modern Wiccans, however, have stopped using the white/black magic and left/right-hand-path dichotomies, arguing for instance that the colour black should not necessarily have any associations with evil. Scholars of religion Rodney Stark and William Bainbridge claimed in 1985 that Wicca had "reacted to secularisation by a headlong plunge back into magic" and that it was a reactionary religion which would soon die out. This view was heavily criticised in 1999 by the historian Ronald Hutton who claimed that the evidence displayed the very opposite: that "a large number [of Wiccans] were in jobs at the cutting edge [of scientific culture], such as computer technology." Witchcraft Traditionally, the term "witchcraft" has meant the use of magic to cause harm and misfortune to others, as opposed to helpful "white magic" or "cunning craft". However, historian Wouter Hanegraaff noted that the Wiccan view of witchcraft was "an outgrowth of Romantic (semi)scholarship", especially the 'witch cult' theory. It proposed that historical alleged witches were actually followers of a surviving pagan religion, and that accusations of infanticide, cannibalism, Satanism etc were either made up by the Inquisition or were misunderstandings of pagan rites. This theory that accused witches were actually pagans has now been disproven. Nevertheless, Gardner and other founders of Wicca believed the theory was true, and saw the witch as a "positive antitype which derives much of its symbolic force from its implicit criticism of dominant Judaeo-Christian and Enlightenment values". Pearson suggested that Wiccans "identify with the witch because she is imagined as powerful - she can make people sleep for one hundred years, she can see the future, she can curse and kill as well as heal[…] and of course, she can turn people into frogs!" Pearson says that Wicca "provides a framework in which the image of oneself as a witch can be explored and brought into a modern context". Identifying as a witch also enables Wiccans to link themselves with those persecuted in the witch trials of the Early Modern period, often referred to by Wiccans as "the Burning Times". Various practitioners have made the historically inaccurate claim that nine million people were executed as witches in the Early Modern period, thus drawing comparisons with the killing of six million Jews in the Holocaust and presenting themselves, as modern witches, as "persecuted minorities". Morality Wicca has been characterised as a life-affirming religion. Practitioners typically present themselves as "a positive force