Black cats and broomsticks: The long and troubled history of witchcraft

Archaeological discoveries suggest that people in prehistoric Europe practised rituals that linked magic to survival and fertility, which reveals how early communities tried to control the natural world around them.

Cave art in the Trois-Frères cave in France, which dated to about 13,000 BCE, shows human figures dressed in animal skins that scholars believe represented shamans who performed ceremonies to secure hunting success or protection for their groups.

These depictions indicate that magic and spirituality were already central to human attempts to understand and manage their environment. 

Written sources from the ancient world confirm that magic formed part of daily life in many civilisations, and surviving texts provide detailed evidence of the rituals people used.

Babylonian Maqlu tablets from the first millennium BCE described ceremonies to protect individuals from witches, who were believed to use harmful spells.

Egyptian papyri from the New Kingdom contained healing charms and incantations to ward off curses, suggesting that trained ritual specialists were important figures within their societies.

Greek and Roman literature also portrayed witches as dangerous women who brewed potions and cast curses, with figures such as Circe and Medea becoming famous examples of characters who used magic for revenge or seduction. 

Christian authorities in medieval Europe condemned witchcraft as sinful and linked it directly to the power of the devil.

Councils in the 8th and 9th centuries passed laws against sorcery, and by around 906 CE the Canon Episcopi described women who believed they flew with pagan goddesses, though the text dismissed these experiences as illusions created by demons.

The church promoted the idea that magical practices were false and spiritually dangerous, yet many ordinary people still turned to charms and rituals when they needed healing or protection. 

Local healers, who were often women, combined herbal remedies with prayers and traditional rituals.

This provided essential care in communities that lacked trained physicians. However, legal action against witches occurred, but most trials were small and linked to neighbourly disputes in which misfortune, such as illness, animal deaths, or failed crops, led to accusations.

Courts punished those found guilty with public penance, fines, or banishment, showing that witchcraft at this time was treated as a social problem rather than a large-scale threat to church or state authority. 

Europe experienced widespread witch hunts between the late 1400s and 1600s, a period defined by faith upheavals, widespread conflict, and societal disruption that increased fear of the devil’s power.

The Malleus Maleficarum, which was first published in 1487 by Heinrich Kramer, encouraged courts to prosecute witches by claiming that they made pacts with the devil, attended secret gatherings, and caused the death of children and livestock.

Both Protestant and Catholic authorities treated witchcraft as heresy, and they used trials to enforce moral discipline in their communities. 

Thousands of people faced accusations across Europe during this time, with torture frequently used to obtain confessions that confirmed the supposed reality of witches’ sabbaths and devil-worship.

Women formed the majority of the accused. Clearly, there were widespread fears about female sexuality and disobedience to male authority.

Germany, Switzerland, and France witnessed the most intense hunts, while colonial Massachusetts saw the notorious Salem witch trials that began in 1692 and continued into 1693.

Nineteen people were hanged and one man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death, which brought the total number of executions to twenty, and many others were imprisoned.

Fear of the devil, combined with local tensions and personal grudges, drove communities to act against those they suspected. 

The Enlightenment of the 18th century promoted rational inquiry and the growth of scientific thinking that encouraged scepticism, which gradually eroded belief in witches as real agents of harm.

Intellectuals such as Voltaire and Montesquieu criticised superstition and argued that events once attributed to magic could be explained through natural causes.

Scientific advances in medicine, astronomy, and physics offered new ways to understand disease, disasters, and misfortune, which reduced the power of older beliefs. 

Governments across Europe abolished laws that allowed witch trials, and the last known execution for witchcraft took place in Switzerland in 1782 when Anna Göldi was beheaded in the canton of Glarus.

By the early 19th century, educated Europeans regarded witchcraft as part of folklore rather than a real threat, and scholars began to study magical practices as cultural traditions from the past.

Physicians increasingly described strange behaviour as the result of mental illness, which further weakened the idea that witches could harm others through supernatural means. 

Belief in witchcraft has continued in many non-western societies, which explained personal misfortune or social conflict.

In parts of West Africa, communities have long associated witchcraft with jealousy, illness, and death, and anthropologist E. E. Evans-Pritchard’s studies of the Azande in the early 20th century described how accusations of witchcraft helped explain both accidents and disputes between neighbours. 

In South Asia, traditional healers and sorcerers still perform rituals for protection or healing, and in rural areas, accusations of witchcraft sometimes lead to violence against women.

Indigenous communities in the Americas practised forms of spiritual healing that Spanish colonisers condemned as witchcraft.

The Inquisition prosecuted native shamans in Mexico and Peru, which formed part of efforts to suppress local religions and impose Catholic belief. 

The 20th century witnessed the growth of new pagan religions that reclaimed witchcraft as a positive spiritual path, after Gerald Gardner introduced Wicca in Britain during the 1950s.

Wiccan rituals focused on seasonal festivals and personal growth, and practitioners described their religion as a revival of pre-Christian nature worship. 

Modern popular culture continues to present witches in books, films, and television shows, where they appear as both frightening villains and strong independent figures.

Symbols such as black cats and broomsticks remain popular in Halloween celebrations, yet in parts of Africa and Asia, witchcraft accusations still lead to persecution and violence.

This is evidence that fear of magic continues to affect communities around the world.