Using Witch Trials Records as a Resource for Contemporary Witchcraft
Authorβs Note: The materials shared on this blog are based on the authorβs own research and interpretation. They are intended as resources for students of Hagstone Witchery and for practitioners exploring traditional, folkloric, and folk magic. All posts are offered in the spirit of shared knowledge and inspiration, not as prescriptions or declarations of the βrightβ way to practice.
The witch trials remain one of the most misunderstood topics of magical discourse. In some corners of the witchcraft community, they evoke a sense of grief, outrage, and sorrow. It is not uncommon to see bold claims and slogans such as the popular βwe are the witches you could not burnβ and βnot all witches live in Salemβ. But it is important to be clear: the people targeted in the so-called witch trials of Europe and North America were not witches. They were neighbors, midwives, the poor, the elderly, the marginalized, and other individuals who became victims of fear, politics, and social control. Their βconfessionsβ were extracted under torture, starvation, threats, public humiliation and psychological cruelty.
The belief that we, as practitioners of magic, are the spiritual (much less, physical) descendants of these accused witches is, at best, laughably wrong. Simply put, witch trial records are not blueprints of actual witchcraft. They are not records of the confessions and punishments of witches, but the brutal mistreatment of widows, midwives, cantankerous old folks.
That being said, these records can still be useful to contemporary traditional witches and folklorists. They preserve traces of how early modern communities imagined magic, spirits, and the supernatural. If approached with respect and a healthy dose of discernment, these documents can help us understand the cultural context from which many strands of folk and traditional witchcraft emerged.
What Witch Trial Documents Can Teach Us
1. Beliefs About Witchcraft: Trial accounts detail the βsignsβ of witchcraft: marks on the body, familiars, charms, curses, weather magic, flying ointments, and more. These documented beliefs reflect not what the accused actually practiced, but what communities believed witches could do. They provide valuable insight into the popular magical imagination at the time.
2. Spirit Interaction and the Devil: The βDevilβ of the records is less a theological figure and more a folkloric one. He is similar to tricksters, faery beings, or otherworldly guides. Patterns of initiation, spirit-gifting, and woodland encounters give us insight into older traditions of spirit work, providing clues to how people conceptualized relationships with the unseen.
3. Patterns of Magical Practice: Confessions often follow a formulaic structure. They details the accusedβs initiation through a pact, naming a familiar, learning spells, using herbs or charms, and attending gatherings with spirits and other witches. Though coerced and distorted, this recurring pattern reflects cultural frameworks for how magical power was thought to be gained and used.
4. Magical Language and Formulas: Some testimonies preserve actual charms, incantations, or ritual fragments. Some of these may be given by the accused; other are fabricated by interrogators. These fragments often align with wider folk traditions, offering rare glimpses into otherwise undocumented oral magic.
5. Folklore and Cultural Memory: The trials reveal community fears of illness, envy, crop failure, infertility, and unexplained misfortune. They demonstrate how deeply magical thinking was woven into everyday life. The supernatural was believed to touch every aspect of life, including medicine, morality, and survival.
Approaching the Sources with Respect
Because these records are s often misunderstood and misused within the magical community, they must be engaged with carefully:
Do not romanticize. The accused were victims of violence, not secret covens keeping ancient rites.
Honor the humanity of the accused. They were people caught in systems of fear and power, not archetypes that we should seek to embody in our magical practices.
Use trials as cultural mirrors. Understand that they show us beliefs about magic, not literal records of practice.
Do not fall prey to the witch wound mindset. It is possible to learn from the folklore preserved in these texts without claiming a false heritage of persecution.
Minor & Civil Court Documents
Witch trial documents also should not be your sole source of magical history. Keep in mind that they are incredibly biased and set out to paint the worst possible picture of what these communities believed magic to be capable of. For a more realistic and balanced look into the magical beliefs of history, itβs also worth looking at the records of minor and civil cases that involved folk magic, cunning craft, and other forms of βservice magic.β
In these proceedings, the defendants are far more likely to have been legitimate practitioners of magic (or charlatans cosplaying as such). The accusations were rarely about demonic pacts or dramatic witchcraft, but dealt with failed healings, spells that didnβt work as promised, or divinations that gave unsatisfactory results.
These cases might lack the sensational folklore that we can find in witch-hunting documents. But they provide real glimpses into the everyday practices of premodern and early modern folk magicians. They reveal the kinds of services people expected, details about the materials and methods practitioners actually employed, and the ways magic functioned as part of ordinary community life.
Why This Matters for Contemporary Craft
For traditional and folkloric witches today, witch trial documents are not sacred genealogies. They are cultural artifacts. Their value lies in showing how ordinary people once imagined magic and the unseen world. They preserve fragments of folk belief that, when studied carefully, can help inform modern traditional practices.
Our magic does not descend from those accused of witchcraft. It grows from choice, from research, and from a willingness to engaged with folklore, history, and the belief in a spirit-filled world.
