Witchcraft

 Book 9 of my 2025 Reading Challenge

read from January 10 - 17

Witchcraft: A History in 13 Trials by Marion Gibson

published 2023

Summary (via the book jacket)

Once a tool invented by demonologists to hurt and silence their enemies, witch trials have been twisted and transformed over the course of history and the lines between witch and witch-hunter blurred.

In Witchcraft, Professor Marion Gibson uses thirteen significant trials to tell the fascinating global history of witchcraft and withs-hunts from the Middle Ages to the present day. Placing the 'witches' front and centre, Gibson pays tribute to history's marginalized and demonized and offers fresh perspectives on trials familiar to us, challenging our perception of what a witch-hunt looks like. For the fortunate, it is just a metaphor, but, as this book makes clear, witches are truly still on trial.

My Opinion

3 stars

I received this book for Christmas (one of many with a witchcraft theme) after picking it out on vacation last fall; this was from a little bookstore in Bath.  

Whenever I think of witches I think of the line, "they didn't burn witches, they burned women" which helps me keep perspective.  The dichotomy of viewing women as powerless and lesser-than while at the same time viewing them powerful enough to affect weather, health, etc. when blaming them for misfortune was maddening to read about.

Although it was hard to read about, there was a barrier of comfort thinking that I was revisiting historical events and witch trials were so far in the past.  Then we kept moving forward in time and I was shocked at how current these experiences still are.  To throw out a few stats, 132 "magical murders" were reported in Uganda between 2019 and 2021, in four months of 2021 a single province in the Democratic Republic of Congo saw 324 accusations of witchcraft (with 8 women murdered), and Guatemala saw traditional healers being targeted and killed as recently as 2021.  The information about children being sent to "witch camps" was especially heartbreaking.