Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials

In the context of this book’s history of witchcraft, it becomes more evident why that is: these are all traits long associated with witches; features seen as ignorant, wicked, and shameful. Women with these traits have been demonized since the Middle Ages and across history, from Helena Scheuberin to Stormy Daniels.

While many churchmen were good Christians, true to their gospel of love, others were obsessed with the regulation of women: their sexuality, conduct, and thought.

As hatred between the two sides grew, it became permissible to kill fellow Christians, now branded as demonic opponents; something that Christians had been inflicting upon Jews and Muslims for many centuries but had now turned on each other.

Witch trials continue, both metaphorically and in grim reality, and in both forms they demand our attention.

Witches continue to be the products of people's fears, the embodiment of the other, and the witch trial remains a useful mechanism for those in power.

Witch trials were not just misogynist festivals of torture and hatred; they also directly facilitated the building of empire.

As with later witch trials, like the ones in Salem, flexing normal court processes in response to a powerful authority can lead to mass injustice...

James looks like he's waiting to mug old ladies, which of course is one way of looking at a witch trial.

people can most plausibly be accused of witchcraft if they are: female or/and also: accused of sexual misconduct, as defined by their time and place; poor, either averagely or absolutely; an indigenous person, perceived to be in conflict with a colonial regime; disabled, vulnerable, or unwell; claiming unsanctioned knowledge or power, especially religious or medical; perceived to be politically subversive.

In this global context, it is all the more repellent that Donald Trump would present himself as a witch, and frightening that his opponents, such as Stormy Daniels, Nancy Pelosi, and Hillary Clinton, should be accused of witchcraft, both metaphorically and literally.

In February 2022, in Nashville, Tennessee, Pastor Greg Locke accused six members of his Global Vision Bible Church of being quite literally “devil-worshipping Satanist witches,” two of them in the ladies’ Bible study group. In a video shared on social media, he screamed accusations of “pharmakeia” (witchcraft with drugs, poisons, and remedies), burning sage (a Native American cleansing practice), being Freemasons, and bewitching fellow worshippers. He has also made QAnon-inspired accusations that then House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi was a “demon baby-killing pedophile” and former secretary of state and first lady Hillary Clinton a “high priestess in the Satanic church.” These claims were also made by those responsible for the Capitol riot of 2021 and an attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband in 2022.