Talk:Witch hunt/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

2001 comments

"The witchhunts were part of a larger puritanical culture which was very religiously and socially intolerant."

True in the Salem witchhunts. Largely true in England, I think. Not sure whether this is true in other European countries.

I believe it was. The Catholic Church pretty much ruled religious life throughout Europe at the time. --Dmerrill

Um, I didn't pay enough attention in History lessons, but weren't the puritans anti-catholic? -- DrBob

Yes, but the term puritanical doesn't just mean the Puritans anymore! [later] removed the word since obviously it could lead to misunderstanding, and the sentence stands without it quite well. --Dmerrill

torture was an absolute norm in judicial procedures until quite recently in the entire world. It still is in big chunks of the world. This needs to reflect that. Indeed, our most horrific descriptions of torture are usually NOT witchcraft trials, but proceedings against those accused of treason. The execution of witches was usually also more pleasant (if any execution can be called so) than the execution of traitors (drawing and quartering was not used for witches commonly; the 'drawing' part means extracting the entrails while the victim is still alive and roasting them. Quartering was usually done after death, but they didn't always wait for death before starting.). --MichaelTinkler

I have only one authoratative book, but I added a quote from it in support of witch torture being particularly horrible. If you have another source, please educate me. --Dmerrill

Michael is substantially correct, and particularly so in regard to treason: a good example would be Guy Fawkes, where the torturers had a field day. Fawkes was drawn and quartered whilst still alive. NB: But torture was largely removed from the English judicial process following habeas corpus and legislation introduced during the reign of Henry II which effectively ended the process of trial by ordeal. sjc

DM - try E.F. Peters; he is a first rate scholar who has several books on torture; his short book on the Inquisition is the best thing of its kind. SJC - "largely removed" - for usual criminal cases, sure, but willingness to construe 'treason' broadly (esp. by the Tudors) meant that it was still quite regular (viz., Catholic recusancy, breakaway Protestant groups, etc.). --MichaelTinkler

Thanks Michael, I will check it out. I read a *lot*.

I'm curious about the alleged Soviet archives and what they could have revealed about the McCarthy investigation. Can anyone corroborate this or give some more information? It would probably belong on the UnAmerican Activities Commission page. --Dmerrill

2002 comments

The fact that there were witches? Communists under the bed? Well, yet another nail in the coffin of Alger Hiss's innocence, for one. The mere proof (often denied) that the CPUSA was funded from Moscow (I love he suitcases full of cash story from Harvey Klehr).

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By the way, I used the header 'Early Modern Europe' because the witchhunts are identified with the Renaissance and Modern periods, not with the middle ages. --MichaelTinkler

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Is it really a good idea to quote from Cathen for this piece? Not that I don't appreciate the Encyclopaedia, but it is biased, and I'm chary of editing it to show more recent scholarship (i.e. from this century) as we can hardly then say its "from the Catholic Encyclopaedia" then, can we? --Egoinos

I'm surprised that this

about the Salem witch trials?

Is the only ref. to the Salem witchunts and trials of 1692

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The Scope of the Cath En quote is extremely unclear

As a satisfied user and reader of this page (google witchhunts 1st find), I would like to state a complaint regarding the 'Catholic Encyc.' quotation. This material was fascinating and useful to me, but it was very difficult to comprehend 'who' wrote each headed section (Catholic Encyc. or Wikipedia). I experienced particularly strong 'voice dislocation' feelings considering the scientific statement 'witchcraft is mythological' and the utterly remarkable 'The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to pass a confident judgment.' (This last is deeply enlightening for me: that any learned person could write such a thing circa 1911!). In the end, I had to use the wiki history to determine the scope of the quotation. From an examination of the wiki history, it seems the first three headed sections are quotations "from the Catholic Encyclopaedia". My complaint is simply that the scope of the quotation is extremely unclear, given only the 'end bracket' "from the Catholic Encyclopaedia". It would be better (but ugly) to create a larger heading "From the Cath En"; or italicize the entire quotation, or ident it, or sub-page it, or something similar. Perhaps there are general wikipedia conventions for large quotations and working practices for indicating multiple voices. There should be. --MartinH. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.69.25.178 (talk • contribs) 23:15, October 20, 2003

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Was trial by drowning a part of witchhunt ? I could not see any references for it in this page. Jay 08:28, 30 Dec 2003 (UTC)

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I find it close to incomprehensible that wikipedia could use the Catholic encyclopedia as a basis for this article. I'm being bold and removing the content from the 1913 CE. It is a very informative reference but clearly hopelessly POV (choice quote: "In the face of Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied [...]"). All anyone has done to the CE text since at least June 2002 was correcting links (eg "carnal intercourse" -> "sexual intercourse"), with the exception of one edit which made the text under the heading "Early Church" more neutral. The CE text contains many unfounded and unreferenced assumptions and claims, making it a bad starting point for a wikipedia article. It is however useful as a reference source. I'm adding a link to the CE text at the bottom of the article, and the wikified text is given here:

===Early Church===
The attitude of the early Church was probably influenced by criminal law of the Roman Empire as well as by Jewish tradition. The law of the Twelve Tables already assumes the reality of magical powers, and frequent references in Horace to Canidia showed great cultural hostility to the sorceresses held to possess such powers. Under the Empire, in the third century CE, the punishment of burning alive was enacted by the Empire against witches who caused another person's death through their enchantments. Ecclesiastical law followed a similar but milder course.

Canon 6 of the Council of Elvira (306), refused the holy Viaticum to those who had killed a man per maleficium (by a spell) because such a crime could not be effected "without idolatry"; which probably means without the aid of the Devil, devil-worship and idolatry being then convertible terms. Similarly, canon 24 of the Council of Ancyra (314) imposes five years of penance upon those who consult magicians, and the offence is called a "custom of the heathen". This legislation represented the mind of the Church for many centuries. Furthermore certain early Irish canons in the far West treated sorcery as a crime to be visited with excommunication until adequate penance had been performed.

In the first thirteen hundred years of the Christian era we find no trace of widespread denunciation and persecution of supposed sorceresses which characterized the witch hunts of a later age. A few individual prosecutions for witchcraft occurred, and in some of these torture (permitted by the Roman civil law) apparently took place. Pope Nicholas I (866 CE) prohibited the use of torture, and a similar decree may be found in the Pseudo-Isidorian Decretals. In spite of these prohibitions, torture was used. It must be noted that common civil "trials" of the day were "ordeals" that would likely be considered torture in the current day. For example, the ordeal of cold water, but as the sinking of the victim was regarded as a proof of her innocence, we may reasonably believe that the verdicts so arrived at were generally verdicts of acquittal.

Nonetheless, the general desire of the clergy to check fanaticism is well illustrated by the Council of Paderborn (785). Although it rules that sorcerers are to be reduced to serfdom and made over to the service of the Church, The following decree was also made: "Whosoever, blinded by the devil and infected with pagan errors, holds another person for a witch that eats human flesh, and therefore burns her, eats her flesh, or gives it to others to eat, shall be punished with death". Furthermore, on many different occasions clergy in positions of authority did their best to disabuse the people of their belief in witchcraft. This for instance is the purpose of the book, "Contra insulsam vulgi opinionem de grandine et tonitruis" (Against the foolish belief of the common sort concerning hail and thunder), written by Saint Agobard (d. 841), Archbishop of Lyons (P.L., CIV, 147).

Still more to the point is the section of the work, "De ecclesiasticis disciplinis" ascribed to Regino of Prüm (A.D. 906). In section 364 is states "This also is not to be passed over that 'certain abandoned women, turning aside to follow Satan, being seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that in the dead of night they ride upon certain beasts along with the pagan goddess Diana and a countless horde of women and that in these silent hours they fly over vast tracts of country and obey her as their mistress, while on other nights they are summoned to pay her homage.'"

The work further states that if it were only the women themselves were deluded it would be a matter of little consequence, but unfortunately an innumera multitudo (immense number of people) believe these things to be true and believing them depart from the true Faith, so that they essentially embrace Paganism by believing in witches. And in this account the work states "it is the duty of priests earnestly to instruct the people that these things are absolutely untrue and that such imaginings are planted in the minds of misbelieving folk, not by a Divine spirit, but by the spirit of evil". It would be far too sweeping a conclusion to infer that the Catholic Church by this work proclaimed complete disbelief in witchcraft, but the passage at least proves that a more critical spirit prevailed among the clergy.

Middle Ages

The "Decretum" of Burchard, Bishop of Worms (about 1020), and especially its 19th book, often known separately as the "Corrector", is another work of great importance. Burchard, or the teachers from whom he has compiled his treatise, still believes in some forms of witchcraft - in magical potions, for instance, which may produce impotence or abortion. But he altogether rejects the possibility of many of the marvellous powers with which witches were popularly credited. Such, for example, were the nocturnal riding through the air, the changing of a person's disposition from love to hate, the control of thunder, rain, and sunshine, the transformation of a man into an animal, the intercourse of incubi and succubi with human beings. Not only the attempt to practise such things but the very belief in their possibility is treated by him as a sin for which the confessor must require his penitent to do a serious assigned penance. Gregory VII in 1080 wrote to King Harold of Denmark forbidding witches to be put to death upon presumption of their having caused storms or failure of crops or pestilence. Neither were these the only examples of an effort to stem the tide of unjust suspicion to which these poor creatures were exposed.

On the other hand, after the middle of the 13th century, the then recently-constituted Papal Inquisition began to concern itself with charges of witchcraft. Alexander IV, indeed, ruled (1258) that the inquisitors should limit their intervention to those cases in which there was some manifeste haeresim saparent (clear presumption of heretical belief), but heretical tendencies were very readily inferred from almost any sort of magical practices. Neither is this altogether surprising when we remember how freely the Cathari parodied Catholic ritual in their consolamentum and other rites, and how easily the Manichaean dualism of their system might be interpreted as a homage to the powers of darkness. It was at any rate at Toulouse, the hot-bed of Catharan infection, that we meet in 1275 the earliest example of a witch burned to death after judicial sentence of an inquisitor, who was in this case a certain Hugues de Baniol. The woman, probably half crazy, "confessed" to having brought forth a monster after intercourse with an evil spirit and to having nourished it with babies' flesh which she procured in her nocturnal expeditions. The possibility of such sexual intercourse between human beings and demons was unfortunately accepted by some of the great schoolmen, even, for example, by St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventure.

Nevertheless within the Church itself there was always a strong common-sense reaction against this theorizing, a reaction which more especially manifested itself in the confession manuals of the close of the 15th century. These were largely compiled by men who were in actual contact with the people, and who realized the harm effected by the extravagance of these superstitious beliefs. Stephen Lanzkranna, for instance, treated the belief in women who rode about at night, hobgoblins, were-wolves, and "other such heathen nonsensical impostures", as one of the greatest of sins. Moreover this common-sense influence was a powerful one. Speaking of the synods held in Bavaria, so unfriendly a witness as Riezler (Hexenprozesse in Bayern, p. 32) declares that "among the official representatives of the Church this healthier tendency remained the prevalent one down to the threshold of the witch-trial epidemic, that is until far on in the 16th century". Even as late as the Salzburg Provincial Synod of 1569, we find indication of a strong tendency to prevent as far as possible the imposition of the death penalty in cases of reputed witchcraft, by insisting that these things were diabolical illusions. Still there can be no doubt that during the 14th century certain papal constitutions of John XXII and Benedict XII did very much to stimulate the prosecution by the inquisitors of witches and others engaged in magical practices, especially in the south of France. In a witch trial on a large scale carried on at Toulouse in 1334, out of sixty-three persons accused of offences of this kind, eight were handed over to the secular arm to be burned and the rest were imprisoned either for life or for a long term of years. Two of the condemned, both elderly women, after repeated application of torture, confessed that they had assisted at witches' sabbaths, had there worshipped the Devil, had been guilty of indecencies with him and with the other persons present, and had eaten the flesh of infants whom they had carried off by night from their nurses. In 1324 Petronilla de Midia was burnt at Kilkenny in Ireland at the instance of Richard, Bishop of Ossory; but analogous cases in the British Isles seem to have been very rare. During this period the secular courts proceeded against witchcraft with equal or even greater severity than the ecclesiastical tribunals, and here also torture was employed and burning at the stake. Fire was the punishment juridically appointed for this offence in the secular codes known as the "Sachsenspiegel" (1225) and the "Schwabenspiegel" (1275). Indeed during the 13th and 14th centuries no prosecutions for witchcraft are known to have been undertaken in Germany by the papal inquisitors. About the year 1400 we find wholesale witch-prosecutions being carried out at Bern in Switzerland by Peter de Gruyères, who was unquestionably a secular judge, and other campaigns - for example in the Valais (1428-1434) when 200 witches were put to death, or at Briancon in 1437 when over 150 suffered, some of them by drowning - were carried on by the secular courts. The victims of the inquisitors, e.g. at Heidelberg in 1447; or in Savoy in 1462, do not seem to have been quite so numerous. In France at this period the crime of witchcraft was frequently designated as "Vauderie" through some confusion seemingly with the followers of the heretic, Peter Waldes. But this confusion between sorcery and a particular form of heresy was unfortunately bound to bring a still larger number of persons under the jealous scrutiny of the inquisitors.

It will be readily understood from the foregoing that the importance attached by many older writers to the Bull, Summis desiderantes affectibus, of Pope Innocent VIII (1484), as though this papal document were responsible for the witch mania of the two succeeding centuries, is altogether illusory. Not only had an active campaign against most forms of sorcery already been going on for a long period, but in the matter of procedure, of punishments, of judges, etc., Innocent's Bull enacted nothing new. Its direct purport was simply to ratify the powers already conferred upon Henry Institoris and James Sprenger, inquisitors, to deal with persons of every class and with every form of crime (for example, with witchcraft as well as heresy), and it called upon the Bishop of Strasburg to lend the inquisitors all possible support.

Indirectly, however, by specifying the evil practices charged against the witches - for example their intercourse with incubi and succubi, their interference with the parturition of women and animals, the damage they did to cattle and the fruits of the earth, their power and malice in the infliction of pain and disease, the hindrance caused to men in their conjugal relations, and the witches' repudiation of the faith of their baptism - the pope must no doubt be considered to affirm the reality of these alleged phenomena. But "it is perfectly obvious that the Bull pronounces no dogmatic decision"; neither does the form suggest that the pope wishes to bind anyone to believe more about the reality of witchcraft than is involved in the utterances of Holy Scripture. Probably the most disastrous episode was the publication a year or two later, by the same inquisitors, of the book "Malleus Maleficarum" (the hammer of witches). This work is divided into three parts, the first two of which deal with the reality of witchcraft as established by the Bible, etc., as well as its nature and horrors and the manner of dealing with it, while the third lays down practical rules for procedure whether the trial be conducted in an ecclesiastical or a secular court. There can be no doubt that the book, owing to its reproduction by the printing press, exercised great influence. It contained, indeed, nothing that was new.

The "Formicaris" of John Nider, which had been written nearly fifty years earlier, exhibits just as intimate a knowledge of the supposed phenomena of sorcery. But the "Malleus" professed (in part fraudulently) to have been approved by the University of Cologne, and it was sensational in the stigma it attached to witchcraft as a worse crime than heresy and in its notable animus against the female sex. The subject at once began to attract attention even in the world of letters. Ulrich Molitoris a year or two later published a work, "De Lamiis", which, though disagreeing with the more extravagant of the representations made in the "Malleus", did not question the existence of witches. Other divines and popular preachers joined in the discussion, and, though many voices were raised on the side of common sense, the publicity thus given to these matters inflamed the popular imagination. Certainly the immediate effects of Innocent VIII's Bull have been greatly exaggerated. Institoris started a witch campaign at Innsbruck in 1485, but here his procedure was severely criticised and resisted by the Bishop of Brixen. So far as the papal inquisitors were concerned, the Bull, especially in Germany, heralded the close rather than the commencement of their activity. The witch-trials of the 16th and 17th centuries were for the most part in secular hands.

The Reformation

One fact which is absolutely certain is that, so far as Luther, Calvin, and their followers were concerned, the popular belief in the power of the Devil as exercised through witchcraft and other magic practices was developed beyond all measure. Naturally Luther did not appeal to the papal Bull. He looked only to the Bible, and it was in virtue of the Biblical command that he advocated the extermination of witches. But no portion of Janssen's History is more unanswerable than the fourth and fifth chapters of the last volume (vol. XVI of the English edition) in which he attributes a large, if not the greater, share of the responsibility for the witch mania to the Reformers.

The penal code known as the Carolina (1532) decreed that sorcery throughout the German empire should be treated as a criminal offence, and if it purported to inflict injury upon any person the witch was to be burnt at the stake. In 1572 Augustus of Saxony imposed the penalty of burning for witchcraft of every kind, including simple fortunetelling. On the whole, greater activity in hunting down witches was shown in the Protestant districts of Germany than in the Catholic provinces. In Osnabrück, in 1583, 121 persons were burned in three months. At Wolfenbüttel in 1593 as many as ten witches were often burned in one day. It was not until 1563 that any effective resistance to the persecution began to be offered. This came first from a Protestant of Cleues, John Weyer, and other protests were shortly afterwards published in the same sense by Ewich and Witekind. On the other hand, Jean Bodin, a French Protestant lawyer, replied to Weyer in 1580 with much asperity, and in 1589 the Catholic Bishop Binsfeld and Father Delrio, a Jesuit, wrote on the same side, though Delrio wished to mitigate the severity of the witch trials and denounced the excessive use of torture. Bodin's book was answered amongst others by the Englishman Reginald Scott in his Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), but this answer was ordered to be burned by James I, who replied to it in his Daemonologie.

Perhaps the most effective protest on the side of humanity and enlightenment was offered by the Jesuit Friedrich von Spee, who in 1631 published his Cautio criminalis and who fought against the craze by every means in his power. This cruel persecution seems to have extended to all parts of the world. In the 16th century there were cases in which witches were condemned by lay tribunals and burned in the immediate neighbourhood of Rome. Pope Gregory XV, however, in his Constitution, "omnipotentis" (1623), recommended a milder procedure, and in 1657 an Instruction of the Inquisition brought effective remonstrances to bear upon the cruelty shown in these prosecutions.

England and Scotland, of course, were by no means exempt from the same epidemic of cruelty, though witches were not usually burned. As to the number of executions in Great Britain it seems impossible to form any safe estimate. One statement declares that 30,000, another that 3000, were hanged in England during the rule of the Parliament. Stearne the witchfinder boasted that he personally knew of 200 executions. Howell, writing in 1648, says that within the compass of two years near upon 300 witches were arraigned, and the major part executed, in Essex and Suffolk only. In Scotland there is the same lack of statistics. A careful article by Legge in the "Scottish Review" (Oct., 1891) estimates that during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries "3400 persons perished". For a small population such as that of Scotland, this number is enormous, but many authorities, though confessedly only guessing, have given a much higher estimate. Even America was not exempt from this plague. The well-known Cotton Mather, in his "Wonders of the Invisible World" (1693), gives an account of 19 executions of witches in New England, where one poor creature was pressed to death. New England was the site of the Salem witch trials in 1692.

In modern times, considerable attention has been given to the subject by Hexham and others. At the end of the 17th century the persecution almost everywhere began to slacken, and early in the 18th it practically ceased. Torture was abolished in Prussia in 1754, in Bavaria in 1807, in Hanover in 1822. The last trial for witchcraft in Germany was in 1749 at Würzburg, but in Switzerland a girl was executed for this offence in the Protestant Canton of Glarus in 1783. There seems to be no evidence to support the allegation sometimes made that women suspected of witchcraft were formally tried and put to death in Mexico late in the 19th century.

The question of the reality of witchcraft is one upon which it is not easy to pass a confident judgment. In the face of Holy Scripture and the teaching of the Fathers and theologians the abstract possibility of a pact with the Devil and of a diabolical interference in human affairs can hardly be denied, but no one can read the literature of the subject without realizing the awful cruelties to which this belief and without being convinced that in 99 cases out of 100 the allegations rest upon nothing better than pure delusion. The most bewildering circumstance is the fact that in a large number of witch prosecutions the confessions of the victims, often involving all kinds of satanistic horrors, have been made spontaneously and apparently without threat or fear of torture. Also the full admission of guilt seems constantly to have been confirmed on the scaffold when the poor suffered had nothing to gain or lose by the confession. One can only record the fact as a psychological problem, and point out that the same tendency seems to manifest itself in other similar cases. The most remarkable instance, perhaps, is one mentioned by St. Agobard in the 9th century. A certain Grimaldus, Duke of Beneventum, was accused, in the panic engendered by a plague that was destroying all the cattle, of sending men out with poisoned dust to spread infection among the flocks and herds. These men, when arrested and questioned, persisted, says Agobard, in affirming their guilt, though the absurdity was patent.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

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More references please

There are so many contradicting opionions on this subject that I don't know what to believe. This article is just one of many opinions for me unless it provides more references to back up its claims. Thanks in advance.Andries 09:07, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

A good place to start would be citations to support this statement:

"Recent research on the matter calls into question the very existence of alleged 'pagan survivals' and 'backlash against herbalists'."

What recent research?

Burning times

Can somebody please merge or rewrite burning times? Thanks in advance. Andries 09:07, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, I merged and edited it. Unfortunatley, someone deleted it without explanation, but I already fixed it. Slugokramer 23:40, 29 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Myths refuted

At the following website I found a good summary:http://www.religioustolerance.org/wic_burn.htm

• The total number of victims was probably between 50,000 and 100,000 -- not 9 million as many believe.
• Although alleged witches were burned alive or hung over a five century interval -- from the 14th to the 18th century -- the vast majority were tried from 1550 to 1650.
• Some of the victims worshiped Pagan deities, and thus could be considered to be indirectly linked to today's Neopagans. However most apparently did not.
• Some of the victims were midwives and native healers; however most were not.
• Most of the victims were tried executed by local, community courts, not by the Church.
• A substantial minority of victims -- about 25% -- were male.
• Many countries in Europe largely escaped the burning times: Ireland executed only four "Witches;" Russia only ten. The craze affected mostly Switzerland, Germany and France.
• Eastern Orthodox countries had few Witch trials. "In parts of the Orthodox East, at least, witch hunts such as those experienced in other parts of Europe were unknown...."The Orthodox Church is strongly critical of sorcerers (among whom it includes palmists, fortune tellers and astrologers), but has not generally seen the remedy in accusations, trials and secular penalties, but rather in confession and repentance, and exorcism if necessary...."
• Most of the deaths seem to have taken place in Western Europe in the times and areas where Protestant - Roman Catholic conflict -- and thus social turmoil -- was at its maximum.

If the "Inquisition" and the "Catholic Church" are mentioned why not in perspective? The great majority of trials and executions were carried out by local secular governments in Europe. The fact is, with the exception of German areas, rarely in Catholic areas were there witches trials.

IIRC, Spanish Inquisition had very few witch-trials with diverse outcome, and the most important (the so-called Zugarramundi trial) ended up resulting, sometime into the 1620's, in a general and definitive statement that witches where 'poor souls', which ended any witchcraft derived persecution. Interested parties can read Kamen's book on Inquisition and Caro Baroja's works (my sources from memory) --Wllacer 10:37, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Also, because of the liberalization of the guilds, competition put many midwifes at odds with each other, many of whom accused the competition of witchcraft, knowing full well what the local authorities would do. In fact, a large number of accusers were woman. 20-25% of all executed were men. Local people and local governments were eager to grab the spoils (i.e. property) of the rich. Since women generally outlived men, they were often victims, meaning accusations were not directed against women as such. Another fact involves the inflation of numbers of witchcraft trials in Europe. Among others, the Nazis had a special research team working on the subject in order to discredit the Catholic Church and even Jews. The Nazis also invented the idea that ths was a "war" against (Aryan) woman. As opposed to Michael Moore's theory of paranoia in the the Colonies (USA), no witches were burned at the stake in all of North America (or in Catholic colonial South America by Europeans). There was only one trial with consequences in all of North America, in Salem. On the contrary, paranoia was widespread in German principalities, with local governments carrying out brutal campaigns in a series of witch trials.

If a man or women was brought to trial, her chances of surviving the ordeal was much greater if the court was the Catholic Inquisition or Protestant, than before a local secular court, which rarely showed compassion. WhyerdWhyerd 19:47, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I would like to see the midwife reference removed from this article, 20 years ago it was popular historical belief that midwives were targeted but more recent research has proven that if anything they were under represented proportionaly out of witch hunt victems. The antiquated beleif that the entirly female domain of child birthing caused fear in the established male powers that be (or should that be were?)but it turns out that midwies actualy played a useful role in society (fancy that) and were unlikly to be acused of even white witch craft. I agree that the spanish inquesition played a truely minor role in witch hunting for several reasons:

• The Inquesition was self financing and therefor had a vested interest in accusing the realativly wealthy (jewish conversados) but little to gain by trying the mostly poor victems of witch hunts.
• Despite being a draconian and cruel institution the spanish inquesition saw its self as abiding by a high standard of legal profesionalism, many of the practices used in witch hunts elsewere relief in witch craft as being a crimen exeptum and used that as a justification to lower legal standards e.g. admitin the testimony of women, childeren, convicted criminals, and interested parties. In short they had now problem with the torturing aspect but had some legal principles.

--Gordon

Green wood

There's no talk about green wood (moss wood) --Cyberman 08:33, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The reason why added my contribution about southwestern Germany is due to the lack of discussion on wikipedia concerning the topic. In many ways I know it lacks information in areas including writings, pesant opinion , religious beliefs....However my intention was to provide the number of actual executions from 1561-1684. Also I wanted to provide some of the most important scholarly debated theories on why the witch-hunts occured. I used Midelfort for most of my data and found his book on witch-hunting to be very well constructed. This is only a very brief post on a very wide subject.BlantonC 19:39, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

"Deprogramming as witchhunt" to be removed?

I would like to see the section "Deprogramming as a witchhunt" removed. First of all, I fail to see what information it has relevant to the article. There are no references, or source for information. The issues of deprogramming are already covered elsewhere on the wikipedia. The article already states the metaphorical use of the word "witch-hunt". Do we need a section for every metaphorical use of the word anyone ever uses? Samrolken 12:30, 30 Sep 2004 (UTC)

I think there should be one section on the metaphorical use of "witch hunt" to describe what the applier of the term perceives as, or claims to perceive as, a hysteria-driven persecution like the literal witch-hunts. It can there be noted that Senator McCarthy's campaign to root out Communism in the 1950's was widely considered a witch-hunt (a connection strengthened by Arthur Miller's The Crucible), and that the day-care-abuse/Satanic panic of the 1980s was also widely considered a witch-hunt, especially as many of the allegations were in fact of Satanic/ritual activity. We can then note that anyone can claim anything to be a witch-hunt, with or without supporting evidence, and that some claim deprogramming to have been one of those witch-hunts, and link to deprogramming where both sides can have their say. -- Antaeus Feldspar 20:33, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I second this. The references to all the possible uses of the term "witch hunt" is very "un-encyclopedic." It just seems like an additional (and unnecessary) area for various people with axes to grind. Marcrios 22:18, 2 February 2006 (UTC)

an interesting phenomenon is occuring within wikipedia, most visible in the 'witchhunt' talk page. the attempt to rewrite the meaning of the term 'witchhunt' to give it a sense of 'common understanding' that it describes 'moral hysteria', and then, errors in the execution of legal matters. I have noticed a subscriber going about and planting 'witchhunt' phrases in many texts on wikipedia. Their work concentrates on the Kenja Communication Group, and there they begin using the phrase. But it has been injected by them into many pages where injustice and error has been made. They are linking up historical injustices with thier predicament by secreting this phrase into various sections with relevance. they seem to want to expand the meaning of 'witchhunt' to include "accusations of pedophilia". they are fast tracking the 'uptake' of thier idea by publishing it on this site, and will then be downloading and tendering it to various proffesionals and academics as fact, further intensifying the meaning. The following link has been secreted as well. http://www.misuseofchildmolestationcharges.info/Web_Links-req-viewlink-cid-2.phtml this is described as an independant report but the author is a known member of the group, Kenja Communication. She has frequented the groups social activities, and worked for the group in thier previous court cases.

this is a new and unforseen development within wikipedia, and I think we should be concerned that such a large scale misrepresentation can be engineered on this site.

at its most innocent, this amounts to a fraud. But it is also verging on criminal activity as the perpertators are knowingly interfering with facts to later recall them as 'evidence', to support thier claims.

they hope there will seem to be a universal agreement that the term 'witchhunt' includes thier predicament.

the same subscriber seems to be asking for Mr Ken Dyers, the leader of the group, to be excluded from the 'list of indicted religous and spiritual leaders' by innocuously suggesting he shouldn't be grouped in with 'murderers and rapists'. However, this trivialises the 22 charges of aggravated sexuall molestation which Mr Dyers is charged with.

something is not quite right with all of this.Legalist 10:49, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you are talking about but witch-hunt also has that meaning:

1 : a searching out for persecution of persons accused of witchcraft

2 : the searching out and deliberate harassment of those (as political opponents) with unpopular views

(from Merriam-Webster online) --Sugaar 11:59, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

It seems they want to include 'allegations of sexuall harrasment' by young girls as a contemporary 'witchhunt' scenario. presumably, this would make the young girls seem to be part of a bigger community 'witchhunt', with the attendant 'moral hysteria' and legal injustice. However, it seems as though there is no hysteria or injustice. just a run of the mill sexual harrasment case. The 'witchhunt' thing looks like a beat up, to create a 'historially viable sense of injustice'. They are removing the meaning from religous and political spheres, and attaching it to sexual harrasment cases, where they are personally involved. There is little objectivity. To me, this smacks of a clever little PR campaign.Legalist 04:47, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

I wouldn't interpret this as an attempt to change the English language so much as an attempt to sway people's opinions regarding that group. "Witch-hunt" is a term with strong connotations, and as such shouldn't appear in Wikipedia articles except when quoting the opinions of reputable sources (or of course when talking about actual literal witch hunts). The Wikipedia policy which most directly covers this is "Neutral point of view". Fuzzypeg☻ 07:23, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Obviously allegations of sexual harassment are not considered witch hunts by almost anyone but regular criminal cases. Maybe some particular case can have that connotation, I can't say for sure, but it's obvious that whoever is promoting that is trying to POV the article.

I agree with Fuzzypeg that, apart of the historical/anthropological meaning, and a few also historical and well documented cases such as McCarthyism, the term is likely to be POV and should be very well documented for each case.

Contemporary conflicts should not fall in this cathegory, unless you are quoting someone's claims of being victim of a withc hunt, what is NPOV.

In any case the article should only deal with its main historical/anthropological literal meaning and mention, as a section, the possible other uses the term may have. I find fully justified the inclusion of McCarthyism and Geroge Orwell's first usage of it (though it should be edited as Orwell explictly talks of witch hunt against Troskists by Stalinists, not of general political persecutions).

The other cases may justify a mention of witch hunt allegations in their respective articles but it can't become a list of current affairs that allegedly are witch hunts. If that's tolerated, I could for instance add some much more clear cases, like the political trials of radical Basque nationalists and other people, groups and companies compromised with Basque culture since 1998, that has been repeatedly denounced as witch hunt. But I realize perfectly it adds nothing to this article and, if needed mention, must be in the correponding articles.

As I think there's clear consensus, I'm removing the dubious subsection. --Sugaar 08:32, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

section removed which connects 'witchhunts' to current dilema faced by Australian Cult. Article purporting to be independant has been published by associate of the Cult.Legalist 00:30, 21 November 2006 (UTC)

Sorry I didn't realise everyone was talking about me... I put the links to the Report in because I thought it sounded relevant and independent, etc ... if you have any proof that is not independent I am happy to accept that.

however I would like to raise the question of bias... if it can be said that i was biased in adding that reference, how do i know you are not biased in saying that i am biased? i am sorry if thats a little confusing but i hope you can see what i mean...

if i find an independent report that says something is a witch hunt (leaving aside the issue of whether it should be on this page, and i have to agree the connection seems tenuous), on what authority does Legalist say that it's not a witch hunt etc, and that its being used to sway opionions etc, when perhaps its the truth? just because something seems unusual, does not mean it can't happen...

i also have to object to being called a 'fraud' and 'criminal' for trying to contribute to Wikipedia by making it logical, unbiased, etc... axe to grind, Legalist? that's pretty extreme language for a community-edited resource...

MBarry 05:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Ick

Why are there two external links sections, one coming in the middle of the page? Either this is a battlefield in the aftermath of an edit war, or the victim of an unhappy merge (or at least these are the explanations I can envision). I am hesitant to plunge in and start "fixing" things for fear of stepping on toes (or being turned into a newt...never mind the likelihood of successful recovery). Can anyone help me figure out what went wrong here? Jwrosenzweig 17:49, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I personally dont see why there is the with daycare there - is it really needed? I think the article could do without it but since someone put it there for a reason I will leave it there.--Banana.girl 08:05, 6 February 2006 (UTC)Bananagirl

Yeah...

The Democrats were heathen to call the rightful judgement of Bill Clinton such. Such was heathen and not at all what anyone who does not worship the Side of Slavery would believe.

That was in the political section. I did a triple-take before I realized what it was actually saying. Nixed. --Thetoastman 00:00, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Sociology

I removed the following section. I tried to improve it, but could not make enough sense of it. My concerns are that none of it is sourced, the phrase yet none of these have ever been considered "witchcraft". seems so absolute that it can't be correct, and the "Folkways"... sentence is also vague and unsourced. Also should it be in Sociology section?

It is often written that many accused witches were women who were practitioners of herbalism, natural healing or midwifery, yet none of these have ever been considered "witchcraft". Midwifery, folk healing and herblore were common features of rural areas into the twentieth century. "Folkways" are not necessarily "witchcraft".

Ashmoo 00:36, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

Verifiability of the article in general

I think this article needs a major overall. The subject of witch-hunts provokes different reactions is different people, and their are a lot of different beliefs as to what actually happened during the European witch-hunts. As such, I think we need to start strictly insisting on sources. Even respected scholars disagree on the causes and extent of the witch hunts, so I think we need to include the names of the scholars with the cites. Ashmoo 04:20, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Disambaguation Page

Hello. I'm a Wikipedian concerned with the gaming Warhammer 40,000 part of Wikipedia.

There is an article titled "Witch Hunters" that is part of this. I am unable to make a disambaguation page myself, I feel that the Witch Hunters page should not stand alone for Warhammer 40,000 or rightly ought to revert here (as the Witch Hunters I am concerned with are purely fictional, as this is not).

Thanks. Colonel Marksman 21:04, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

You should add a line on top of that article reading: This article deals with the concept of Witch Hunters in the context of the Warhammer game series. For classical witch hunters see Witch-hunt --Sugaar 12:02, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Evidence: Jenny Gibbons' quote

I'm not sure what the quote is intended to demonstrate, however I wanted to point out that some of Gibbons' claims have been argued against rather well by Max Dashu: Another view of the witch hunts - a response to Jenny Gibbons. As it stands, I'm not quite sure what the quote is meant to demonstrate, which indicates this should be worded in the article. Lenience from the Church? I think Dashu had something to say about this. Unfortunately I've got to rush off, so I can't refresh myself on this right now... Fuzzypeg☻ 06:06, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Though Max Dashu makes some fine points (if they are factually accurate), on a first glance I've found some worrying symptoms. E.g. she claims "How 'lenient' the methods of the Roman Inquisition had been can be gauged from a document attempting to reform witch trial procedure as late as 1623". Doesn't she know the Roman Inquisition was founded in 1588? Or " Lea can be excused for including the Lamothe-Langon fabrications" but these fabrications were included mainly and insistently by Joseph Hansen (I don't know if Lea makes a mention on them, but Gibbons clearly speaks of Hansen). Or "The assumption that "trial records addressed the full range of trials " is seriously flawed. In country after country, specialists note that trial records only began to be kept after a certain time -- before that, there is little or nothing. " but Gibbons talks of something else: "trial records addressed the full range of trials, not just the most lurid and sensational ones". She doesn't argue for having a complete list of records, but for an indiscriminate track of records. Apparent ignorance (if not some unfortunate mistakes) and blatant straw men clearly do not recommend Max Dashu's analysis as being "rather well argued". Daizus 21:34, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

And here is Jenny Gibbons' response: http://chass.colostate-pueblo.edu/natrel/pom/old/POM10a4.html Daizus 22:21, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

Right. Dashu names the Roman Inquisition but seems to intend the earlier inquisitions as well. A minor slip of the tongue I guess, and doesn't detract from her point... When she mentions Lea's inclusion of the Lamothe-Langon fabrications her point is that Lea and Hansen don't rely on these fabrications alone, and included other solid evidence of early inquisitorial hunts in Italy, France and Rhineland. I haven't read either Lea or Hansen, but perhaps she focusses on Lea because (as you say) he was less insistent on the fabrications and had a greater balance of factual evidence? Who knows? I don't understand why this statement would strike you as suspicious. And Dashu's argument that there were many trials well before Gibbons' estimates begin seems reasonable, as do her other points.

The one instance of Dashu's "ignorance" you've mentioned, talking about the Roman Inquisition when she probably means Catholic inquisitions in general, strikes me as being no more than a slip of the tongue, since the rest of her writing indicates a detailed knowledge of the history and literature she writes about. I haven't noticed any "straw men", and I'd be keen for you to point them out...

I don't know all this history back to front, so I can't pass final judgement on anything, but I note that Gibbons seems to misunderstand or misrepresent Dashu on a couple of points in her response. Dashu doesn't say that the authors of trial records are 'liars', for instance; her point is that the whole diabolical witch stereotype within which the trials operated was a fantasy. This was actually a minor point that Dashu was making, and Gibbons' disproportionately sized (and not particularly relevant) response to this makes me wish she had devoted more space to addressing Dashu's more major concerns. Elsewhere Gibbons writes off Dashu's gender discussion as boiling down to 'witch hunting is woman hunting', an unfair oversimplification.

I am struck by the fact that Dashu was able to respond quickly to Gibbons' initial article, producing a highly coherent argument drawing on a large amount of literature; Gibbons' response to Dashu on the other hand largely just restates her original position. On balance none of this makes Dashu look ignorant!

These articles have been removed from their old site now, so for convenience I provide the following archive links:

• Gibbons' article
• Dashu's response to Gibbons
• Gibbons' response to Dashu

Cheers, Fuzzypeg☻ 04:01, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Double negative

This may sound like nit-picking, but it really needs clarifying. The sentence, "Today it is not believed that most of the accused never regarded themselves as witches", contains a double negative that is either unintentional (as I believe) or extremely confusing. Can someone determine whether most of these accused did or did not regard themselves as witches, and emend the sentence accordingly. Thanks --King Hildebrand 10:10, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Fixed. Most of the accused didn't consider themselves to be witches. Thanks! Fuzzypeg☻ 06:56, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

Number of deaths due to religious persecution

I added a fact tag to it is estimated some 3 000 000 people has been killed because of heresy in the Medieval and Early Modern Europe. What's the source of this claim? Gugganij 20:34, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the whole paragraph (copied below) should be removed, despite some interesting additions recently made by User:Sadakat.

1. This is not an article about heresy or the inquisitions.
2. The "estimate" of 3 000 000 is simply wrong, for example: the current estimated death toll of the most infamous of the inquisitions, the Spanish Inquisition, is between 3 000 and 5 000.
3. Where are the references, anyway?

The number of witch hunt victims may well be dwarfed by the toll of those accused of or executed for heresy. It is impossible to make definitive statements about this, however, since an unknown number of court records have been destroyed and many thousands of others remain under lock and key in the Vatican. It has been asserted that as many as 3 000 000 people were killed for heresy during the medieval and early modern periods, though the judicial executions actually verifiable by documents or reliable contemporary accounts are in the order of the low thousands. It should always be remembered that the crime of heresy was created by the papal inquisition, which was always more concerned to hold its flock together than to annihilate it - and though it became a political tool useful to religious zealots of all hues, the general aim remained to coerce sinners towards repentance rather than to kill them. The significance of heresy in European history was vast, nevertheless, and the intolerant policies of the continent's established churches, both Protestant and Catholic, was a major cause of emigration to America during the 17th and 18th centuries.

--Leinad ¬ »saudações! 16:47, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm writing to take issue with the two items under "Deaths." Issue I-- the last paragraph reads,

"Assuming 40,000 executions over 250 years in Europe, which had a population of approximately 150 million at the time with a life expectancy of ca. 40 years, we get roughly one execution for witchcraft per 25,000 deaths, ranking about 3.5 times higher as cause of death than death by capital punishment (for any offense) in the USA in the late 20th century,[14] or roughly 5 times lower than death by capital punishment in the People's Republic of China.[15]"

The population figures quoted for this analysis appear to be in considerable conflict with those cited in the article "Medieval demography," http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_demography That article currently states that the peak population of Europe before the Black Death was estimated at between 70 and 100 million people, and that these levels were not seen again for several centuries.

Next, I think the above paragraph sounds somewhat NPOV, as the criticism of China (and I am no fan of China's human rights record) seems out of place.

Issue II--The number of deaths given for Spain appear to conflict with those in the Spanish Inquisition article, which estimated total deaths for the Inquisition at between 3,000 and 5,000, although it is not stated how many of these people were killed as witches. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_inquisition Nonetheless, it seems highly improbable that 50 or fewer people were executed in Spain during a period where thousands were executed elsewhere in Europe. Thanks and have a good day,

      --ThaneofFife  —Preceding unsigned comment added by ThaneofFife (talk • contribs) 21:49, 18 September 2007 (UTC) 

re: modern witch hunts

I think these are important; they definitely should be included, including the religious deprogramming part. It shows how the idea of a witch hunt evolved over time... once the hysteria and persecution was mainly about the use of magic, sorcery or whatever. Today it's obvious that this hysteria can be generated by child molestation claims as well as religious or political beliefs... Can we extend it to have more sections about political witch hunts, etc? Also will see what I can do about the mediaeval section as i have some good material... MBarry 04:59, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

If you have detailed information on metaphorical "witch hunts" such as McCarthyism or religious deprogramming you might also consider including it in the appropriate articles. In a situation like this, as long as these tangential subjects are clearly mentioned in this article, it is normal to give only minimal information here and leave more detailed information for their main articles. The idea is to give the reader a good summary without overburdening them with details they may not be looking for, but allow them to expand on any detail they wish by following a link.

What I would like to see explored more in this article is the repeated accusations of malevolent occult activity that have been levelled at various groups across two millennia. Remarkably similar accusations (sexual depravity, poisoning, eating babies, attacking men's fertility, etc.) were raised against the Bacchic revellers in Rome (see Max Dashu's Secret History of the Witches, chapter "Early Roman Persecutions"), and against lepers and Jews in the middle ages (see Carlo Ginzburg's Ecstasies: Deciphering the Witches' Sabbath). These themes are incredibly persistent and have in modern times reappeared with Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria. Fuzzypeg☻ 21:59, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

In the article there are currently some rather odd statements about the accused who, according to soviet records, turned out to in fact be communists. One sentence mentions "communist infiltrators". What does this mean? The article seems to be implying that in the case of these confirmed communists the prejudice was justified. How come? Were these "communists" spies and saboteurs for the USSR? Traitors to their country? I might be wrong, but that would seem rather far-fetched to me. If this is the case it needs clarifying.

Now if a citizen believes in communism as a better political system, they should be allowed to hold that belief and even promote it to others. That's one of the fundamental rights that's supposed to be protected within a democracy, and one of the fundamentals of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Each person should be able to hold their own political beliefs and not be persecuted for them.

The problem with McCarthyism is not that it ruined so many non-Communists, but that it made a mockery of Democratic freedoms and civil rights, and victimised people for crimes of conscience. Even if all the people it ruined had turned out to be Communist sympathisers, that would not have excused it one bit. Fuzzypeg☻ 02:42, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Fully agree with you, Fuzzypeg. The paragraph is actually pro-witch-hunt or otherwise POV anti-communist and must be rewritten. --Sugaar 08:32, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Where is the mention of the atrocities committed in North America? Specific mention? This seems like it should be mentioned here. poopsix 08:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

re: mathew hopkins

Just a small correction: East Anglia is a region not a county of England (it roughly comprises the counties of Norfolk, Suffolk, Essex, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire)130.237.175.198 12:19, 7 December 2006 (UTC)

Community ban of the Joan of Arc vandal

This article has been targeted in recent weeks by CC80, a sockpuppet of the Joan of Arc vandal. This and similar articles may be targeted again by other sockpuppets of the same person.

A vandal who has damaged Wikipedia's Catholicism, Christianity, cross-dressing, and homosexuality articles for over two years has been identified and community banned. This person will probably attempt to continue disruption on sockpuppet accounts. Please be alert for suspicious activity. Due to the complexity of this unusual case, the best place to report additional suspicious activity is probably to my user talk page because I was the primary investigating administrator. Durova^Charge! 17:17, 17 December 2006 (UTC) (talk) 14:52, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Germany

As the new post under Germany is intresting, it fails in many aspects to fall under the heading of southwestern Germany. In response to the post I have listed Diane Purkiss who dsiputes the importance of midwives. BlantonC 01:06, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia

there executing (or have exectuded recently) an illeterate women for wich craft, think we should have a section for modern day witch hunts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.230.64.225

merge?

a lot of material is duplicated between this article and witch trial. The articles should be merged, or their respective scopes delineated more cleanly. dab (𒁳) 11:10, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

Neopaganism and Wicca

I've put a "citation needed" after the bold comment below under this section:

The term "the burning times" was a term used by the Wiccan Gerald Gardner in 1954[34] as a reference to the European and North American witch trials. Gardner claimed Wicca was an ancient religion; the "burning times" were its period of greatest persecution, and a major reason for the secrecy maintained within the religion ever since.

Given that Gardner essentially created the Wiccan religion only last century, it seems unlikely he would claim it to be ancient -- more likely that he had revived elements of an 'Old Religion'.--Adzze 11:15, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

see Gardnerian Wicca, Witchcraft Today (the 1954 reference). Yes, he claimed to have discovered surviving remnants of an ancient religious tradition. dab (𒁳) 11:28, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Also, the claim that Gardner "created" the Wiccan religion is by no means proven, and some, such as me, would claim there is compelling evidence to the contrary. See, for example, New Forest coven for more info. It is indeed known (and admitted by Gardner) that he augmented their fragmentary rituals with other material, but "created" is another matter. Fuzzypeg☻ 23:25, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

this is completely beside the point in this article. Gardner may or may not have met a few old women who thought they were witches, but he established "Wicca", a current that had not existed before, New Forest coven or no New Forest coven. This is amply discussed on the articles linked. We are here just mentioning Gardner for being the person who coined the term "the Burning Times". dab (𒁳) 09:33, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Indeed beside the point of the article. However if something comes up on a discussion page that seems clearly wrong, I will try to correct it. This is after all the discussion forum for a scholarly project (the encyclopedia), and all conversations should be tempered by care and honest inquiry. So on that basis, I wouldn't jump to the conclusion that "a few old women who thought they were witches" (oh, and they weren't all women) were incapable of creating a "current". Do you have some information I don't, as to how the practices of these hypothesised pioneers differed from that of modern Wiccans? Is it any less true to say that all modern Wiccans are just a bunch of "old women who think they're witches"? You're normally more courteous than this, and a pleasure to work with, giving cogent arguments rather than resorting to sarcasm. Fuzzypeg☻ 00:54, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

You are of course more than welcome to provide contrary scholarly evidence to that cited in Wicca. --Adzze 03:07, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

why are we having this discussion? You objected to a slightly awkward formulation in the article, we have corrected it, case closed. I have no interest in debating the origins of Wicca, and I am in no dispute with you over the content of Wicca, Gardnerian Wicca or Dorothy Clutterbuck; if I should feel the urge to change anything in these articles, I will address the issue on their respective talkpages. dab (𒁳) 13:16, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Please re-read my above comment: "Indeed it is beside the point of the article". My point is not to discuss the history of Wicca, but to indicate that I feel mildly insulted at being told my comments are unwelcome, in such a sarcastic manner. Instead of being conciliatory, you now say you have no idea what I'm on about, while Adzze, by stating the obvious, hints that my presence in this conversation is unwelcome. Now do you understand why we're having this discussion? I'll leave it at that, but if you want to apologise, please do so on my talk page, so we don't drag this out any further. Fuzzypeg☻ 20:23, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Do not put words into my mouth, FuzzyPeg; I meant exactly what I said, no more, no less ("assume good faith"). And dab, my previous entry was directed to FP, not you.--Adzze 22:28, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

no problem, I apologize for the sarcasm, and I cannot see any factual disagreement here. dab (𒁳) 09:50, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I. P. Culianu

I've contributed in the article with information I've read from a transcript of the "Hiram Thomas" conference Culianu kept at Chicago University on 5th and 8th of May 1986, "The Witch and the Trickstress in Dire Straits". Fuzzypeg asked me to source this. I am not sure how to do it. Here's the thing:

I don't know if there's any publication just with the text of the first part of the conference (with the subtitle: "I. The Witch: who did the hunting and who put an end to it?"). I've read it not in English but in Romanian, in a translation from English made by Cornelia Popescu, included in two volumes: 1) a Romanian volume of studies edited by Sorin and Mona Antohi - "Jocurile Minţii" published at Polirom in 2002, pp. 191-219 and 2) in the Romanian edition of "Éros et Magie à la Renaissance. 1484" - "Eros şi Magie în Renaştere. 1484" published also at Polirom in 2003. The Romanian edition was coordinated by Tereza Culianu-Petrescu, his sister. The text of the conference is not presented neither in the Italian (1987) nor in the English edition (1987). As Culianu himself records in the foreword of the English edition: since 1982 (when he prepared the French edition) his opinions on witch-hunt had changed, he communicated them at Chicago in May 1986 but it was impossible for him to finish the manuscript for the 1987 editions and he wished that text to be included as a separate chapter. In the Romanian edition I have the text is included as Annex XII, pp. 348-369. The text is said to be retrieved from Culianu family's archive. Daizus 09:08, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

I suggest that some of these details are also stated by Jenny Gibbons, so we can use her as the reference for those. We can include references to publications in foreign languages such as Romanian, but if English sources exist for the same ideas we should where possible include these instead, so our readers can easily follow the research.

I'm trying to figure out how the citation should look:

Culianu, I. P. "The Witch and the Trickstress in Dire Straits"; conference held at Chicago University 1986-05-05, transcribed in (in Romanian) Antohi, Sorin & Antohi, Mona (eds.), Popescu, Cornelia (transl.) (2002). Jocurile Minţii. Polirom:???Publishing house???; pp. 191-219.

Does that look right? I don't think we need to include both Romanian sources for the same information. Fuzzypeg☻ 02:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Though AFAIK Polirom only addresses Romanian market, I think "Publishing House" is a clarifying addition for the English reader. Searching on Google on "Polirom Publishing House" gives the site of this publishing house plus many other valid references to it. Also the conference was in two parts, I'll add the subtitle for part 1, too.

As for Jenny Gibbons, yes, their view is similar. However, before I added Culianu there was an unjustified emphasis on Switzerland (and from what I've read even Gibbons doesn't place this emphasis), and Culianu furthermore strengthens the image of a wider area of the major witchcraze focus in Reformation Europe, roughly from northern Italy to Low countries, following the Rhine valley. Also there was a {cn} tag for England and Spain's rare trials, and I found in Culianu the position, the justification and also shreds of evidence. If anyone can find in Gibbons or in some other reference furthermore support for a map of trials density or why the map looks as it looks, I will not attempt to push this reference over others which state the same thing. Daizus 05:52, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

20:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)20:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)~~ ~~ 81.151.137.115 20:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC) ~~ 20:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)~ 20:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)~

Do not split to early modern

There is a tag in the article to discuss the split of the early modern witchtrials to another article. I can not find it here in the talk page. I can not find the text "early modern w" when I search here. So instead I put my 2 cents in this separate section.

The early modern witch hunts is the main story. It makes no sense to split it off from this article. DanielDemaret 07:01, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

If there's no discussion explaining the proposed split then I'll remove the tag. Fuzzypeg☻ 21:14, 26 April 2007 (UTC)

Male chauvinism?

I removed the following section from the article:

Expression of Male Chauvinism

In various places and contexts, men have used the term "Witch" against women who were seen as assertive or threatening. For example, German soldiers in the Second World War bestowed the nickname Night Witches (Nachthexen in German, Ночные Ведьмы in Russian) on the all-woman unit of the Soviet Air Force which staged raids on their camps (the name was later taken on with the pride by the women concerned themselves). In several of his speeches, Slobodan Milosevic used the term "witches" in reference to members of the Women in Black movement who opposed his rule and his nationalistic policies.

Firstly, this is in an inappropriate article. This article is about witch hunts, not about euphemistic use of the term "witch". Look in Witch (disambiguation) to find a more appropriate place. Secondly, it is expressed with a very sexist bias, implying that it is only ever men who employ the term (wrong), and that it is always an expression of male chauvinism (highly debatable). Pejorative does not necessarily equate to chauvinist! Cheers, Fuzzypeg☻ 02:58, 8 May 2007 (UTC)

Mary Hicks

The link to the 'last executed witch' Mary Hicks links to some modern day professor. :nods: I'd write up a stub, but I don't think 'Last executed witch' really cuts it, so I'll just raise the isue and leave it to someone more knowledgable. And also I think the 'witch' is more notable then the person it currently links to. Kurek 15:19, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I've unlinked it, rather than changing the link name, since I'm not sure whether an article is warranted for her. If someone feels it is, they can relink it to whatever they call her article (Mary Hicks (accused witch) or something like that). Fuzzypeg☻ 21:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

"Satanic Ritual Abuse" section

If the article contains a section on McCarthyism, it must have a section about claimed satanic ritual abuse (SRA) of children in day care centers in California in the 1980s and 1990s. The harm done by labeling others evil in the SRA craze was considerable. The SRA craze was exported to Europe and Australia.

David Frankfurter, professor of religious studies and history at the University of New Hampshire, wrote the 2006 book Evil Incarnate.

Book Description from Amazon Books: [1]

“ In the 1980s, America was gripped by widespread panics about Satanic cults. Conspiracy theories abounded about groups who were allegedly abusing children in day-care centers, impregnating girls for infant sacrifice, brainwashing adults, and even controlling the highest levels of government. As historian of religions David Frankfurter listened to these sinister theories, it occurred to him how strikingly similar they were to those that swept parts of the early Christian world, early modern Europe, and postcolonial Africa. He began to investigate the social and psychological patterns that give rise to these myths. Thus was born Evil Incarnate, a riveting analysis of the mythology of evil conspiracy. [...].Thus, he maintains, panics over modern-day infant sacrifice are really not so different from rumors about early Christians engaging in infant feasts during the second and third centuries in Rome. ”

—Cesar Tort 23:39, 7 July 2007 (UTC)

Torsaker Witch Trials

For some reason, in the links section, the Torsaker Witch Trials keeps getting put there. This is the second time I've removed the copy, who's conthinuing to deliberately put it in there? Jjmckool 18:45, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

Sources

I'm not going to engage in a discussion about this, since I'm sure there are a lot of Wiccan activists around here; but I don't think Wiccans and generally people who spell "magic" with "k" should count as reliable sources for scholarly issues. In the case of Jenny Gibbons, she seems to summarize scholarly literature, which is good, and yet it would be preferable to have a summary of scholarly literature written by a scholar and not by a neo-pagan author. --91.148.159.4 12:28, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

If you're not interested in engaging in discussion, you might consider publishing on your own personal webpage rather than at Wikipedia. I trust however that you actually do wish to engage in discussion and friendly collaborative editing, or you wouldn't have said anything. Please, if you have any such summaries at hand, add the info to the article. Too many people complaining about what we don't have, not enough people actually adding information. Any constructive editing is most welcome. Thank-you kindly, Fuzzypeg☻ 02:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

King Filimer

I reverted the removal of a small section about King Filimer and the haliurunnae. The reason for its removal was supposedly that the date was wrong and Filimer was mythical. The date did indeed seem to be out by 50 years or so, so I corrected that, but I'd like to see evidence that a) King Filimer was not a real personage and b) that this story is not significant whether it deals with real personages or not. It's a very early account of witchcraft-like beliefs and expulsion for witchcraft that has been cited by Nigel Pennick in A History of Pagan Europe and Max Dashu in The Secret History of the Witches. Whether or not it deals with real personages it records popular conceptions of sorcery from sometime between the supposed date of the events in the 2nd century (c. 150 AD?) and the date they were recorded, c. 570 AD. Seems interesting and notable to me; if it needs to be presented slightly differently, then please change it, but I'd like a better explanation before removing it outright. Fuzzypeg☻ 02:26, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I had missed your comment. Jordanes places Filimer in the mythical past, the fifth king after Berig's exodus from Scandza. I believe that Scandza was real if vague geography of Scandinavia somewhere, but Berig and Filimer were not real. These kings were probably inventions of Cassiodorus, copied by Jordanes into the Getica. Anyway, the work puts these guys way before the Trojan War, so "200 AD" is more than a millenium off.

It is not clear what the passage says about 6th century beliefs. It might reflect a belief that the Huns were the offspring of witches that had copulated with ghosts. If such a thing is a first and not a derivation of classical mythology that would be interesting for this article. However, miscegenation with strange creatures is not unheard of in Greek mythology. /Pieter Kuiper 11:10, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks Pieter. I've tried to correct that section based on the information you've supplied; I haven't removed that info outright but would be open to discussion regarding its removal. If anyone wants to keep that material in the article, please speak up. I find the story intriguing since it seems to tie in with various other witchcraft-related folklore regarding banishment of witches/fairies/unwashed children, their mating with demons and the inception of a race of semi-humans. But that's my own original research, so not a good reason to keep the info; the only other reason for keeping it is that it has been mentioned by other authors in relation to witchcraft, and it fits into an area of history for which documentation surrounding witchcraft beliefs is otherwise sparse. Fuzzypeg☻ 22:36, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Adding Gender

I added a small section on Gender. Since the women's movement, the scholarship on witchcraft and witch hunts has brought the question of "why women?" into a central position of inquiry. Because of the statistics, i thought gender would be very appropriate in this entry. There is a large amount of information on Gender in this topic and my addition is short, but with additions, can be a good addition to the wikipedia. Please comment —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sgrif981 (talk • contribs) 20:22, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

Spelling issues

I see the following different spellings occurring:

• witchfinder
• witch-finder
• witch finder
• Witch Finder
• Witch-Finder

The section on Africa has examples of the first three in a short text. There's also "witch hunt" and "witch-hunt". As an Arch-Anti-Over-Hyphenationist, I see no need for any of the hyphenated versions. But my main concern here is consistency. Is there a consensus about which of these alternative spellings are preferred in this article? If not, let one now emerge. -- JackofOz (talk)

Basics of Metaphor and Simile

For some reason, a lot of people mistakenly use the word "metaphor" as a label for terms of art and other figurative language that are, in fact, similes not metaphor.

The essential difference is this: A simile is figurative. A metaphor is transfigurative. If the term is comparative, it is a simile. If it is transformative, it is a metaphor.

This is a simile: "The spirit of the Lord descended upon him as a dove from heaven." Reason it is a simile: The descent of the spirit from heaven is compared to the descent of a dove from heaven. There is nothing to indicate the spirit has been transformed into a dove.

Basic English Usage Reminder: The words "as" and "like" are interchangeable in similes (but not in metaphors); so the fact that "descended ... as a dove" can be successfully re-stated "descended ... like a dove" indicates it's a simile instead of a metaphor.

This is a metaphor: "The spirit of the Lord descended from heaven in the form of dove." Reason it is a metaphor: Whereas the first example compares the descent of the spirit to the descent of a dove, this example compares nothing. Instead, it indicates the spirit has been transformed into a dove, thus clearly indicating the dove is a metaphor in this sentence - whereas it was part of a simile in the first example.

When the term "witch hunt" is used to mean something other an actual hunt for witches, it is being used figuratively for purposes of comparison. Thus it must be a simile. It cannot possibly be a metaphor because the figurative witch hunt does not somehow get transformed into a real witch hunt.

69.181.56.137 (talk) 22:48, 14 June 2014 (UTC)

I disagree. 'Stalin's show-trails were like a witch-hunt' is a simile. 'Stalin's showtrials were a witch-hunt' is a metaphor.

 Simile is a direct comparison, metaphor is an implied comparison.

'God descended in the form of a dove' is not a figure-of-speech at all, just a statement of (alleged) fact. Crawiki (talk) 15:04, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Cereal crops

Why do we have to use the awkward "cereal crops" when there's a perfectly good word "corn" available? Are we dumbing Wikipedia down here? Assuming that "corn" will always mean maize, not other cereals, "America" will always mean the US, not the continents of North and South America, and "root canal" will always mean endodontic therapy, not the anatomical structure? That "Nike" will always be a brand of shoe and never a Greek deity? Fuzzypeg★ 02:44, 29 August 2008 (UTC)

McCarthyism

personaly i think witchcraft is a load of rubbish I removed a paragraph saying that the word witchhunt has been applied to describe McCarthyism, as it has no source, but I search Google and I see that some people really use this word, eg see [2] or [3]. I am not sure whether this is something that should be included in this or another article. What do you think? NerdyNSK (talk) 03:05, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

McCarthyism was very famously termed a 'witch-hunt', and is largely responsible for the modern popularity of the term. It's well worth including in this article, and it shouldn't be too hard to track down a reliable source. Fuzzypeg★ 21:43, 3 September 2008 (UTC)

I see that you have found two references to books, thanks for referencing the article. NerdyNSK (talk) 12:00, 12 September 2008 (UTC)

Checking these books on Google Books, I read that in page 229 of The Path of the Devil book, Jensen writes that framing McCarthyism as a witchhunt is often used as a political strategy in discrediting McCarthyism. I think this info should be included in the paragraph to show that calling McCarthyism a witchhunt cannot be assumed to be simply an apolitical, neutral, or scientific fact, but is often associated with politics, personal perceptions, and socially constructed realities. Also, it would be a good idea when referencing books to include the pages where you found the information that supports the paragraphs in our article. Thanks again for helping to find the references, I just wanted to improve it. NerdyNSK (talk) 12:18, 12 September 2008 (UTC)♥☻☺♦♣♠•◘○☺0o♀♪♫☼►◄↕‼¶§▬↨↑↓→←∟↔▲▼

Seems like we're already taking sides on McCarthyism: "McCarthyism is the politically motivated practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence." I think that, at this point in history, McCarthyism is sufficiently discredited that we need not make the pretence of scientific objectivity, any more than we are obliged to take a non-judgemental view of the witch trials. --Forrest Johnson (talk) 15:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"Sufficiently discredited" by whom? The far-left? The same far-left that coined the term "McCarthyism" and that started referring to government hearings as "witch trials"? FYI, there have been many good books published in the last few years which vindicate Senator McCarthy. Clearly your intent is to politicize this article, not to make it more relevant to its subject.

Regarding your statement about not taking a "non-judgemental view of the witch trials," there are a few notable authors who suggest that the witch hunts weren't entirely without justification, such as Colin Wilson and Montague Summers. You may not agree with them, but their views should be fairly represented if the intention is to create a balanced article. Is your intent to create a balanced article? Or do you see an encyclopedia as being a soapbox for its authors? Bowdlerized (talk) 23:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Concerning the apologists forJoseph McCarthy: "These viewpoints are considered revisionist by most credentialed scholars. Challenging such efforts aimed at the "rehabilitation" of McCarthy, historian John Earl Haynes argues that McCarthy's attempts to "make anti-communism a partisan weapon" actually "threatened [the post-War] anti-Communist consensus," thereby ultimately harming anti-Communist efforts more than helping. With regard to Coulter's views in particular, the response among scholars has been all but universally negative, even among authors generally regarded as conservative or right-wing."

If you think this characterization is unfair, you should probably go and change the article. If, on the other hand, you really think that McCarthy got a bad rap and that the witch trials were justified, where's the problem? --Forrest Johnson (talk) 18:12, 19 July 2009 (UTC)

This article needs more mention of hysterias and moral panics that result in individual persecutions, like the anarchist imprisonments and executions of the late 1800's and early 1900's, the satanist sex abuse witch hunts of the 1960's, 70's, and 80's, the mass imprisonments and sex offender registrations of the 1990's and 2000's, etc, in addition to the famed mccarthyism of the 1950's. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.35.217.107 (talk) 03:51, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Why? Bowdlerized (talk) 23:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I added a short section on the figurative use of the term, referenced etc. Crawiki (talk) 15:06, 4 December 2017 (UTC)

Adding petition link

There is a petition going for the woman accused of witchcraft in Saudi Arabia: www.petitiononline.com/AIDFAWZA/petition.html Do you think we can include it in the text discussing the case? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.112.39.17 (talk) 14:20, 5 October 2008 (UTC)

Excuse for seizure of property?

I don't see anything in this article about using accusations of witchcraft as a pretense for seizing someone's property, thereby enriching the local medieval government and/or accusers. Does that belong in another article or what? Tkech (talk) 02:04, 29 November 2008 (UTC)

You may possibly find something about confiscations at Witch trials in Early Modern Europe, but with a quick search I couldn't see anything. There needs to be a whole lot more information added about the various factors that encouraged the hunts, and confiscations were indeed an element in some places. We should be careful, though, not to over-generalise these factors: confiscations, for example, were only legally enacted in certain countries and certain periods. Many other contributing factors to the witch craze at various places and times have also been proposed. Fuzzypeg★ 22:36, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

A good deal of property changed hands as a result of the Salem witch trials. In the 19th Century this was a common explanation for the Salem witch scare, but it fails close scrutiny, and most historians today consider it at most a secondary motive. --Forrest Johnson (talk) 15:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested articles

On Wikipedia:WikiProject Netherlands/Article requests are three article requests related to witch trials in the Netherlands, maybe some of this article's editors could help create them?

• Anna Muggen (requested since 12 November 2007)
• Triene Langheldes (requested since 12 November 2007)
• Witch hunt in the Netherlands (requested since 23 July 2007)

Thanks, Ilse@ 15:12, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

Ortodox witch trials missing!

The article informs about catholic and protestant witch trials, but lacks coverage about witch trials in ortodox Europe, such as Russia. According to Russian language wikipedia, they did ecxist, although they were not as known or large as in Western Europe. Perhaps someone with knowledge can fix this? There should be specific articles about the most famous witch trial in Russia, etc, but the subject should at least be mentioned here. --Aciram (talk) 10:04, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

I agree. If I stay bored long enough, maybe I'll do it. In the meantime, perhaps you can provide a few interesting links to get started with? Qwasty (talk) 06:32, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Here is one link from Russian wikipedia: http://asher.ru/library/religen/hunting If the articles is stub-started, they can always be expanded later, perhaps by people with book-references. --Aciram (talk) 00:36, 26 June 2011 (UTC)

Lynching in the 19th-century

I have added : However, even after legal trials and executions had stopped, the belief in witches resulted in lynchings in the 19th-century, such as the cases of Anna Klemens in Denmark 1800, Krystyna Ceynowa in Poland 1836, and Dummy, the Witch of Sible Hedingham in 1863 in England. Perhaps there should be a section about the witch lynchings of the 19th-century? Not to mention the case of Barbara Zdunk (1811), although just as dubious as the case of Anna Göldi, took place in the 19th-century. --85.226.41.31 (talk) 12:25, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Saudi Arabia witch-hunt

This american site: [Saudi] talks about another person sent to death for witchcraft in Saudi Arabia.Agre22 (talk) 12:43, 26 November 2009 (UTC)agre22

See also

• Talk:Witch trials

Chuck Norris

Yes, the source does name him. Yet a single child's mistaken identification in a very large case doesn't really rise to the level of a witch hunt. The source names Norris as just one out of several wildly implausible identifications that child had made (including four nuns). It constitutes a WP:SYNTH violation to assert that Norris himself was the subject of a witch hunt on the basis of that. The employees of the center were the real targets of the case. Durova⁴¹² 06:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

This isn't about a single child's misidentification. It is an example accusation from over 350 accusers in this case centering around magic rituals. Similar ridiculousness occurred in the Salem witch trials, where prominent public figures were being accused, which led to the end of the witch-hunt. The information is factual, so its deletion was reverted. Qwasty (talk) 16:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a source for the assertion that the accusation against Chuck Norris led to the dismissal of the case? If so, please expand the statement to clarify that. Otherwise it's WP:SYNTH. Durova⁴¹² 17:29, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you're talking about. I don't see any assertions you mention. Where does the article say "the accusation against Chuck Norris led to the dismissal of the case"? I'm looking at the United States section. Is that where you're looking? Qwasty (talk) 01:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You wrote "Similar ridiculousness occurred in the Salem witch trials, where prominent public figures were being accused, which led to the end of the witch-hunt." Unless you have sourcing to specifically make that comparison, it's a violation of the original synthesis clause. It's probably also a WP:UNDUE violation unless several reliable sources really specify that that child's identification of this actor was a turning point in the case. If it's allowable then the statement needs to be contextualized; the entire paragraph needs to be contextualized. That trial ended twenty years ago and most readers under the age of forty or outside the United States are unlikely to understand the background. Imagine yourself in the position of such a reader, click on the link to the article about the trial, and read its first paragraph. The inclusion of any living person's name in connection to this article's summary paragraph needs to be expressed with the utmost caution, due to the issues which predominated at that trial. If it isn't really necessary to name him, probably it's better that we not do so. Durova⁴¹² 04:36, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

You're talking about a phrase on this page, NOT the USA section of the article, so I won't address that part of your comment. The summary is factual and relevant to the article.

The context is correct: Chuck Norris was identified in the same manner as all the other accusations listed (and unlisted). The fact that Chuck Norris actually exists, while the witches and corpses do not, is irrelevant.

Most of the cases in this article are hundreds of years old, so the fact that this one is over 20 years old is irrelevant.

The background of this case is available in the trial's main article page and in that article's citations. I suppose you could add more information, by why would you want to when the article is long as it is, and there's a dedicated article for McMartin trial already?

It seems you are still looking for reasons to remove this fact. Unless you can find one that's more solid, I think it is very notable, and adds some depth to understanding the nature of the accusations, and so should not be removed. Qwasty (talk) 18:45, 8 March 2010 (UTC)

<moved>

I removed Chuck Norris a while ago and gave a good reason: this is a very short summary of a six year long trial. One mistaken mention in a massive trial does not warrant a place in a summary. Chuck Norris has a place in the article concerning this trial, but the mention is much to trivial to be repeated here. Further more, the text says: "The victims were accused of satanic ritual abuse in underground tunnels, involving flying witches, Chuck Norris..." That is a total misrepresentation of the facts and the case: the facts, as far as I've read the reference given, are he was pointed out on a photo by one kid, but it turned out he had NO involvement. Mentioning him here is very misleading to readers of Wikipedia and sensation seeking imo, so please stop adding him without any proper justification (the fact a reference exists is not a reason to add him). Joost 99 (talk) 11:12, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

This section is not for discussion of Chuck Norris. There is already a section for that, where the issue was already resolved. If you have more to add, add it there. Qwasty (talk) 18:44, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

<moved>

Sorry I missed this part of the discussion, so I moved it. But reading this, the issue was not "resolved" as you state, it was just abandoned. The reason User:Durova and I have given for removing him are very reasonable: his mention in the trial is trivial in this case. He already has a mention in the McMartin preschool trial where it belongs.

You say it "...adds some depth to understanding the nature of the accusations, and so should not be removed". How can mentioning Chuck Norris add depth to accusations in a child abuse case that has nothing to do with him. It only adds confusion. It would only add depth when put into context, which clearly cannot be done in a summary. So please explain yourself further, because what you are saying makes no sense to me. Joost 99 (talk) 19:34, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Joost 99 and Durova. To be precise, the source doesn't even claim Chuck Norris was involved - a child pointed to an image of Chuck Norris. Did the child recognize him? Dubious. Saying "I was abused my a man who looked like this" isn't saying "I was abused by Chuck Norris." And while we're at it, the source also doesn't mention "flying witches". The only mention of witches by that source was "female teachers dressed at witches". Huon (talk) 23:19, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

This isn't about Chuck Norris. That's why the entire sections are being blanked. I'm not going to discuss Chuck Norris unless the sections cease being completely blanked. Until then, it's irrelevant. Qwasty (talk) 09:23, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Relation to plague?

A History Channel program (I know, but this one sounded okay) suggested a direct link between the plague and witchcraft. In Germany specifically, flagellants had dominated the scene as the plague was running its course. The church was afraid to stop them. After they became corrupt, the church helped stop them. Then the people turned to witchcraft to explain the plague. The idea that the devil might be involved seemed to have merit, since no one had any real idea how the plague spread. About the same time, the Germans decided that the Jews were involved and tortured confessions out of them to "prove" it, and pogromed the survivors into Poland. All plague-related. Haven't found anything reliable online yet that corresponds, but IMO it sounds credible for that single time frame, 14th century or so. Student7 (talk) 01:50, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

The article already contains some information on this. It's a plausible example of god of the gaps. Qwasty (talk) 03:14, 11 March 2010 (UTC)

United Kingdom (Misleading)

The Witchcraft act of 1973, according to the BBC[4] was designed to get rid of suspicion of Witches and did not criminalise being a witch, instead criminalising the claiming to have such abilities. It's somewhat problematic to use this as a United Kingdom section in "Witch-hunt" since it looks like the UK was prosecuting witches up to the 1950s. None the less, the Jane Rebecca Yorke case did have some unexplained oddities associated with it, and it was knowledge of a military secret which drew the authorities attention to her, so I don't think it should go, but I did add to the top of it a clarification on the purpose of said act, hopefully a more experienced editor can resolve these problems further. 82.132.136.205 (talk) 16:12, 3 April 2010 (UTC)

The headline figure of 100k should also be weighted against claims that only 2 witches were recorded to be burnt in the UK and a total of 500 punished by death on conviction for witchcraft; as claimed in QI. I don't have proper sources I'm afraid. The 100k figure is very shaky to say the least but the header doesn't make this clear: the trials reported would be the ones where convictions were made, this would seriously skew the figures arrived at. Pbhj (talk) 16:14, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure what headline you're referring to, but the 100k deaths are an estimate for all of Europe. The relevant footnote gives various estimates and explains the reasoning behind them. Huon (talk) 20:54, 27 April 2010 (UTC)

I tried to fix it. Under the heading "witch-hunt", we need to clearly distinguish

• persecution and execution of witches sponsored by the law. This is mostly historical, except in Saudi Arabia and possibly countries like Cameroon and Togo
• lynching of witches by mobs. This is ongoing in Africa and India
• legislation that puts fines or mild prison terms on "defrauding the public" with claims of occult powers. These aren't literal witch-hunts, and nobody dies
• moral panics like the "ritual abuse" thing in the USA. These are a bit "like" witch hunts, but not literal witch hunts and again, nobody dies, although careers were ruined and long prison sentences would have been involved if the charges hadn't been dropped
• "witch-hunt" as a mere metaphor, as in McCarthyism

strictly, only the first two items are the topic of this articles, although the others may of course be mentioned. --dab (𒁳) 07:26, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

we get it already, Chuck Norris is an internet meme, and it is hilarious that he was mentioned in connection with the ritual abuse thing. It's funny, but it's not relevant. --dab (𒁳) 21:24, 14 September 2010 (UTC)

Chuck Norris specifically should be removed but the SRA moral panic was in some cases a literal witch hunt, I would say at least as applicable as McCarthyism (to which it has been compared). In fact, I would suggest taking the focus off of the McMartin trial and broadening it out to the entire phenomenon. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:13, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

No, the SRA panic was not "a literal witch-hunt". Neither was McCarthyism. If you want to introduce a expand the section of "metaphorical use", citing evidence that SRA and McCarthyism have been compared to witch-hunts, that would be fine with me. But please stop including these items into the section on contemporary actual witch-hunts in Africa, India and Arabia.

The mention of these issues at Witch-hunt#Metaphorical_usage is entirely WP:DUE. Note how we have no article on witch-trials in Saudi Arabia. This here is the only article that discusses them. The SRA thing, by contrast, has a full set of insanely detailed articles dedicated to it. It is tangential to this topic, an can just be linked.

• witch-hunts: "this woman is a sorceress, kill her"
• SRA panic: "this woman has raped our children because she is an evil godless satanist. sue her ass."

I recognize that the SRA panic has been compared to witch-hunts. I also recognize that both SRA and witch-hunts qualify as moral panic and are thus related phenomena (of a category to be discussed at the moral panic article). But I dispute your claim that "the SRA moral panic was in some cases a literal witch hunt" and would ask you to cite WP:RS to the effect before reverting.

--dab (𒁳) 12:52, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

I won't revert, but I will say that "literal witch hunt" is in some cases accurate - children were provoked to say they were abused by women doing magic (witches) and this led to a criminal investigation (a hunt). When you say mentioning SRA and McCarthyism is WP:DUE, do you mean it is DUE weight to mention them and therefore should be included, or UNDUE weight to mention them and should therefore be removed? If we don't have a section discussing the metaphorical uses, which are dominant in North American and Europe, then the page is missing something. I don't mind the more detailed summary of the SRA moral panic being removed, but how would you feel about a single, sourced sentence or list of modern examples of things called witch hunts? Much as we're not a dictionary, the political and criminal implications of witch hunts are part of the idea. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:57, 17 September 2010 (UTC)

sorry, but this is not a literal witch-hunt. A literal witch-hunt is when those doing the hunting believe they are hunting actual sorcerers. When I say DUE I mean that SRA and McCism should be mentioned but under "metaphorical". Since we already do have such a section and I am not proposing to remove it, I don't quite see why you are proposing we should have one. The fact that "witch-hunt" in colloquial use mostly refers to moral panic in general is a mater for disambiguation. --dab (𒁳) 08:53, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Thinking about this, there may be grounds for arguing that witch-hunts do not just happen in the third world but also within religious extremism as it exists in developed countries. But it cannot be argued that witches are persecuted in court in any western democracy, because there simply isn't any basis for that. Still there are enough religious nutcases in the west to stage "literal witch-hunts" on their own authority. Now this needs to remain in perspective. In India we are looking at a severe social problem with 150 women dead each year. In US Christian fundamentalism, we will probably be hard put to find a single witch killed in 50 years. In fact, the best instance of Christians "persecuting" what they apparently thought were witches is this (from Religious discrimination against Neopagans):

In 2006, members of "Youth 2000", a conservative Catholic organisation, on visit to Father Kevin Knox-Lecky of St Mary's church, Glastonbury, attacked pagans by throwing salt at them and told them they "would burn in hell". Knox-Lecky apologized and said he would not invite the group again. The police warned two women and arrested one youth on suspicion of harassment. ["Pagans are a-salt-ed". The Sun. Shaikh, Thair (2006-11-04). "Catholic marchers turn on Glastonbury pagans". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2010-05-22.]

So salt was thrown at presumed pagans or sorcerers. This is a hilarious example of a magical worldview on the Christian side, but I think that's about as bad as it gets. --dab (𒁳) 09:16, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Your argument implies that a witch hunt only exists of an actual witch exists - which would discount any witch hunt in which the hunters thought someone was a witch when the person themselves disagrees. I find it a curious interpretation - but do agree that it is more justified to put McCarthyism and the SRA moral panics in the metaphorical uses section. So I consider that settled (pending the other talk page sections I have yet to review) - brief mention in the "metaphorical" section.

Your point about fundies in the developed world requires sources - ideally not newspaper articles but rather books and scholarly papers. I'm guessing there's a source out there that discusses witch/pagan perceptions within the developed world, but I don't think using newspapers is a good idea. All is dependent on finding reliable sources but I'd very much rather the newspaper references not be used. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:03, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

RLEK figures for India

"200 per year, or a total of 2,500 in the period of 1995 to 2010"

I realize this doesn't compute (2,500 in 15 years would amount to 166 per year), but it's what the study says, and these are probably rough estimates anyway. --dab (𒁳) 07:33, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

ah, correction, one source says "150-200". The other apparently picked the higher figure (tabloid journalism). --dab (𒁳) 07:35, 28 July 2010 (UTC)

No literal witch-hunts are known to have taken place in the United States

I have removed the phrase "No literal witch-hunts are known to have taken place in the United States.", added 22:44, 18 September 2010 by Dbachmann:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Witch-hunt&oldid=385617056

Qwasty (talk) 22:55, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

I discovered a similar phrase inserted in the UK section. It doesn't make any sense where it was placed, so it was removed also. Qwasty (talk) 23:05, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

UK section undue weight tag

Dbachmann has placed an undue weight tag on the UK section. To provide a place for discussion, I've made this section. Since Dbachmann didn't make this section, I'll wait a period of time for an explanation of the tag before I remove it. Qwasty (talk) 23:09, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

USA section undue weight tag

Dbachmann has placed an undue weight tag on the USA section. To provide a place for discussion, I've made this section. Since Dbachmann didn't make this section, I'll wait a period of time for an explanation of the tag before I remove it. Qwasty (talk) 23:10, 18 September 2010 (UTC)

Africa - Real witches?

Is it still a witch-hunt if you find actual witches? How should this be incorporated into the article? Our Africa section is pretty f'd up, but it turns out that Africa itself is even more f'd up:

• Persecution of people with albinism
• Adam (unsolved Thames murder case)
• [5]
• Muti#Mutilation
• Medicine murder
• Witchcraft#Africa

So, from the list above, you can see that Africa has "real" witches, and sometimes there's a hunt for them, and sometimes there isn't. Sometimes they're the usual suspects - Africans - but they live in the UK. Most of the article deals with the kind of witches that don't exist, including in Africa. What do we do with the ones that DO exist? Does the phrase "witch hunt" only apply to imaginary witches?

Clearly, some witch hunts are searching for real witches in the context of criminal investigations, with no element of moral panic or mass hysteria. How should the article represent those? Opinions?

Qwasty (talk) 06:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

sheesh, man, the definition of "witch-hunt", and the fact that the SRA and UK law do not qualify, have been discussed at length just above. You simply ignored the discussion and restored the content. Now you have the nerve to ask for an explanation for what has just been explained in detail. Pull your own weight please.

Preferably, read the article first. A "real witch-hunt" is not a hunting of "real witches", it is persecution motivated by real belief in witches on the part of the persecutors. Sorry, but your "contributions" are just confused. --dab (𒁳) 11:15, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

This section is about Africa. I see no section about UK SRA. If you want a section about UK SRA, create one. Also, please keep your hostility to a minimum. Qwasty (talk) 18:48, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Revert war

The current revert war seems rather pointless. The UK section's content was almost entirely a duplicate of stuff already mentioned in the "End of European witch hunts" section. I've moved what little non-duplicate content the UK section had to that place. The US section conflated, as Dbachmann pointed out, the literal witch-hunts of Africa and India with the metaphorical use of the term. The closest the pre-school trial comes to a literal witch hunt is claims that some of the accused wore witch costumes, and that one flew through the air. But that wasn't what they were accused of, and it's rather irrelevant to the moral panic and the trial itself. Thus I've added two sentences to the "metaphorical use" section, backed up by the one source that actually discusses the trial in connection with witch hunts (the others didn't even mention the term). The other changes, such as moving a paragraph from the history section to the lead, seemed uncontroversial. Huon (talk) 14:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

well, no case has been made as to why the SRA topic should be duplicated in both the "metaphorical" section and another "United States" section. In fact, no coherent case has been made whatsoever, so that as far as I can see we're just looking at disruption based on a personal whim. There is no way you can argue with that. --dab (𒁳) 15:32, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Agree that it's unnecessary duplication. Keep SRA to the metaphorical section along with McCarthyism - which requires its own source and a sentence or two for context. SRA was compared to McCarthyism which was itself called a witch hunt, an interesting chain that should be referenced for each link. Right now SRA has a see also and a sentence, but McCarthyism has only the see also, which leaves it lacking context. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 17:08, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The United States section is not about SRA. Both the western nations sections, UK and USA, are being blanked despite being highly notable. The facts of the sections are not even controversial. The cases cited are frequently referred to as witch-hunts by researchers. The reverts dbachmann is doing are not just affecting those two sections, or just mentions of SRA. It's also wiping out numerous other edits by other users, as well as approved bots. As such, any other discussion is a red herring, and I maintain that such destruction is vandalism and entirely unjustifiably. Qwasty (talk) 17:19, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The problem with the US and UK sections is that they're not really about "modern witch hunts" in the non-metaphorical sense, under which they're grouped. If you claim they are, provide reliable sources that say so. As I mentioned above, sourcing for the SRA "witch hunt" is rather poor.

Regarding "vandalism", you should assume good faith. If three editors disagree with your reasoning, you should probably explain it instead of just reverting on your own. And for the record, all the other users' edits I found included in Dbachmann's reverts was this one, which you reverted just as happily and even declined to discuss, and the bot edit reverted was this, which mainly consisted of capitalizing template names (utterly irrelevant), dating the tags on the sections that were removed anyway, and moving a single semicolon. In order to make you happy, I'll move the semicolon when I revert to the version that appears closer to achieving consensus. Then the bot edits won't be lost. And since I'll remove what Joost 99 removed, his edits won't be lost either. So much for red herrings. Will you now discuss the merits of your own reversals? Huon (talk) 18:14, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

If anything the McMartin trial should be folded into a general comment on the SRA moral panic since there were many trials that involved essentially the same issues. The SRA moral panic did involve a small amount of hunting-of-witches (dubiously, really only the nutter Christian right thought there was actual witches involved) but it was mostly about child abuse and crimes (and underneath it all, fear and shoddy interviewing techniques). It certainly wasn't a witch hunt the same way the Spanish Inquisition was a witch hunt. The term "witch hunt" was certainly applied, but as a metaphor rather than a literal hunt-for-witches which is why it's appropriate to place it in the metaphor section. The information on the UK (this version) should probably be integrated into the history sections on Early Modern Europe and End of European witch hunts in the 18th century (which is a very awkward title) rather than being a standalone. It does show an interesting progression, but one easily captured in a single line in the latter section.

Note that dbachmann is not engaging in vandalism, please review the definition. And there are now three people who are arguing against your revert, so please try to drum up consensus here first rather than brute-forcing it through. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 19:18, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

The witch hunts evolved, rather than ended definitively. The UK section in particular illustrates this most nicely. Huon asks for cites, which I was in the process of adding before every edit I've made was reverted, even edits that have nothing to do with the UK and USA sections. Both the UK and USA sections are relevant and notable enough that even if you hold a definition of witch hunt that includes persecution of witchcraft as long as it avoids the use of the word "witch", still belongs in the article. Arbitrarily cutting off a continuous evolution of witch hunting when it envelopes western nations is censorship. Qwasty (talk) 19:44, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Dbachmann was instantly insulting and hostile, and even engaged in a red herring smear campaign, all without responding to my request for civil discussion. An assumption of good faith in the face of such aggression is clearly contrary to reality. Dbachmann clearly has a confrontational character which is his problem to overcome, not mine. Since these attempts to censor mention of modern western nations come from him, the onus is on him to make a case for why they should be removed. Name calling and insinuations of stupidity do not count. Qwasty (talk) 19:51, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Mass reverts of unrelated edits will be undone unless relation and justification is presented. Reverting simply because the edits were done by myself, the bots, or users other than Dbachmann will not be accepted. Qwasty (talk) 19:53, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I think if you tried to revert to your preferred version, you would find yourself at the WP:3RRN for edit warring and quickly blocked. Your statements about the evolution of witch hunts are currently unsubstantiated original research, though if you still have those references and present them for review, or draft a possible section in a subpage, you could ask other editors what they thought, if it was appropriate for this page or somewhere else. Your proposed definition of witchcraft is either unclear to me, or idiosyncratic to the point of being inappropriate. If you want your concerns to be taken seriously, I would strongly suggest you civilly provide your sources and suggestions for review rather than insisting you've been persecuted and that dab is a bad editor. If you have sources that are explicit on the point, it's quite possible we could integrate a modern section about the UK or US indicating evolution into modern times - but that depends on the sources. The other possibility is, if there are sufficient sources, a separate page could be created on the contemporary uses of the term "witch hunt". WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 20:25, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Reverting me (and minor improvements by Dbachmann, and the edit by Joost 99) took how much of your time, five seconds? I hope it won't stop you from adding those sources. By the way, I wasn't just reverting everything. How about you not doing so, too? The issue Dbachmann, WLU and I have is that the UK and US sections are blatantly misplaced. An act banning fraudulently claiming to be a witch isn't an "evolution" of an act imposing the death penalty for being a witch, it's definitely an end to prosecuting witches. Concerning the US pre-school trial, "witches" were about as prominently mentioned as goat-men - and somehow I doubt you'd say it was literally a hunt for goat-men, or that anybody but the schizophreniac who uttered these claims believed them. People were accused of sexual abuse of children, which is (to the best of my knowledge) unrelated to historical witch hunts. It was a moral panic, sure - but not a literal hunt for witches, and I don't see Salem "evolving" into the pre-school trial with a short intermission of about 300 years - except as another instance of a moral panic, but that's not what this article is about. If this revert war did actually mangle some of your edits not related to the UK and US sections, please point them out - I compared article versions and didn't find significant changes (other than the changes by Dbachmann and myself, some of which I explained above and the rest of which seemed uncontroversial), though I may easily have missed something. Huon (talk) 20:58, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

Actually, there's several books that make the explicit comparison and the motivation alleged on (by? of?) the alleged abusers was explicitly satanic, based on accusations of ritual and worship rather than sexual. David Frankfurter's book Evil Incarnate might have some stuff, and Satan's Silence too but I don't have time to re-read them. I'm guessing there are some pretty explicit parallels that could be made, and have been made, in these sorts of sources. In my informed opinion (i.e. I've read books) I would say there was a search for actual witches - but I won't make the case until I can cite some explicit sources. But certainly, the McMartin and other moral panic victims (i.e. the defendants) were charged with child abuse and not witchcraft - and in the legal system rather than a lynch mob. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 22:13, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

I'd say there's a distinction to be made between witches and Satanists. While "praying to Satan" may have been part of the moral panic, in my opinion it would only rise to the level of an actual witch hunt if Satan was widely believed to have answered the prayers (or there was a similar belief in other supernatural occurrences). I hope that wasn't part of the McMartin scare, but I'll be convinced otherwise if reliable sources say so. Frankfurter quotes MacFarlane speaking about "what they [the Satanists?] perceived as magic" - that seems to indicate that MacFarlane didn't perceive it as magic, and thus didn't actually believe witches were involved. Huon (talk) 22:47, 20 September 2010 (UTC)

OK, I can see we're getting some discussion going FINALLY! Thank you Huon, WLU, and Joost. However, you're all discussing several issues at random, which makes it difficult to reach conclusions. Could you please either make a section for each specific issue, paragraph, or section you've identified as needing discussion, or use one I've already created, so we can focus the discussion on reaching a definitive conclusion? Once we have focused dialog, we can hopefully proceed methodically and constructively towards a polished and informative article.

I don't want to have to undo any more reverts now that we have some hope for a focused discussion. From there, the changes should be one at a time, based on the conclusion of each discussion. Once again, thank you for bringing some communicative sanity to this article, and hopefully ending the revert war.

Qwasty (talk) 06:14, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

My overall reading of this section is that there are three, possibly four editors who are not convinced the page needs to be changed, in which case you need to make the case that it needs adjustment. So I would suggest, in the interest of clarity, you start a new section in which you detail what needs to change and what sources you base this on. Keep in mind that you need consensus for changes - it is not guaranteed your changes will be acceptable. Right now I don't have the sources needed to support the assertion that the SRA moral panic was a literal witch-hunt, nor do I have sources to greatly expand McCarthyism as a metaphorical use. In fact, I agree that the latter is unnecessary. So right now, I'm unconvinced the page needs to change but depending on your sources I may come to agree that your edits are justified and appropriate. But the sources come first and I've yet to see them. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:29, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

What a waste of space over a non-issue. I guess Qwasty has finally stopped crying "vandalism" in his reverts, and this after having been asked to a mere four times.

Asked for a justification of his edits, we are finally presented with the theory that "The witch hunts evolved, rather than ended definitively". Now this is extremely interesting. I would be willing to devote a detailed discussion to such views if they can be shown to have any credibility. Fortunately, the claim that "Arbitrarily cutting off a continuous evolution of witch hunting when it envelopes western nations is censorship" can easily be measured against the relevant academic literature. Show us a monographic scholarly treatment of the European witch-hunts that includes 20th century US legislation, and we can go forward with this. --dab (𒁳) 14:32, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I think the current version initiated by Huon is fine, looking at the lay-out, since no significant info was removed. It makes a clear logical distiction between present/past and real/metaphorical. The McMartin trial seems more metaphorical than real. The Metaphorical section can be improved, as WLU already stated. Joost 99 (talk) 16:17, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Agreed. Cries of "censorship" and "vandalism" when this is manifestly not is irksome, for the accused person and spectators. The longer this goes without sources being presented, the less likely I am to take it seriously and the more irritated I plan on becoming. Qwasty, up until this point WP:AGF has been the reason I'm listening. If you don't present your sources ASAP rather than complaining inappropriately of censorship and vandalism, I'll lose interest. It is insufficient to assert, one must substantiate. You've received a polite audience until this point, please be courteous and provide the sources you mentioned yesterday. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 16:20, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I'm not going to argue against the removal of numerous edits simultaneously. Please make a section about what you want cited, and stop obliterating the article before your requests can be met. So far, the Dbachmann reverts are affecting the intro, history intro, modern witchhunts intro, Africa, UK, USA, and many or all the other sections too. I will continue to undo these mass reverts. I don't think it's useful to argue who is responsible, since it achieves nothing and delays useful discussion. I want a better article, and I am willing to reason with reasonable people, only. If this is to move forward, the revert vandalism MUST STOP and focused, specific discussion MUST BEGIN. Whenever you're ready. Qwasty (talk) 17:59, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Do you really think those reverts were "made in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia"? That's what vandalism means here. See also "What is not vandalism. Several people have explained this to you. Please stop characterizing edits that were not done in a deliberate attempt to compromise the integrity of Wikipedia as vandalism. ---Sluzzelin talk 18:04, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Based on the current page I see no reason to make any changes so until you provide sources I'm just going to ignore your talk page comments but I almost certainly will revert your edits to the main page. It seems you're more interested in arguing and being an aggrieved party than actually improving wikipedia, and I don't feel like wasting more of my time. Wikipedia is not therapy. WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 18:33, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

I agree; there's obviously consensus of all involved (excluding Qwasty) that Dbachmann's version is a better starting point for further improvements to the article. Qwasty, why don't you take your own advice and explain why you disagree with all those changes instead of reverting them all at once? Huon (talk) 19:12, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

there wasn't any valid proposal to form a consensus upon in the first place, the sad thing is that it takes a lengthy discussion to deal with every random piece of nonsense posted by random kids. This is the "Randy in Boise" effect, and Wikipedia suffers from it badly. --dab (𒁳) 11:42, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Edited lead

I tweaked the lead a bit - mostly I like the idea of a brief referral to McCarthyism as an iconic (in the West, probably the iconic) example. I think it's a reasonable balance between a lengthy discussion on one side and a complete absence on the other. Any thoughts? WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 13:12, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I don't think any example is necessary in the introduction, just the general use of the term (but my edit gave that opinion away ;-). I do wonder if there is a one-on-one link with moral panic as the intro now suggests. I don't see every metaphorical witch-hunt being based on moral panic. Joost 99 (talk) 15:31, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

Meh, I see your point and it could be adjusted to be a little more general (had a go here). I think there's merit in including the example, you don't, shall we wait for more input?

Also note changes to the info on the UK acts - it was pretty repetetive and it's arguable whether it's more appropriate to include it here, or in the witchcraft article. Obviously the Acts form (in the UK) the legal basis for actual witch hunts and persecution, but are not witch hunts in and of themselves. Could probably be shortened but the previous tagged section wasn't necessary, was poorly sourced and quite tangential - far more appropriate to be a mention in History than a stand-alone section. Too much emphasis on a single country, and an only tangential issue in that country (for this page at least). WLU (t) (c) Wikipedia's rules:^simple/_complex 15:43, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I like the current short mention of McCarthyism in the lead; it's probably the most well-known example. I also agree with the removal of the British consumer protection history which was rather off-topic. Huon (talk) 17:30, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I added some cotinental references, although this paragraph may become to much of a list of executions (but I don't know enough to write a more informative text). Thanks for adding "often" to moral panic. Joost 99 (talk) 20:54, 22 September 2010 (UTC)

I support a brief discussion of the metaphorical use in the lead -- after all, it is the metaphorical use that triggered all the edit-warring nonsense above. It's always a good idea to show up front that the article is already aware of such things. Since most confused or clueless edit-warriors only ever read the introduction, it's a good thing to have the introduction tell them that we know already. Of course this will never prevent the hard core of this demographic but it should at least be enough to reduce the bulk of well-meaning additions. --dab (𒁳) 09:28, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Schönau witch burning?

I just removed the following paragraph from the article:

There are also reports of a local witch burning near Schoenau Germany in 1906. There is a tree with a plague in front of it telling the story of the 1906 burning.

That's unsourced. There are about half a dozen places called Schönau in Germany (plus one Schœnau now in France which at that time would also have been part of Germany). I've looked up the German Wikipedia articles of the most likely candidates; no mention of such a plaque. And by 1906 they'd all have been part of the German Empire for more than three decades, and even backwaters such as the Black Forest would probably have been reached by the imperial bureaucracy, making such an occurrence rather unlikely. If we knew which Schönau is supposed to be the right one, I could try a more focused search, but right now there's too little information. Huon (talk) 12:42, 25 September 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. This is probably just nonsense. If it isn't, a decent reference is needed. Thanks for spotting this. --dab (𒁳) 09:24, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

"Africa"

Territories settled by Bantu peoples are shown in orange.

Lumping the African witch-hunts simply under "Africa" imho shows a sort of western-centric lack of resolution of the continent. For one thing, as far as the article is aware, this concerns sub-Saharan Africa exclusively. If there are North African witch-hunts, we would need some references for them, and then it would still be questionable to lump them with the Sub-Saharan ones.

Secondly, even Sub-Saharan Africa isn't a unity, and is home to a wide variety of unrelated cultures. From the material in the article, all instances of witch-hunts we are aware of seem to occur within Bantu societies. Bantu tribes form the majority of Sub-Saharan peoples, but they are still only one group among several. It would be interesting to learn whether there are also non-Bantu witch-hunts in Africa. --dab (𒁳) 09:58, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Back to SRA, anthropological background and causes

The SRA moral panic is probably highly relevant to an understanding of the social dynamics of a moral panic in general: the fact that the accusations spiralled into a bizarre fantasy on Satanism and occult ritual seems to indicate that this sort of mass hysteria is an inherited mode of social behaviour has a number of hard-wired traits (closely associated with cultural universals like the belief in sorcery and the expulsion of unfit members from the group). A discussion of this would need to be based on expert literature, of course, but this would be valid material for the "sociological causes" section. If you read the article, almost all of that section currently focusses on the Early Modern witch-craze in particulars and is as such misplaced in this article. --dab (𒁳) 10:22, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

It turns out that there is an entire academic controversy surrounding this, dating to the 1970s. It is typical of the way Wikipedia articles are compiled that such items are missed completely even in comparatively well-developed articles. People pile up factoids but nobody bothers to research the history and focus of academic discourse. The result is that astoundingly poor articles keep passing "FAC" because neither the writers nor the reviewers have a good grasp of the topic and focus on enforcing proper footnote formating and the like instead. And of course most of the time people cannot focus on compiling a well-researched article because they keep getting distracted by semi-literate "contribution" as in the "Qwasty" case above. --dab (𒁳) 11:35, 27 September 2010 (UTC)

Sub-Saharan Africa

The Sub-Saharan Africa section is far too long. A paragraph could be included here, and the rest moved to a separate article. I would also like to see a lot more WP:RS used in this section.--Taiwan boi (talk) 10:30, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Much of the less-sourced text in that section seems to be copied from this PDF. It is indeed much too detailed, especially compared to the rest of the world. Furthermore, it was a blatant copyright violation. I've undone the addition. Huon (talk) 16:43, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Good work spotting that.--Taiwan boi (talk) 17:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I note that the PDF itself isn't even a WP:RS. It's a POV screed from a neo-pagan group which (incredibly), seems to think that African witchcraft has something to do with the late 20th century Western neo-pagan movement which involves post-menopausal housewives burning scented candles and wearing funny bracelets. The best part of the entire PDF is the three links to the UNHCR/UNICEF, and if we're going to use anything we should use them.--Taiwan boi (talk) 17:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Anacronistic Exodus 22:18 reference

The section Classical Antiquity contains the line
and Exodus 22:18 prescribes "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live"
where this is actually a deliberate mistranslation of what should be rendered "poisoner". The first appearance of "witch" here is the KJV completed 1611. The rest of the bible references are correctly dated, I think, though I have little knowledge of such things beyond this particular example. Does the line remain relevant if it is moved to the Early Modern Europe section or is it better simply removed/left where it is. Diysurgery (talk) 00:11, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

Vary accurate observation - actually the line better translates as "you will not make use of potion-makers" (the actual word used is "φαρμακός", roughly equivalent to "pharmacist"). There is nothing there about killing.

Additionally, Deuteronomy 18:10-12 says nothing about sorcery or witchcraft, and actually lists all the different types of divination - predicting the future, the equivalent of modern fortune-telling. Stressing again, predicting the future not changing it.

Kingdoms 1 28 also refers to soothsayers - again, predictors and not magicians. I believe a deletion of the whole section is in order. I will do it shortly if no-one objects Causantin (talk) 17:12, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I'd like a reliable source for that. It's not just the KJV which translates that passage as a command to kill witches; Martin Luther (1545) does the same: Die Zauberinnen sollst du nicht leben lassen. - roughly "You shall not let the sorceresses live." The more modern NIV says: "Do not allow a sorceress to live." I find it hard to believe that the translators of the NIV deliberately mistranslated that line - why would they? Besides, wouldn't the original of Exodus be in Hebrew rather than Greek? Huon (talk) 17:51, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

lol, "thou shalt not suffer a pharmacist to live". Let's just hope the literalists don't hear about this. Seriously, this is why you need translators who can work out the context instead of simply translating your own bible by just using a dictionary.

Also, כָּשַׁף means "witch, sorceress"; the φαρμακός is the "actual word" used by LXX, and rightly so, as the Greek translation for the Hebrew word for "sorceress". The Hebrew word has nothing to do with herbs or pharmacy, and everything with magical incantations. --dab (𒁳) 11:46, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Witch Hunt in Orthodox Russia

Is there any reliable sources about numerous witch trials, huntings, burnings, etc, in Russian tsardom? Until you find them, I will remove word Russia from "Eastern Europe (Poland and Lithuania, Hungary and Russia)" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.245.156.3 (talk) 14:28, 17 July 2011 (UTC)

They would call protestants "witches" and then burn them at the stake. This happened on occasion in Russia, particularly in a power struggle in the 1500s.207.119.111.48 (talk) 15:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

Joe Paterno

Maybe you should add section for Joe Paterno. This is a classic Witch Hunt!! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.128.124.50 (talk) 19:41, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Since Paterno is unlikely to be hanged or burned at the stake, it's hardly a "classic" witch hunt. Anyway, at the very least we would need a reliable source calling it that - and even then I'd say Paterno is simply too insignificant an example. Huon (talk) 21:56, 10 November 2011 (UTC)

Anneken Hendriks' burning picture

This tekst is intended as an explanation why I removed an illustration, namely file "Witch-scene4.JPG". I already posted one, but it apparently has not appeared. So, let me repeat briefly - this picture actually is not related to witch-hunt. It features burning of a XVI-century Dutch Anabaptist Anneken Hendriks (also spelled Heyndricks), who was charged by the Spanish Inquisition with heresy and not with witchcraft. An account of her martyrdom is given in the Matyrs Mirror. To read it, please visit the linked Wiki article and follow its first external link; the Anneken Heyndricks story is on page 872.

A.Tarantoga (talk) 05:59, 30 December 2011 (UTC)

Herbal Healers

This is the only medicine there was. The section describing witches delivering babies is an agrandised biased portail. Herbal practitioners did not equal witch or witch trial.207.119.111.48 (talk) 15:46, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

There's a source for that paragraph; is that source incorrectly represented? I have but little doubt about the shape a malpractice suit against a "herbal practicioner" would take during the height of the witch craze. That says little about the validity of herbal remedies but much about the power of moral panics and the human desire to blame someone. Huon (talk) 15:52, 21 February 2012 (UTC)

This is wrong. Joseph Blagrave, in Blagrave's Astrological Practice of Physick of 1671, reports he was commonly taken as a witch and was avoided for precisely this reason. He was an astrologically-based herbalist who practiced in Reading, England, because he had no medical license that would let him practice in, say, London. I restored and reset his book, adding copious notes, in 2010 (Astrology Classics, Bel Air, MD).

My attention was drawn to this book by a customer in Australia, who wanted me to reprint it because of Blagrave's extensive notes on witches themselves. I found that attention to be misplaced, but by the time I had understood the medical work he was doing, I understood why he could be mistaken for a witch. He had a field full of strange plants, he would tend to harvest them at sunrise on odd days of the week, he would chop and boil them, often repeatedly. He made use of a "magic necklace", being three solar herbs harvested at sunrise on Sunday. Which is pretty damn magical if you think about it. (I myself have found it beneficial to wear such a thing. I use lavender, sage and marigold blossoms.) He gives cures that use potted plants and living trees, he says he was able to heal remotely. Having examined his work I can find no reason why these cures would not work.

I am here now researching a premise, that not only were undesirables (initially Catholics, I suspect) identified and executed as witches (see China's Cultural Revolution, or the purges under the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia), but that city doctors may have been targeting country doctors in this fashion. An older woman or man, living alone in a house surrounded by a field full of strange plants, with a large kitchen and pots boiling over with strange and foul smelling plants, is someone who can easily be mistaken as a witch and then, if or when there is a panic, treated accordingly. While Blagrave writes of how witches may be identified and killed, none of his methods are remotely like anything that has come down to us. For a first-hand account of what witches actually did, and what the locals did to them, I strongly recommend Blagrave. This will be unsigned as I have been banned for insisting that astrology is real and that Wiki is being idiotic about it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.15.119.52 (talk) 22:56, 17 July 2013 (UTC)

Lex Cornelia

The date provide for this law (2nd c. bc) is incorrect. It was promulgated in the early 1st cent. since the law itself only survives in fragmentary form, i think it rather dubious to assert that it was the basis of laws in the late medieval period and beyond. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.97.128.192 (talk) 16:58, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Zsuzsanna Budapest

I've removed the mention of Zsuzsanna Budapest, who was claimed to have been the last person prosecuted for witchcraft in the US. That would require a reliable source. I found some 1970s newspaper articles on her trial; they all say she was convicted not of witchcraft but of fortune-telling. Whether that can be called a witch-hunt depends on whether the ordinance she was convicted under assumed that fortune-telling works (then one could almost stretch it to "witchcraft", though I'd still like a reliable source explicitly calling her offense that) or that fortune-telling doesn't work, which would make her prosecution a consumer protection effort. The latter is definitely not a witch-hunt, and in 1975 I consider it much more likely. Huon (talk) 09:01, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Indeed. This is idiotic. witchtrial.net? Wikipedia is not required to repeat every piece of cheap propaganda posted on the internet. --dab (𒁳) 11:55, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Legality of witchcraft

I think a general article on the contemporary legality of "witchcraft" would be a worthwile article. I have heard that there are current laws on the books in some sub-Saharan African countries and fundamentalist Muslim states, but I do not see a place on wikipedia were one could find a list or map of places were witchcraft is illegal and those laws are enforced. --Bellerophon5685 (talk) 23:28, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

It is interesting that you should have heard this, one would expect you to have read it in this article,

Witch hunts still occur today in societies where belief in magic is predominant. In most cases, these are instances of lynching, reported with some regularity from much of Sub-Saharan Africa, from rural North India and from Papua New Guinea. In addition, there are some countries that have legislation against the practice of sorcery. The only country where witchcraft remains legally punishable by death is Saudi Arabia. [...] Several African states,[51] including Cameroon[52] have reestablished witchcraft-accusations in courts after their independence. [...] Saudi Arabia and Cameroon are the only countries that still have legislation outlawing witchcraft.

So, according to this article, your "list of places" would look like:

• Cameroon
• Saudi Arabia

--dab (𒁳) 12:01, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Witch burnings and the Catholic Church

There does not seem to be a reference to the new enthusiasm for witch burning in the RC church in the time of the counter reformation; c.f. St. Charles Boremeo. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.113.150.51 (talk) 10:16, 15 December 2012 (UTC)

I think you are looking for Witch trials in the Early Modern period. --dab (𒁳) 11:56, 21 December 2012 (UTC)

Because most of it was debunked as anti-Catholic propaganda by proper current historians. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.69.191.254 (talk) 06:11, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

"Transition to the early modern witch-hunts" section is also mostly taken from one source (book from 2004), hence pending towards only one opinion. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.69.191.254 (talk) 06:39, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Cathars

MithrasPriest has expanded the Cathar coverage. I have several issues with those edits. Most importantly, I don't think his main source, No Meek Messiah by Michael Paulkovich, is a reliable source. For all I can tell Paulkovich has no academic credentials, the publisher is not a reputable scholarly publisher, and the book reads more like a polemic than a history textbook. The number of a million Cathars killed seems vastly inflated - the worst massacre of the Albigensian Crusade had a death toll of somewhere between 7,000 and 20,000, and they didn't commit massacres of that scale on a yearly basis. Furthermore, this confuses witchcraft with heresy. The addition itself is not written in a neutral tone but expresses opinions. And while our coverage of the Cathars indeed requires improvement and wasn't quite neutral before, this material is far too detailed to belong in the lead section, which should just summarize the article's content. Huon (talk) 16:20, 1 April 2013 (UTC)

I'll have to agree that this content is unacceptable even on the surface, on the basic principle that Wikipedia isn't a blog to post your rants or opinions. Cutting it here.

---

...not including a million Cathars who were declared to be witches.

Perhaps the most heinous indictment against supposed witches began early in the thirteenth century as Pope Innocent III declared the Cathars, numbering almost a million, to be "witches" and brought Christian forces against them to wipe out every last one: man, woman, child. [Paulkovich, Michael (2012), No Meek Messiah, Spillix Publishing, p. 79-83, ISBN 0988216116 Catholic Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Press, 1907, p. vol. 4, 543 & 550; vol. 8, 28-29 ]

Early attempts to vilify and reify "witches" date back to seventh century with the Canon Episcopi, an anonymous work that indicted certain women as witches, having been seduced by "the devil."[Paulkovich, Michael (2012), No Meek Messiah, Spillix Publishing, p. 123, ISBN 0988216116]

---

If this is rephrased in acceptable form, we can consider its possible merit in the article. If you want to argue the relevance of Cathar persecution to this topic, please base it on some decent reference which is actually about Catharism, not some cranky pamphlet out to denounce "Christianity's Lies, Laws, and Legacy". As this article makes perfectly clear, witch-hunts are no "Christian" phenomenon anyway, they occur in historical paganism, in Hinduism, Islam and in African animism. If anything, Christianity successfully suppressed the impulse during its 500 years of dominance in Europe (c. 900 to 1400). Obviously, if you just want to collect material in your quest to malign Christianity, the early modern witch hunts are perfect for you (but this isn't the topic of this article). If notable (reviews!) No Meek Messiah might be useful in criticism of Christianity or similar, but certainly not here.

Also, I spent considerable effort in figuring out the nature of this so-called Canon Episcopi back in 2011. That was necessary because it only ever comes up in shoddy literature, either cranky "Christianity is evil" tracts, or confused "pagan" fantasy (or both at the same time). The information is now there for everyone to see, right at Canon Episcopi but no, we still have to deal with people talking about "the seventh century Canon Episcop which indicted certain women as witches, having been seduced by the devil". I suppose some people don't want to be educated. The text dates to the 10th century (that's like confusing Obama with George Washington), and it does the opposite of "indicting certain women as witches". It claims they are "relapsing into pagan error" by imagining they are witches while in reality (from the point of view of the text's author) they are no such thing, they are just deluded.

But of course trifles such as mere factuality cannot be considered when your sacred mission is to write a book on "Christianity's Lies, Laws, and Legacy". --dab (𒁳) 14:16, 2 May 2013 (UTC)

I shortened the section on Cathars somewhat, since there seemed to be only tenuous connection to the topic of witch hunts.128.156.10.80 (talk) 16:44, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Reformation

The writer argues for a causal link between Protestantism and witch-panics in Central and Western Europe that is not borne out by the statistics in the article. These show more executions taking place in Catholic lands. Also, the persecutions began before Protestantism became established as such. While persecutions were enthusiastically taken up by many Protestant groups, the relationship between the Reformation and the witch-panics was too complex and uncertain to be treated as a simple cause and effect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.33.147.223 (talk) 16:23, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

Middle Ages

The text of the "Middle Ages" section could be cleaned up; there is a lot of analysis here that seems to have a particular point of view, or at least, presents analysis that is not cited to a source. The section seems to be attempting to make a case that, in the Catholic Church, "Most inquisitors simply disbelieved in witchcraft and sorcery as superstitious folly" (really? How do we know this?) and "there seems to have been a phenomenon of superstitious practices and an over-reaction against them by the common people pressing Church and State to act" (indeed? "seems" to whom?) Statements like these really need to be attributed to a source. 128.156.10.80 (talk) 16:54, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

Fixed. 02:51, 19 September 2014 (UTC)

""Most inquisitors simply disbelieved in witchcraft and sorcery as superstitious folly" (really? How do we know this?) " DOCUMENTS. There are several records of even the infamous Spanish inquisition saving people from Secular authorities who had condemned them to be witches and warlocks. We kn ow this because the Church and the Inquisition kept meticulous documentations of trials and everything else. Of course I agree some clear sources would be beneficial.

PNG

The article says: "serving as popular male entertainment much like Grand Theft Auto, bullfighting, football, cockfighting, or boxing." I questioned calling out Grand Theft Auto by name, but really,none of these things is exclusively "male entertainment." So I read the referenced article, and it does not, by any stretch of the imagination, support the claims made. So I think I will go through this section and delete some of the stuff that seems to be OR editorializing. Puddytang (talk) 20:48, 19 January 2014 (UTC)

Statistics Section -- Russia

I undid a revision by 193.111.60.1 . This revision was to remove Russia from the statistics table. I do not have the original source, and maybe this anonymous does have access to it, so I could be in the wrong. But this edit is suspicious to me, and I would like some further explanation for why Russia is not properly included in that area. Puddytang (talk) 05:32, 19 March 2014 (UTC)

Seperate Modern Witch-hunting

I would like to suggest to split the text into European witch-hunting and modern oder current witch-hunting.

Modern witch-hunting has caused far more victims than European, it is far more widespread and it involves a plethora of ethnographic sub-settings. To treat this as a subsection of witch-hunts is rather misleading.

The section on modern witch-hunting remains, as is noted, anecdotical at least and from online-sources. The literature on modern witch-hunting is vast. But where to start with this prevalent article, where one could overwrite almost everything. I will open a new site on modern witch-hunts and organize a first structuring. Preconscious (talk) 12:49, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

Please, can someone insert a bot-safe redirect to modern witch-hunts? I deleted the lengthy and critisized parts and transferred the useful parts into the new article. A redirect after the summary would be sufficient. Agree? Preconscious (talk) 18:15, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Then what about Middle Eastern and American non-modern witch hunts? Bataaf van Oranje (Prinsgezinde) (talk) 13:47, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

Image caption - Pope Innocent VIII

IN the 'Middle Ages' section there is an image with a caption stating that "In 1487 Pope Innocent VIII endorsed the Malleus Maleficarum (the 'Hammer against the Witches').". In fact this appears to be untrue: the Wikipedia article on the Malleus Maleficarum discusses this. I have therefore removed this statement from the caption to the image; if anyone wants to revert it, I suggest they should include a citation and make changes to the other article as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daldred (talk • contribs) 09:17, 21 January 2015 (UTC)

Witches and not Wizards

Well, we all know that they burned women as witches but, not sure if it's another section or if exist a article in wikipedia... Did they even burn WIZARDS (MALE)? Or did they only think that there was only WITCHES (FEMALE)? I know that the time of Witches burning was a time of chaos and above all that of machism that the male have reason and the church have reason, but did they only believe on WITCHES? Or did they even burn WIZARDS?

81.202.108.191 (talk) 16:00, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

I am not certain about the method of execution, but the term "witch" was also used for males and there were certainly males accused for witchcraft. For example in the North Berwick witch trials (1590), the accused "witches" included John Fian and Robert Grierson. Fian was executed by strangulation and his corpse was burnt. Dimadick (talk) 08:26, 22 October 2016 (UTC)

The male counterpart for "witch" is "warlock" and yes men were tried as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 155.69.191.254 (talk) 05:46, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

People killes by with hunts

There were millions of people killed by witch hunts Ktgweatherley (talk) 12:58, 1 March 2017 (UTC)

Somewhat implausible. Based on the sources in the article, there were an estimated 35,000 to 100,000 executions of alleged witches between 1450 and 1750.

Keep in mind that Europe used to have a much smaller population than the one in the 21st century. The World population article estimates that in 1750, Europe had a population of 163 million people. Dimadick (talk) 21:48, 3 March 2017 (UTC)

The hammer of witches and other lies

It is being asserted that Spangers name should not be used in connection with the Hammer because on Kramer was the author and that Sprangers name was only appended as a kind of appeal; to authority. Do we have an RS for this claim?"Slatersteven (talk) 08:47, 28 July 2017 (UTC)

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"Malleus Maleficarum" / "Hammer against the Evildoers"

Since "Maleficarum" is a feminine plural genitive form of the Latin word (as opposed to the masculine form "Maleficorum"), it quite clearly refers to women (i.e. witches) rather than "evildoers" of either sex ("sorcerers"). And the article the link goes to is headed "Hammer of witches". Given the controversy on this page about whether women were the only - or main - victims, I feel it is important to get the translation right.89.212.50.177 (talk) 13:35, 22 December 2017 (UTC)

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Hyphenation?

I think it's far more common to call a witch hunt a "witch hunt" than a "witch-hunt". Perhaps this page should be moved, per WP:COMMONNAME. In the meanwhile, we shouldn't jump back and forth between the two, so I've changed them all to match the current title ("witch-hunt", as of now). Thoughts? InedibleHulk (talk) 03:27, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

Not so sure [[6]], [[7]] of the top 10 hits on a book search (not scientific I know) only 3 seems to have used "witch hunt" in the title (as opposed to 5 that used the hyphen).Slatersteven (talk) 08:56, 13 April 2019 (UTC)

AfD for Duplicate Page

Recently a page, Witch-hunts Around the World, was created that seems redundant to this article. An AfD discussion is being held here: View AfD. AnandaBliss (talk) 23:03, 16 April 2021 (UTC)