How the magi/wize-men managed to distance themselves from being seen as evil/witches and escape the witch-hunts and trials when they were essentially doing a very similar thing.

Religious developments that changed how witches were living along side at one point and then the next were being persecuted, and I'd like to understand the reasons behind this change?

The European witch hunts did not start as a search for 'witches'. They started principally as criminal trials and accusations for political reasons which used witchcraft as post hoc basis for the accusation. So a murderer or thief is accused, and the method of murder or theft is some form of malefice; or, a noble attacks another's credibility by accusing them of consorting with the devil,etc. This is 14-15th century. By the 16th century, witchcraft accusations took on their own life (demonology had risen alongside and as a result of development/enforcement of Christian orthodox practices). The resulting witchcraft trials can be loosely grouped as I wrote in another post here:

By the early modern era, it seems we can divine two trends in witch trials:

a. Mass trials and burnings which are driven by religious ideology, either through religious institutions or government apparatus.

b. Village trials of individual, local witches, most of which historians have discovered are founded on inter-personal or village level conflicts.

The reason that many people 'escaped' prosecution while practicing what could have been called witchcraft, virtually next door to those that were accused of witchcraft, then becomes clear: it wasn't really about the practices that underlay witchcraft accusations.

Have a look at this AMA I did last week on the history of witchcraft and heresy, you'll find lots of references there. As well, my AskHistorians profile page has a booklist for witchcraft.

The best book on the history of witchcraft (from a European perspective) is Norman Cohn's Europe's Inner Demons: The Demonization of Christians In Medieval Christendom.

Further recommended reading as well:

• Robin Briggs, Witches and Neighbours: The Social and Cultural Context of European Witchcraft (Blackwell, 2002)

• Brian P. Levack, Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe (Pearson Longman, 2006)

If you're interested in the wise man aspect, it's worth taking a look at Religion and the Decline of Magic by Keith Thomas, which, while a bit dated now (and with an intimidating amount of anecdotes and footnotes) gives an interesting analysis of the 'cunning man'. Put briefly, Thomas argues that English Christianity was a lot more mystical in the medieval and the beginning of the early modern periods. People believed in spirits, witchcraft and so forth, but this spiritual conception was almost Manichean. The church had its own spiritual arsenal; saints, relics and the like, with abilities to heal, control the weather and predict the future.

After the Reformation, English religion was stripped of much of its mysticism, and a lot of those elements were stripped from official theology, as protestantism tried to refute the supernatural powers of catholicism and ascribe good and ill alike to the whims of Providence. There was still, however, a popular belief in the mystical, and with all that psychic energy sloshing around, it found an outlet in the community 'cunning man', who practised 'white' magic, acting as an astrologist, healer and all those functions formerly ascribed to the saints.

As for witches, it's worth quoting Thomas directly. He notes 'two essential facts about accused witches: they were poor, and they were usually women.' He explains these in socio-economic terms (decline of the manorial system, lack of organised poor relief, societal guilt) and a symptom, rather than cause, of popular superstition.

If you think that sounds interesting, Thomas's graduate student Alan Macfarlane did a lot of work about witches specifically, working mostly from an anthropological viewpoint, which was revolutionary at the time.

I should also add that a common criticism of Religion and the Decline of Magic is that is almost entirely Anglocentric. Several historians have argued rather persuasively that the English experience wasn't necessarily illustrative of the trends of the Great European Witchhunt of the period (even compared to Scotland, for example). For more on that aspect, the volume edited by Barry, Hester and Roberts, Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe, gives good introductory essays, while Levack's The witch-hunt in Early Modern Europe is a helpful overview. I'd also suggest a look at Christina Larner's Enemies of God: the witch-hunt in Scotland for a comparison north of the border.

Hopefully that's helpful; if you need any elaboration on those points let me know. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the wider world history of the subject to talk about anything outside of Europe, but hopefully someone can jump in.