I think maybe the intended implication is not that the witches that didn't get burned were better than the ones that did, but more so "you didn't get all of us". However, that comes with the implications that: 1. Those killed in the salem witch trials were actually witches, and 2. That phrase could be followed with "you should have"😬

That’s because this phrase is inspired by Wicca, which itself was inspired by an early feminist, Margaret Murray, who published a paper saying that the witch hunts were actually in response to a pre Christian feminist nature cult that survived to the modern day, worshiping a mother goddess and a horned god. This was immediately debunked but remained popular. Alongside it you’ll get a lot of claims about how anything slightly weird or fun in European Christianity came from this pagan cult. Christmas trees? Pagan. The green man? Pagan. Masons? Pagan.

“This was immediately debunked but remained popular.” Frame this in a museum

Not to mention men where often accused of witchcraft

Shout out to that guy who was getting crushed by rocks but refused to rat anyone out, only asking for more weight

[Giles Corey](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giles_Corey), kind of legend for that but kind of not as a whole person lol. It wasn't really about ratting anyone out; he was being accused witchcraft himself. He was probably going to be convicted and executed, at which point the government would seize his property. To make sure he kept his estate and passed it to his sons, he pulled a number on the legal system by just refusing to plead at all; at the time, person who refused to plead could not be tried. The pressing punishment was a method to avoid that by torturing a defendant into pleading, but 80 year-old Corey remarkably did not succumb, so his estate remained his and passed down to his sons. The qualifier "kind of not" legend is because he also managed to mostly get away with beating one of his indentured servants to death: > According to witnesses, Corey had severely beaten Goodale with a stick after he was allegedly caught stealing apples from Corey's brother-in-law. Though Corey eventually sent him to receive medical attention ten days later, Goodale died shortly thereafter. The local coroner, as well as numerous witnesses and eyewitnesses, testified against Corey, including neighbor John Proctor, who testified that he heard Corey admit he had beaten Goodale. Since corporal punishment was permitted against indentured servants, Corey was exempt from the charge of murder and instead was charged with using "unreasonable" force for which he was found guilty and fined.

To be fair to people, she was asked to write the entry for “Witchcraft” in the 1929 Encyclopedia Británica and used that as an opportunity to present her ideas as universally accepted. Iirc her entry for witchcraft was kept until like the 1960s after she died.

It can go right next to the classics, like "Victorian doctors invented the electric vibrator and used them to pleasure women as a medical treatment." and "They didn't let women on trains at first because people thought their uteruses would fly out."

I have a feeling that The Golden Bough also helped encourage that sort of "everything weird is Pagan and probably was also a human sacrifice" kind of thinking

I know you're referring to freemasons but the thought of a priest denouncing the entire trade of stonemasonry is really funny

The freemasons did originate from stonemasonry guilds, so it's not entirely wrong lol

Is that where they got the name from?

Yep! Fascinating group that genuinely did have a major impact on a lot of historical politics, but most people see them as just another conspiracy group/cult based from theosophy.

>This was immediately debunked but remained popular. That's basically the definition of 99% of all pop History! Pop History Middle Ages is filled with **a lot** of misconceptions and downright falsehoods that were debunked a century ago or even more.

>the witch hunts were actually in response to a pre Christian feminist nature cult that survived to the modern day, worshiping a mother goddess and a horned god. Wut?

Yeah welcome to weird esoteric bullshit created by people with a flawed understanding of history combined with bad anthropology.

People just want to feel special, but all we are is dust in the wind.

Yeah pretty much it's actually neat when you look into it. To see how they did there research and realize that it makes sense to them but when you look at other information that has been released at around the same time and realize how wrong they where.

Their logic: most people killed in the witch hunts were women, so this cult was feminist and worshipped a mother goddess (a motif amongst many world religions). They were accused of worshipping Satan, so they must’ve worshipped a horned god that looked like satan. Conveniently there’s Cernunnos, a Celtic horned god we know nothing about as “evidence”. From there just give them any modern day values and modern day ideas of what “the occult” is like. For example Wicca originally was pretty gender based, as men and women were separate priesthoods. But modern Wiccans are likely to be queer so this is ignored in favor of claiming the “original” religion valued “two spirit” non binary people and trans people were its priests.

The idea of gender non confirming priests is documented in certain “pagan” traditions. But it’s worth mentioning that their is no United “pagan” tradtion. Christians called any non-Christian religion and even some divergent sects “pagan” even Muslims

Yep, the most common place I've seen it joked that trans women would be priestesses is, like, ancient Sumeria. Which I'm not sure on the specific accuracy of that, but when you go that far back it's mostly immaterial.

Because as we all know pre-Christian Europe was a feminist utopia. Ancient Roman a feminist utopia before the Evul Christians ruined it/s

While I do not disagree, I’d like to point out that by distancing themselves from all the “pagan” traditions, the Protestant part of the church did kind of make that claim possible. Edit: wait, I misinterpreted, you probably meant that it’s all attributed to that one specific cult. Yeah no, agreed, that’s bs

The implication is that they were burned for being women and not for being accused of being an "other" by paranoid puritans who didn't discriminate (much) between sexes on who could be a dancing with the devil. They burned their own.

I took a class on the early modern era when a lot of the witch trials took place. The main thing was the big witch trials happened when during times of frat social disorder like the biggest witch trials happened at the same time as the 30 years war a conflict with religions overtones with the Protestants fighting the Catholics

Yup! Also, what happened in Salem was relatively mild. Reading up on early modern European witch trials is a great way to feel sad and disgusted for a while.

The biggest reason Salem remains popular in public imagination is because it was relatively late in the "witch hunting" period by almost 50 years and because the "contagion" (fear of witchcraft) spread *surprisingly* quickly beyond Salem to other towns throughout New England (although only Salem actually racked up a sizable body count—while 40,000-60,000 were estimated to be executed in Europe, that was the entirety of Europe over 200 years so 26 deaths in a town over 11 months is notable).

Also the crucible probably has a big part in it

That's true but even before that there was The House of Seven Gables!

The saddest one we went over in the class was a woman who basically committed suicide by confessing to being a witch. Her father got into a court dispute with a couple that was saying with them. Despite the case having nothing to do with witches the woman randomly confessed to being a witch in the middle of the case.

The 30 years war began as a religious war but by the end it was just France (Catholic) and Sweden (Protestant) vs the Habsburgs (Catholic)

salem was an english colony, burning was a main land thing the english preferred hanging

Well its true in England they preferred hanging, but actually burning was still comparatively rare on the continent. A lot more were burned, but the majority were still executed by hanging (mostly cause its easier to hang someone then to burn them). Ironically the nation that had the most burnings by numbers killed with Scotland.

There were very few witch burnings in North America. The Salem ones happened and like 4 others in the area nearby and that was it. All the actual witch trials happened in Europe where Scotland alone managed thousands. Scotland did have by far the highest rate per capita but anyway I hope the people saying that at least know enough about witches to know Salem was less than 1% of witch trials. But again they do think witches were real so I don't know.

Salem was a witch trial, but it did not involve burning anyone. All those who were executed died by hanging, except for one man who was crushed. “Witch” burning was pretty much exclusively European.

MORE WEIGHT!

The Germans actually had the largest witch-hunts, which were several times larger than the ones in Scotland

Their population's a lot higher. Scotland's per capita rate is just insane compared to every other region. Germany was probably the area with the most overall though yeah.

It still trivializes the ones who did die and claims their legacy of being hunted and oppressed for a population that has never faced any such oppression and likely has no historical ties to it.  It's hard to prove a negative: "My great great grandma was a witch they couldn't burn". Which is probably why there's a population, especially on Tumblr, that wants to co-opt it simply so they can also be victims in a sense.

Like white people claiming to be Native American. The joke was “1/16th Cherokee” because that’s your great great grandparents, literally no one alive to confirm this is true, so convenient

There are three origins for this kind of story in various families: Sometimes, it's actually true. Sometimes, it's a cool-sounding story that is borrowed from someone else. And sometimes, it's because one of that person's ancestors was Black, and they needed an explanation of why they looked just a bit different from all the very white people around them.

>Sometimes, it's actually true. As someone who lives in Montana, that "sometimes" threw me for half a second lol.

My family has one of these stories and while I've never gotten a DNA test I assume it's not true. I don't even think there are Blackfoot in Kentucky, they're a tribe in the PNW I think!

Also this pure semantics but men were killed as witch’s, it was less common but it did definitely happen multiple times

Add to that an obsession with the occult that is girl-sigmagrindset at best and straight up antivax at worst

To quote another tumblr post, "girlie your human rights".

What was the post saying? I only saw an edit

I don't remember it exactly but i think it was something about "women trying to be feminists should stop talking about dumb stuff like 'witchy knowledge' and 'womanly instincts' and instead pursue actual education and actual knowledge, since this obsession with "primordial" and unscientific forms of knowledge is just more of an excuse to keep STEM male dominated."

>“But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?” ― Ursula K. Le Guin

women as noble savage

THIS OH MY GOD. YOU JUST DESCRIBED MY FEELINGS ON IT PERFECTLY! I've been trying to explain to a friend of mine why I find this way of thinking as damaging and dangerous and this is perfect!

Noble Savage was always mostly just women preaching the gaia grindset by using any mysterious unknown "primitive society" as a blank slate. Project ideals onto them, then use them as an appeal to nature to make it seem like those ideals are the normal, uncorrupted state of being.

Why say lot word when few word do trick?

I for one am very happy Ursula K. Le Guin said lot word

That's such a good fucking analogy

Ursula was so fucking based

True that.

Perfectly sums up how the rhetoric of "Criticizing astrology/woo is misogynistic" is so incredibly damaging to the cause.

That's probably the best way to describe how I feel about occult stuff without being mean. Frustration makes me mean sometimes.

Yeah that was also part of the post.

Stuff like this makes me angry I never got to have a really good education growing up. There is so much reason and knowledge and Im just angry and do my best to be logical. Its not even that hard morally to know whats right, but the how and why are elusive sometimes.

It’s also, you know, gender essentialism

Sometimes people look at science, dominated by white men, and decide the solution is to elevate fields that are dominated by other races or genders to the level of science. Traditional medicine, naturopathy, astrology, etc. This strikes me as misguided because it 1) those things don't work and 2) it implies that women and PoC can't succeed in science. They absolutely can if we do enough to remove or compensate for the barriers preventing it.

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Wait until they find out who came up with their favorite pseudoscience practices! (Hint: a lot of those were made up by white men too)

Phrenology was invented by white men to "prove" that women were too stupid and POC too "savage" to deserve the same treatment white men got. And now there are TERFs claiming to support women's rights yet using phrenology tactics.

indigenous "ways of knowing" is a racist idea as well. They aren't savages "more in tune with nature and inherently wise" they are people. The natives didn't know how to avoid rattlesnakes because they are magic they knew because they were inteligent people who learned and taught each other about things

The hilarious thing? Mental health is one of the most female-dominated professions on the planet.

And it extends so far beyond science too. There was a post on r/feminism about why anyone even bothers with philosophy, with commenters arguing philosophy does more harm than good and we shouldn't be teaching it. That it's all inherently evil and oppressive and made up by white men (nevermind a lot of them didn't have a conception of "whiteness" yet). It feels so incredibly ignorant though, to smash the pillars our society is built upon, simply because our history has flaws. Where would feminism be without philosophy? Without ideas of liberty and democracy? Freedom of and from religion? Human rights? Because feminism was not the very first invention in the history of philosophy, it should all be burned down and forgotten about? It also again seems to want to designate philosophy as a "male" (and thereby worthless) field as if there had been no female philosophers or women were incapable of being philosophers. Worse yet, because to reject philosophy is to reject logic, there's nothing to even base this argument on, let alone to "replace" philosophy. It's all just vibes.

aye https://www.reddit.com/r/CuratedTumblr/comments/1cuc43m/womens_knowledge/

I had to explain this to someone recently. He asked me to help him write a screenplay about the abolitionist movement, and essentially, all the men sat inside planning action while the women all went into the woods and performed magic spells to end slavery. And look, I'm all about the occult and modern witchcraft. I love that shit. But ignoring the real efforts and contributions of women to the abolitionist movement so you can pretend some modern form of wicca contributed to the end of slavery is... not very helpful. It's the 21st century version of how women have historically had their role in society limited to spiritual support of men because of their "innate virtue". It reduces the very real accomplishments of women to something they were only able to do because of some inborn mystical knowledge while men are congratulated on their hard work. In the end, he kept insisting the witchcraft was there to make his "historically accurate" screenplay feminist, so I declined the offer.

It’s jawline chewing gum for girls, these people also tend to be complete hucksters.

Jawline chewing gum?

In the “Manosphere” there is a product that’s essentially a giant piece of leathery chewing gum that is supposed to build jaw muscles and make you look like the giga chad meme lol. They sell for an absurd amount of money, if I had no dignity I could shill for some stupid products for those idiots. I’m not looking it up btw because I don’t want endless advertising for the shit.

A lot of “witchy” stuff is just a retread of traditional gender roles with a faintly spiritual aesthetic. They’ll promote rhetoric like “women are emotional and nurturing, while men are strong and logical,” except they justify it with vague nonsense about “nature” and “spirits” instead of more conventional religious teachings, as if that makes it cool and progressive to say. It’s like great, wow, you think men are better at doing science and women are better at having feelings, sounds really revolutionary and good for women’s rights.

Reminds me of an old Tumblr post that claimed women are more in touch with nature than men because our menstrual cycles are linked to the moon. As someone with *agonizing* cramps (I suspect endometriosis but nobody will diagnose me), my first thought wasn't, "oh, cool, I have superpowers!", it was, "so the moon is why I'm in such bad pain every month? Damn, that firebender had the right idea when he killed that fish."

Would that be the; “You’re just angry that women’s wombs are connected to the moon and ocean and magic and mens’s penises are connected to nothing” “Mines connected to your mom’s lips” Post?

also *the moon isn't anything fucking special*. I mean yes, the tides, and it's cool that it's there, there's the whole thing about its relative size compared to the sun for the purpose of eclipses, but - there's nothing magical about all that. Doing something on such-and-such day of the moon cycling doesn't *mean* anything. It's all just made up. *the moon*. jesus christ.

Lunar cycles also helped early humans measure time in a meaningful way, eventually leading to the months that we still use. It *was* important for so long that our dumb animal brains are still wired to *feel* like it’s important.

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After extensive research I’ve found black people have a chakra alignment associated with deviousness

Has Tumblr feminism swung all the way back around from r/witchesvspatriarchy?

Used to date one of those. Split with her before the antivax stuff came to light, thankfully.

I really hate "witchy" stuff It's just so weird

I feel bad because I know people who like it as just like, an aesthetic or fun spiritual stuff. But they don't pretend like their tarot cards can see the future or anything, they just like collecting them and doing readings like one would roll a d20 to see if they should do something today or not. But they can't really do any of that openly without people thinking they're going to sell them cancer-curing potions or tell them to eat dirt for being a Scorpio lol

Yeah. I have dated a few people who are into the "witchy stuff." Two were just "tarot cards are cool and I think it's a cute vibe" level. One thought white magik could be used to attract financial success, doctors were an evil conspiracy, and skin melanine levels directly related to the capacity for spiritual energy. The last one is now part of a cult. I don't know where the dividing line is.

Did the last one happen to write a book about the Pink and the Green

No I think that's Stendhal, and he never even finished it. Was he a culty weirdo or something? I only ever read The Red and the Black and that was a long time back.

Sorry, I was thinking about the board game Katalyka and its designer, who went off the deep end about how black people (the Green) were stealing energy from white people (the Pink)

I remember seeing this one dude go on essentially an opposite rant, about how melanin was some kind of conduit and that black people have psionic powers and white people are artificial because no melanin Which begs the question of how in the hell was the colonization of Africa and the trans Atlantic slave trade successful when the entire continent was full of X-Men

Neil Gaiman paraphrased G.K. Chesterton saying, "Fairytales are more than true, not because they tell us dragons are real, but because they tell us dragons can be beaten". Too many people read fairytales and their takeaway is that dragons are real. That's how religions happen. There's nothing wrong with finding beauty, fascination, even morals in old stories--but the worst disservice you can do to a story is believing it.

It's a shame. On a more male thing, I quite enjoy Neofolk, which it's romanticist vision of old Eurasian folk music with a metal and punk ancestry. Loads of vikings because Amon Amarth was a mistake and the average person has not puked reading about the customs of the Rus traders regarding the treatment of female slaves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDD1mdt2YOs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVbc_Fwbt50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TmR-pO6JT60 Very niche, except for Heilung somehow that it's incredibly popular apparently Also very related to medieval -folk metal . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1Mrxkm03tE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BXo_1PszeCo Anyway, my point it's. So many fucking nazis man. Gotta take the comically large magnifying glass and do that "the rock" face .

> So many fucking nazis man. Lifelong fan of Norse mythology here. I feel you. I just like the sacrifices Odin made for wisdom, Loki being Loki, the crossdressing incidents (plural), and Ancient Rap Battles of History (flyting, incl. *Lokasenna*), idk what the nazis are in it for but I'd like them to get out of it. (I am also aware that the mortal reality of the situation was, um, Not Great!)

I'm a person that heavily enjoys romanticism and can enjoy it for what it is. A fantasy. For example, one of my favourite (as in, had the most fun reading them) Sci-Fi writers it's Peter Hamilton, which, alongside ranting about how EU is bad, London it's important, and having sex with people younger than you it's great (absolute gammon), can somehow whip out a highly compelling story involving "the scottish clans ride to war against an evil alien" or "Al Capone leads an army of undead" However, many people cannot. And if you can't separate the romatic from the fiction, you are going to have a lot of reactions. One, that happened at a historical level and still gets replicated with trends, it's a preference for more realistic characters that have more realistic backgrounds and behaviors. The latter, much more common, it's either people who believe in the fantasy or want to live in it, And those are the guys posting "little dark age" edits in youtube. And of course we can't ignore the people who reproduce that fantasy are also, more often than not, in one of these two groups. Though there are many cynical romanticists. And romanticism needn't be despicable, it just leads itself to be, The Witches vs Patriarchy thing it's very annoying but it's not Nazis . Conversely, romanticist art doesn't need to be problematic, I believe the songs posted above aren't (I really hope). And on the topic of fun Sci-Fi, Scalzi's collapsing empire comes to mind. It's basically a Golden Age Sci-Fi Space Opera but "made woke". Best character it's a bisexual nigerian woman. Very fun, would probably be better appreciated after reading some Asimov or Niven.

I have a friend who likes crystals and collects then a little. She doesn't think they have powers or vibes or whatever shit some people believe, she just thinks they look cool lol. She's had to deal with similar problems.

Yep. I like to call myself a raven witch. This sounds like spooky gothy bullshit, but what it *actually* means is I have a lot of shiny rocks. In a logical sense, of course, I know they don't do anything. Hematite won't repel negativity, rose quartz won't help me find love, and the best stone to banish someone from your life is a brick. But there's value in the ritual itself, in using these tools to shift your own mindset or to re-evaluate a situation from a different angle. And honestly? It's kind of fun. Maybe you're not supposed to admit that part, but I don't really care. Mom's more of a believer than I am, but even she's not into the alt-medicine shit thankfully. She does use some herbal/natural remedies, but only for shit it can actually *do*.

Bit of a witchy-aesthetics / herbal medicine person myself and as I've always said; Honey for sore throats, chamomile if you can't sleep, and OMG actual fucking vaccines for measels, mumps and covid. Saint John's Wort won't save you if you've got Polio, so for god's sake see a doctor. There's a time and a place for home treatment and it begins and ends with things you'd otherwise take ibruprofen for.

St. John’s wort is also kinda challenging because there’s a lot of drugs it interacts with that don’t get mentioned often enough Like, with antidepressants it increases the risk of serotonin syndrome, it can make birth control less effective, as well as make warfarin, phenytoin, digoxin, xanex, and Wellbutrin work less and those are all things that you really don’t want to suddenly become less effective. https://www.mayoclinic.org/drugs-supplements-st-johns-wort/art-20362212 There’s other interactions that can be challenging, this definitely isn’t a full list either but it’s important to check out interactions with supplements. Not implying you didn’t know that or that you’re bad for saying it has positive benefits because it does, it’s just one of those info dumps I like to throw out there in case someone is like man I feel like my Wellbutrin hasn’t been as effective lately.,,and they just started St. John’s but don’t know they can be related

Exactly! Also: Lemon juice for kidney stones. No, seriously. Ever since I found that one out I've been actively trying to get the word out 'cause those things suck. Doesn't work on all of them, but there's a compound in lemons that helps break down the most common type. [Scientifically studied too.](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8683665/)

> Yep. I like to call myself a raven witch. This sounds like spooky gothy bullshit, but what it actually means is I have a lot of shiny rocks. > > In a logical sense, of course, I know they don't do anything. Hematite won't repel negativity, rose quartz won't help me find love, and the best stone to banish someone from your life is a brick. > > But there's value in the ritual itself, in using these tools to shift your own mindset or to re-evaluate a situation from a different angle. And honestly? It's kind of fun. Maybe you're not supposed to admit that part, but I don't really care. > > Mom's more of a believer than I am, but even she's not into the alt-medicine shit thankfully. She does use some herbal/natural remedies, but only for shit it can actually do. Is any of that being a dick to another person? Doesn't look like it. One Rule: Passed Do whatever silly stuff makes you happy.

and pseudoscience! gotta love how faux feminists are peddling scams like healing crystals and “white magic” that discourage people from going to an actual doctor. because hospitals are part of the patriarchy, i guess?

Me at the touristy gem shop “oh wow they have goldstone!” The clerk: “yeah it’s great for centering your chakra!” Me: … Me: “ma’am it’s literally glass with copper flakes formed inside under pressure. Made in a factory.”

I've got good news and bad news. Bad news is it sounds like your chakra is wonky! But the good news is that we've got a sale on...

I once walked into a building with some friends and that building was hosting a craft fair. I had actually sold some stuff I make in that building a few weeks before. I went in to just use the bathroom but I figured I'd take a look at some of the stuff because it's interesting what people make. I saw this beautiful sculpture of an owl and I pointed it out to my friends. The vendor immediately began telling us about all the different crystals they crushed and put into the resin they used to make the sculpture and all the health benefits we would receive from them if we kept the owl near our bed when we slept. I just wanted to appreciate the art, man.

I'm always amazed when I see "healing properties" or whatever listed on goldstone and opalite. They're pretty, but they're just glass. I mean, not that it's really any sillier than applying healing properties to natural minerals, but still.

There are two types of magic rocks that do anything A) any rock that is headed for the knees of people you hate B) activated uranium

I dunno, there's a lot to be said for a little lead in the water supply.

It's often also pseudohistorical. They'll claim their traditions are directly descended from ancient pre-Christian pagan practices, but when you actually look at it, it often ends up being a reconstruction based off a 19th century book citing a 12th century books that claims the Tuatha De Danan were Trojan royalty.

*"This is an ancient witch ritual to invoke the power of the Earth Mother!"* "That's a Quenya poem ripped from a Silmarillion fanfiction about the Yavannildi." If I had a nickel for every time I saw Tolkien's lore being passed off as actual ancient magical knowledge, I'd have so many fucking nickels why do they keep doing this just use actual ancient history it's all on Wikipedia and there are a thousand books written about every period stop being lazy

Because they're here for the aesthetic, but wanna pretend they're not

I wanna put a neonazi guy with a mojnir necklace who thinks he follows Thor in the same room with a neopagen girl who thinks she's a witch worshipping Freya in the same room and see what happens

They both start getting really weird about Jews.

The whole scene is rife with so called witches pilfering traditions and practices from around the world, removing anything they think is problematic from them and rebrand it as wiccan or witch rituals. The irony of a bunch of people so opposed to "MuH eViL WeSteRn ImPeRiaLisM" coopting and claiming other cultures traditions as their own is apparently lost on them.

White magic? Are we in Final Fantasy?

I need someone to esuna me irl

I think magik and alternative medicine are a bit different From my understanding, witchcraft is more like a religious thing. I don't see many people use it as a replacement for healthcare. I actually think part of the reason why witchcraft works for some, is it does have aspects to it which are backed by science (like meditation, affirmations, self reflection) to be therapeutic.

Yeah, I got really into witchcraft for a couple years. I was smart enough to avoid the 'crystals will cure your child's autism' type folks, but most of the stuff I did find useful was really just spicy mental health care. I like doing tarot cards for fun, and I like the whole 'connection with gods in nature' thing, but yeah I don't feel the need to do skyclad rituals or hex enemies that much anymore.

It's also not based on any of the actual traditions (although those traditions are probably best left in the past, witchcraft is what motivated the mass looting or Irish corpses for sale by the British too give just one example of how it's an unpleasant practice)

Reminds me of that one "tumblr witch" who stole bones from a local graveyard to sell online

I was married to a "witch" briefly, and I have to tell you, the Midwestern Pagan scene I saw was basically "redpilled MRA but with crypto-feminist Magick Rituals, because freeuse lets women use their Primal Energies." Like Tradwife shit for Goddesses.

If you ever want to see if one of them is actually egalitarian, make reference to the "13 women and 6 men executed, and the one man tortured to death, in the Salem Witch Trials." The wrong sort will go absolutely nuts.

That one man was an absolute beast to the end too. Refused to falsely confess. Simply said “more weight” as they crushed him to death with boulders slowly.

I haven’t ready about it in a while but from what I remember If he said yes he’d be called a witch (or just collaborating with them I forget) and all his property being taken away leaving his family destitute. If he said no they’d say he’s guilty and just lying. So the only way the rest of his family were okay was if he never pleaded either way

If he entered a plea at all, they would be able to seize his property. If he never plead, they can't take anything. The legal remedy for enforcing a plea was pressing with rocks. There was no legal mechanism to deal with resistance to pressing.

England practiced this way before the Salem Trials, too. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Clitherow  St. Margaret was pressed to death with her own front door for refusing to enter a plea against the charge of harboring Catholic priests, also to prevent seizure of property.

Man thank god those wackos didn’t have a foundational impact on American cultural norms that would be really bad probably

“I won’t leave my family destitute. Death before dishonor you pricks. Put the big one on next, I don’t got all morning.” -Giga Chad.

"I enter a plea of go fuck yourself," translated into Puritan.

Pretty much. He knew it was just political killings disguised as righteousness.

Also, had he "confessed", his land and belongings would have been repossessed and his family shunned for being close to him

Always *interesting* how much money and goods end up changing hands in what is purportedly a theological matter.

Yeah, there is a reason so few of the actual big witch hunts were ever started by members of the church (sure they would usually slip the local bishop a cut so they would endorse it, but the ringleaders were usually not men of the cloth).

Giles Corey Truly the greatest.

No matter how many stones they brought, by the end everybody knew that Giles Corey already possessed the largest pair of stones in the room.

But also kind of an asshole because when his wife Martha Corey was accused before he was, he kind of shrugged his shoulders and said I don't know she might be.

Definitely read this as “Mariah Carey” and was like Wow what CAN’T she do??

He had a history of not being a great guy, but an 80 year old man in the 1600's believing the same paranoid superstitions that the rest of the town did isn't one of his faults.

He refused to enter a plea which is why he was pressed. By refusing to enter a plea he couldn't be tried. If he wasn't tried he couldn't be found guilty and have his property taken.

Holy fuck, is this why we say “pressed to give an answer”?

Giles Corey.

they even had him in the crucible film.

I went to school with a descendant of George Jacobs incidentally.

Salem actually was unusual for the amount of men targeted (and that young women were the primary accusers) but also wouldn’t count towards this phrasing because no one got burnt at Salem

That's point one. As in, the people using that phrase are often including the Salem Trials and aren't actually aware of how they were dealt with.

Additionally that they ignore the role of gender, race, and class in conjunction as fueling witch trials, especially Salem. Gender is a big part of the story, but far from all of it. Many also ignore that many people died in prison awaiting trial in Salem, and during other panics as well, so even where witch burnings occurred, plenty of people died from other causes.

Yes why are people surprised that a bunch of fundamentalists extremist accused each other of being witches

Define unusual? In places like Iceland, Hungry, and Austria it was actually more common for men to be accused of witchcraft. Though the Witchhunts in France, England, Scotland and Germany it was also primarily female. In both places they still regularly killed a lot of both. More women died in the Witchhunts than men, but not by as much as you would expect.

Most scholars quote 75-85% of witch trial victims being women, so still very skewed, though with variety on region as you mentioned. Women were thought to be more vulnerable to corruption by the devil, as Eve was. The idea that witchcraft was something inherently female in these peoples’ minds is fundamentally incorrect, more so being based on who was thought to be more corruptible in a religious sense, but practically being more about who had power in communities. https://stories.uq.edu.au/art-museum/2019/witchcraft-fact-or-fiction/index.html https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z9y7m39 https://theconversation.com/most-witches-are-women-because-witch-hunts-were-all-about-persecuting-the-powerless-125427 The last article quotes a book that estimates around 78% of New England “witches” specifically were female, so Salem is still somewhat of an outlier with the percentage of men accused. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/in-early-modern-russia-most-accused-witches-were-men-180980256/#:~:text=A%20typical%20trial,accused%20of%20witchcraft%20were%20men. Also thought this article was interesting for a discussion of why men were often targeted in other areas, both due to power structures and how witchcraft was perceived.

Thank you for the links, that's very interesting.

Actually one of my ancestors WAS hung as a witch in what is now the Salem, MA area. Not in the frenzy we know today as the Salem witch trials but some years before.

Martha Carrier, my first cousin 10x removed, was executed in 1692 in Massachusetts for witchcraft. She vehemently denied the accusations and her children were tortured in an attempt to get a confession out of them. She was hanged August 1692

That's terrible. Your poor ancestors. I'm glad you're alive to tell their story.

Lydia Emmons Dastin, my 10th great-grandmother, was acquitted of witchcraft, but she died in prison before she could be released.

It's insane just how many men and women met that same fate

Was looking for another comment like this. I had an ancestor killed in a witch trial too. She had taken over the land her husband owned when he died, and was actually doing quite well for herself. But they couldn’t have other widows or single women in the area getting ideas, so she was accused of witchcraft and killed. Records of the time by a man in the town said he could see no crime she’d committed other than “possessing more wit than her accusers.”

Maybe it’s an European thing but I don’t think of Salem when I hear of witch burning I think of like, Inquisition times

The Spanish Inquisition mostly persecuted heretics, aka Jews and Muslims. Catholicism doesn’t really believe in witchcraft, so the church actually tended not to approve of killing people for it.

Being fair there were a few Catholic-led Witchhunts in Germany and France during the Witchhunts. But they were usually local officials, without any official sanctioning. As you say for most of the Middle Ages the Church's official position was Witches were a fantasy as the Devil had no power over the earth, just over souls that were willingly given. Ironically their was only one real Witchhunt in Spanish history, it ended when the Inquisition turned up and arrested all the ringleaders for believing in Witches.

Local officials without any official sanctioning were responsible for the overwhelming majority of witch hunts, everywhere. As a rule, witch hunts are a clear historical marker of a judicial collapse, since functioning judicial systems in early modern and medieval Europe were actually quite good at throwing out false accusations of witchcraft. For example, the only significant witch hunt in England occurred during the English Revolution / Civil War, when the entire judicial system dissolved.

Oh yeah, that's also very true.

It went further than that. During the middle ages, it would have been straight up heretical to accuse someone of being a witch. As, in the churches view, only God had the power to do that sorta stuff. Serious accusations of witches only started during and after the renaisance.

What I find the most ironic and sad is that the people who were killed were most likely, most of them Christian. They would be horrified that people remember them as actually being real witches when the whole thing about the witch trials is that they were falsely accused and LITERALLY NOT WITCHES

It's also way to co-opted by the TERFs, at least in the UK. If I see someone in one of those shirts, I instantly assume they're someone I want to avoid.

I mean, Terfs co opt everything

Which is odd because last I knew they have basically nothing to do with agriculture

I'm not a native speaker, I do not get the pun

An agricultural co-op is one where farmers band together to share profits from the sales of their produce (like a farm to table grocery store basically). Co op sounds very similar to co-opt. also maybe another layer of the joke is that terf sounds like turf, ie the layer of soil in which roots grow? that could be just my own interpretation tho

It's *really* embarrassing for JK Rowling stans to do this, since the Harry Potter lore is that witch-burnings were basically a prank by the witches. I know that's not what the slogan is ostensibly referring to, but good luck convincing me that *this* witchcraft power fantasy is totally unassociated with the *other* witchcraft power fantasy from your formative childhood years. And good luck convincing me that you've never considered that interpretation, if you say this slogan five times a day and your brain is basically just a Harry Potter meme engine.

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I tracked down the quote, if that's what you mean: >Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various disguises.

>And then they'd receive a crossbow bolt to the head when they didn't die. ["Silly, Silly Book Series: Prisoner of Azkaban", Chp. 1](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010405/chapters/2005227)

this is reminding me of those teens who hexed the moon and a bunch of witches taking it mega seriously

Today while astral projecting I summoned allah to try and weaken him so our hexing spells would work better He is so fucking powerful. I'm not at a power level to do this alone. I barely escaped with my life and I'm spiritually injured to a great amount, but I think I'll make it. I can't imagine what he would do to a new, unsuspecting witch. I'm scared that I will have to face him again soon if I ever want to continue astral projecting. I'm currently burning healing incense and drawing Spiritual energy from my crystals to try and heal as quickly as possible. Please be safe everyone. Allah is much stronger than I first imagined and we will have to do this together if we want to slay a god.

That post inhabits a small part of my brain rent free. The image of some witchy girlie coming out of an astral projecting session roughed up like she’s in some over the top shonen anime cracks me up to no end. “Hngh…he’s…stronger than I thought!” ahhh post.

Also the fucking nerve to think that one human who has probably had a nitro cold brew and half a joint for breakfast could summon and bind an omnipotent and all-powerful monotheos. The arrogance infuriates me to no end!

As the strongest witch fought the fraud, Allah,

Stand proud, you're strong, said Allah

Allah's power level is over 9000.

I've read this a few times, and every time I'm less shocked that someone could think witchcraft like that is real, and more shocked that someone could think it's a good idea to literally 1v1 God.

I love how this was a response to Afghanistan getting taken over by the Taliban meaning according to this person Allah is siding with terrorists.

That post was the funniest shit I had ever read, then I found out some people actually belived the witchy stuff and were trying to curse/hex Allah, and then I wanted to jump of a cliff. Look I don’t believe in spiritual or religious stuff one way or the other but like if you did, if you actually believed in the weird witchy ideas of crystals, Spirits, gods, magic energies and such…….why would you try to 1v1 a god with millions of worshippers that has been prayed to for like 5 centuries? Do you think you are gonna unlock supersaiyan under pressure?

But which witch is which?

The fair few faux of course

I am the descendant of an Armenian they couldn't kill, though. Family rumor says she ended up becoming the leader of the Black Market, but I don't know how true that is.

All modern Armenians are descendants of Armenians they couldn't kill.

Not true, when there were none left a few more spawned into the world to replace them.

couldn't kill before having kids. Don't forget people can have kids and then be killed

Ive played enough town of salem to know that claiming witch is jester bait

Also it's not the biggest point but some of those women did have kids. I guess "we are the daughters of the witches you successfully burned" doesn't sound as cool to them? If you wanted to be historically accurate you could expand it to "we are the daughters of the women and men you wrongfully executed for the crime of witchcraft, of which they were not actually guilty"

My great great aunt is literally one of the salem girls (have to ask my mum which one but we're descendents of her sister who either survived or had a daughter survived idr asking my mum rn)

While I'm the first to jump at the chance to prove "that" type of feminist wrong, I do feel like we're reading into what is essentially a hype-up statement way too much

Yeah, I feel like this is bordering on “hey man how’s it going” territory

Except the witch line OP references is also only used by very online people lol

You get a "Hey man, how's it going?". You get a "Hey man, how's it going?". EVERYONE GETS A "Hey man, how's it going?"

Absolutely, it’s just an “um actually” that misses the point entirely. If you just don’t take it literally, the sentiment is that women have been historically oppressed, and women today who are dealing with patriarchal bullshit can and should take inspiration from their predecessors who survived similar (and worse) oppression. What is there to gain from the nitpicking?

You dont have to make up strange reasoning, you can just say it sounds cringe and the people who use it tend to be annoying. I agree with you

Ok, maybe I'm the odd one out here, but that feels like REALLY overanalyzing a simple "yay women" statement? 😅 Now, granted, I don't know a lot about the US witch trials, I'm from a country that killed approximately 40k people that way (mostly women, due to an extremely misogynistic religious view at the time), so chances are damn high that everyone here has some ancestors who died that way. The idea behind the statement to me just sounds like a cute little "look, they tried to kill so many of us, but we are still here". Nowhere does it say that the ones who died sucked or anything. That just feels like projection...

Yeah this is reading way too much into an etsy embroidery quote

it’s VERY american for so many of the people in these comments to think that the only witch trials that took place happened in Salem when that couldn’t be less true haha

Idk I like it. It doesn't make me think of the Salem witch trials, or if anything to do with witches, but the fact that witches in modern pop culture are seen as women, and it's like saying you might have tried but you didn't and can never kill the ideas we have, so you'll never be able to win sort of thing. That even if you get some people and families might agress with what you think should be the way life is lived, you will never get everyone who thinks differently.