The Origin of Witches: From Ancient Magic and Pagan Beliefs to Medieval Witch Hunts and Modern Witchcraft

In 1782, in the Swiss canton of Glarus, a maidservant named Anna Goldi was beheaded on charges of witchcraft — the last legal witch execution in Europe. Yet just 172 years later, in 1954, a retired British civil servant publicly declared himself a “witch” and unveiled a new religion to the world. How did the very word that had once been a death sentence become a voluntary identity?

Behind this reversal lies a complex history spanning thousands of years. In ancient Mesopotamia, the sorcerer was a sacred priest who drove away evil spirits; in Greek mythology, the goddess Hecate was a revered deity of magic. But in medieval Europe, such figures were redefined as apostates bound by pacts with the devil, and an estimated 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed under the name of “witch.” This article traces how the concept of the witch shifted from the sacred to the fearsome, and from the fearsome to a symbol of resistance.

Ancient Magic and Sorcery: An Age of Sacred Power

Mesopotamia: The World of Sorcerers and Exorcists

In Mesopotamia — cradle of human civilisation, in what is now Iraq — magic and sorcery were woven into the fabric of daily life. The fact that roughly 30% of surviving Akkadian cuneiform texts deal with magic and the supernatural illustrates just how central these practices were.^[1]

In Mesopotamian culture, magical practitioners fell into two distinct categories. The kāšipu used malevolent magic harmful to society and were treated as social enemies, while the āšipu were exorcist-priests who fought against such magic.^[1] Sumerian texts record the conflict between these two figures in vivid detail. Practitioners employed herbs, incantations, and ritual to heal illness and drive away evil spirits. In the ancient world, magical ability was not inherently good or evil — its nature was determined by who wielded it and to what end.

Egypt: The Fusion of Priesthood and Magic

In ancient Egypt, magic was inseparable from religion. The Egyptian word for magic, heka, was understood as a divine force that had existed before the creation of the world.^[2] Pharaohs and priests believed they channelled this power to carry out the will of the gods and maintain cosmic order.

Female priests and healers were important custodians of this magical knowledge. They conducted rites to guide the souls of the dead to the afterlife, recited spells to protect children from disease, and performed healing ceremonies. Far from being feared, these women were regarded with deep respect and reverence.

Greece and Rome: Circe, Medea, and Hecate

In the ancient Greek and Roman world, the concept of the witch reached its most sophisticated form. Greek mythology features a number of women endowed with extraordinary magical power — figures who would go on to shape the image of the witch profoundly.

Circe appears in Homer’s epic The Odyssey as a sorceress. Daughter of the sun god Helios, she uses herbs and a magic wand to transform Odysseus’s crew into pigs.^[3] With her formidable power and her gift for metamorphosis — turning humans into animals — Circe stands as one of the earliest archetypes of the witch.

Medea is a princess of Colchis who appears in the tale of the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. A master of both herbalism and sorcery, she was a priestess of the goddess Hecate. She is depicted as a tragic figure who aided Jason’s adventure, only to be abandoned and driven to violent revenge.^[3] As a powerful but dangerous foreign woman in possession of arcane knowledge, Medea prefigures the very type of woman who would later become the target of witch persecution.

The most significant figure is Hecate. Goddess of magic, sorcery, the moon, and the souls of the dead, Hecate is depicted as a three-bodied being bearing torches, a key, and serpents.^[3] She was especially the guardian of crossroads — places understood as the boundary between the world of the living and the realm of the dead. Hecate would remain a central deity in the European magical tradition, enduring to this day.

The Bible and Early Christian Conceptions of Witchcraft

The Old Testament Witch: The Witch of Endor

The most famous biblical witch narrative is the story of the Witch of Endor, found in 1 Samuel 28:3–25. In it, Saul — Israel’s first king — is gripped by fear on the eve of battle with the Philistines and seeks out a medium.^[4]

The irony is profound: Saul himself had previously expelled all mediums and spiritists from his kingdom. Yet here he was, asking the Witch of Endor to summon the spirit of the dead prophet Samuel. This story must be understood in the context of multiple Old Testament passages forbidding sorcery — in Leviticus 19:31 and Deuteronomy 18:9–14, among others. Attempting to commune with the dead in defiance of God’s will was a grave transgression, and those who did so faced punishment.

These passages would be invoked for centuries as the scriptural basis for witch persecution. In particular, Exodus 22:18 — “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” — became a favourite citation of witch-hunters in the medieval and early modern periods.^[4]

Early Christianity and the Collision with Pagan Belief

As Christianity spread across the Roman Empire, the Church came into conflict with pre-existing polytheistic traditions. The early Church Fathers began to define magic and sorcery as the work of the devil. Yet notably, the ecclesiastical document known as the Canon Episcopi — thought to have been composed around 900 CE — classified as superstition the very belief that witches could fly or possess genuine supernatural powers, warning that such beliefs were themselves a deception of the devil.^[5]

This document carries considerable significance. As late as the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the official position of the Church held that believing witches could actually perform magic was itself a heresy. That official stance, however, would undergo a dramatic reversal in the fifteenth century.

The Formation of the Medieval Witch Concept: Diabolical Pacts and the Sabbath

The Emergence of the Idea of the Pact with the Devil

In the late Middle Ages, the Church’s position on witchcraft underwent a fundamental transformation. Between the late fourteenth and early fifteenth centuries, through a series of trials — particularly in the western Alps region, in what is now Switzerland and eastern France — an entirely new concept of the witch took shape.^[5]

In this new conception, the witch was not merely an individual who performed harmful magic. The witch was an apostate who had entered into an explicit pact with the devil. In 1398, the University of Paris declared that such a pact could be formed implicitly — without written documents. The mere act of invoking the devil was sufficient evidence of the compact.^[5] This provided the legal foundation that would make evidence-gathering in subsequent witch trials far easier.

The Witches’ Sabbath: The Idea of Collective Ritual

Alongside the diabolical pact came the concept of the Sabbath — the notion that witches flew through the night to gather at a designated place, where they worshipped the devil, devoured children, and engaged in sexual debauchery. This idea first appeared in the Alpine trials of the early fifteenth century.^[5]

Historians identify three sources from which the Sabbath concept was fashioned. The first was the long-standing tradition of slander against heretical sects — the claim that heretics gathered by night to commit cannibalism, infanticide, and orgies. The second was the Church’s concern about learned sorcerers who dealt with the devil. The third was the ancient folk belief that women travelled by night in the company of mythical beings.^[5]

These three elements fused to produce a wholly new conception of the witch, saturated with Satanic imagery. This concept soon spread across Europe, carried on the wings of the newly developed printing press.

The Witch on a Broomstick: The Formation of the Visual Image

The visual image of the witch that we recognise today — pointed hat, broomstick, black cat — was largely fixed between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries through woodcuts and engravings. Woodcut illustrations in books published from the 1490s onward played a decisive role in standardising the witch’s appearance.^[5]

The broomstick had originally been a domestic object symbolising the female sphere of the home. It was reinterpreted as the instrument of flight. Some researchers note that certain medieval texts suggest brooms and other long staves were used to apply ointments made from hallucinogenic plants — such as belladonna and hemlock — to the skin.

The Age of Witch Hunts: The Fifteenth to Eighteenth Centuries

The Malleus Maleficarum: The Handbook of Persecution

In 1486, the German Catholic clergyman Heinrich Kramer published a book that codified both the theory and practice of witch-hunting. Written in Latin, it was titled the Malleus Maleficarum — “The Hammer of Witches.”^[6]

In this work, Kramer argued that denying the reality of witches was itself a heresy, and he explained — in unscientific and deeply misogynistic terms — why women were far more susceptible to becoming witches than men. He contended that women, being weaker in faith and inferior in body and mind, were more easily seduced by the devil.^[6] The book is structured in three parts: Part I presents the theoretical framework of witchcraft; Part II details its specific practices; Part III lays out the legal procedures for witch trials.

Thanks to Gutenberg’s movable type, the book spread rapidly. From its publication in 1486 until 1600, it was printed in 28 editions, and it became the official manual of witch-hunters everywhere.^[6]

The Peak of the Witch Hunts: 1560–1630

The witch hunts of Europe began in the fifteenth century and reached their peak between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Scholarly estimates vary, but the total number of executions resulting from witch trials during this period is generally put at between 40,000 and 60,000.^[5]

The regions most intensely afflicted were in central Europe — particularly the German-speaking lands and Switzerland. Social instability, the religious conflict between Catholics and Protestants sparked by the Reformation, war, famine, and plague all combined to create a climate in which people sought scapegoats. Collective psychology, driven by crisis, fuelled the witch hunts.

The Bamberg Witch Trials: Europe’s Greatest Tragedy

The witch trials that took place in Bamberg, Germany, between 1626 and 1631 rank among the largest witch persecutions in European history. The Prince-Bishop of Bamberg, Johann Georg Fuchs von Dornheim, led the persecution under the banner of building a “city of God.”^[7]

In May 1626, a late frost destroyed the harvest across the Bamberg region. Faced with an inexplicable disaster, people began searching for witches. Confessions extracted under torture spawned more confessions, which in turn named new suspects — a vicious cycle that repeated itself relentlessly. The persecution spread beyond ordinary citizens to engulf nobles and even the Mayor of Bamberg. It is estimated that between 300 and 600 people were executed over five years.^[7]

The Salem Witch Trials: Madness in the New World

The witch trials that took place in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 showed that the hysteria of witch-hunting could be reproduced in the New World as readily as in the Old. The Salem trials were triggered when young women in the harsh conditions of a colonial village began exhibiting convulsions and hallucinations.^[8]

In the course of the proceedings, approximately 200 people were accused of practising witchcraft; 19 were hanged, and one person was pressed to death under heavy stones. Historians today analyse the episode as a tragedy produced by a confluence of mass hysteria, religious fanaticism, personal grudges, and extreme social stress.^[8]

Salem left a deep wound on American culture in particular. Arthur Miller’s 1953 play The Crucible drew on these events to critique the witch-hunting quality of McCarthyite political persecution, and the episode continues to be invoked as a defining example of dangerous collective hysteria.

The End of the Witch Hunts and the Enlightenment

The Light of Reason

As the Enlightenment spread across Europe through the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the witch hunts gradually came to an end. An intellectual climate that prized reason and scientific thought began to cast doubt on blind belief in the supernatural.^[5]

One significant turning point came in England in 1712. Jane Wenham, the last person prosecuted for witchcraft in England, was found guilty by a jury — but the judge overruled the verdict and recommended a pardon. The last official execution for witchcraft in Europe is recorded as the case of Anna Göldi, executed in Glarus, Switzerland, in 1782.^[5]

Yet the end of legal persecution did not mean the disappearance of popular belief in witches. In rural areas, fear of witchcraft persisted well into the nineteenth century, and cases of informal witch punishment continued to be reported.

The Social Scapegoating of Witches: Why Women?

Gender, Power, and Marginalisation

The fact that roughly 70–80% of those accused in historical witch trials were women is no coincidence.^[6] Those denounced as witches tended to share certain characteristics: elderly widows or single women; local healers or midwives; women who were poor and socially marginalised; or women who had been in conflict with their neighbours.

In the patriarchal societies of the medieval and early modern periods, a woman who supported herself independently, who possessed traditional knowledge of healing and childbirth, or who held informal authority in her community could become an object of unease and fear. Witch accusations were frequently used as a tool to settle property disputes, enact personal vengeance, or enforce social conformity.

Some historians argue that the witch hunts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were intertwined with the professionalisation of medicine. As male physicians and apothecaries displaced women from the roles of midwife and healer, women’s knowledge of healing was reclassified as dangerous sorcery.

The Modern Witch: Wicca and the Neo-Pagan Movement

Gerald Gardner and the Birth of Wicca

In the mid-twentieth century, the witch was reborn — remarkably — as a new religion. Wicca is a modern pagan religion introduced to the public in 1954 by Gerald Gardner (1884–1964), a retired British civil servant and amateur anthropologist.^[9]

Gardner claimed that Wicca was a continuation of an ancient pre-Christian witch religion. Scholars are sceptical of this claim, and evidence exists showing that Gardner drew on Freemasonry, occult tradition, and the influence of the occultist Aleister Crowley.^[9]

Wicca centres on reverence for nature, a dual conception of the divine as both god and goddess, seasonal rites following the cycles of nature, and the ethical principle: “An it harm none, do what ye will.” Wicca originated in Britain and spread in the 1950s and 1960s to the United States, Australia, and continental Europe.^[9]

Feminism and the Reclamation of the Witch

The second wave of feminism in the 1960s and 1970s brought with it a powerful reclamation of the witch as a symbol of women’s liberation. In 1968 in the United States, a radical feminist group called W.I.T.C.H. (Women’s International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) was formed, deploying the witch image as a symbol of resistance and autonomy.^[10]

Historians and feminists reinterpreted the medieval witch hunts as fundamentally an expression of patriarchal power — an effort to control women’s bodies, knowledge, and social roles. From this perspective, the witch becomes a symbol of women who resisted oppression.

Today the Neo-Pagan movement — including Wicca and its many variants — is growing actively around the world. Modern practitioners of witchcraft frequently connect their spirituality to social transformation, environmental activism, and gender equality.

Witches in Modern Popular Culture

Since the twentieth century, the witch has become an important character archetype in popular culture — but the image has shifted dramatically from era to era.

In early films and fairy tales, witches were depicted primarily as ugly, malevolent old crones. The Wicked Witch of the West in the 1939 film The Wizard of Oz and the Evil Queen in Walt Disney’s Snow White (1937) are classic examples.

In the second half of the twentieth century, the image grew more complex. The television series Bewitched (1964–1972) presented a cheerful witch navigating modern life, while the Harry Potter series reimagined witches and wizards as heroic figures learning magic at school.

In the twenty-first century, darker and more intense portrayals have become fashionable. Robert Eggers’s 2015 film The Witch offered a harrowing account of how witch-fear destroys a family in seventeenth-century Puritan society. The television series American Horror Story: Coven (2013) depicted witches as powerful women defying oppression.

The witch has become a complex icon that simultaneously evokes fear and fascination, power and resistance. On social media, growing numbers of young women identify as “witches,” and witch aesthetics and mysticism have fed into trends in fashion, art, and lifestyle.

Lesser-Known Facts Worth Knowing

The gendering of “witch”: The English word witch was originally applicable to both men and women. Over time, however, it became increasingly associated with women, while separate terms — sorcerer, wizard, warlock — came to be applied to male practitioners. This linguistic gendering itself reflects the gender bias of the witch hunts.

Regional variation in witch trials: The witch hunts were by no means evenly distributed across Europe. Central Europe — particularly the German-speaking regions and Switzerland — experienced the most severe persecutions, while the Inquisitions of Portugal and Spain were comparatively sceptical of witch trials. Ironically, the Spanish Inquisition actively suppressed witch-hunting, regarding the craze as grounded in superstition.^[5]

Midwives and the witch: In European tradition, midwives were regarded as possessing special knowledge of the boundary between birth and death. The Malleus Maleficarum alleged that midwives dedicated newborn children to the devil, and many midwives were in fact accused of witchcraft.^[6]

Gardner’s Wicca and the claim of ancient lineage: Gerald Gardner claimed that Wicca was heir to an ancient witch religion, but modern scholars are nearly unanimous in rejecting this. Nevertheless, this narrative played a significant role in Wicca’s growth — people were drawn to the idea of an ancient wisdom secretly preserved through centuries of persecution.^[9]

Conclusion: From Fear to Power — The Phoenix-Like Transformation of the Witch

The witch is among the longest-surviving and most shape-shifting figures in the whole of human history.

In ancient Mesopotamia and Egypt, the magical practitioner was a keeper of sacred knowledge. In the Greco-Roman world, that figure took on the image of a powerful but threatening outsider. The Bible and early Christianity constructed a framework that linked magic to the devil, and the Middle Ages built upon that framework the new concepts of the Sabbath and the diabolical pact — concepts that sent tens of thousands to their deaths. The Enlightenment brought this madness to a close, but the witch did not die. In the twentieth century, she was reborn in alliance with feminism and neo-paganism, and today she carries the values of resistance, autonomy, and connection with the natural world.

Why has the witch exercised such a long hold over the human imagination? Perhaps because she embodies the very things our societies both fear and desire: uncontrollable power, freedom from social norms, and a mysterious union with nature. The figure that in an age of persecution was an object of fear and suppression has been reborn, in our own time, as a symbol of the very force that resists that suppression. Witches are never truly burned. They emerge from the flames stronger than before.