Hackers are the new witches!
Originally published in the 'No Holds Barred Witchcraft' FB Group on 8th Oct 2021
Back in the day Witches were feared for their unusual and misunderstood powers. They were said to have otherworldly abilities to affect the world around them. Witchcraft was originally labeled as a ‘Dark Art’ of ‘Maleficent Magic’ and was understandably feared especially by those in charge (or by people who would like others to think they're in charge lol).
As time went by legislation and laws set up to stop people from practicing magic against the ruling classes (kings, Queens, pharaohs, etc) were created. In the UK we had the Witchcraft Act which basically labeled anyone who practiced ‘Bad Magic’ a Witch. Some say the Witchcraft Act is basically a good idea to protect people from baneful magical practice, but in reality when we look at History if that really was its purpose then it really didn’t work #Understatement lol.
The Witchcraft Act was misused by many different people with many different agendas and all sorts of both mundane people and magical people were targeted. Although it’s sad that mundanes (muggles) we’re screwed over, they're really outside of the scope of this blog post so who cares about them lol. The Magical Folk though are far more interesting as both naughty magic folk and goody goody magic folk were caught up in this on occasion.
Eventually psychotic power hungry crazies found they could use this little Act to get rid of the competition, let’s bang up the old Wise Woman using her bitter herbs to cure the locals so they can come to our monasteries and get our bitter herbs for healing (I’m kind of paraphrasing history here obvs).
Many of us professional magic folks started to be labeled as witches regardless of the type of magic we did, some fought against it and some embraced it. There are a number of examples of this in Westcountry History (where I live in the UK). A great marketing ploy for the old cunning folk business was to advertise yourself as a ‘White Witch’ which basically meant “I got all the power of a witch, but I won’t turn you into a toad so you can trust me” lol. This is something you still see today because it really does work, it puts people at ease if you tell them you're a White Witch lol.
Something similar to the idea of the Good White Witch vs Bad Black Witch is something you can see within the online Hacking community. Black Hat hackers are what most people think about when it comes to Hacking, they are people with great knowledge and power over technology, but who will often use that power to cause trouble and maybe even for hire.
We also have the White Hat Hacker who uses their skills and reputation to hack into systems, but often does it to help. They can be paid by companies and organizations to ‘stress test’ their systems and security or they sometimes just do it of their own accord without causing damage.
These days I also see people call themselves Grey Hat Hackers who do a little of both or operate in a morally and legally grey area. We of course also have Self professed Grey Witches, but the real question is:
Which are you?
Let us know in the comments below if you a Black Hat Witch or a White Hat Witch or would most people call you morally and ethically Grey? lol
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