different choices being made by happy people. Some countries do not allow choices and are not tolerated whatsoever and it offends the leaders. So to have so many different people all together in one big melting pot sharing, trying, practising and teaching new, exciting and very spiritual (the main reason for this is spiritual by the way) beliefs is amazing.

It's how people in towns, cities and whole countries grow and become successful and flourish because learning and sharing are the fundamental basis for any true self-improvement and that goes for any country as a whole. That's just common sense.

So I was reading up on alternative religions as it fascinated me when I stumbled across this headline:

Witches Outnumber Presbyterians in the US; Wicca, Paganism Growing 'Astronomically'.

I immediately thought there's no way Witches can outnumber Christians, can they? I didn't know how different Presbyterians were from Christians and that was eye-opening,

Though the data is sparse, what we do know is that the practice of witchcraft has seen major growth in recent decades. As the witch aesthetic has risen, so has the number of people who identify as witches.

Presbyterian Church symbol of the burning bush like this one used a Church in Ireland.

Image Credit/Wikipedia

The burning bush is a common symbol used by *Presbyterian churches; here above as used by the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. Latin inscription underneath translates as "burning but flourishing". In Presbyterianism, alternative versions of the motto are also used such as "burning, yet not consumed".

The best source of data on the number of witches in the US comes from assessments of the Wicca population. Not all people who practice witchcraft consider themselves Wicca, but the religion makes up a significant subset, as Alden Wicker noted for Quartz in 2016.

Wiccan worshippers stand near the ancient stone monument of Stonehenge in the UK.

Image Credit/AP/MATT DUNHAM

Wicca is a largely Western religious movement that dates back to the mid-20th century in the US and UK. According to the site wicca.com, it’s a belief system informed by “pre-Christian traditions originating in Ireland, Scotland, and Wales,” that promotes “free thought and will of the individual and encourages learning and an understanding of the earth and nature.

Brigitte Necessary, who describes herself as a Green Witch from Washington State, defines the religion similarly, explaining it as “a deep adherence to nature and natural law, an attention to the cycles of the earth and the lives within it.” As a Green Witch, Necessary adds that her practices mostly revolve around the plant kingdom and herbal healing.

While the US government does not regularly collect detailed religious data, because of concerns that it may violate the separation of church and state, several organisations have tried to fill the data gap. From 1990 to 2008, Trinity College in Connecticut ran three large, detailed religion surveys.

Those have shown that Wicca grew tremendously over this period. From an estimated 8,000 Wicca's in 1990, they found there were about 340,000 practitioners in 2008. They also estimated there were around 340,000 Pagans (pdf) in 2008.

The rise of Witchcraft in the United States was a terrible thing as we now know it was religious persecution.

This is a painting of a woman or Witch in Salem walking to the gallows.

Image Credit/AP PHOTO/Thomas Satterwhite Nobel

The above image is a painting of a girl found guilty of being a Witch and here in the painting we can see her depicted as "been sent to the gallows in Salem". It is an unassuming painting and it's only when you look closely do you realise that there is rope in the guy's hand on the right (to us) and then you see that the poor woman's hands are tied with rope.

We can also see a person looking over her shoulder with an obvious scowl and utter contempt for the woman. The people at the back can be seen in a defiant stance of agreement that she was found guilty and that justice has been upheld and served with just cause - even though we now know that this is a load of old shoes and people are no more Witches than people are half Alien.

Presbyterianism is a part of the reformed tradition within Protestantism which traces its origins to Britain, particularly Scotland and Ireland.{alertInfo}

Here's a great post about ancient history and the Reptilian theory that humans came to this planet after Reptilian beings.

Source The Atlas (Wicca Charts).