Between 1300 and 1850, around 40,000 to 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft in Europe. Germany alone accounted for approximately 42% of these executions, followed by Switzerland, France, and Hungary. The most intense period of the witch hunts was from 1580 to 1630.

Source: Statista – The Death Toll of Europe's Witch Trials.

“Never in history have women been subjected to such a mass assault on their bodies, organized at the international level, legally sanctioned, and blessed by the Church...

The witch-hunt produced a model of womanhood that was asexual, obedient, submissive, resigned to subordination to the male world, forced to accept as natural being relegated to a sphere of activity that, in capitalism, was economically devalued.”

— Silvia Federici, Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women (PM Press, 2018)

The burning of a witch in Vienna, Austria, 1538 (Ullstein Bild, from Little, 2018)

In the collective imagination, the witch has always represented a liminal figure, simultaneously a healer and poisoner, a woman who holds knowledge and knows how to use it for both good and evil. The witch embodies one of the most controversial archetypes ever, living on the margins and refusing to conform to common rules. Her behavior is outside the norm, and the surrounding society seems almost irrelevant in shaping her identity. Her knowledge is passed down from woman to woman, and in her daily life, there is no room for the masculine: whether it be a husband or a god, the witch answers to no one but herself. The archetype of the witch fully embodies her independence, her power, the chaos surrounding her, reestablishing a new order-and it is precisely for this reason that she becomes seen as dangerous, someone to be controlled, and in the most extreme cases, suppressed. It is in this climate of terror that the real hunt to flush out women deemed witches begins, a process based on distrust, suspicion, aimed at controlling them and rendering them harmless. Fire takes on the connotation of the greatest ally for the inquisitors who burn witches at the stake until they are reduced to ashes, nothing must remain of them. That of burning at the stake is a strategy of control, autonomous and influential women must be repressed, they cannot and must not show the world their power, they must not show that a woman can be, exist and endure even without the support of a man. And so the term "witch" also takes on a new meaning, it becomes a label to silence, to delegitimize, if society sees you as such you are not worthy to be a part of it and have no right to speak. Today witchcraft has taken on a completely different character from what it was, mainstream culture often proposes protagonists with magical powers in novels, movies, TV series and music but it does so under a new and ambiguous perspective.

While this figure returns as redeemed from her frightening appearance, she does so in a "domesticated" version, placed in narrative frames that present her as a victim seeking redemption, thus neutralizing the pure power she once represented.

Scarlet Witch (Marvel Studios, 2021)

Elphaba, the protagonist of the musical Wicked, is a prime example. She is not a witch by descent, she is not a victim and it is not society that imposes the label on her: she is the one who chooses to become one, she is different and to impose herself as a witch is an act of resistance and affirmation of her identity. In Wicked we witness an apparent process of emancipation, the protagonist's choice completely disengages her from the corrupt patterns of society and allows her to be free but paying a very high price, that of exile. What pop culture presents us with is a figure who on the one hand reclaims identity, power, a privileged place on the stands from which to observe reality but on the other hand always does so through a glass, remaining separate and distant from her surroundings. Once again, the witch is distinct and separate, unable to integrate, and the only way she can survive is to keep her distance.

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Elphaba's story is [...] about how a colorful, powerful, magical woman – despite being disparaged, demonized, and discriminated against – becomes a hero.

Wicked is a reclamation and a reimagining of all the labels that are used against her. It is the proclamation of her right to exist in all her power,” she continued.

If that sounds familiar to you colorful, magical people in this room – it should.”

Source: Cynthia Erivo, Los Angeles LGBT Center Gala, May 2024

Witch hunts are long over, yet the world seems not yet ready for them, and the feeling one gets from analyzing the role they take in contemporary culture is that of a sweetened and tamed version. There is no need to drive them out, to extirpate them because they themselves will be exiled or self-sabotaged anyway because their powers are too unwieldy to have a place among ordinary mortals. Even in the neo-pagan tradition and in the modern practice of witchcraft we see an "uncontrollable" representation of powerful women. Witch magic is presented to us as chaotic, irrational, and instinctive, as opposed to a methodical and rational reality associated with the male. Witches thus appear almost exotic figures, useful for the production of commercial and marketable content but never as instruments of true liberation. There is always something holding them back, something that pushes to keep them at bay and tame them. What transpires by analyzing the modern witch is a kind of illusion created by pop culture, an 'emancipation by halves that consoles without transforming. And the witch thus translates into the great contradiction that women experience today: their strength is to be celebrated only if it is within the limits of what is controllable and harmless. Witches seem to be once again instrumentalized, no longer to terrorize but almost on the contrary to tranquilize, to make tangible that possible domestication of what might escape control. It is no longer others who are afraid of witches but witches themselves who are afraid of their own power.

It is therefore worth asking: are we really facing the purest form of emancipation or is the witch a narrative domesticated by patriarchy?

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