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I am going crazy trying to find out?

Witches and wizards do not exist at all, except in our imaginations. If people were able to perform real magic, I think we would have been able to solve many of the world's problems by now, problems like hunger and drought.  Alternatively, if people were able to perform real magic, they could use that force for evil and become world dictators.  Since neither has occurred, I think it is fair to say that witches and wizards are simply not real.

There is no scientific basis upon which we can make a case for the reality of witches and wizards.  Someone who claims to do something magical cannot afford to allow anyone to observe everything he or she does because then the trick is always revealed.  Some people believe that things happen as a result of black or white magic, but there is no basis to show that a particular cause results in a particular magic effect. 

I think we need to have witches and wizards in our stories, movies, and imaginations because we love the idea of being able to control the world around us in a magical way.  This is why every culture has stories about some forms of witches and wizards. 

As I thought more about your question, I realized that I had given an answer that was not enough.  I have neglected another aspect of our belief in witches that is important, too. Historically, when a woman appeared to be different, more intelligent or less willing to listen to her husband or perhaps different in physcial appearance, with a birthmark, for example, when something bad happened in the community, if a cow died suddenly or the crops failed, she was likely to be accused of being a witch.  This has happened in many countries, including the United States. In New England in particular, communities held "witch trials."  There are plenty of accounts of these, and I have provided a few links about them. 

What I wanted to convey, and hope I have, is that there is a dark side to our belief in witches.  When things go wrong, we would like to blame someone, and that someone is likely to be different from us in some way.  Of course,there is no relationship between crops failing and how a woman  looks or speaks, but we often misunderstand the idea of cause and effect.  

There is in fact a large contemporary community of people who practice a form of modern pagan witchcraft, primarily based in the United States, Great Britain and Australia. They aren't the supernatural beings of legend and folklore, but people who follow a spiritual belief system that venerates nature as sacred, and tend to believe in animism (the belief that all things have a life force) and in pantheism or polytheism (many gods or deities) as opposed to monotheism (one god, as in Christianity or Islam). They do perform spells and believe in magic, but to them magic is a way of effecting change in the physical world through sheer force of will; a more intense form of prayer is one way to look at it. You can find out more by reading history scholar Ronald Hutton's historical survey The Triumph of the Moon, or NPR journalist Margot Adler's sociological survey Drawing Down the Moon.

Witches and Wizards are real, but Magic isn't. Sorry.

Most of the witches and wizards are phony, just as most of the magic is tricks. But this does not mean that, there are no phenomenon in this world that are not understood by common physical science. Existence of phenomenons such as telepathy and hypnotism has been well established using systematic study. However the science is still unable understand how exactly this happens.

On very common existence to phenomenon considered impossible by science is that represented by homeopathic medicines. A homeopathic medicine of 1M potency is so much diluted the it is quite certain that the two drops of such medicines administered to a patient does not contain even one molecule of the original active ingredients. Yet this medicine works. Should we club all homeopathic doctors, and the people who run big companies manufacturing and selling homeopathic medicines in the category of witches and wizards.

Magic is real; it all depends on how you define it.

It depends upon how you define wizards and witches. Are there people out there who call themselves wizards or witches and believe they can cast spells - certainly. Do they? Well, from their perspective they may be very successful.

However, since you are asking this in a science forum, I would have to say that no, they are not real. That is not to say that there are not things science does not yet understand, or cannot explain, but no magic has ever been scientifically proven to exist/work.

Magic is real; it all depends on how you define it. - appletrees

Magic is the performance of an action which breaks the laws of science. This could be miracle healing, talking to the dead, predicting the future, etc etc. And no-one has ever performed magic.

This short clip says it much more eloquently than I have...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RFO6ZhUW38w

The following type of views expressed in post #8 are used by many to imply that what is not scientifically established beyond all doubts does not exist.

That is not to say that there are not things science does not yet understand, or cannot explain, but no magic has ever been scientifically proven to exist/work.

But do they know that science itself, in its attempts to prove many so called scientific truths, is forced to accept the existence of many things that are beyond proof. I will give here just one example. Science uses extensively the concept of an imaginary substances called ether pervading the entire universe. Scientists don't know what it is or what its properties are. They cannot prove its existence. They just assume its existence. Without accepting concept of this imaginary ether, all the scientific theories relating to all types of electromagnetic waves, which includes common things like light and heat radiations would become invalid assumptions.

Truth just exists even if not discovered by science. A proper attitude of supporters of science would be to know truths, rather than deny existence of unknown truths.