#witch hunts

[brinconvenient]

Jesus Fucking Christ.

In case you thought, somehow, that the trans people who have been telling you that the efforts to stigmatize transness as obscene and our mere existence as pornographic was only the beginning and that it was the construction of a launchpad to come after ALL queer people in the same way were all just being hysterical and alarmist, please note that the Second Lavender Scare has truly begun.

Take special note:

These firings also come just days after the quiet repeal of protections meant to prevent intelligence agencies from spying on LGBTQ+ people solely based on their sexual orientation or gender identity. As Bloomberg reported, “The Office of Intelligence and Analysis posted an updated policy manual late last week that removes references to those characteristics in sections that set guardrails on gathering intelligence.” Now, with far fewer trans and queer people left in the intelligence community, there will be even fewer voices to push back if these tools are turned against us.

Sounds like COINTELPRO is coming back, and this time it's personal.

[gwydionmisha]

And so the Christo-fascist witch hunts begin.

[weirdlookindog]

"Burning of witches in the Middle Ages"

by unknown artist, 19th century

[creature-wizard]

Is the spiritual person a conspiracy theorist? A list of red flags

They talk about a shadowy group of people supposedly manipulating everything behind the scenes. They might refer to them by terms such as globalists, bankers, international bankers, secret rulers of the world, the elite, the cabal, Kabbalists, Talmudists, satanists, satanic pedophiles, pedophiles, generational satanists, satanic bloodlines, the Illuminati, the Babylonian Brotherhood, lizard people, Reptilians, Orions, regressives, regressive entities, Khazarians, Marxists, cultural Marxists, or leftists. Sometimes, very rarely, they'll just come right out and say "Jews."

They claim that the conspiracy has been working to conceal historical and spiritual truths from humanity.

They claim that the conspiracy uses stuff like food, entertainment, and medicine to control the masses. For example, "additives in food suppress our psychic abilities" or "Hollywood films contain subliminal messages" or "COVID vaccines were actually created to alter your DNA to make you more docile."

Also, claims that the conspiracy controls people via spiritual or technological implants, 5G, or alter programming, with or without explicit mention of Project Monarch (a conspiracy theory promoted by far right cranks such as Mark Philips and Fritz Springmeier, who used hypnosis to respectively convince Cathy O'Brien and Cisco Wheeler that they'd been put under mind control by a global satanic conspiracy).

They claim that this conspiracy is controlling the media, has fingers in every institution they disagree with, and is generally behind everything they disagree with. (EG, the conspiracy created the Catholic Church; that other New Ager they disagree with is actually controlled opposition, etc.)

They claim that the conspiracy is trying to keep people in fear.

They claim that the conspiracy harvests something from people. Blood and adrenochrome are common ones. Loosh is somewhat less common. Expect to see something else pop up eventually.

They claim that the conspiracy practices genetic engineering; EG, creating animal/human hybrids, using vaccines to genetically sever people's connection to God, etc.

They claim that true spiritual wisdom can be traced back to places like Atlantis, Lemuria, or Mu.

They claim that world governments have secretly been in contact with extraterrestrials for years.

They appeal to known frauds and cranks, including but not limited to Erich Von Daniken, Zechariah Sitchin, David Icke, David Wilcock, Graham Hancock, Jaime Maussan, Bob Lazar, Steven Greer, Richard C. Hoagland, Fritz Springmeier, and Drunvalo Melchizedek.

Appeals to forged documents, including but not limited to the alleged diary of Admiral Richard Byrd, The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, and The Urantia Book.

Appeals to channeled information, such as that provided by Edgar Cayce, Carla Rueckert, or George Van Tassel.

"But all of this has to come from somewhere, doesn't it?"

Oh, it all comes from somewhere, all right, but the where isn't what most people imagine.

A lot of the stuff above is just a modern spin on the content of The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, a Russian hoax created to justify violence against Russian Jews. The Protocols itself was plagiarized from a political satire and incorporated a lot of the post-French Revolution conspiracy theories about Freemasons and Jews being behind the French Revolution. I wrote a summary of the conspiracy tropes found in The Protocols over here.

The stuff about Satanic sacrifices and the consumption of blood, adrenochrome, loosh, or whatever are simply just variations on blood libel, an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims Jews practice ritual cannibalism. Blood libel can be traced back to ancient Greece. (With the Greek version, I really can't help but notice the similarity to modern urban legends of gangsters kidnapping random people for initiation rituals.)

Many of these tropes can also be linked back to the early modern witch hunts. It was believed that witches sacrificed babies to Satan, practiced cannibalism, and put people under mind control by way of diabolical magic. It was also believed that some witches didn't even know they were witches; they'd go off to attend the Devil's Sabbath at night and come back in the morning without remembering a thing. In the late 20th century, this witch hunter's canard would be reinvented as the alter programming conspiracy theory when media such as the 1973 book Sibyl and its 1976 television adaptation put DID (note: the woman who inspired Sibyl did not have DID) into the public consciousness. For a more complete list of witch panic and blood libel tropes, I wrote a list over here.

Lemuria was a hypothetical landmass proposed to explain the presence of lemur fossils in Madagascar and India while being absent in continental Africa and the rest of Asia, because if lemurs evolved naturally, they wouldn't be in two separate places with no connection to each other. The discovery that India and Madagascar were once connected not only made the hypothesis obsolete, it precludes the existence of Lemuria.

The whole notion of Mu began with a horrendous mistranslation of the Troano manuscript. A man named Augustus Le Plongeon would link the mistranslation with the story of Atlantis, and use it to claim that Atlantis actually existed in the Americas. (For Plongeon, Mu and Atlantis were one and the same.) And then other people (like James Churchward) got their hands on the whole Mu thing, and put their own spins on it, and the rest is history.

Le Plongeon's ideas influence modern Atlantis mythology today; EG, the idea that it was in the Americas. Another guy who helped shape the modern Atlantis myth was Ignatius L. Donnelly, an American politician. Dude claimed that Atlanteans spread their oh-so-superior culture far and wide. He also claimed that Atlantis was the home of the Aryan people, because of course he did.

The idea that all of the world's wisdom can be traced back to Thoth/Hermes goes back to Hermeticism, a product of Greco-Egyptian syncretism. Hermeticism produced a fascinating body of mythology and an interesting way to consider the divine and its role in shaping human history, but that doesn't mean it was right. And the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean is a modern text that has fuck-all to do with ancient Hermeticism and more to do with HP Lovecraft.

This idea that the conspiracy uses pharmaceutical drugs and vaccines for evil also has roots in Nazi Germany. The Nazi government, wanting to reserve real medicine for their soldiers, told the general populace that said medicine was the product of evil Jewish science and prescribed alternative healing modalities instead. (Said alternative healing modalities did not particularly work.) It also echoes the old conspiracy theories about Jews spreading the Black Death by poisoning wells.

The idea that the conspiracy uses genetic manipulation to create subhuman beings or sever humanity from the divine is a permutation of the Nazi conspiracy theory that Jews are trying to destroy the white race through race mixing. The idea of evil reptilian DNA goes back to the ancient serpent seed doctrine, which is indeed old, but no less pure hateful nonsense for it.

"But there's got to be somebody up to something rotten out there!"

Oh sure. But these people aren't skulking around in the shadows. They're acting pretty openly.

The Heritage Foundation has been working to push this country into Christofascism since the early 1970's. They're the ones responsible for the rise of the Moral Majority and the election of Ronald Reagan. They're also the ones behind Project 2025, which intends to bring us deeper into Christofascism. (Among many other horrible things, they intend to outlaw trans people as "pornographic.")

The Seven Mountains Mandate is another movement pushing for Christofascism. They intend to seize the "seven spheres" of society, which include education, religion, family, business, government/military, arts/entertainment, and media.

There's also the ghoulish American Evangelicals who support Israel because they think that current events are going to bring about the Second Coming of Jesus and cement the formation of a global Christofascist empire. Don't let their apparent support of Jews fool you - they believe that the good Jews will become Christians and the bad ones will go to hell.

All of these people are working toward monstrously horrific goals, but none of them are part of an ancient megaconspiracy. In fact, these are the kinds of people pushing the myth of the ancient megaconspiracy. From the witch hunts to Nazi Germany to the American Evangelical movement, if history has taught us anything, the people pushing the conspiracy theories are always the bad guys.

[agnosticmystic]

This should be required listening for folks getting into pagan topics

[hollowed-theory-hall]

I read your post on the canonical likelihood that the Wizarding World follows Christianity rather than paganism commonly seen in 'pureblood culture' or political fics, so I kind of had a question?

There's the whole mess of God and the church against witchcraft (such as the banning of Harry Potter books), so how would that affect Christianity in the WW? Additionally (considering how many fics use it as rationale for pureblood bigotry), how do you think a pureblood culture fic would pan out around Christianity?

Hello 👋

I think I talked about this in the past here, but what we see with the anti-witchcraft sentiment in churches is relatively modern. Like, until the 1600s, incidentally, when the Statute of Secrecy became a thing, witch hunts and witch burnings weren't common. Until the latter half of the 1200s the Catholic church considered believing in witchcraft heresy and even after they started viewing witchcraft as devil work, they used witchcraft allegations to prosecute the Knight Templars in the 1300s and protestants in the 1400s, not actual witches. It was politics back then more than actual fear of witchcraft which we only start seeing late in the 1500s. But let's, take a look at witch hunts in history and see why the WW, who broke off from the muggle one in the late 1600s probably didn't really have a problem with Christianity (at least in the UK, the US, and other parts of the Europe are very different. The UK was actually not that big on the witch hunts compared to the rest of Europe).

Past entries in my 'wizards aren't pagan essays': part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 (has the most quote evidence)

Witch Hunts Timeline:

(Many items on the list are taken from here)

~910 - The canon "Episcopi," a text of medieval canon law, was recorded. It condemned maleficium (bad-doing) and sorilegium (fortune-telling), but it argued that most stories of these acts were fantasy. It also argued that those who believed they could somehow magically fly were suffering from delusions. This text influenced later catholic church canon.

1154 - John of Salisbury wrote of his skepticism about the reality of witches riding in the night.

1230s - An Inquisition against heresy was established by the Roman Catholic Church. (Not against witches, against people who speak heresy)

1258 - The pope accepted sorcery and communication with demons as a kind of heresy, and therefore prosecutable by the church.

1306-1315 - The Church moved to eliminate the Knights Templar. Among the charges were heresy, witchcraft, and devil-worship.

1316-1334 - The pope issued several bills identifying sorcery with heresy and pacts with the devil.

1317 - In France, a bishop was executed for using witchcraft in an attempt to kill Pope John XXII. This was one of several assassination plots around that time against the pope or a king. (AKA accusations of witchcraft being about politics and not about magic).

1340s - The Black Death.

1401 - Parliament passed the Suppression of Heresy Act, the first English law authorizing the burning of unrepentant or reoffending heretics. With the intention to burn protestants translating the bible to English, not witches.

1484 - Pope Innocent VIII authorized two German monks to investigate accusations of witchcraft as heresy, threatening those who interfered with their work. (AKA accusations of witchcraft being about politics and not about magic. Again).

1486 - The "Malleus Maleficarum" (basically the witch hunters' bible, written by a dude who had nothing to do with the church) was published.

1492 - Nearly Headless Nick was beheaded, supposedly for witchcraft. I will note it's odd since witches/wizards were commonly hanged in Britain. Additionally, a priest actually came to comfort him in his cell prior to his execution on the block and he didn't even have a trial at all. So, his death wasn't really a proper witch trial as the first Witch Act in England was only passed in 1542, so he was executed before Witchcraft could have been legally tried in England and something more complicated happened there. My bet — politics that he doesn't like talking about.

1500-1560 - A period as one in which witchcraft trials, and Protestantism, were rising in Europe (These things were connected since the catholic church saw protestants as basically witches and burned/hanged them as well).

1542 - English law made witchcraft a secular crime with the Witchcraft Act.

1552 - Ivan IV of Russia issued the Decree of 1552, declaring witch trials were to be civil matters rather than church matters.

1560s-1570s - A wave of witch hunts was launched in southern Germany. The witch hunts really started in Europe as civil law trials, not church prosecution.

1563 - The second English Witchcraft Act was passed in England. Again, treating it as a civil offense, not a religious one.

1580-1650 - Considered the period with the largest number of witchcraft cases in Europe. Most cases of witch hunts in the UK though, happened in the 1640s, and the worst of it lasted only 14 months.

1682 - Mary Trembles and Susannah Edward were hanged, the last documented witch hangings in England itself.

1689 - The Statute of Secrecy was signed.

1692 - Salem witch trials took place in the British colony of Massachusetts.

1692 - The Statute of Secrecy went into effect.

1717 - The last English trial for witchcraft was held; the defendant was acquitted.

1736 - The English Witchcraft Act was repealed, formally ending witch hunts and trials. (Most of Europe only officially ended witch hunts later).

So we can see that the actual witch hunts (trials and burnings) were a secular civil matter and that church law wasn't really a part of it. For most of the medieval period, believing in witchcraft would have been seen as heresy, and even into the 1400s the church was more concerned with prosecuting protestants and political opponents than witches (which many clergymen still doubted the existence of) — because they saw them as the real danger. Basically, the witch hunts weren't a religious medieval thing as they are often portrayed, but a Renaissance civil movement for the most part. (In Europe, at least, the witch hunts in the American colonies are a whole other beast that operated diffrently).

In England, the laws regarding witchcraft were civil laws made by parliament, not by the church. And the witch hunts in England were shorter (in time period they took place over) than most other Western countries (France, Germany, and the US, for example, had longer witch hunt periods, more anti-witch laws, and a higher death toll to these hunts). So it makes sense the wizards in the UK wouldn't really see anything contradictory between being Christian and being witches/wizards since the prosecution didn't come from the church. It came from their muggle neighbors:

The persecution of witches and wizards was gathering pace all over Europe in the early fifteenth century. Many in the magical community felt, and with good reason, that offering to cast a spell on the Muggle-next-door’s sickly pig was tantamount to volunteering to fetch the firewood for one’s own funeral pyre. “Let the Muggles manage without us!” was the cry, as the wizards drew further and further apart from their non-magical brethren.

(Albus Dumbledore on “The Wizard and the Hopping Pot”, Tales of Beedle the Bard)

The wizards' disdain wasn't for the church or Christianity but for the muggles in the homes next to them. That's who betrayed them and hunted them down, not the church. This is why we see the kind of anti-muggle sentiment we see. Becouse wizards' neighbors, muggles whom they helped and lived beside for generations turned on them. For the WW, the hunter wasn't the church, it was the muggle next door.

And if we look at the numbers of accused witches killed, the UK and Ireland were on the lower estimates in Europe:

Scotland acquitted almost all tired witches and while England killed more, the number of trials and executions was much lower than in Germany, Switzerland, and France. Even though Belgium and Norway had fewer trials, they killed more of the witches tried than England by percentage. Ireland isn't even on this list but their numbers are even lower. (Spain is low on the witch executions since the Inquisition was more concerned with religious opponents and heretics than witches):

(Source - a book about the economic and religious background to the witch hunts, for anyone curious. I will note I've seen higher estimates of the death toll of the witch hunts, but these higher estimates are often not based on existing historical records so it's hard to know the real number of deaths)

This context about how the witch hunts were worse in central Europe explains why Durmstrang and Beauxbatons are so secretive about their location compared to Hogwarts. It also gives context to why Grindlewald had more supporters from these areas and why even Voldemort had supporters from Durmstrang (Karkaroff and Dolohove maybe) even if they have nothing to do with Britain — the anti-muggle sentiment is just more widespread there because the witch hunts were worse there ("There" being the Holy Roman Empire). I think this gives interesting context to the world-building.

As for the second part of your ask:

Religion in pureblood society

This part has more of my headcanons sprinkled in and isn't strictly canon, but here's how I see it.

We don't really see them going to church on Sundays or even on holidays. In general, church-going isn't one of the traditions they adhere to. If it was, we would've likely seen a small chapel at Hogwarts, but there isn't one.

That makes a lot of sense. The reformation of the church happened in the early 1530s (it's a little more complex because Mary tried to return catholicism but I'm not going into that), hence before wizards broke away from muggle culture, so most wizards we see (Ones from the UK at least, as I assume the Irish ones (not north Ireland) are still mostly catholic) are what I call Magical Anglican. They are Anglican but with a magical flare and some unique wizard saints.

As Anglicans are protestants, their doctrine is more focused on the Bible than the church. So the average Magical Anglican wizard in the UK probably steps foot in a church only on rare occasions and mostly practices the traditions and holidays without a church involved. We see a wizard priest conduct weddings and funerals outside, wherever the wizards are, so clearly it's not about the church for them. It's about the community.

That being said, I think certain communities, such as Godric's Hallow, do go to church on holidays. In DH, when Harry and Hermione notice a sermon for Christmas at the church in Godric's Hallow, I headcanon many of the wizards living there were in the church that night.

In general, they seem to celebrate all the Christian holidays and have their own traditions for them. Like, the Christmas hats on the house elves' heads at Grimmauld Place. Like, I headcanon that's something Sirius' family did when he was a kid and even before that. I mean, why else would they have little house elf Christmas hats for all the mounted heads just sitting there ready?

Their decorations have a magical flare, and so do their holiday traditions, but they're mostly the same. Yes, their Christmas crackers are magical, but Christmas crackers are a thing in Britain. Yes, they place gnomes or fairies atop the Christmas tree, but it still is a tree topper that serves the same purpose. Yes, their carols are a little different, but they are still Christmas carols that mention god.

I like to headcanon godparents are pretty common in the WW, and that Magical Anglicans baptize infants pretty regularly. I mean, everyone in universe treats being a godparent like a big deal, and something important they respect. So, culturally, I believe purebloods christian their kids and that most wizards have godparents. I headcanon said godparents are usually relatives.

Like, I headcanon Alphard (Sirius' uncle who left him money) was Sirius' godfather. I like to headcanon Cygnus and Druella were Regulus' godparents. I also like to headcanon Uncle Billius, from whom Ron got his middle name from Ron's godfather. Sirius was Harry's godfather as a the brother-from-another-mother he was for James.

Purebloods might hold Yule Balls like we see in GOF, but, like in the book, it has nothing to do with the pagan holiday and more to do with just a cool wintery theme for the ball.

I can totally see some purebloods (I think not all purebloods are actually upper class) having fancy dinner parties for holidays too. Like, that seems to me like something they'd do besides balls. Like, I want to be a fly on the wall in my headcanoned Black family Christmas dinner with all the cousins and aunts and uncles when Sirius was 11. Just, imagine it.

So, while they aren't regular church-goers, I think you can see the footprint of Christianity all over their culture.

I mean, Hogwarts doesn't have a church, but they serve pork in meals on the regular in the Great Hall, something Jewish or Muslim wizards would not eat if they followed their religions' rules. The calendar Hogwarts operates by is one that follows Christian holidays like Christmas and Easter. They don't work/study on Sunday, which is a Christian thing. In Muslim countries, Friday is the holiday day, while in Israel, it's Saturday. Even these little things that seem obvious are based in Christianity. Yes, it's the case in Britain, but if wizarding culture was separate enough to have a different religion, I doubt they would've kept all these little footprints of Christianity in their society.

The way I see it, they're Christian in faith and ideals, but have some of their own magical spins on the traditions and holidays. They are more focused on their community than going to Church (which might be a result of the muggle communities they lived in turning on them). So, that's kinda how I see religion in the WW.

(Obviously, this is different in different areas even in the UK, and could vary from family to family. This is more the general vibes I got and some headcanons).

[briefbestiary]

In addition, four other named familiars attributed to Bess, although seeming to be tacked on sometimes after the events by Hopkins, include Elemanzer, Pyewacket, Peck in the Crown, and Grizzel Greedigut.

Despite popularly said to have been Bess', it seems those four were supposedly the names of familiars Hopkins pressured out of other women that Hopkins forced her to implicate.

[captainfairygodmother]

They're having witch trials in Africa and NOBODY IS SAYING ANYTHING.

Many people are being accused of witchcraft and lynched, burned, stoned, poisoned, executed etc in Africa and NOBODY IS SAYING ANYTHING.

Multiple countries in Africa are killing people for 'witchcraft' and NOBODY IS SAYING ANYTHING.

I get everywhere in the world is in ruins currently, and there are other pressing conflicts and issues, but the only way I found it is that I have an interest in witchcraft and it's history. I only found out due to a recommended article from Amnesty (a group I was formerly part of).

THEY'RE HAVING WITCH TRIALS IN AFRICA, AND NOBODY IS SAYING ANYTHING.

[shinobicyrus]

Maybe I'm being too hard on it, but the Buffy episode Gingerbread simultaneously hits so hard and is immensely unsatisfying to watch in the Year Of Our Lord 2025.

The bones of a great story are there: moral panics, witch hunts, zealous parent organizations, cops breaking open kid's lockers and dragging the "witches" away, cops ransacking a library to remove "dangerous" or "inappropriate" books.

It's the kind of story I think really can't (and shouldn't) be told in a Monster of the Week format, because - spoiler warning - the show conjures a physical monster that is responsible for it all and killing it makes the problem just...solved in a very frustrating way. Everything discussed isn't given closure, everything that transpired (save the 'Amy is stuck as a Rat' gag) simply doesn't come up again.

Yes, I know that's a bit uncharitable to horror-comedy teen drama from 1999, but I'm gonna go off anyway.

From the start, the premise is interesting. I won't do a full recap, but the beats are simple: Buffy's mom Joyce - in an attempt to try and understand her daughter better - decides to invite herself along on one of Buffy's patrols in a mom-like fashion. Joyce sees a pair of dead children with a ritual mark on their hands. The ritual mark suggests witches and Joyce starts getting involved with the school and later city hall, where she makes a speech about taking Sunnydale back from "the monsters, the witches, and the Slayers."

The town starts going on the hunt for witches. First occult contraband, then Giles' books are forcibly removed from the library; witchy students are getting attacked at school.

Only it turns out it's not real. The kids never existed, it was all a trick by a demon who convinces Joyce and other parents to burn their daughters at the stake, but then the demon is revealed and killed. All's well that ends well!

Now I was on board at the start. Watching a boy in makeup get accosted by a gang of bullies for being a "witch," books being taken away by the authorities, troubling speeches by "concerned parents;" it's quite affecting in our, say, current situation.

But when we find out "Oh! It's actually Hansel and Gretel!" is where it all falls apart for me, culminating in a frankly lazy quick fix for, let's be real, is crypto-fascism.

The episode doesn't even have a final tie-up of loose ends where Buffy confronts her mom about her obviously still unresolved issues with her being the Slayer. Joyce specifically called out "slayers" in her speech about what's wrong with Sunnydale. She told her own daughter to her face that she doesn't really solve anything as the Slayer; that she's not doing anything to help in a way that matters.

And that's just left completely unaddressed! No follow-up, no closure. Oh it's fine, she said all those hurtful things while under the influence of Hansel and Gretel surely they're not an expression of her true inner feelings at all!

In order to fix this, to give the subject real justice, I think you'd have to A). tweak a few details and B). make it more than a single episode.

They really didn't need to make the kids some figment. Kids have died in Buffy before - and not just high school students. Children have been turned into vampires before and even killed as vampires. It wouldn't even need to be a witch symbol that kicked it all off, it could have just as easily been a demonic symbol used by like...cultists. Buffy has dealt with people working with demons before! She nearly got sacrificed to a snake demon by a college frat full of rich assholes.

In fact, I think it works even better if Joyce was responding to a semi-real problem: humans working for demons. Joyce (and the parents she recruits) would then take that to mean anyone who has contact with the supernatural is corrupted. Parents and cops seeing no difference between evil demonic symbols and like, the white magic Willow and her friends practice would be such an easy leap. It starts with looking for people who cavort with demons, then it's books about demons, then it's witches, then it's just anyone different.

Even if Buffy were to defeat that particular demon and its human toadies that specific episode, the tension would still be there. The problem of Sunnydale taking out years of enduring horrors they don't understand out on vulnerable people on the fringes could have been an overarching problem that would dovetail so nicely with the Mayor, who is the focus on most of that season anyway!

Imagine a longer arc of Joyce's activism getting her more into politics, more into the orbit of the Mayor. A Mayor who is friendly and charming and more than willing to start passing laws to "protect" Sunnydale. Suddenly, a curfew for anyone under 18 makes Buffy's patrols cut short by the cops, or the magic shop is shut down and the Scooby Gang's jobs get harder. They're not just fighting the Mayor now - they're fighting City Hall, they're dodging the cops, they're opposed to Buffy's mom.

Maybe I'm overreaching a bit. Maybe I'm projecting anxieties as I live in a world where moral panics are in full swings, libraries are being purged and defunded by the government, where vulnerable people are being demonized and targeted by parental activists, politicians, news organizations, and hateful vigilantes.

Maybe living through the past couple of years and then watching something I like from my childhood treat the same phenomenon so cavalierly has made me a little bitter.

But hey, there's always fanfiction.

[jstor]

Feeling superstitious this Friday the 13th?

Superstitions, magic, and witchcraft have deep historical roots, spanning across cultures and civilizations. Rooted in the human quest to understand and control the mysterious forces of the world, these practices often involve rituals, symbols, and beliefs that go beyond the realm of empirical evidence.

Superstitions are often cultural traditions or irrational beliefs, while magic encompasses rituals and spells believed to harness supernatural powers. Witchcraft, historically associated with individuals, often women, who were thought to possess magical abilities, has a darker side marked by persecutions. The infamous witch trials, such as the European witch hunts of the 15th to 18th centuries, resulted in the persecution and execution of thousands.

Fear of the supernatural, religious fervor, and social tensions contributed to these dark chapters in history, underscoring the dangers of unchecked superstition and the persecution of those labeled as practitioners of magic or witchcraft.

Learn more on JSTOR in "Superstitions, Magic, and Witchcraft," an open access chapter from The Consistory and Social Discipline in Calvin's Geneva.

Image credit: A Postcard Wishing Good Luck Illustrated by Various Lucky Charms. Chromolithograph. From the Wellcome Collection on JSTOR.

[creature-wizard]

I keep thinking about the post talking about how scammers will try and tell you how they're going to prove they're the real thing, where the "proof" they will offer you is actually meaningless because it doesn't actually mean what they claim this means, and how this is essentially the way witch hunters operate.

Your early modern witch hunters would always be able to "find" witches because they had easily-filled criteria for what constituted evidence of witchcraft - things like bad weather, strange symptoms and seemingly incurable ailments, night terrors, etc.

Of course, they had no evidence that there was a causal link between any of these things and witchcraft. They just said it was evidence of witchcraft, and a lot of people just assumed they knew what they were talking about.

And so it is with claims that hypnosis and various trance states can help people remember past lives and repressed memories. People with actual doctorates claim that hypnosis can help you uncover repressed memory, even though its ability to do this has never been demonstrated. In fact, the more you start looking into cases where hypnosis was used to help people remember something, the more you find that people can "remember" nearly anything - including, very famously, alien abductions.

In Ritual Abuse and Mind Control: The Manipulation of Attachment Needs (essentially pro-Satanic Panic literature, for those who haven't read it), Valerie Sinason acknowledged the people who seemingly remembered alien abductions, then proceeded to try special pleading for people who "remembered" satanic ritual abuse. Sinason's defense was that SRA was more plausible than alien abductions, therefore we should believe it's actually happening.

Of course, "more plausible" does not equal "actually happening." Just because it's more plausible that I have the skeleton of Elvis Presley in my basement than an alien skeleton, doesn't mean I have the skeleton of Elvis Presley in my basement. And when your methodology for obtaining your so-called evidence is this deeply flawed, you might as well just say "it's true because I want it to be true" and then try to locate all the cultists in your town with dowsing rods.

Indeed, when other people start setting higher standards for evidence, SRA proponents' ability to find witches (or cult programmers, as we're calling them today) vanish. All they can do is try to guilt trip people for allegedly betraying survivors and claim that the critics are part of a malicious conspiracy.

I've both studied and personally been involved in controlling and manipulative groups long enough to recognize this song and dance for what it is - it's fundamentally an assertion that you're betraying the good guys and letting the bad guys win. It's always an act of desperation.

Many Christians pull this when someone tries to leave the faith. It often goes like this: Jesus loves you so much, how could you deny him like this? Also everyone who refuses to become Christian has been deceived by the Devil, and some of them are even working for him on purpose!

Many neopagans do it whenever someone questions or disagrees with whatever dogma their personal group has. It often goes like this: You're betraying the gods (whom you owe your loyalty because they're the gods), and you're letting our Christian oppressors win.

Many peddlers of woo and conspiracy theories do it like this: You're being closed minded (and therefore you're being rude to nice open-minded people like them). You're also just brainwashed by the people who don't want the truth getting out, and you're basically doing their bidding.

Anyway, since I think most of us here can agree that the witch hunts were unjustified and that thousands of innocent people lost their lives, I want you to picture someone saying:

"When you say the Devil's Sabbath wasn't real and the witch hunts targeted innocent women, you're invalidating and erasing the pain of everyone who suffered from the torments of witches. I agree that some innocent people were burned, but there were absolutely real witches working with the Devil to cast evil spells."

As you can see, this rhetoric can be used to defend and justify any bullshit-driven atrocity. Let's try this with another conspiracy theory I think most of us can agree is bullshit - reptilian aliens:

"When you say the Reptilians aren't real and they're based on antisemitic tropes, you're invalidating and erasing the pain of everyone who suffered at their hands. I agree that some innocent people have been accused of being Reptilians, but there are absolutely real Reptilians out there torturing people and killing them to drink their blood."

So in conclusion, we must always think critically about what people present as evidence, and not let them guilt trip us into lowering our standards. Remember:

Efficacy of the evidence-gathering methods must be demonstrated. The methods must be shown to be reliable, unlikely to produce false results.

Causal links must be established. Assertions that X causes Y must be backed up with empirical evidence.

Other explanations must be ruled out. Do not assume the most sensational explanation without ruling out more common ones. As the saying in medicine goes, if you see hoofprints, think horses, not zebras. Do not consider zebras until horses (and any other common equines) can be ruled out.

[haggishlyhagging]

The evidence marshaled by anthropologists showing the effects of Western colonialism on traditional female power and authority is impressive. The work of some writers has led to the conclusion that "the penetration of Western colonialism, and with it Western practices and attitudes regarding women, have so widely influenced women's role in aboriginal societies as to depress women's status almost everywhere in the world." In this chapter two case studies showing the manner in which European influence eroded the bases of traditional female authority are presented.

In one case, the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, the struggle was between Igbo women and British administrators, with Igbo men playing a passive but supportive role. In the other case, the Iroquois, the struggle was between Iroquoian women and the followers of a charismatic Iroquoian male who, aided by Quaker missionaries, sought to revitalize Iroquoian life and institute a new sex-role plan. In both cases women resisted the forces of change. Igbo female resistance led to the "women's war," in which thousands of women marched against the British and destroyed property. Iroquoian female resistance led to witchcraft accusations, resulting in the execution of some women for following traditional female patterns. The killing and wounding of approximately 100 Igbo women and the token executions among the Iroquois broke the spirit of resistance.

-Peggy Reeves Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality

[alpaca-clouds]

The Lies We Are Taught In School

Talking about science this week, let me talk about the thing that irks me more than anything: The fact that we get taught so many lies in school. Both in regards to science, and in regards to stuff like history. Like, holy fuck. Why do we get taught that much garbage?

If you google "Lies we got taught in school", you will find an endless amount of listicles going over a variety of lies.

A lot of people in America will of course know that the version of American history they get taught in school is very "clean". Be it their version of how Thanksgiving came to be ("And then the indigenous people and settlers got along just fine"), how the entire story of Matoaka/Pocahontas happened ("And then everyone just got along and no 12yo girls got raped"), or how the Civil War went ("And then slavery was ended and everyone had equal rights, yay").

Another thing that school keeps telling us is the thing I mentioned yesterday: IQ. IQ is not real. At least not as any measure of intelligence. All IQ tests will test is, how good you are at taking IQ tests.

Or one that I found in so many listicles: The food pyramid. The food pyramid is a great example of a thing that a lot of people believe, that is not based on science, but fully on propaganda by an industry. And yet... It is very common in the US - and almost as common in Europe. At least I learned about it in primary school, and never learned a correction of it until I entered university.

Or getting back to history: A lot of history classes teach so much bullshit when it comes to medieval history and how people in medieval times lived. They will act as if the medieval world was just one thing, rather than many things. Oh, and a lot of schools place the witch burnings into the middle ages - even though they all happened AFTER the middle ages.

Or something quite relevant to trans folks: Schools very much teach that there are only two genders and sexes, and that those usually are based on the chromosomes. Even though intersex people exist and might be a lot more common than we actually realize, given that most people are never tested for intersex conditions. And since we know that other than what was long assumed (the supposed fact that almost all intersex people were infertile) is wrong... Yeah, some scientist argue that intersex is a lot more common than assumed. So even from the very biological aspect - without going into gender - it is quite wrong.

The list really could go on and on.

And mind you, some of those myths (especially in regards to history) are so prevailant, that folks who even go to universities and study ajacent stuff will still be believed. I still remember: Two years ago I talked in a historical podcast about the witch hunts, how they happened after the medieval period, how they looked different in different countries, how they did not happen everywhere in Europe, and how they not always were going for women. Mind you, we linked the historical sources under the podcast... And yet, someone I know, who studied history (though with their main focus on Victorian England) went on a long rant how that was all wrong. Was she able to come up with counter sources for her claims? No, obviously not. But she kept insisting even months later.

In general the entirety of all those lies taught in school usually go back to one of three reasons for those lies.

Propaganda. There are quite a few lies in school - especially in regards to history - that are propaganda. Especially when it comes to the sanitizing colonial history. Stuff like how settlers and indigenous people got along fine. How Lincoln ended slavery. Or for us in Germany, how we totally never really were ever involved in any colonialism whatsoever. That is all propaganda. Even stuff like the medieval prejudices are based on the propaganda that history only ever moves forward. The food pyramid also belongs to this.

Ancient material. This is probably the most common reason. See, a lot of material in school is just outdated by decades. At times because the curriculi have not been updated in decades - at times because the people updating them are actually not professionals in those fields, hence basing their ideas mostly on what they learned in school 40 years ago.

Simplification because kids "won't understand it otherwise". A lot of stuff in school gets dumbed down in comparison what you learn in university, because a) not everyone needs to know it (they say), and b) kids cannot understand it (they say). This is true for a lot of stuff in the science classes. Stuff like "only two sexes", "only five senses", "only three states of matter" is mostly based on this.

But honestly... While the first two reasons are bad either way (propaganda does not belong in schools, and schools should work with modern material), some people might think the last reason is somewhat understandable. But honestly... It is not. Because kids are actually not stupid.

It is one thing to not teach everything and leave out stuff. Otherwise we would not need universities. But... Lying to kids? Yeah, that is not good. It is not a good thing to begin with. And really, why do we keep doing that?

[essayofthoughts]

So after much procrastination and reading other books instead, I finally finished Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials by Marion Gibson and... well despite my initial concerns it's not as bad as I feared - it's honestly pretty good! It serves as an interesting look at witch hunts across history and does a pretty good job at showing how the predominant targets of witch hunts are usually society's most vulnerable and/or are threats to structures of power.

And then the conclusion kinda ruins it, imo.

The book gives thirteen examples of witch hunts from the 1400s to the present day, witches both male and female, albeit primarily from America, UK, and Europe, with two detours to Africa (Lesotho, and a broader look at witchcraft accusations throughout Africa), and there are definitely some broad themes in who's accused:

Helena Scheuberin - An outspoken woman

North Berwick Witches - Poor and often isolated women who practiced folk healing.

Vardo Witches - Started with several indigenous Sami women, grew to accuse some Sami men and non-Sami women.

Joan Wright - A woman slighted who was willing to express upset and anger, midwife.

Bess Clarke & the Manningtree Witches - Bess Clarke specifically was both disabled and an unwed mother

Tatabe/Tituba - Indigenous woman and slave

Marie-Catherine Cadiere - Religiously influential

Montague Summers - Gay man with an interest in occultism

John Blymyer - Poor man, separated from his wife, isolated

Nellie Duncan - Poor woman, had an out of wedlock pregnancy

Bereng Lerotholi and Gabashane Masupha - influential, well-regarded black men under colonial power

"Shula" (Witch-hunts throughout Africa and in media) - isolated women and children

Stormy Daniels - A woman in sex work and perceived as a threat to the image of Trump.

As you can probably see, the connecting theme is in essence "threats to patriarchal and/or colonial power structures, and/or the vulnerable". Women who don't fit traditional ideas of womanhood, men who don't fit traditional ideas of masculinity, men who succeed at masculinity but who aren't the right skin-colour, children, and the isolated.

This is the list the book gives of "people most likely to be accused of witchcraft":

Which... isn't wrong! But it also misses entirely the connecting theme, and by prioritising "female" as both first on the list and separate to all other factors it undermines the book's own willingness to point out that men have been accused of witchcraft, and that it's not just "women" it is, by the follow-on criteria and examples given women who fail to fulfil their society's standards of womanhood. Even amongst the men listed, it is also men who, again, fail to fulfil their society's standards of manhood.

And thus, if we're going to elaborate on this to pull it forwards and apply to the current political climate the most likely targets of witch-hunts are not necessarily women.

They are people who fail to fulfil society's expectation of their assigned gender.

TL;DR: by this book's own examples it's not "female" people who have to worry about witch hunts more than most, it is anyone who queers gender.

I also think it's notable that the conclusion sidesteps the way in which women often helped to encourage and even enforce witch hunts. Tituba was accused by several young (white) girls, exerting power the only way patriarchy allowed ... to attack another woman. Women (be they accused witches who were tortured, or women who felt themselves wronged) often served as accusers, and even now with the right wing, women often act as a more "acceptable" face.

There's a fantastic post I first saw reblogged by @tobermoriansass with a concept of a gender ternary (full post here: Faggotization and The Extant Gender Ternary). The thesis is that gender as a societal construct can be more easily defined as "Power, Not-Power, and Faggot-Subaltern". There are the people society grants power to (usually cisgender, ablebodied, neurotypical white men), those who are denied power but allowed a place (often women and other non-Power folk who comply with society), and those who are denied a place in society or are regarded as being outside of this Power/Not-Power society.

Society demands that third place as an example of what can happen to both Power and Not-Power people if they fail to comply. The F-SA category is by it's existence a threat in order to enforce the P-NP dynamic, and, imo it's very much the motivation behind why women participate in the right wing and are transphobic cunts. "You want to be a good woman, don't you? You don't want to be like them." It is, by it's nature, a threat to hold over all participants, to hold them to gender standards lest they fail and thus be excluded from even the Not-Power part of the society. The post argues similarly - to quote:

Moreover, to Be Transgender or Gender Subaltern is not something that one is. Rather it is something that someone has done to them. [...] I contend that rather, Transgender-Identity-By-Way-Of-The-Subaltern-Gender-Class is not only legible to gender hegemony, but necessary and intrinsic to its structure. It is not that Patriarchy demands that transgender people stop existing. Rather the opposite, on some level: patriarchy manufactures subaltern status, and in fact, requires the existence of subaltern gender class in service of policing and maintaining the coherence of the entire gender hegemony, and especially, the coherence of the Legitimate Genders, I.E. Power and Not-Power. It is not even that "despite this, Gender Hegemony punishes Gender Subaltern Status with violence and material subjugation." Rather, Gender Subaltern Status is the punishment - it is a punitive policing measure, which is held over the heads of all participants (willing or unwilling) of the Gender Hegemony, as a failure-state wherein subjects who Do Not Comply or who Cannot Comply with the bounds of the Legitimate Genders (again, Power and Not-Power) are sent upon said failure. Gender Subaltern Status must be punished and done-violence-to, as that is the nature of its existence, which is to be the gender-space wherein specific kinds of punitive violence are done. As such, even as Gender Subalterns are punished, so their existence is necessary to the preservation and continuation of the Gender Hegemony.

(honestly, go read the whole post, it is DEEPLY worth it)

This is all to say - the book is good enough. It's a very good history book and it's pretty well written! Which makes sense - the author is a Professor in Renaissance and Magical Literatures, history and writing are literally her focus. But I think it could have done with a dash more sociology and/or anthropology to take her conclusion further and to... well. Be more accurate to the evidence she'd previously provided, honestly!

I can understand why she might want to skip wading into a discussion of gender. Given the current political climate around trans folks, it makes sense she'd want to skip such a hot button topic... but I personally think it undermines her conclusion a bit.

HOWEVER. I do think its still a good book worth reading. Just that one should think beyond her stated conclusions.

[activistwitch]

I NEED PEOPLE TO READ QUOTES FOR MY NEXT VIDEO ESSAY on the history of Capitalism and the Witch-hunts, why Project 2025 is all about it 'protecting the nuclear family' and why it's already being enacted and why the heritage Foundation wrap themselves in Christian values when all they care about is capital. Provisionally titled THE OPPOSITE OF CAPITALISM: QUEER WITCHCRAFT COMMUNITY.

To get an idea, the video linked is the first essay I did on capitalism and cottagecore

Drop me a line at ysha@activistwitch.co.uk you'll be sent the draft of the video so you can make an educated decision about doing the voice overs. I have very short turnarounds times so you might be sent quotes that I need back within 48 hours, so please consider if this is doable for you beforehand

Picture: actual shot of me going insane explaining why capitalism is bad this morning while filming.

[princesssarisa]

I am honestly surprised that nobody thought of using the German fairy tale Hänsel und Gretel today to talk about the real historical violence caused by Witch Hunts and Witch Trials.

I suppose any fairy tale with an evil witch could be used to talk about historic witch hunts and witch trials. But maybe Hansel and Gretel would suit that purpose especially well. Accusations of harming children were always a powerful tool against "witches" (and Jews and other minorities, for that matter), and the witch in the story dies by burning, which was the common method of execution.

Still, people probably don't want to look at Hansel and Gretel that way because they love the story. It's a nostalgic childhood favorite and they don't want to think of how it might perpetuate tropes that historically killed people.