From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A production of iHeartRadio.
Hello, welcome back to the show.
My name is Matt, my name is Noel.
They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Rady Day Decads. Most importantly, you are here. That makes this the stuff they don't want.
You to know.
It is the most wonderful time of the year. Fellow conspiracy realist. Happy Halloween. We hope that this finds you in good spirits. We also hope that you tune in to a couple other Halloween episodes our crew is doing. As we mentioned, Thirteen Days of Halloween is officially out. Do check it. You will enjoy it, we hope.
And also, and if you haven't listened to all of the other three seasons, as you're like going through one episode per day for season four, just go back and relift the.
Other Yeah stories.
Almost done with my spooky synth score for the story we talked about last episode. I'm really excited China crank that out today for the future, because now by the time you hear this, it will already be out in the world.
And Matt has for many years with Aaron Mankey and Alex Williams ran the ship for thirteen days. I have been privileged to write several episodes every season. You will probably be able to tell which ones in Oh and last plug check out ridiculous history or episode on trick or treating. And you're never too old to trick or tree. You're never to wear it.
Here's a cutoff, I think for expecting candy. But you can like get accompany kids, you know, if you.
On a costume and people are already walking around.
I mean, cons are trick or treating for adults.
I think you know, respectfully disagree, but yeah.
Never mind, you can't be an adult trick or treat expect that's like a whole thing.
People will we'll look at you funny.
Well, let us know what you think, folks.
I just have to say, so far, for eight years, I have gone to costume and walked around with my son, uh you know, kind of trick or treating with him as his surrogate when he was too young to actually say the words. And then you know, now I just kind of stand back, and but I still wear a costume.
You had some epic costumes too, twickle tweet, I love it twickle teating. And we since we love Halloween so very much, we also like to do an episode that speaks to some of the conventional tropes and ideas of Halloween. We wanted to dive into something pretty bizarre tonight. There is a tinge of ridiculous history to this story, allegations of unearthly powers and infernal contracts. Most importantly, there's a
hell of a lot of conspiracy. In this evening's exploration, we're talking about witch hunts, the fact, the fiction, and the big question how did witch hunts actually work? Why were they so prevalent in the past, in the Middle Ages, and particularly at the end, why do they remain prevalent in parts of the world today. Here are the facts, I guess, Noel Matt we got to talk about the fictional version and also say we're not dunking on Wickens at all or any like non Christian belief systems.
Never.
I mean, some of my favorite people in my life are Wickens. Every Wicked I've ever known has been a lovely, kind human.
Person, super nice, like Midwestern or Canadian level nice. The Wickens, you know, they're like, hey, we're gonna come hang out. We're always having a pot luck, you know, and you might not get all the levels of conversation, but they're they're just like anybody else, very kind to people who have a set of beliefs that you may not share. The fictional versions of witch hunts, though shout out to shout out to one of the first things Aaron Manke
worked on with us. The fictional versions of witch hunts in the West are usually depicted like this. This is pretty much every movie. There's a place that vaguely resembles medieval Europe or the early European founded American colonies, and things go bad for the town, right, they're bad signs. People are all increasingly poor, and children or or livestock or still born or born cursed, you know, which means having some sort of physical or mental ailment. The well
what runs dry, that's always a big thing. The crops fail, or most of the crops, and people are scared, and they're hungry and they're tired, and they pray in the church and God leaves them on red.
Isn't it funny? That meant that's not funny.
It's horrifying that just how many things that were entirely based around ignorance were blamed on witches, you know, and demonic forces.
It's tale as old as time.
And now we use the term witch hunt to describe, I mean, it's been politicized obviously, but describe somebody being you know, heckled or you know, gone after, you know, for something they supposedly didn't do. But now again it's been used kind of as like almost a dog whistle for something they probably did do. But it's a witch hunt, so everyone's after me.
Yeah.
Well, and it's weird how similar and different simultaneously those fictional versions are to reality, right, like, because there really were bad things happening all the time in medieval Europe or in the American colonies, or you know, in Scotland or wherever you were in the world. Bad stuff was happening all the time in medieval ages in the sixteen hundreds.
Oh yeah, are you kidding? The lack of sanitation alone. Eventually, this fright ferments both in the real world and in fiction, and let's stay in fiction for now. Eventually the fight ferments, as it often does, into anger, the town authorities feel their credibility is under question, and so they put someone else to the question. For any fans of the inquisition, and they look for someone to blame, or the town
does it themselves. They start spreading rumors, they start saying, hey, I saw so and so walking by the day before all those cattle were still born, et cetera. And there's not really there's not really any proof of this, as we'll see in any kangaroo court of a witch trial. There, especially in the Nissan American colonies, there was this directive
that spiritual evidence or perspective or experience was admissible. So you didn't have to talk about something you could prove if you were a witness, you could talk about something you believed, and you could be forthright in saying, well, she's got a weird hat. You know. In fiction, there's you know, in fiction, the witch is almost always a woman, overwhelmingly so, and gets arrested by the ecclesiastical authorities, the church powers, and she's put on trial for any number
of bizarre crimes. You get testimony from victims, stuff like old widow Hammerschmidt put a hex on my farm, or she put a magic bridle on me and turned me into a horse against my will, and we went to midnight sabots meetings of witches. And then it's usually implied that there was some sort of fornication with other witches or with the devil. Stuff that's a little too fast and loose, and sometimes devil's in the form of a goat.
So you got best reality, that's scandalous. And in fiction, very few of the witches ever get their charges dismissed. Oh and in fact as well, very few people accused of witchcraft ever got their charges dismissed then and today.
Well, because it's also like hard to prove a negative, you know what I mean, when there's no actual proof for the thing other than things that are made up by the folks that are trying to convict these people. It all goes back to doesn't all go back but a great you know, I guess parody of this is in Monty Python, where it's like, is she made of wood?
Is she then she's a duck? What else floats? Or whatever?
Like it's that absurd, the you know, the factors they used to prove these things, and in fiction as well as fact, no matter how bizarre the accusations, how scant or manufacture, the evidence, how solid the defendants alibi.
These were always what we would call kangaroo courts. They were I would argue, more public theater than legal proceedings. So the witch was almost always found guilty. In the world of fiction, novels, play short stories, films, they almost always show a violent execution, drowning, death by asphyxiation, being crushed by rocks, burning at the stake as the witch, with her dying words utters a terrible curse that will haunt the town for generations, and a full franchise of
film to come cool. I mean, if you live in the US, you're probably most familiar with the Salem witch trials because fiction spends a lot of time and money on them. But the issue, the genuine conspiracy, goes far, far beyond Salem. Maybe we talk about the fact versions here, because, as you pointed out, Matt, there are commonalities. These breathless fictional adaptations did not come from a vacuum.
No, No, people have been studying witchcraft and trials of witchcraft for god. I mean, it's been three hundred and thirty one years since the Salem witch trials, and well before that, hundreds of years before that, human beings were obsessed with witches, like in the fifteen hundreds in Scotland. I mean, it's just it goes way, way, way back.
So fourteen hundreds in Germany. Oh, yeah, witch hunts were so hot, you know, such an industry.
And you're right, you guys are so right that it goes back to fear, it goes back to religious belief and a bunch of other things. I think all of us. Well, I don't know, did you guys have to read The Crucible like as.
Part of your.
Yeah, I really great piece of work.
I took several classes on the history of witchcraft and witch hunts college Nice.
Well you know what I mean. Well, that's cool.
I did.
I didn't have that. That would have been awesome. I would do that. Jeez.
We just you know, when we made Unobscured, we talked to Aaron Manke. We were in Boston and all over
the place. They are like talking to people who've spent their lives researching the Salem witch Trials alone, just that one section of history, right to try and find the best understanding of what actually occurred and why, right, and it is it It is a weird mixture of all the stuff we just talked about, the fictional things with Again, it's it's like with politics and hardened religious belief and people controlling towns and countries with that religious belief as law.
Yeah.
And while the fictional stuff is cool, right, one of I think one of our collective favorite recent horror films is literally The Witch, The Witch. While that's all cool, the factual versions are unfortunately severely uncool. Accusations of practicing illegal or damaging magic, left hand path stuff, for any of the initiated in the audience this evening, Those accusations are found in every single ancient culture, all throughout history,
all around the world, zero exceptions. Like you were saying, Matt, it's not just Salem, it's not just Europe, it's not just the global West. But there is a difference. The focus on the West comes from something relatively distinct. Accusations of witchcraft in other cultures were openly often a means to express or resolve social tensions, but they had different
consequences from those in Western society. And the eleventh century witchcraft and sorcery, the attitudes toward it began to change, and this part of this was due to ecclesiastical authorities. It's a process that transforms the Western perspective on witchcraft and immediately associates it with heresy, with chetat right, with the devil. It's a lucifer and by the fourteenth century, this fear of heresy, heretical blasphemous thought, and this fear
of Satan coming into your home. Right, this added charges of diabolism of devil worshiping to the usual indictment of witches. Before this time, in most of the world, it would have been trafficking with evil spirits. It would have been using the technology of magic in an incorrect or deleterious way.
Yeah, as opposed to like, you know, the wizards and witches of King Arthur's court, you know, some of which are like hanging out and like they're part of the team and they're like doing you a solid. That did not spring from this kind of thinking, although of course that is some of the earliest forms of Christianity back then.
But this version that we're talking about was a way of weaponizing this and othering people by putting them in you know, the camp of practicing some of those those things that you were talking about then.
Well, don't don't forget there are learned people in these times that do things like design temples and you know, do stonecraft work, who practice some pretty some things that you might find pretty strange at the time, that people might have found to be magical or alchemical, right, and who there were beliefs going around, but it was this like that was the magic for good kind of thing.
Right until it was politically convenient to target those people, the hedge doctors, the you know, like if you'll you'll know when you've entered a witch hunt phase of society when like your local doc in a box or minute clinic starts getting targeted. Well, I'm kidding, it's not gonna be them, It's going to be your local smoke shop or alternative medicine shop.
Well yeah, and like a shaman, a shaman who is very it's very distinct and different from someone practicing witchcraft. But depending on the viewer, right, and the beliefs of that viewer, it could be the same thing.
It could be a synonymous, right, because any it's othering, right, anything that is not me is some antagonistic amorphous them. And this this is important because in the West, what happened is that people began associating any esoteric, non Christian belief or practice with witchcraft, with worship, with maleficium, which is malevolent sorcery. And there's a famous book about that which we'll talk about. That book is responsible for a
lot of deaths. This combo meal sorcery being inherently associated with the Christian concept of the devil is what made witchcraft unique in the West from the fourteenth century all the way to the seventeen hundreds, which is, were believed to inherently hate the idea of Christianity. They were making pacts with the devil. They could call upon demons to accomplish magical deeds, but unlike Solomon, when they did it,
it was bad. When Solomon did it, it was just sort of dope, right, yeah, yeah, that give it thumbs up on that one. And then they would be accused of specific symbolic acts of disrespect, desecrating the crucifix, talking trash, or doing mean stuff to the Eucharist, consecrated bread and wine. Oh, and then they know they had sex outside of marriage was the idea. They could change shapes. They kidnapped and murdered children to eat them or to use parts of
their body in magic rituals, and that one. Oh, remember that that comes in at the end of tonight's episode.
But our point is that's a lot. And the reality is that while some people, because thousands and thousands of folks died as a result of witch hunts, while some of those people probably did practice what was considered sorcery, and while some of them may have practiced it with the intent to harm another person or living thing, some may have even thought they were worshiping the devil, in reality, if you look at it, not a single victim of a witch hunt ever fit the fictional depiction of a
real witch. Which witch which sounds surprising, because, believe it or not, folks, there is a conspiracy afoot, a hoof never mind, I yes, yeah, a cloven hoof in the world of witch hunts. Believe it or not, it was not the witches who were conspiring.
And really quickly, guys, I want to shout out an historian in a book that ties directly back to the things you were talking about, Ben where women were often targeted and sexuality was often kind of at the heart of this, like especially a woman who was taking sexuality, her sexuality into her own hands, and wasn't you know, living by all of the rules that were being imposed
on her. There's a book titled Six Women of Salem, The Untold Story of the Accused and their accusers in the Salem Witch Trials, is written by Marilyn Roach, and it is It is just a fascinating book that it does look at six individual women and goes deep into their lives and stories to look at why they were accused and like all of the social stuff going on around them and in especially inner social relationships that they had and onlookers, and how they became involved in the Salem witch Trials.
I really appreciate you pointing that book out, Matt. I enjoyed it as well. And perhaps we are launching a bit of a defense of those accused of witchcraft again, not just in Salem, but in the world entire Believe it or not, Folks, while this conspiracy is afoot, it was not the witches conspiring. It never has been. We're going to pause for a word from our sponsor and then we're gonna I think we'll nerd out on some more books. Here's where it gets crazy, all right, Back
in the day. The ancient civilizations took the existence of spirits, good, evil and neutral as fact. Magic was considered a kind of technology, and the idea was that if you were a responsible member of society, you needed both religion and magic to defend yourself from spirits, to appease those spirits, to like Solomon, occasionally control them. And this all changed
with the rise of Christianity. God in the Christian theology is seen as the sole source of all good things, and therefore to practice tactics that are not expressly condoned in greenlit by biblical texts became heresy and blasphemy, no matter the intention of the magician.
And there are passages in the Bible that condemn that kind of stuff right like. So it's like the rules are set forth in the holiest of holy texts for this particular belief system.
Oh I'm gonna do it, guys, real fast, ready, Exodus twenty. I am the Lord, thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto the any graven image or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
No merch got it to ask matt who is meant to be speaking there, who is meant to have interpreted?
But like, who talking to Moses?
He's talking to Moses.
Okay, so this is all coming from Moses saying, God spoke to me, and he's said this.
Stuff on Mount Sinai one of the six or seven times Moses went up to the mountain and said.
Hey, guys, the tablets right, the commandments well in the sea.
Yeah, but there's a series of like hanging outs that Moses had with God on Mount Sinai where he literally said to everybody else, don't come up here. God said, he will literally kill you with the sword if you come up here. Don't come up here.
Hey, no attention to the man behind the curtain.
A little bit of silent information, a little.
Bit maybe, but anyway, Yeah, Exodus goes on in all of the commandments of the Ten Commandments that you know, as well as a bunch of other rules and laws that God communicated to Moses according to the Bible, that have to do with that very thing. Do not worship anything that is not me, and also don't hurt any fatherless children or widows or it says literally in the Bible, in the King James version, that God will kill you with the sword and leave your children fatherless.
Oh that's fun.
Yeah, there's also there are also multiple mentions in the Bible of magic of not practicing magic, right dude.
Yes.
And the idea then again, is that magic is now defined in Christian theology as anything that is not God, no matter if it's helpful, like anything that is the only spells you are allowed to do are prayers.
Well, heck, I mean it reminds me of like, what is it Christian scientists that don't believe in medicine or there's certain you know, subsets of Christianity that won't put anything external into their body because I mean, in some ways, the modern form of magic, I guess is things like medicine and surgery and stuff that is a way of controlling the narrative, you know, beyond what God hath you know, ordained to be the case.
And this is an odd reversal of history. Just a side note, you know, the so the Christians and we have a lot of Christians in the audience here, we know that you are not launching which hunts. We got your back, folks, don't worry. But back in the day when Christians were functioning as a state force to repress descent, you have to wonder whether they were aware that Roman civilization had earlier done the exact same thing to them. And of course Jewish communities were always going to be
targeted whenever it was politically convenient. We'll see microcosmic version of this when we look at witch hunts. The real conspiracy behind witch hunts was on the part of the witch hunters, not their victims. To get a better understanding of this, Matt I would recommend, in addition to six Women, folks who are interested should check out a fantastic book by doctor Carol F. Carlson, which is called The Devil
in the Shape of a Woman. This thing was published in nineteen eighty seven, but take our word for it, folks, it's a banger because Carlson is one of the first academics, the first researchers to do a serious, intense interrogation and Puritan history in the early American colonies. And as a result of this investigation and which also applies to Europe. Later, Carlson found that there were specific predictable demographic dimensions to
people accused of witchcraft in New England. Those dimensions were the three big ones were the age of the victim or the accused, their marital status, and their social class. This again, it applied to the European theater, and the European theater set the tone in the thirteen and fourteen eleven, in the eleven hundreds to like the fourteen hundreds, it's set the tone for everything that happened in Salem, the tragic events, which kind of pale in comparison to the
to the murder programs of Europe is nuts. Because even Pope Alexander the Fourth outlawed witchcraft trials in twelve fifty eight. It was like, ah, it gets out of hand?
How out of hand?
Yeah, how long can a church exist if we kill everyone that we want to show up?
You know, well, with fear of God is one thing, but like fear of pain, of death, you know, at the hands of these purveyors of the Word of God, starts to really erode trust in your leaders after a while, right.
Think about the paranoia that would exist in any small village right where like you're looking around at everybody, trying to make sure you're never doing anything that could ever be, even in the most remote way, associated with witchcraft.
Yeah, trying to outhollly roller each other.
Yeah, oh yeah, it's a Puritan Olympics over here, and.
There we go.
I love that, well done. Yes, And so the Pope who is like the Grand Puba, the big authority, he's got the hat and everything. For people practicing Catholicism, this is a direct spiritual ideological descendant of everything that you Christ wants you to do. So when this guy says stop or go, you're supposed to stop or go. However, in this case, after he makes that decree in twelve fifty eight, that papal bull in that case, his decision
gets thrown out. A few centuries later, you know, the Malleius Maleficarum comes out, which is the the gold standard on how to torture and execute and convict witches. It doesn't spend much time on figuring out whether they're innocent. Just spoiler, have.
You guys seen that movie Drag Me to Hell? Yes, it's a little problematic on hindsight.
It came out in like two thousand.
And nine is like a Roma woman who is the you know, the villain who basically curses this woman who totally doesn't deserve it. But the way they portray the Roma culture is a little problematic. But there is a book presented at some point by like a seer figure. It's called like the Sacrifice of Animals in the Service of a Deity. And I bet books like that exist with those like woodcut kind of like prints, you know, of like here's exhibit a how you slaughter the goat and do all the things.
You know, check out our Grimoar episode.
Oh yeah, for sure. But again, sorry guys, that's an exodus of how you need to sacrifice animals on my very specific stone altar that you're not even supposed to touch with a hammer or something or you're gonna mess it up, but don't sacrifice them on non stone altars.
Yeah. It's also related the animal sacrifice in particular, which is a magical ritual, right. It's also closely related to keeping kosher, to kashrut, to Islamic laws about what is halal or haram, and so we we see this all occurs concurrently. Why did people ignore the Pope will get to that. One big part of it was the Protestant Reformation.
That lead single from Martin Luther went viral, absolute banger in the early fifteen hundreds when he wrote ninety five Theces you know, which is clearly what Jay Z is referencing when he says ninety nine problems about it. There's a lot of doctrine in there and.
So but a witch is not one right?
Which is not one?
Love it?
Okay, that's in the mixtape. So both of these camps at Christianity, Protestants and Catholics beat me here again, Paul, I'm sorry, I'm cursing Lott. These groups hate each other. They think the other one is basically a devil worshiper with more steps. And because they had this intense beef with one another, they needed to recruit folks. They needed butts and seats, they needed hearts and minds, and they
realized quite quickly. It was very cold, but they realized quite quickly one of the best ways to convert people was to show the power of your God and your belief on the ground in the field. You know what I mean. Burn some witches show people that there are real world consequences for joining the wrong team.
Yeah, or just hang them or pillary them, you know, leave them, leave their body there for a little while, so everybody got to see.
Everybody can afford rocks, you know what I mean. And drowning of course, if there's a convenient water source. And if she floats, she's a witch. If she dies, you.
Know, meant to be.
Yeah, let's talk about just really quickly that the ordeal of the like the what is it, the swimming what do they call the swimming test?
I think back in.
The dunking stool things like that.
Yeah, yeah, okay, So there's a great article. It's I think a blog that's a part of the Library of Congress where Nathan Dorn goes through back in twenty twenty two. He goes through and looks at the swimming test in particular, and my goodness, you guys. He cites the legal arguments that were occurring about this swimming test. If this person is a witch, will put them in the water. If they float, they're a witch. If they don't float, they're
not a witch. And all things are great. But they're going back and forth saying, like one guy will say, oh, well, god, surely will show us the witch is true nature if we throw her to the water and another says, well, do you presume to demand a miracle of God every time you, you know, do this? And the one says no, the water itself will reject the witch's body.
I mean, is of God? He hath brought that. I screwed it up earlier. The monty python bid as a duck floats in water. If the woman weighs the same as a duck, then she is made of wood. The woman weighs the same as a duck, therefore the woman is a witch. That's the round up. But it's obviously inspired by what you're talking about, because it's so absurd.
And the ducking stool that was the predecessor of this specific type of execution was at first just a form of social humiliation and punishment, similar to a pillory. You would be you would be punished for being something like a disorderly woman or complaining too much, or a tradesman who swindles, and they'll dunk you and everybody will be like, hahha,
look at you. You're wet and your life sucks. But the people who are laughing most of the time their lives also sucked, and eventually they weaponized this just to finish this lab. Eventually they weaponize this to kill people.
And isn't it funny slash terrifying that the remnants of that are at like a local fair or a state fair with like the dunk tank that is totally a modern Bread and Circus's version without killing.
Of exactly what we're talking about.
For people to be able to like have schadenfreud of watching someone get you know, humiliated publicly, but you know, with less consequences but lower stakes.
Yeah, we'll see. It depends on how the rule of law functions going forward, which is another twist at the end of this episode. So in short, folks which need to know is that witch hunts were a decentralized on and off again industry, an early version of satanic panic, but they're also a business and business, dear friends, was
quite good when it was happening. The groups who were most vulnerable to being accused of witchcraft, and thanks again to Carlson's fantastic research, they're going to be women and these women are going to be over forty and the data we can find is kind of mixed when it goes to marriage status, but the main thing is social
position social class. Women who were in line to inherit land or asset from fathers and husbands who had passed away often fell under suspicion, especially if they didn't have a child right because if they had a child, they could be kind of like a SuSaA, you know, they could they could rule their property and then fall back on the kid, especially if it's a young boy, for to keep everything right in the eyes of the law.
But without that, and especially if they did if they could no longer bear children, or if they were too powerful and patriarchal communities, then they were targeted. They were stripped of their livelihoods because you can't take it with you.
I can only imagine that the inability perhaps to have children was even used as proof they've been stricken barren by the infernal One, you know, stuff like that. I'm sure that was said at times.
And matter being a mother who has a stillborn child or child that dies shortly after being born, and experiencing one of the most unspeakable traumas of human existence, only to have the authorities in your town say it is proof that you worship the devil when it rains, it poors.
Indeed, man, it all goes back to the biblical traditions. The stuff that's written in there about what.
Literally the.
I don't even know how to put it, the stuff that shows that the male, the man, is in charge of all these things, right and as you said, Ben, the child, if it is a male, then it becomes the next bearer of all of the importance in that family. But absolutely, you know, nothing is granted, especially two wives to daughters, and you know it. In Exodus it talks about selling daughters off.
Basically that means you possess with your right hand.
Yeah, your possessions. So you yeah, it's just again, it's so deeply root in that stuff. I really appreciate the book Bend, because that The Devil in the shape of Woman's just a perfect book to show exactly how deeply rooted all of this stuff is.
Quick correction, that which you possess the right hand is a reference to the Koran, which also, by the way, surprise, Bads witchcraft.
Oh yeah, is it also a reference to the right hand of God, the Father and all of that stuff.
And is that to tiede in in any way?
I've always wondered, like the left hand path versus the right hand.
It's like a microcosmic I think echo of that. The idea of possessing something with one's right hand is that it is ethically just and sound for you to be the person controlling this thing, whether it is whether it is a tool, a handheld tool, whether it is property, whether it is a family member, or you know, again, also people a slave. It's talking about slavery as well.
Dude.
Yeah, we don't have to get into we don't have to get into the Antebellum theology that got weaponized in the US a few centuries after Salem. But we got to tell you, the commonality of demographic is important here. The people most likely to be accused of witches didn't really change in the West for a very long time. And the folks who the folks who were prosecuting this, Protestant denominations as well as Catholic officials. A lot of times,
they were not experts in theology or law. They just, like ancient societies, believed magic was a fundamental scientific reality. They believed witches were reality the way that we would consider the speed of light a constant today. You know, you might disagree with people, but you're like, h yeah, you know, light that's the thing. Gravity that's the thing.
You know, the periodic table, that's pretty non controversial. And you know, picture them having these conversations and saying like, well, the papist are bad, but witches are real though, right, And then everybody's like, oh, yeah, totally yeah, I mean witches. Yeah, dude.
It's just so fascinating to think of like such an unprovable constant like that guiding so much of history, and the rule is kind of being made up by the ones with all the power every step of the way.
Sounds like no way to.
Live, you know, jeez, a lot of people didn't live exactly true, And weirdly enough, this is something I think surprises a lot of people. Puritans in in general were comparatively more progressive than the European counterparts, especially when they went to the colonies.
You know.
And when we say progressive, no we don't mean the modern version of progressive. We mean they were a little less crappy toward women. European clergy typically believed women were innately given to evil, and as such they would be more vulnerable targets if infernal actors, the devil turned them against the mission of God, and.
Yeah, because the serpent did it in Eden right.
Classic classic and said sarcastically so and very anti reptile, you know what I mean, the whole tenor of that. But Puritanism, in contrast, viewed women as naturally good and godly capable of doing one of the most godlike things you can do, which is to create life. And they were better than dudes asterisk so long as they stayed within their strictly defined roles determined by the church.
I think that's probably largely why women have been so demonized throughout history, because they have the most fundamental power, you know, to produce male heirs or whatever, just to create life, a thing that nobody else can do. So it makes sense to target them, you know, at such a fundamental level and try to control them, because they
have this power that nobody else has, you know. I mean historically that's what you do when someone's more powerful than you, You try to subjugate them as best you possibly can.
Hm. I mean, it's true that any women who deviate from these social norms foisted upon them from birth, they were immediately open to accusations of witchcraft. And we're not just talking about sex outside of marriage. We're not just talking about raising your voice in the public square to say, hey, make life better for everyone. We're talking about stuff like literacy, like reading other than the Bible. Now we get you
in trouble in this progressive environment. The odds are stacked. Yeah, the odds were stacked against women from the beginning and continue to be so today. I would argue, but look there's a conspiracy. Right at this point we got to again. We might say, all right, look, no one involved in a witch hunt, victim, persecutor audience. None of them were
stupid people. In fact, a lot of them were good faith actors, and they were rationalizing the arrest, the torture, the executions as a matter of fighting for the greater good. But just like an evil spell, the well of their cognition was poisoned. They had ulterior motives which were inseparable from their ostensible mission. Their accusations came from economic, familial,
and community disagreements. Look at almost any witch hunt throughout Western history and you can trace a rise in problems to a rise in accusations of witchcraft.
Right, for example, as the European colonies in New England started to grow. Land was at a premium, you know, it's a finite resource. It became more scarce. People were like just scooping it all up, and economic inequality became much more of a concern with each of these new kind of problems that were you know, introduced because of these changing circumstances, These accusations.
Began to grow as a result of disputes.
Right, It's like my neighbor is possessed by the devil because he won't respect my property line, that kind of stuff, you know.
One hundred percent. It's also it's also weird because this to the point about control you're making, this solidifies, this solidified stability for the given hierarchy of the time. You know, it's like a solid witchcraft prosecution, one that looks good. It justifies the existence of the leadership structure. You know. It's like, let's just say the quiet part out loud. War is almost always great for the career of a US president. It is extremely rare for those guys not
to get re elected. If enough people.
Die in any country in any conflict.
Yeah, yeah, most of them because it solidifies some sort of national pride or mourning kind of or like I would think it'd be the opposite, or it's like, look with this jerk dead. He killed our boys, you know, he sent them out to their deaths. But somehow it's this counterintuitive results.
It's very interesting.
Well, it's the need if a belief, right. I think maybe that's inside of humans or is evolutionary or something where if we are in a time of war, we don't want to change guard. We don't want to you know, the people are in charge us. We don't want to switch everybody out. No, that team is already on alert. They're the ones in charge, are there, right. I don't know if that in my mind that's.
One hundred percent. It's about certainly part of it.
Yeah, yeah, and this is all right. So this is the issue. Just like you could say a president or a political leader may be incentivized by certain things that are terrible for innocent people. The witch hunters, the judges, even the civilian accusers were incentivized to find witches and not to give them a fair shake to convict them. The accusers in allegations of possession especially, they often themselves
were acting out of self defense. They were young women from what you would consider the working poor strata of their given society. And they were terrified that because as they were on the outs, they might get accused of being witches. So how do you do that? You get
in front of it. And then they were expressing frustrations with a terribly unfair world, and sometimes they would adopt the wild, uncontrollable mannerisms, at least according to Carlson, and they would claim this was a case of possession at the hands of a witch, not me her. And this was one of the only forms, at least in New England, of acting out that was acceptable to puritanical society. And of course numerous other similarities throughout the world. Exorcisms in Islam,
the case of the Screaming Girls of Malaysia. Check that episode out.
Oh yeah, And what you're describing is a big plot point in the Crucible, you know, where it's like these young girls that are you know, doing all this crazy stuff and it gets not blamed on the girls, but blamed on someone who has communed with the devil to have them influence, you know what I mean.
It's a way.
And also the person that gets targeted is already an other is a is a black woman, you know, who is already seen as being a little problematic in our society, you know, the society of the very white, you know, colony that's portrayed in The Crucible.
One more book recommendation, because you know, we're saying these things, but not all historians agree with a lot of the things, which is which is really cool because you kind of get to see the truth and reality and everything we're talking about here. But then there are also counterpoints that
you can explore. And I would just recommend in the Devil's Snare the Salem witch Craft Crisis of sixteen ninety two by Mary Beth Norton, another amazing historian that like will kind of break down, like say, yes, that is true in these like certain instances, and then there's this other weird thing that was happening over here. I think it's just worth it, worth your time if you're really interested in this stuff.
And in Norton's defense, she is far from a one trick pony historian. Her speciality is colonial history overall, OK, And I think she tuned into a zeitgeist with exploring the Salem witch trials, which I understand why they get such intense examination, especially in the United States. It is important to remember, of course, that there's a precedent set there another book recommendation. You want to see the mentality of where a lot of these folks were coming from,
not just in Salem, but in New England overall. Check out Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That is, oh man, the way it's written. Still, I totally disagree, by the way, And I hope if you're hearing this show and you've read this book or this screed, I hope you disagree to But we have to admit that guy could write. Mather could write, He knew how to move a crowd.
Why is God so angry all the time?
You guys, Well, if you asked Mather, he has some pretty specific opinions on that one. And they didn't. They also did not practice what we would call metaphor right. They did not practice analogy or simile or any of that stuff. So like there was a snake that came into the chapel or Mather was preaching one time, and he killed the snake in front of the in front of the crowd, in front of the church, I should say, and to the crowd, this was not just a weird coincidence.
This was not a cool analogy. The devil came and with the power of God, Mather killed him in front of everybody. You just can't get a live show like that in a lot of places.
His boot was involved as well.
I think, yes, yeah, just so I will crush these sepent under my boot heel pretty much vanquish thee it was.
It was a revival energy, I mean. Okay. So as for the hunters and judges, here is the genuine conspiracy that doesn't get talked about often enough in Europe. In the Nisse and US as well, these folks worked on commission. If someone's legally convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death, almost always based on a confession derived from torture any Land, any assets they possess are automatically up for grats. The Church Protestant or Catholic gets its vig and some of
the rest goes to these persecutors. Prosecutors, judges, sometimes even witnesses themselves as a payment as recompense for their good deeds.
So dude, yeah, The Church of England, in the form of local magistrates, would pay monthly wages to witch hunters in England in like the sixteen hundre, like almost like you said, on a commission basis, Like here's a monthly wage for that witch you put away. Thanks for doing that, which, my god, if that's not a motive, Holy mackerel and ps. You're getting paid by the way often in firewood. That's one of the major's that was.
Very it was. It was the bitcoin of its day.
All right.
So let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you're a person living during one of these satanic panics during the time of witchcraft hunters. You know, let's make it tough for you in this situation. What do we need? What do we need to make someone a target of witchcraft accusations? You got to be widowed, right, No kids, those are checking the boxes.
No always, but yes, that's very good, right, I.
Mean, you know, not a profile, but but yeah, that that makes you. These are the factors that make you increasingly likely to be considered a witch widowed, no kids, you got money, he got land. You know, other farms weren't doing so well the past season, but you, through some inexplicable circumstance, you had a pretty bumper crop. People increasingly envy your success they start to ask some questions, reasonable questions at first. They always are why her? Why
not me? Why that farm? Why not mine?
Because she has a cat and a birthmark? Obviously, surely it can't just be luck. God has a plan, And weren't we all supposed to be in the same boat? Why is this person not? Also, wasn't she saying something kind of controversial within earshot of the chapel maybe a few years back. I can't remember exactly what it was, but I think it was something like this, and then
boom boom boom, rumor spread you get arrested. What's your experience in court going to be like if the judge is sentencing you, the prosecutor adjudicating your case, and even a few of the witnesses all know in advance that they get a piece of your farm and a payment from the church upon your conviction and death. Dude, Well, so the question is, then, how do you prove without evidence that this person that you want all their stuff is a witch so that you can take all their stuff?
And that's how you get stuff like the swimming method, right, Because now we've got a way that we can prove in the eyes of the law, Oh, this is in fact a witch, and she must.
You know, all of her land is bestowed upon us.
Now, while we're talking about the legal proceedings, Matt, do you want to talk a little bit about compregators.
Oh yeah, this is a vocabulary word for me at least. A compregator a sworn witness to the innocence or good character of an accused person. And the reason why this comes up for me at least is because I was reading that article from Nathan Dorn. I'll just read a quick part of it here. There were some crimes this
is talking about like seventeen, sixteenth, seventeenth century England. Okay, Nathan says there were some crimes that were simply not amenable to other forms of judicial proof, namely crimes for which there was no witness for which the defendant could not find compregators or witnesses to their good character, or for which the defendant's oath was held to be unreliable.
Right.
And he's citing Bartlett here, which I don't have the exact site citing for, but I know that author. I just can't connect the data here. But just one last thing. In these cases, what was needed was evidence from an absolute or divine point of view. So things like this, the ordeal stuff, the trials that witches would go through, was a way to supply that point of view in
a way that a lot of people. Not everybody in a village or a town or city would believe, but enough of them would believe it because it matches up with their pre existing.
Beliefs one hundred percent, you know. And and here's the other part of it. Witch hunters like the notorious Matthew Hopkins he was for in his day. He was sort of the Drake of witch hunting or the Kanye of witch hunting. The ya excuse me, and he and his team and his croney crony's, his goons. They were krone. Interesting. They were not paid just for doing their job, right,
They were paid upon conviction. And this meant that every dismissal, every single person accused of witchcraft and later found innocent, directly weighted to money and time out of their collective pockets. So we have to ask ourselves how much work did these people really want to put in to investigating innocence?
Right?
Dude?
Can we say he he had over three hundred women execute it.
He's a terrible person three.
Hundred month salary for each one of those.
Wow.
You can read his book by the way. He wrote a book in sixteen forty six is titled The Discovery of Witches An Answer to Several Queries Lately Help and he calls himself Matthew Hopkins witch Finder.
Ah, yes, witch finder too. Also, while we're at it, in book recommendations, there is a fantastic series from the hell Boy universe. I think it's Edward Gray Witchfinder. So if you dig hell Boy, check that one out. Yeah, it's super good, super good. And these witch hunts, we do have to say they overwhelmingly targeted women, but men were also not immune, and people who were non binary, although they wouldn't have been called that at that time,
they were also not immune. While women were over whelmingly targeted, other people would be targeted, especially they were socially isolated again unmarried, if they had controversial public opinions, or if they suffered from a mental or physical ailment like Peter Stump, which is an entrance to a rabbit hole. You can search of your own accord, folks, And what better time to do that than now as we take an ad break. Of course, it's our pallem that Frederick can assure you folks.
There are no longer actual witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts. There's a ton of tourism.
I don't think so. I don't think there anymore right now. But that doesn't mean there aren't witch hunts all over the planet every year, like all the time.
They're all into Washington, d C. Mainly. No, they're everywhere.
Everywhere there is descents or you know, contradicting opinions. It's very easy to use the same concept, you know, dismissed of any of the supernatural trappings, and just you know, do the same exact thing, but instead of like being a actual witch, it's like you did this thing or you've got the secret agenda or whatever.
You know.
When people talk about witch hunts today, they are usually going to be in the realm of politics. They're going to be political opponents attempting to delegitimize a criticism of themselves or their associates, kind of a dog whistle, as someone mentioned earlier. But no one's accusing each other of practicing malfesium. And we'll get to that modern day turn at the very end you mentioned.
Oh okay, yeah, like I mean, but they are right.
Like I was reading a Scientific American the over a thousand people every year are charged with witchcraft.
Yes, yeah, Why are there not actual occult witch hunts or diabolist hunts here in the US today? It's because it's It's not like the authorities one day said, okay, nice, we got the last one high five freeze frame roll credits. What happened is that life got better overall. That's exactly what happened. Those socioeconomic factors were removed, people felt less of a squeeze, and as a result, the hunts began
to die out. But because this is not a single set of events, because it's a collection of tactics triggered by socioeconomic pressures, the result in the deaths of innocent people. Like you said, Matt, witch hunts do continue in the modern day. They're not in the news as much unless you look for it, but innocent people do continue to
die due to these false accusations and allegations. Modern witch hunts right now have resulted in a much higher death toll than the old school ones in Europe and the colonies, particularly if you're looking at the hot spots you're looking at India, the Amazon, a lot of Sub Saharan Africa, and Papua New Guinea.
So why you might be asking yourself is this the case? Without painting with too broad a brush here we can see a lot of similar socioeconomic factors at play, starting off with the economic inequality, differences about ruling powers and conflicts between those in power, a need for control, a need for on the individual level to avoid feeling out
of control. In fact, if you want to go into actual belief here, perhaps exercising some control by blaming external forces, you know, for certain events that are troubling to you in the world.
Yeah, the idea of taking agency, right, I can alter the world such that I set it at my community, my personal existence.
Right.
However I get to that point, I am fighting for greater good, and indeed I am fighting for my continued existence and prosperity. We have notable cases, each of which could be their own episode. There are tons of witchcraft accusations every year on the African continent Sub Saharan Africa in particular, often against children. See also our earlier mentions of the mutilation of children who have albinism. For magical purposes.
So there's kind of a both sides argument, because there are also as evil and unclean as it is, there are people engaging in the murder of children for magical purposes, which is something like Hopkins of old often accused people of but it is actually happening in some parts of the world. And if you go to rural India you see a similar, somewhat paradoxical thing. People go to local holy figures, practitioners of traditional magic or esoteric beliefs. But
those same societies will also target women for witchcraft. And it's even worse than it was in Salem or in Europe back in the day. In these cases, the women accused are often knowingly framed and attacked without trial and sometimes murdered, and the cases go on and on and on, and to be completely honest, they're conspiracies. They're likely going to continue because we're talking about parts of civilization where belief in magic as a weapon has itself become weaponized
as a tool of material gain and ideological control. And that's crazy, right, but it's true.
Yeah.
Check out the article how social turmoil has increased witch hunts throughout history from Scientific American. It's written by Sylvia Fi I think is how you'd say it, and Alice Markham canter. It's really interesting and they point to over a thousand people who are accused of witchcraft every year. So that's like people who get expelled out of their homes, people who get as you said, been killed or you know, tortured basically because they're being accused of witchcraft. And I
would also recommend listening. We made an episode guys a while back. I think it was called is Witchcraft on the Rise? And there's a video Modern Witchcraft something like that that speaks directly to this subject.
And that's how I'm glad you mentioned that Scientific American article, Matt because that came out this year, folks, that came out in May of twenty twenty three. So the conspiracies are real. Don't ever forget. It goes deeper than the government's debt, you know what I mean. At this point, we want to pass the broomstick or the mortar and pestle to you. Thank you for joining our or sabat. What do you think, folks? Have you or someone you know ever been involved in a case of ostensible witchcraft?
Do you believe there may have at any point in history, then some real sand to these accusations. Send us the spookiest stories you can find. We try to be easy to find online.
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Hey, we have a phone number. It's one eight three three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a nickname and let us know if we can use your message on the air. Guys, I forgot to mention something. Well, we're gonna do it right here and doesn't matter. Danvers, Massachusetts. There's a place that the three of us need to go. It's called the Danvers Arc Center. It's at the Peabody
Institute Library. They have actual writings, so like actual artifacts and books and letters that were all written around the Salem witch Trials at the time, and they've got a whole section there on the Danvers State Hospital for the Insane. Do you guys know that place heard of but never visited. Guys, we need to we need to take a trip out to Danvers to do stuff on that place. No Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Sorry, like it is at some of the oldest American history
that exists. And man, just that stuff about how society treated people in a more modern time who were dealing with mental illness, Like oh, man, we should do this.
Oh but if you.
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