Many of today’s questions are inspired by the book Witchcraft in Illinois by Historian Michael Kleen. The history of witchcraft in Illinois is scattered and sparse. But what remains, especially a massive folk compilation of just one county, suggests that even as recently as a century ago, folk knowledge of witchcraft was common, also suggesting that the practice of witchcraft was once common as well. Kleen wrote, “Convinced of American progress, historians dismissed witchcraft as a ‘miserable superstition’ and an ‘imaginary crime’ long vanished from educated minds.” What is Creator’s perspective?

Your question is taking a leaf from the book you cite, but it is quite naïve in assuming the lack of many historical accounts in the writings of Americans means that this is true worldwide. We can tell you not only is witchcraft alive and well all around the world but still alive and well within America. It is simply less talked about and less assumed to be an active practice, and so has indeed faded from the culture in terms of the average person's awareness. But there are many who go looking for ways of gaining some kind of advantage in life and stumble across written accounts of witchcraft and various writings about ancestral lore invoking the dark arts in various forms—they go by many differing names depending on the cultural context. The whole practice of the Wiccan community is a current-day offshoot from the witchcraft of old. It has been dressed up and repackaged for a gentler era but the yearnings are the same, to have some kind of power, some kind of magic one can use to make things happen in unconventional ways. That is a natural inner desire because, as former light beings, you have been quite used to using your consciousness alone to create, to make things happen, and to command large energetic forces for all kinds of purposes. That is lost almost entirely when you incarnate as a physical human, but there are workarounds that can indeed resonate with and engage with other kinds of energy from other consciousnesses than human, and that is what witchcraft draws upon, and is used primarily for dark purposes. The key distinction here is that something done to manipulate, even for a worthy purpose, is a manipulation nonetheless. If it is done through magic, through the dark arts in some way or another, it is taking a shortcut and not above board. So even though someone wanting to create a win-win scenario, if they are manipulating another individual, for example, to encourage love to bloom and have a life partner, that might be satisfactory to both parties and enjoyed, but if it starts with a manipulation, it leaves open the question, "Would it have developed naturally without that extra force being brought to bear?" And this creates a karmic misstep that will need to be reckoned with, through the Law of Karma to exact a repayment, to rebalance the debt incurred by taking advantage of someone unbeknownst to them.