#Modern witch hunts

[tmarshconnors]

The Modern-Day Witch Hunt

The label "far-right" today carries as much weight and destruction as the cry of "witch!" did in the Middle Ages. 

No evidence needed, no investigation necessary just one accusation, and suddenly you're cast out, demonised, and ostracised. The term has become a catch-all, a convenient way to smear anyone who dares challenge the mainstream narrative. And I'm angry. I'm angry because this label isn't about protecting society from extremists it's about shutting people up, getting rid of the ones the powers that be don't like.

In the Middle Ages, women (and occasionally men) were labeled witches for everything from being a bit too independent to knowing how to use herbs. The accusations came without evidence, often based on hearsay, jealousy, or fear. The mob didn't care about facts. They cared about punishment. It was a tool for control, a way to silence the different, the non-conforming, the inconvenient.

Sound familiar?

Today, the new word hurled around with reckless abandon is "far-right." Disagree with the government? Far-right. Question mainstream media? Far-right. Express a thought that isn't perfectly in line with the social justice warrior handbook? Well, congratulations—you’re a Nazi now. There's no debate, no dialogue, no effort to understand why someone might hold a different view. Just an accusation. And just like the Middle Ages, it sticks. It sticks hard. The label isn't just a political designation anymore; it's a moral condemnation. The implication is that if you're "far-right," you’re evil. 

You must be silenced.

And here’s the kicker—there’s no real definition of what "far-right" even means anymore. It’s nebulous, vague, and deliberately broad. They’ve weaponised the term so that it applies to anyone they want to get rid of. You can be fiscally conservative and socially moderate, but God forbid you utter the wrong opinion on immigration, gender, or healthcare. The second you step out of line, there it is you're branded. Once you're marked, you're banished from polite society, canceled, and pushed into the margins.

Just like a witch.

The hypocrisy of it all is staggering. The same people who claim to be champions of tolerance and free speech are the ones waving the torches, lighting the pyres, and throwing around the accusations. They preach about "inclusion," but only if you subscribe to their ideology. If not, you’re not just excluded you’re demonised. They don’t want discourse; they want conformity. They don't want dialogue; they want obedience.

The modern witch hunts are real, and they are vicious. It’s not enough to disagree with someone’s politics anymore—you have to destroy them, strip them of their humanity, and reduce them to a two-dimensional villain. It’s lazy, it’s cowardly, and it’s dangerous.

In the Middle Ages, they drowned, hanged, or burned the ones they called witches. Today, they do it differently, but the outcome is the same. They ruin careers, smear reputations, and incite mobs to tear down anyone who dares dissent. The tools may have changed, but the intent hasn’t: silence the inconvenient, punish the different, and maintain control.

I refuse to stand by and watch as this modern witch hunt tears our society apart. The next time someone throws around the label "far-right," ask them what they mean. Demand evidence. Don’t let them get away with vague, slanderous accusations. Because today, it's someone else being labeled. Tomorrow, it could be you.

And I’ll be damned if I stand in silence, watching another pyre being lit.

[crazycatsiren]

And no you are not "descended from Salem witches" because the people who were accused of, arrested for, and executed for being witches in Salem were in fact, not witches.

[fantasy-costco]

My mom got me cat shaped sticky notes and I think they add a certain something to my research process.

[bookshelfdreams]

americans learn what the middle ages are challenge

[alpaca-clouds]

People get the Witch Hunts all wrong

It is history-rant time. And today let me rant about one topic that just really gets me frothing at the mouth, because people will just mix up so many fucking things in this. And yeah, this is gonna be a long one. So strap in.

When it comes to the witch hunts, people are gonna have all sorts of ideas, that are just wrong. And today I wanna go and debunk some of them.

The myths for today:

The witch hunts were a medieval phenomenon.

The Spanish Inquisition was about witch hunts.

The witch hunts were about pegan religions.

Witches were all burned on the stake.

Witch hunts were all about women.

Actually, witch hunts established modern rights for defending yourself against accusations and were therefore good. (Yes. I heard that one.)

Myth 1: The Witch Hunts were a medieval thing.

I honestly do not know how often I have seen this one before. Like so many books and other media just keep harping on about this one. About the witch hunts happening in the middle ages. Which is just not true.

The middle ages are usually said to be 500 till 1500, though the most precide way to define them would be to say they lasted from 476 (the fall of the Roman Empire) till about the midth of the 15th century.

Meanwhile we also can argue exactly when the first witch was persecuted as such. Because there were people kinda persecuted for witchcraft, but actually executed for something else. But all in all the witch hunts started in the midth of the 15th century, aka, when the middle ages ended.

From there on there were witch hunts happening again and again all over Europe and later the US. It was not a constant thing that would happen every other week, but rather it would usually just hit an area like almost a collective mania. Then within a short time several people would be accused of witchcraft (often accusing each other) of which some would be executed. Then there would not be such a thing for several decades.

The reason, why witch hunts were not a thing of the middle ages, was that the church basically was not allowed to persecute crimes. And as the general society kinda saw magic as an in general more neutral thing, there were laws against black magic, but usually the punishment against those was not death.

And this changed in the 15th century, with the church getting more legal power.

Myth 2: The Spanish Inquisition was a witch hunt.

One thing that I do not quite get how it happened... A lot of people just claim that the Spanish Inquisition was a witch hunt... Which it was not.

There really is not much to say here. The Spanish Inquisition happened after the Reconquista war, aka after the Christians reclaimed the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims, who were ruling Iberia for a long while. And because the Christians at the time were a lot worse when it came to living peacefully with other religions than the Muslims of the time, they went out and wanted to force the Muslims (and the Jews who had fled to Iberia because of persecution in the Christian areas of Europe) to either convert to Christianity - or be killed.

Yes, that kinda turned into another craze that ended with a ton more people dead in the end, as after a while people were hunted down for all sorts of things... It really was mostly about hunting down Muslims and Jews.

Myth 3: The witch hunts were all about pegan religions

With this myth I do know where it comes from. It comes from the neopagans, who usually have found their home with pegan religion within the last two generations, but love to claim that their family (especially their matrilinear line) totally always has been pegan, but they had to hide this because of the witch hunts. To be perfectly frank: This is mostly something that comes from white cis abled women, who desperately want to feel persecuted in some way.

But, yeah... I am not saying that there were no pegans killed during the witch hunts. Though of course the idea of keeping "pegans" as a different thing from Christians is kinda... complicated. Because for the most part in Europe it was not that Christianity totally extinguished the indigenous religions of whatever culture it took over, but rather supplemented it. This is super clear in Scotland and Ireland, but also in parts of Scandinavia.

A lot of those original religions have been lost, yeah. But... It was not quite how people imagine it to have gone when it comes to the conversion of people.

But in fact, the time this happened - the conversion of people towards Christianity and the pegan hunts that came with it - happened mostly between the 4th and the 8th century, so in the late Roman and early medieval period. And it was not what had happened in the witch trials.

The witch trials mostly went back to a very misogynist book of the "Malleus Maleficarum" - and to the church needing a good reason to get more power. It started out as: "Women are very corruptable. Satan has in fact corrupted so many women. Here is what you can do to find out whether a woman is a witch!" And from there it went to like: "Satan does want to corrupt us all! Everyone is corrupted by Satan!"

And a lot of it ended up being also directed against women, who held knowledge. Which was mostly connected to the entire push for more stricter patriarchal powers to come in. So, for example herbalists, who often taught their daughters, were often targeted, because they held knowledge and through that knowledge power. But also women in other positions of power.

And then... just everyone who was an inconvenience...

And disabled people...

Myth 4: All the witches were burned on the stake.

Another thing that keeps getting iterated in media a lot is the idea of witches burning on the stake. Because... I guess it is a pretty big image as an influence.

But... actually a lot of witches were simply hanged or beheaded. It kinda depended on the area and whoever was responsible for the witch hunts there. France in general was big on the burnings. But large parts of England were bigger on the hanging. Here in Germany some were burned and beheaded. And some were hanged first with their bodies then burned.

In some areas it shifted over time.

Nothing much more to say about this one. If you wanna write about some witch hunts, you should look up how people were killed in the version of witch hunts were you are from.

Myth 5: Witch Hunts only targeted women

As I said: Yes, the witch hunts definitely started with misogyny and was partly aimed at removing women from positions of influence and power. But they did not only target women. In fact in the end it was about equal with whom they targeted. In the end it was also highly dependend on the area. But... yeah. It is more complicated.

A just little fun fact: In Lichtenstein most of the "witches" killed were in fact men, because someone figured out that the entire "yeah, actually, we own the stuff the witch had owned" was way more profitable if you went for the men, who usually owned more things than women. Because patriarchy.

Another group that definitely was also targeted where people who were disabled or neurodiverse. Because they were often seens as being posessed by demons and such, due to people not understanding what was happening. This was especially true for people with turettes.

So, yeah. It started with misogyny and targeting women. But over the about 300 years during which most witch hunts happened, it shifted and spread from there.

Myth 6: The witch hunts gave us proper legal protocol

Okay, another one... This one I heard first from the father of my ex boyfriend, as he defended the bad things that had happened in the name of the church. But I have heard it several times since, so I think it is worth adressing.

The idea goes like this: "Well, actually during the witch hunts they introduced those neat legal concepts. Like, you could not be tortured more than three times, you were allowed to have a defendend and you could not be charged with the same crime twice! So it totally brought us modern legal practice!" Which... like...

*deep sigh* Honestly, that this has to be said. But... No.

First of all: Actually those things predate the witch hunts. And in fact torture was a thing that was not permitted as a form of interrogation in many areas where it became permitted during the witch hunts. Not saying it was not used as such still, just that it technically was not permitted. Just as the people just didn't give a flying fuck during the witch hunts on the legal limitations they had on the torture. People would often be tortured a) more than three times, b) for longer than allowed and c) with the kind of permanent injury that the law did not in fact allow. Because people did not care in the end. Same with the other things. And if you got a defendend, that defendend was not always on your side.

And, again, all those concepts predate the witch hunts. They were not universal, no. But they were not invented during the witch hunts.

So... Christ. If you really want to defend the senseless killing of people based on a made-up crime... Then at least think of some actual facts to defend it, rather than making shit up.

(Also I think this myth comes from history channel.)

So, yeah... That are some myths about the witch hunts that I have encountered several times. Are there some I missed?

[elisabethwheatley]

Catholic Priests in Fiction: "BURN THE WITCH!!!"

Catholic Priests in the actual Middle Ages: "So, I got this new love spell to try on the miller's wife..."

[recordswithgooglyeyes]

Aus Rotten - “The Rotten Agenda”

submitted by @brainheadtheworst

[j-august]

The new religion made the situation even bleaker by playing down the importance of guardian angels, and denying the intercessionary power of saints, while at the same time placing an unprecedented stress upon the reality of the Devil and the extent of his earthly dominion. The situation was piquantly symbolized by the change made under Protestant influence in 1558 in the annual procession by St George's Gild, Norwich. The two saints, George and Margaret, were not allowed to appear any more, but it was resolved that 'the Dragon (should) come in and show himself as in other years'.

Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic

[lethalpotions]

If men weren’t so volatile and sometimes scary I would find it extremely funny that this one guy from high school is thoroughly convinced I hexed him and is trying to do everything in his power to undo it. We only ever spoke through messages and I never had any feelings for him, good or bad, so obviously there’s no curse lol. But still, he interrogates all my ex friends about me, tries to follow me on ghost accounts, subtweets me; and has a whole instagram “exposing” witchcraft, which he used to try to buy a reading off me. People can be so freaking unhinged.

[sapphire-theseainequator]

Also, religious discrimination is fucking real, regardless of gender. It annoys me that a lot of "white feminist" believes that witchhunt only happen to the poor poor women who is just very smart in 1800s europe. Witchhunting and death penalty for sorcery is still fucking real and legal in some places for people who just want to do their old belief (ie. Saudi Arabia, maybe even Indonesia with the new "anti hexxing" law that is probably targeted for people who still believe in indigenous religion while the goverment pretend to "acknowledge them" (they don't)). Some of the religions/beliefs with witchcraft labels and such even have traditional male leaders, yet it doesn't save them for being targetted.

You don't need to believe in a religion or anything to know that people shouldn't be murdered for believing the wrong god

lotta people seem to think the issue with the salem witch trials was that witchcraft is bullshit and not that mob justice is unreliable, inhumane, and fosters widespread paranoia and compulsion rather than protecting literally anyone from harm

[caricarnations]

not sure if wanna reserve this blog for my love for kuro and horror and other things only, or if I should use this as a personal diary to vaguely vent and bitch about the toxic purity culture in my old fandom from years ago because I have so much shit to say

[esmeraldista]

this is a good primer on the european witchcraft moral panic, what it was and what it wasn't.

While women were persecuted for witchcraft at higher rates than men, both Barry and Clark note that misogyny was not suddenly heightened in the period, nor were demonologists any more misogynistic than society at large. Instead, the weakness of women relative to men was taken to be self-evident. Barry claims that in the 15th century, “an increasing emphasis on clerical celibacy… meant women were in danger of being seen as both tempters and pollutants.” This helps to show that while witch trials were not created as a misogynistic ploy to target women, early modern society viewed women as the inferior sex, more apt to fall prey to the Devil’s temptations.

i feel like the writer is splitting hairs here and trying to explain why makes me feel like i'm the one splitting hairs. sure, misogyny precedes witch hunts, but i don't think it's bad analysis to say that the systematized persecution of marginalized women can be more intense than when non-systematized...

Much of the general public believed in magic, often citing it as an explanation for many of the misfortunes that faced ordinary people. [...] As the early modern period approached, people began to understand witchcraft and magic as having direct connections to the devil. The Catholic Church, which had maintained a monopoly on religious beliefs throughout prior centuries, was now threatened by the advent of Protestantism, which was just beginning to gain traction in regions where loyalty to the Catholic Church was relatively weak.

never made the connection with protestanism. yep checks out a culturally threatened dog will holler (and create moral panics)

Boguet cautions that failure to prosecute the multitudes of witches throughout Europe could result in numbers “strong enough to make war upon a king.”

the world if an international witch army had destroyed european monarchies one by one: 🌈☀️🌸🏵🌻❤️🫂

Since midwifery was viewed as a profession belonging to the female sphere, Boguet viewed women as threatening and inherently inclined to conspire with the devil. From a modern perspective, it is unsurprising that many babies died during childbirth due to a lack of medical knowledge. However, due to the prejudices against women and superstitions of the early modern period, these natural, albeit tragic, deaths were often attributed to female witches.

never made the connection with infant death either. makes sense that even women would accuse other women thinking they were the victims of traumatic malpractice

Bodin also references the Malleus Maleficarum’s explanation that witches copulated with the devil in “broad daylight,” despite outsiders’ inability to see any figure lying with the witch. [...] These cases were likely instances of self-stimulation.

i know how serious and ruinous this hateful propaganda was for the world. but also: it's funny

While Bodin does not come to a firm conclusion on whether children could be born due to a witch’s sexual encounter with a demon, he addresses the question by claiming that doctors had not yet come to a consensus.

phew i was worried for a second there that this guy didn't care about scientific rigor

[ramblings-of-a-chaotic-neutral]

Here's a quick au idea that just came to me today:

In a modern au where Merlin is still waiting on Arthur, historians recently discovered a whole batch of legal documents from Arthur's reign. These documents detail many changes he made to the laws of Camelot, including the repeal of the magic ban (which the historians assumed was just a halt on witch hunts).

However, one thing that the historians note as strange were the large number of laws that only applied to the king's personal manservant, who was never mentioned by name in the documents. These laws range from oddly specific, such as 'the king's manservant shall not accompany knights to the tavern', to downright bizarre decrees that make no sense, like 'the king's manservant is hereby forbidden from pointing out stew in the king's hair.'

The historians' first guess was that perhaps King Arthur was going a bit mad in his later years, but they didn't find any other ludicrous laws besides the ones pertaining to his manservant, which then led the historians to question the identity of this manservant and his relationship to the king.

All of this culminates in a historical exhibit showcasing the documents and postulating on this mysterious manservant of king Arthur. Many scholars flock to the exhibit, eager to examine the documents and debate their meaning and impact within a historical context.

Which then leads to a very tired Dr. Merlin Emrys, a medieval history professor, being dragged by his colleagues to see the exhibit and having to stifle is laughter as these world-renowned scholars tear their hair out trying to understand what was essentially a prank war between him and Arthur.

[thefabelmans2022]

got really excited to relax after a long day of working on my masters thesis with a new episode of a podcast i love but the episode is about my thesis topic so i might just have to jump off a bridge instead.

[angeliabythemoon]

This is another example of the modern day Witch Hunt that I've been screaming about.

They don't even know their own church history much less anything about us.

The full poster:

[gwydionmisha]

Debunking the Pervasive Myths About Medieval Witch Hunts

I would say "Early Modern" where Kaz Rowe says "Renaissance." Otherwise *thumbs up*