Macbeth is a play that anticipates, as with elements throughout Shakespeare's oeuvre as a whole, many of the themes we associate with existential and absurdist literature of the modernist period three centuries later.
We are given no explanation for the appearance of the witches and their intention to bring Macbeth down, apart from the assumption that they are evil, that they symbolize the demonic forces operating on earth and attempting to wreak their usual havoc. Yet Shakespeare does not show us anything concrete to support the notion of satanic activity in the way religion conventionally accounts for it, as in, for instance, the book of Genesis and in Milton's Paradise Lost. We know little about Shakespeare's own religious beliefs, but as George Orwell wrote, "it is difficult to prove that he had any." In my view the witches in Macbeth are more a symbol of man's inner demons, in a figurative sense, than of any sort of literally "evil" power. Furthermore, they would appear to represent irrationality, the primal force that exists within all of us to do things that are perverse and self-defeating.
Macbeth knows from the start that he is on a self-destructive path. Though he presumably tries to resist it, telling Lady Macbeth, "we will proceed no further in this business," it takes about one minute for Macbeth to reverse course and go forward with the plan to murder Duncan. As is often noted, he seems to have had this aim in mind even before encountering the witches, given Banquo's observation of how Macbeth reacts with fear to the witches' prophecy, as it correlates to his own (thus far) unfulfilled ambition to become king.
If Shakespeare had revealed any rationale for the behavior of the witches, it would have created a rather simplistic explanation for the mystery at the heart of the play. That mystery is, as stated, the irrationality at the root of human behavior. Macbeth kills, while knowing that in doing so he is destroying his own life as well, and he continues killing because, in his famous lines
I am in blood
Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er.
Though the witches are the ones who presumably have triggered the disaster he has brought upon himself, he is drawn to return to them, as if it is they who are now his conscience, a negative conscience, and now the only guide to steer him in a meaningless universe. The witches thus are emblematic of life being the "tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing," as Macbeth grimly observes before going to his death against Macduff.
Shakespeare cannot fully reveal why The Witches want to meet with Macbeth because doing so would spoil the action to come and undercut the psychological depth of the play. One could infer from the events in Act I Scene I that Macbeth has sought the counsel of The Witches in the past, as he is an ambitious individual and seeks power above all else. Indeed, if anything, Macbeth is obsessed with power. Also, in Act I Scene III, Macbeth and Banquo do not actively seek out The Witches, they appear to the two men to deliver a prophecy: Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and, in the future, king (the spot currently occupied by Duncan) while Banquo will father a generation of rulers but never be king himself. With this prophecy, The Witches plant the idea of becoming king firmly in Macbeth’s mind. Once they do, he becomes completely obsessed with the idea. One also could say they use him as a pawn in this respect.
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