Crystal Aura Gaze

We are the daughters of the witches who they tried to burn.

From 1692 to 1693, a travesty took place in Salem, Massachusetts. The Salem Witch Trials was a series of over 200 people accused of witchcraft. Thirty of them were found guilty, nineteen of them put to death by hanging, and the remaining were tortured and put to jail.

These may not seem like big numbers, but considering the time period, this was a significant amount compared to the total population. And even if it had only been one person put to death, that’s still one too many.

Contrary to popular belief, the Salem Witch Trials did not solely affect women. Men were prosecuted too, five men hung and one man tortured to death. Although, the majority of it was women.

The Salem Witch Trials were not the only documented witch hunt in history, it was utterly the most notable. Throughout America and Europe, between 1450 and 1750, approximately 50,000 people were executed because of witchcraft accusations. And it’s estimated that there were 100,000 people in total who were prosecuted.

Men were accused of being witches just as much as women. However, about 80% of the convictions were women. In other words, a woman was just as likely as a man to be accused of witchcraft, but she was eight times more likely than a man to be declared guilty.

Witch trials were very common in the Middle Ages and seemed to reach a peak in the mid-1600s. However, just as they were beginning to wane towards the end of the 1600s, the Salem Witch Trials happened. It would shake history as the deadliest witch trial.

Today’s historians will tell you that the Salem Witch Trials were a result of ergot poisoning. And some will instead blame it on rivalry between enemies, spreading rumors and making up lies from a place of jealousy and vengeance.

I will tell you that it’s not as simple as that. It’s likely that ergot poisoning played a role in the Salem Witch Trials. But that’s not even the half of it. The more research I have done into these witch trials, as well as all of the other witch trials in history, the more confused I become. It’s a rabbit hole that keeps getting deeper the more you explore it.

Historians should all accept that there is too much mystery surrounding the Salem Witch Trials to make any definite conclusions. It could very likely be connected to a great conspiracy and a truth that people in power are hiding from us.

One thing I have noticed in doing the research is a likely connection between European/American witch trials and Protestantism. It’s obvious that witchcraft accusations had much to do with religious influence. But it may have not necessarily been Christianity as a whole playing this influence, rather, more specifically Protestants.

Protestantism began in 1517, close to the major uptick in witch trials around 1450, and also close to the peak of witch trials around 1650. Witch trials were far less common (though not completely absent) in places such as Spain, Ireland, and Italy — which was all mainly Catholic. And in fact, the people of Salem, Massachusetts were Puritans — a branch of Protestantism.

There is an explanation for why Catholics would be more “open” to witchcraft than Protestants. And this is not to say that the Catholics didn’t condemn witchcraft. However, the Catholic religion has tended to embrace rituals, speaking with the dead, multiple deity worship, and other “witchy” beliefs that the Protestants do not.

Let’s break this down:

• Catholics perform more rituals and take them literally in a sense that Protestants do not — for example, the Catholics believe in transubstantiation (in which physical elements of bread and wine are consumed and turn into the body of Christ), while Protestants view bread and wine as a metaphor.
• Catholics believe in ghosts and spirits, in which the dead can float around in purgatory and still make contact with the physical world. Protestants do not believe in ghosts or spirits of any kind, only Heaven and Hell.
• Catholics believe in the trinity: God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit. They also have many saints who they worship and pray to. And they also pray to the Virgin Mary and place more importance on her than the Protestants do. Meanwhile, Protestants believe in ONE God, and that God and Jesus are one.

And so, you can see how Catholics have more similarities to Pagan beliefs compared to Protestants. Pagan beliefs worship multiple deities, make contact with spirits and the dead, and believe that nature can hold spiritual powers.

This leads me to two possible proposes: either that the Catholics found more common ground with witches, or that the witches found it easier to disguise themselves as Catholic rather than Protestant. (Having said that, there were still many Catholics who prosecuted witches. This is simply to explain why it was more common in predominantly Protestant areas.)

Witch trials are still going on today. And that’s what leads me to believe that it’s about more than simply ergot poisoning. Although witch trials did not begin in India until the 1700s, they are still happening today. And they are also happening in Saudi Arabia and parts of Africa.

The things about witchcraft is that it’s not black and white. What modern society labels as “witchcraft,” the people of the middle ages saw a clear distinction between “good magic” and “bad magic.” If you go way back into the ancient times, belief in magic was widespread, and it was seen that there was a difference between someone who uses it for good verses evil.

Throughout Europe, spanning from ancient times and going into the 16th century, there were many people who, today, you would call “good witches.” However, they did not use the term ‘witch’ to describe these people. Instead, they went by the following names: folk healers, cunning folk, wise folk, wise men, wise women, wizards, conjurers, woman of knowledge, man of knowledge, healers, seers, and people of traditions.

These folk healers used both herbs and divination to help people. Through their knowledge of the healing power of plants, they could provide herbal medicine. But this was also accompanied with magic, supernatural forces, and assistance from the spiritual world. This was done by using tools such as astrology, tarot cards, runes, pendulums, or crystal balls as a form of divination.

Today, we associate all of those things with being a witch. But the word ‘witch’ comes with baggage that also brings associations of things such as satanism, devil worship, black magic, curses, and evil. How did we get here? How did we blur those two separate ideologies together? One side of the coin wants to help and the other side of the coin wants to harm — each side is using both physical and metaphysical resources to do so.

In many parts of Europe during medieval times, folk healers were very common. Following the spread of Christianity, Pagan practices were not forgotten, rather, they were continued on but with a Christian lens. For example, spells would be dedicated to Jesus rather than Aphrodite, and the charm of the pentacle would be replaced with the cross. In that sense, Christianity blended in easily with Pagan beliefs — and much more so with Catholicism.

Christianity and Paganism was far more blended than mainstream thought would have you believe. When you look into it and do the research, you can see that the two of them were not completely separated. There were many Christians who were involved in Pagan (or “folk”) practices. There were many newly converted Christians who made efforts to keep the Pagan practices from their ancestral traditions alive. Many people found ways to intertwine both belief systems.

You could argue that the Witch War began with The Witchcraft Act 1541 in England. This ordered the death penalty against anyone who cast love spells or money spells, essentially. At this point in time, authorities were truly threatened by the power of witchcraft, and were making their first attempts into silencing witches. Similar anti-witch laws were enacted in Ireland and Scotland in the following decades.

However, we know that making a law doesn’t stop a behavior. Instead, it makes people go to a further extent to hide and cover up their behavior. And so, witchcraft became even more underground.

Nearly two centuries later, the witch war took a darker turn when authorities of England decided to revoke the validity of all witchcraft in its entirety. The Witchcraft Act 1735 placed punishment on those who claim to practice witchcraft. Now, it was illegal to call yourself a witch or proclaim that witchcraft exists. This law revoked any validity to folk healing, which was devastating for the “good witches.”

In another two centuries came Fraudulent Mediums Act 1951. This changed the Witchcraft Act in which it specified that it is illegal to claim oneself as a psychic, purposefully deceive someone from that claim, and make money off of it. This was finally a turning point in which “good witches” could once again be weeded out from the “bad witches.” However, unfortunately, it still discredits the power of witchcraft (AKA, folk healing.)

My aunt passed on a book to me called “The Powwow Grimoire.” I come from a Pennsylvania Dutch background on my mother’s side. And for those who don’t know, the “Pennsylvania Dutch” are a group of Germans who migrated to Pennsylvania during the 17th and 18th centuries. And what was known as modern-day Germany back then was a part of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Pennsylvania Dutch were mainly protestants, but they came to the United States for the purpose of religious freedom. These people had a tradition of folk magic known as “Powwow.” They used the Bible in conjunction with spell books to perform healings, many of these spell books sourced from Ancient Egyptian writings. This blend of both Protestant and Catholic practices, along with their ancestral Pagan traditions, was also heavily influenced by the Native Americans.

This is another example of the older generations combining both Christianity and witchcraft in harmony. They used folk medicine and spells, yet through a Christian lens. They used the “hex” symbol in a similar way that Pagans use pentacles and other charms: painting them on barns and hanging them on doors as a way of bringing good luck and protection.

The Pennsylvania Dutch separated themselves from “witches” by strictly using their magic for good. It was used for health, wealth, and protection against the negative spells of the “bad witches.”

But what if it’s more complex than “good witch” verses “bad witch”? Sure, there is witchcraft with good intention to heal and then there is witchcraft with bad intention to harm. But what about the witch with good intentions who ends up harming?

Let’s go back to the Salem Witch Trials that were connected to ergot poisoning. What if a “good witch” used an old folk remedy to heal someone’s ailments, ended up using a little too much ergot in her tincture, and accidentally poisoned someone?

One of the greatest hurdles in herbalism is that, unlike modern medicine, herbs are unpredictable. Modern medicine — pills made in labs — can be precisely measured to the exact dosage volume. However, plants in the wild carry a variety of different alkaloids and the same species can end up having vastly varying compositions. In other words, one batch of herbs may equal one pill, while another batch of herbs could equal a hundred pills.

In that sense, you could equate the prosecution of a witch with someone suing a doctor who has no legal protection. But again, the mass hysteria and disturbing violence caused by the witch trials leads me to believe that the whole thing goes much deeper than a doctor who accidentally prescribed you the wrong medicine.

Go back to ancient times, and you see Paganism and witchcraft alive — the worship of multiple deities, the reverence of supernatural forces, and the belief of interconnectedness between the physical and the metaphysical. When the spread of Christianity happened throughout the middle ages, it did not wipe out Paganism, even in areas where the churches were tyrannical. It simply hid itself in plain sight.

With a revival of Neo-Paganism appearing in the 1960s, there’s no way that this belief system was completely extinct at any point. In some cases it blended with other religions, and in other cases it remained a family secret in certain parts of the world. But it never died.

Currently, in the United States, religious freedom allows Paganism to make itself known. Witchcraft can be freely practiced, although it often comes with social stigma. Many people, even in modern times, still associate it with evil. The government continues to discredit witchcraft. Currently, it is illegal to profit from witchcraft unless you state that it’s used for entertainment purposes only.

Alongside, religious authorities continue to demonize witchcraft. They use the Bible as a weapon against folk healing and divination. But look at the Pennsylvania Dutch for example, who used the Bible to assist their witchcraft. The Bible only condemns witchcraft used for harmful purposes.

Once in time there was a true threat against witchcraft. They wouldn’t have been threatened by it if they thought that it didn’t exist. But they realized that acknowledging how much power it had was what gave it even more power, so they took that away.

In the aftermath of the Salem Witch Trials, family and descendants of the victims never stopped seeking justice. Over three-hundred years later, they finally cleared the names of those who had been punished. The last person to be exonerated from the Salem Witch Trials was Elizabeth Johnson in 2022.

Salem, Massachusetts has become a historical site with popular tourism. In more recent years, they have embraced witchcraft and made it part of the attraction. You can go to psychics and mediums for readings there. They have shops with lots of witchy products. They now embrace everything that the Puritans once feared.

I’m happy to see a world that is bringing back the sacred art of witchcraft and celebrating folk magic and healing. Despite your religious beliefs, whether you are Catholic or Protestant, if you are Pagan, if you are atheist, if you are belonging to any other religion or spirituality, you can keep these hidden practices alive. They were once thriving in the ancient world, they survived the middle ages despite kingdoms and governments trying to shut them down, and in the modern age they have been revived (although many people fear or discredit them.)

We are powerful. We are sacred. We have the ability to heal. And the people in authority will never want us to know that.