From religious dictionaries and encyclopedias:

Timothy Miller, Ed, "America's Alternative Religions", SUNY Press, Albany NY (1995), P. 339-345:
"Much of the criticism leveled against neo-pagans has come from other marginalized religious groups, notably Christian fundamentalist sects that persistently link neo-pagan practices with 'Satanism'.....Neopagans are adamant about the distinctions between themselves and Satanists, pointing out that Satanism tends to focus on 'selfish' magic and certain male images of divinity, does not affirm fundamental doctrines of reincarnation and cosmic justice and bases itself on an affirmation of the Christian doctrine of the duality of good and evil which neo-pagans deny.....in one instance of which the author is personally aware, a neo-pagan was lynched by a group of fundamentalists who deemed him a danger to the community."

David Crystal, Barnes & Noble Encyclopedia (Based on the Cambridge Encyclopedia), Barnes & Noble (1993), P. 1307:
"Contemporary witchcraft in the West sees itself as an alternative religion, celebrating gods drawn from various European pre-Christian religions, and exercising its magical powers in beneficial ways."

Rev. George Mather & Rev. Larry Nichols, "Dictionary of Cults, Sects, Religions and the Occult", Zondervan (1993), P 312 & 316:
"Witchcraft has falsely been identified with Satanism......Witches follow a principle of ethics called the 'Wiccan Rede'....Implied within this principle is the notion held among witches that to be a witch means to seek to effect harmony with the world, nature and other human beings. This principle dispels the notion that witches perceive their work as effecting evil."

Prof. Irving Hexham, "The Concise Dictionary of Religion", InterVarsity Press (1993), P 90:
"[Gerald Gardner] tried to create the type of Witchcraft discussed by Margaret A. Murray in her various books by creating rituals and beliefs to integrate occult, spiritualist and yogic religions into a Gothic type mythology."

Donald Watson, "A Dictionary of Mind and Spirit", Optima (1993), P. 378:
"The modern practice of witchcraft, Wicca or the Old Religion, as it is also called, is a system of animistic beliefs and rituals in which the individual aims to harness natural magical powers and use them constructively..... Although the history of witchcraft was associated with devil-worship, evil sorcery and black magic, this was largely due to the propaganda of the Christian church.....Most modern practitioners of witchcraft have managed to cast off the old image and have successfully convinced the public of their harmlessness and good intentions."

John R Hinnells (Editor) "The Penguin Dictionary of Religions", Penguin (1984), P. 352:
"Witchcraft as a modern Western religion was inspired mainly by the theories of anthropologist Margaret Murray....who saw European witchcraft as a survival of a benign pre-Christian fertility religion. In some places it has also absorbed surviving traditions of folk-magic."

John R Hinnells (Editor), "A Handbook of Living Religions", Penguin (1985). P. 464-5:
"Witchcraft...presents a confusing picture to the average observer. The word 'witchcraft' is popularly used to describe at least four distinct phenomena, frequently if mistakenly equated with each other."

"....modern witchcraft.....is a form of polytheistic nature religion based upon the worship of the Mother Goddess.....witches view their task as reviving the old religion(s) of pre-Christian Europe..... Contemporary Neo-Pagan [witches] consistently try to separate themselves from the taint of Satanic images constantly being thrown at them."

From reports of social service agencies:

Rob Tucker "Teen Satanism," The Institute for the Prevention of Child Abuse, Toronto (1989) conference reprint: "Ritual Abuse: Fact or Fiction?" P. 7
"Wicca, or Witchcraft, refers to a pre-Christian or pagan form of worship and most Wiccans are upset at being lumped together with Satanism."

From federal government publications:

From Christian books and magazines:

Christians hold many very different beliefs concerning Wicca. Between 1980 and the mid-1990s, there was a widespread belief among some law enforcement officers, some feminists, and some Christians that:

Most of these beliefs have as their origin religious propaganda about Gothic Satanism which was originally circulated centuries ago, and which was still regarded as accurate as late as 1995. Gothic Satanism did not exist then and does not exist now.

After 15 years of criminal investigation turned up no concrete evidence of SRA, belief in religiously-inspired ritual abuse collapsed. Therapists recognized that memories of SRA were false; they were unrelated to actual childhood events; they were traceable to dangerous therapeutic techniques like Recovered Memory Therapy.

Since the mid 1990s, Christian authors have begun to consult primary information sources, actually written by Wiccans and Satanists. Most writers now accept that these are two almost unrelated religions, neither of which engage in evil practices. Most of the quotations below come from the transition period where writers still believed that Satanists engaged in evil practices, but that Wicca was unrelated to Satanism.

Todd Ackerman, "Wicca," National Catholic Register (1986-MAR-9) P2. Quoting Selena Fox a high priestess of the Church of the Circle of Wicca in Madison WI:
"Satanism is the opposite of witchcraft. We don't believe in evil practices, we abide by a love ethic. Harming any of Natures creations is the last thing we'd ever do." [Editor's note: This incorrectly implies that Satanists do engage in evil practices and perhaps animal sacrifice.]

McDowell & Stewart, "The Occult", Here's Life Publishers, (1992) P. 199:
"Writers of the past have confused Satanism and witchcraft.....Witches do not worship the devil.... Witches are more interested in magical arts and the divinity of nature. Their world view is pantheistic to the degree that they serve gods and goddesses in the divinity of all.....Wiccans are considered pagans because they worship several nature gods instead of a single god.... They also believe in psychic powers and hold rituals according to lunar cycles...." [Note: Neither Witches nor Satanists worship the Christian devil.]

Sharon Rufus, "Who are the Witches?", Fate (1986 AUG), P. 59: quoted by Nelson Price in "New Age, the Occult and Lion Country", Power Books (1989), P. 98:
"The World Christian Encyclopedia estimates 6 million Americans profess to be witches and engage in practices like these. They are a sub-group of over 10 million persons the encyclopedia says call themselves pagans, who practice "primitive" religions such as Druidism, Odin worship and Native American shamanism." [Note: These numbers are grossly exaggerated.]

Daniel Cohen, "The New Believers", M. Evans & Co. (1975) P. 129-31. Quoting Leo Louis Martello:
"Witchcraft is a pre-Christian faith. It tends to be matriarchal whereas both Christianity and Satanism are patriarchal and male chauvinist. The latter two are merely opposite sides of the same coin. Witchcraft, as the Old Religion, is a coin of a different vintage, predating both. [Note: Describing Satanism as an inverted form of Christianity is inaccurate.]

Rev. Paul Newman "Neither Christian nor Satanism", United Church Observer. 1993-FEB, P. 10:
"...practitioners of Wicca often call themselves witches.....Newman wrote a letter of support, in which he argued 'the Wiccan religion is an authentic, respectable religion that works for the health and well-being of its followers. It is not to be confused with Satanism which is a destructive, evil movement'." [Note: Like many Christian commentators, Newman appears to confuse religious Satanism with the nonexistent Gothic Satanism of the Middle Ages and Renaissance.]

From books on anthropology:

"[Modern Witchcraft] rejects diabolism and even belief in the devil on the grounds that the existence of the Devil is a Christian, not a pagan doctrine. It offers a sense of the feminine principle in the godhead....The modern neo-paganism has few connections with simple sorcery and virtually none with diabolism. Diabolism has in fact almost ceased to exist in the late twentieth century."

From books on Wicca and Witchcraft:

Starhawk, "Truth of Date", Harper and Row (1987), P. 7:
"Witchcraft is.....the old, pre-Christian tribal religion of Europe. Like other earth-based, tribal traditions, Witchcraft sees the earth as sacred.... in reality our tradition has nothing to do with Satanism, a peculiarly Christian heresy." [Note: Starhawk appears to believe that Satanism is an inverted form of Christianity, and that both Satanists and Christians recognize the existence of the devil. This is not accurate.]

Starhawk, "Spiral Dance", Harper and Row (1989), P. 6:
"Nobody registers Witches or keeps official statistics of Pagans, but some indication of this growth can be seen in the extended bibliography of books on the Goddess published since 1979... The Spiral dance has sold over 100,000 copies.... "

Scott Cunningham, "Earth, Air, fire & Water", Llewellyn (1992), P. 211:
"Wicca: A contemporary polytheistic religion with spiritual roots in the earliest expressions of reverence for nature as a manifestation of the divine. In other words, Wicca is a modern religion built around reverence for a Goddess and a God, which created all that exists, including the Earth. Wicca also embraces the practice of Magic as a tool of personal and global transformation, and usually teaches the doctrine of reincarnation. Many Wiccans identify with the word 'Witch'."

"Witch: Anciently, a European practitioner of the remnants of pre-Christian Natural Magic. One who practiced Witchcraft. This term's meaning was later deliberately altered to denote demented, dangerous supernatural beings who practiced destructive magic and who threatened Christianity......Though this negative meaning is still currently accepted by many non-Witches, it doesn't describe witches themselves, who simply practice non-threatening, loving, Natural Magic. The term Witch is also used by some members of Wicca to describe themselves."

Robin Skelton, "The Practice of Witchcraft", Porcepic Books (1990), P. 26:
"Do witches worship the Devil? The answer is 'No'. First, the Devil is a figure in Christian doctrine, and Wicca predates Christianity. Moreover, the figure of Satan, or the Devil, was almost entirely ignored by the Church until the 6th Century AD when it became politically wise to identify the horned consort of the Goddess as equivalent to the adversarial figure who is featured in Genesis and the Book of Job..."

Margot Adler, "Drawing Down the Moon", Beacon Press (1979), P. 10 & P. 418:
"Dictionaries define Witches as (primarily) women who are either seductive and charming (bewitching) or ugly and evil (wicked). In either case, the women are supposed to possess a variety of "supernatural" powers. The lexicographic definitions of witch are rather confusing and bear little relation to the definitions given by Witches themselves....Other estimates [of Neo-Pagans in the United States] have gone as high as 100,000.....There are at least one hundred Pagan periodicals."

Arnold & Patricia Crowther, "The Secrets of Ancient Witchcraft", Citadel Press (1974), P. 137:
"[Witchcraft] is the original prehistoric religion of Western Europe."

Vivianne Crowley, "Wicca: The Old Religion in the New Age", Aquarian Press (1989), P. 51:
"The word 'witch' is a difficult one, full of negative connotations....it is a word which might be tempting to discard. I think this would however be a mistake and an affront to those of our ancestors who died for their beliefs."

Dr. Leo Louis Martello, "Witchcraft, The Old Religion", Citadel Press (Undated; probably 1973), P. 12 & P. 26:
"Any book that states that Witches make pacts with the devils, have sex orgies or say the Lord's Prayer backwards is either blatantly deceptive or totally ignorant of the truth."

"For centuries, Witchcraft has been the garbage heap upon which all the moral refuse of other people has been dumped. The Old Religion has been vilified, perjured about, twisted, persecuted and prosecuted, not because of what it was (and is) but because of what the Church said it was."

Marcello Truzzi, "The Occult Revival", quoted by A. Lehmann & J. Myers in "Magic, Witchcraft and Religion", Mayfield Publishing Co. (1989), P. 408:
"Satanism is basically a worship of the Judaeo-Christian Devil.... Practitioners in witchcraft do not usually view themselves as an heretical offshoot of Christianity....Most witches perceive witchcraft as an ancient, pre-Christian fertility religion that the Christian churches sought to suppress; primarily through the Catholic inquisitions and the Protestant witch trials.... Most of the presently vast literature on Satanism is quite unreliable." [This expresses the common but inaccurate belief that Satanists worship the Christian devil.]

Silver RavenWolf, "Ride a Silver Broomstick" Lewellyn (1993), P. 13:
"Satanic Witch: One cannot be a satanic Witch because Witches do not believe in Satan." [Note: Neither do Satanists.]

From the media:

Rev. Paul Newman, Division of World Outreach, United Church of Canada, "Male Witch Fights to Overturn Ruling Denying Access to Son" quoted in Toronto Star (1992-NOV-16):
"I wish to testify that the Wiccan religion is an authentic, respectable religion that works for the health and well-being of its followers. It is not to be confused with Satanism which is a destructive, evil movement." [Note: This is apparently a misunderstanding of the nature of Satanism.]

Canadian Press "Judge Gives Witch Right to See Son" Kingston Whig Standard (Kingston ON, Canada) (1992-NOV-17) P. 2:
"Mr. [George] Gay admits he has been involved in Wicca, a religion involving worship of nature and pagan deities, for a year, but said there is no such thing as black magic witchcraft... Wicca is an ancient name for witchcraft.....Mr. Gay said the court decision shows misconceptions about the Wicca religion can be overcome. Mr. Gay said there is widespread ignorance of Wicca. 'There's no hocus-pocus involved. Wicca is about a bunch of caring people trying to make life more bearable.'"

Canadian Press, "Woman Keeps Son from Father who she Maintains is a Witch" The Recorder and Times (Brockville ON, Canada) 1992-NOV-16, P. A8:
"A Calgary man is going to court today to seek access to a son he has never seen, access the infant's mother has refused because he is a witch..... Describing it as the ancient native spirituality of Europe [Paul W] Newmann says Wiccans were persecuted and forced underground during the 16th and 17th centuries. As part of the neo-pagan movement, Wicca is enjoying renewed popularity."

"Jen Silverhorse, whose family has practiced Wicca for generations, says the nature-based religion generally uses candles, salt, incense and some type of cup to hold water in its rituals. There is no place for animal sacrifices or sexual excesses. 'Wicca does not believe in a form of true evil. Satanism is a rebellion against Christianity.'......Wicca is as separte (sic) as Baha'i or Islam,' says Silverhorse, a Wiccan teacher who introduced [George] Gay to the craft.

Mia Stainsby (Vancouver Sun), "The Truth about Witches", The Kingston Whig Standard (Kingston ON, Canada) 1994-FEB-2, P. 2
" is a nature religion, in which the deity, both god and goddess, is in all of nature and accessible to all, no intermediaries needed..... have the legal department at City Hall do some research into Wicca. The conclusion was that Wiccans were perfectly benign."

"Dispelling witch myths: Wiccans don't perform sacrifices of any living thing. Wicca is sometimes confused with satanism. Wiccans do not believe in Satan or ascribe to the Christian mythos. Wiccans don't perform black masses; it's not their intent to belittle Christian ritual." [Note: more of the same.]

Latest update: 2004-SEP-05