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*A special note about the Crone: In a time when the power of women as healers and wisewomen was feared by the Christian Church, and when the natural cycles of birth and death were denied, old women were particularly feared and vilified. Many of the women who were accused of witchcraft, tortured, and murdered by church authorities were older women. The church has propagated the image of all witches as old hags with crooked noses, who do evil rather than good, to dehumanize and disempower the women in our communities who served as teachers and healers before the onset of Christianity. This image continues to abound in various media images today. In Wicca, the image of the Crone is of an old, wise woman who teaches us the lessons she has learned--not an ugly, evil eater of children. She can be difficult to work with from a magickal sense if you are shirking your responsibilities or refusing to let go of unhealthy people, relationships and habits, but Her role is to help us learn to cut away the old so that new can grow.
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