Podcast
The Thing About Witch Hunts
Hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack · EN
Witch trials have shaped communities, claimed lives, and defined entire eras of history. The Thing About Witch Hunts investigates the real history behind witch hunts and modern witchcraft persecution worldwide, from the Salem witch trials of 1692 to the deadly witchcraft accusations devastating communities today. Hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack, each episode delivers essential context for history lovers, true crime fans, and human rights advocates.
#witchtrials #witchhunts #SalemWitchTrials #witchcraft #witchcraftpersecution #history #truecrime #humanrights #historypodcast #persecutio
32episodes
Episodes
Newest firstAll episodes
The Art and Folklore of Divination with Icy Sedgwick, author of Fate or Fortune
1w ago00:50:57Tap to summarizeDivination folklore, folk magic history, and the practice of reading omens, cards, and natural signs are at the heart of this conversation with Icy Sedgwick, author of Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination, folklorist, and host of the Fabulous Folklore Podcast. From ancient liver divination in Mesopotamia to love divination games played by young women in early modern England, this episode traces the deep folk roots of divinatory practice across centuries and cultures.Icy Sedgwick is a writer, researcher, and diviner specializing in folklore, plant lore, and folk magic. Her book Fate or Fortune: The Art of Divination explores the history, folklore, and practice of divination from a folklore studies perspective. She is the creator and host of the Fabulous Folklore Podcast, based in Newcastle, England.Divination is one of the oldest and most universal human impulses, and its fingerprints are all over witch trial history. In this episode, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack sit down with Icy Sedgwick to explore what folk magic tradition tells us about the people who practiced divination, why they sought answers through omens and tools and rituals, and what those practices reveal about the communities that preserved them. The conversation is wide-ranging, deeply grounded in folklore scholarship, and endlessly surprising.IN THIS EPISODE YOU WILL LEARN:What separates divination from fortune telling, and why has that distinction mattered throughout history?How did cunning women turn ordinary household objects into powerful folk magic tools?What do love divination rituals reveal about the real lives of women in early modern communities?Why did playing cards become so deeply entangled with the devil in folk tradition?What ancient civilizations left behind physical records of their divination practices, and what did those records reveal?How has dowsing been used for purposes far stranger than finding water?What does folklore say about omens you never asked for but receive anyway?Which forms of divination are experiencing a genuine resurgence right now, and which trend is Icy warning practitioners to avoid?Pick up Icy Sedgwick's book Fate or Fortune: The Art and Folklore of Divination through our affiliate bookshop at bookshop.org/shop/endwitchhuntsicysedgwick.com#divination #folklore #folkmagic #witchtrials #salemwitchtrials #fortunetelling #cunningfolk #omens #tarot #cartomancy #dowsing #folklorePodcast #witchhunts #occulthistory #historicalpodcast #folklorestudies #divinationhistory #witchcraft #palmistry #scapulamancy
Transcribe →
Connecticut Witch Trials Before Salem: The Play Windsor's Daughter Restores Alice Young's Legacy
2w ago00:51:56Tap to summarizeAlice Young was the first person executed for witchcraft in the American colonies, in Windsor, Connecticut, in 1647, before the Salem witch trials. Award-winning author Beth Caruso and playwright Lauren Cavanaugh join Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to explore her story and the new play Windsor's Daughter that is bringing her life back into the light.This conversation moves between historical research and present-day resonance, asking what it means to memorialize people whose graves were never marked, whose names faded from community memory, and whose persecution mirrors patterns still unfolding today.WHAT YOU WILL LEARNWhy Alice Young's 1647 execution changed American historyWhy her name nearly vanished from historyWhat made Windsor, Connecticut, a powder kegHow a play brings her execution to the stage without showing itWhy there is no grave to visitWhat the 2023 exoneration meant for her descendantsHow her story connects to persecution happening todayWhere to follow Windsor's Daughter as it finds its stageLinksAuthor Beth Caruso at OneofWindsor.com https://www.oneofwindsor.com/Playwright Lauren Cavanaugh https://hartford.culturalyst.com/CavanaughLMCConnecticutwitchtrials.org https://connecticutwitchtrials.org/Listen to more CT Witch Trials Podcast Episodes https://connecticutwitchtrials.org/witch-hunt-podcast/Support the Podcast Buy a Witch Trial History Book! https://bookshop.org/lists/connecticut-witch-trials
Transcribe →Blood Countess: The Lies that Made Elizabeth Bathory a Serial Killer with Shelley Puhak
3w ago00:52:11Tap to summarizeElizabeth Bathory is one of pop culture's favorite monsters. Accused of torturing and killing hundreds of young women, she's inspired everything from Snow White's evil stepmother to Lady Gaga. But the actual historical record shows almost none of it happened.Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack sit down with Shelley Puhak, author of The Blood Countess: Murder, Betrayal, and the Making of a Monster, to trace the documented history behind one of history's most sensationalized witch trial-adjacent cases. From the fractured Kingdom of Hungary to a Lutheran minister's invisible demonic cat army, this episode connects the Bathory case to the broader European witch trials and the religious and political warfare driving them.What You'll LearnWhat the preserved record actually showsThe witchcraft and magic accusations woven into the caseThe political war that made Bathory a targetWhat the Palatine of Hungary stood to gain from her downfallThe one minister behind the witchcraft accusationsWhy no bodies were ever foundWhat her own letters reveal about who she really wasThe role of ointments, alchemy, and antimonyWhy widowed noblewomen were especially vulnerable to accusationThe tension between a pop culture monster and a real historical victimWhat justice could look like About Shelley PuhakShelley Puhak is a poet, essayist, and historian from Maryland. Her previous nonfiction book, The Dark Queens (Bloomsbury, 2022), was a national bestseller and Goodreads Choice Awards finalist. Her essays have appeared in The Atlantic, the Wall Street Journal, and Virginia Quarterly Review.LinksBuy the book: Blood Countess by Shelley Puhak https://bookshop.org/a/90227/9781639732159Learn about the Author on ShelleyPuhak.com https://shelleypuhak.com/End Witch Hunts endwitchhunts.orgAbout Witch Hunts aboutwitchhunts.comSalem Witch Trials History YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts
Transcribe →
The American Revolution and Salem Witch Trials Families with Dan Gagnon
May 600:46:02Tap to summarizeWhat does 1692 have to do with 1775? More than you might think.The families of 1692 did not vanish from history. One to two generations after the Salem witch trials, descendants of both the accused and the accusers were drilling on village training fields, defying British soldiers, and dying on the same battlefields. Israel Putnam, one of the Revolution's boldest generals, was born in Salem Village, raised in a family at the center of 1692, and though he moved to Connecticut, he answered the call when Massachusetts needed him most.From Leslie's Retreat in Salem to the Battle of Menotomy, Bunker Hill, the siege of Boston, Long Island, and Saratoga, the men of Essex County were present from the first confrontation to the wider war. And Benjamin Franklin's tie to the Salem witch trials runs closer than most people know.This episode connects two of American history's most significant chapters and asks: what did the witch trial era leave behind, and how did it shape the people who built this country?Danvers and Salem historian Dan Gagnon, author of A Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse, returns to The Thing About Witch Hunts to tell stories of the North Shore's role in the American Revolution as part of America 250. From a standoff at a toll bridge to the bloodiest stretch of road on Patriots Day 1775, the story of Essex County and the Lexington Alarm is one most Americans were never taught.Hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack trace the thread from the Salem witch trials through Lexington and Concord, from the Rebecca Nurse Homestead to the halls of the Continental Congress, and from the accused of 1692 to the soldiers of 1775.What You Will Learn:The through-line between 1692 and 1775 that changes how you understand bothWhy Leslie's Retreat in Salem months before Lexington and Concord matters more than you have been toldWhat happened when Salem witch trial family names started showing up on revolutionary muster rollsIsrael Putnam: the founding-era general with Salem Village roots whose story was nearly erased from history, and whyA founding father with a direct family tie to the Salem witch trials, and what that connection revealsWhat one brutal day at the Battle of Menotomy cost a single Massachusetts town, and why they brought their dead homeWhat you can see at the Rebecca Nurse Homestead today that quietly holds the story of two centuriesDan Gagnon leads walking tours in Danvers and the Rebecca Nurse Homestead is open seasonally. #AmericanRevolution #America250 #IsraelPutnam #LesliesRetreat #BattleOfMemotomy #BattleOfBunkerHill #SiegeOfBoston #LexingtonAndConcord #LexingtonAlarm #PatriotsDay1775 #BattleOfLongIsland #FrenchAndIndianWar #BostonTeaParty #GeneralGage #GeorgeWashington #BenjaminFranklin #RebeccaNurse #RebeccaNurseHomestead #DanversAlarmList #Minutemen #ContinentalCongress #CoerciveActs #Marblehead #Menotomy #Arlington #EssexCounty #NorthShore #ColonialHistory #AmericanHistory #FoundingFathers #RevolutionaryWarLinks Rebecca Nurse Homestead: rebeccanurse.orgA Salem Witch: A Biography of Rebecca Nurse by Dan Gagnon: www.bookshop.org/Shop/endwitchhuntsEnd Witch Hunts endwitchhunts.orgAbout Witch Hunts aboutwitchhunts.comSalem Witch Trials History YouTube: https://youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts
Transcribe →
Fairy History, Folklore, and Belief with Dr. Francis Young
Apr 2900:53:34Tap to summarizeFairy history, folklore, and belief across two thousand years of European culture: that is what we are diving into today with historian of religion and belief Dr. Francis Young, author of the new book Fairies: A HistoryDr. Young holds a doctorate in History from Cambridge University, is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, a folklorist, a Balticist, a lay canon of St Edmundsbury Cathedral, and a series editor for Cambridge University Press. He teaches for Oxford University's Department for Continuing Education and broadcasts regularly for BBC Radio on history, religion, and folklore. He is the author, editor, or co-author of over two dozen books.Fairies: A History is a complete survey of fairy belief from prehistoric animism through the Middle Ages, the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and into the present day. In this episode, Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack ask Dr. Young the big questions: What are fairies? Where do they come from? How do fairy beliefs vary across Europe? What is the relationship between fairy folklore and witch trial testimony? And why is fairy belief still very much alive today?In this episode you will learn:In this episode you will learn:What exactly is a fairy?What do fairies want from humans?How is a fairy different from a ghost, a witch, or an angel?Why should you never eat food in fairy land?Where did the fairy godmother really come from?Have fairies always had wings?Why do children seem more attuned to fairy belief than adults?Could fairies be a feature of human consciousness itself?Are people still seeing fairies today?Links:drfrancisyoung.comFairies: A History is available for pre-order in our online bookstoreLearn more about witchcraft accusations past and present at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.comThe Thing About Witch Hunts is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack.#fairyhistory #fairyfolklore #fairybelief #witchtrials #folklore #folklorehistory #witchcraft #fairies #changeling #fairytales #historypodcast #folklorepodcast
Transcribe →
Devil, Witchcraft and English Demonology with Prof. Darren Oldridge
Apr 2200:51:25Tap to summarizeWhat did the scholars who studied witchcraft most seriously actually believe? And why did their conclusions so often cut against prosecution?Professor Darren Oldridge of the University of Worcester joins Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to examine the intellectual world that produced English demonology and shaped witch trials on both sides of the Atlantic.In this episode:Why the devil mattered far more than witches to learned English ProtestantsThe demonological writers whose work traveled directly to colonial New EnglandWhat Reginald Scott and George Gifford argued, and why it surprised their contemporariesThe specific figure whose writing brought popular and learned ideas into dangerous alignmentWhy the demonic pact was central to prosecution and nearly impossible to proveWhat the Massachusetts law code of the 1640s reveals about biblical influence on colonial legal thinkingHow Increase Mather's skepticism at Salem connected to a century of English Protestant thoughtWhy the "good witch" was considered more dangerous than the harmful oneLearn more at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.com.#WitchTrials #SalemWitchTrials #Demonology #WitchHunts #DevilHistory #WitchcraftHistory #EnglishHistory #HistoryPodcast #EarlyModernHistory #WitchcraftPodcast #EndWitchHunts #ProtestantHistory #ColonialHistory #SalemHistoryLinksProfessor Darren Oldridge https://www.worcester.ac.uk/about/profiles/professor-darren-oldridgeBuy Books by Darren Oldridge https://bookshop.org/lists/guests-of-the-thing-about-witch-hunts-podcastLearn more at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.comSign the Boston Exoneration Petition change.org/witchtrialsWe're on Youtube too! www.youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts
Transcribe →
The Conjuring Explained: The Real Bathsheba Sherman and Salem Witch Trials Victim Mary Esty
Apr 1500:44:43Tap to summarizeThe Conjuring franchise named a real Salem witch trial victim as the origin of a Satanic lineage. Mary Towne Easty was executed in 1692. She did not curse anyone. She did not sacrifice a baby. And she has millions of living descendants, including your hosts.Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack are direct descendants of Mary Towne Easty. In this episode they break down exactly what The Conjuring, Annabelle, and the Conjuring Universe get wrong about real history, real people, and real court records, and what those people actually did and said.The Warrens built a career on these stories. James Wan built a franchise. But behind Bathsheba Sherman, behind the hanging scene, behind the demonic lineage that launched nine films and over two billion dollars in box office, are three real women whose names deserve to be known for who they actually were.Who was Bathsheba Sherman? Her grave has been vandalized because of this film.Who was Susan Richardson Arnold? The real documented death behind the hanging scene. Who was Mary Towne Easty? A grandmother and the author of one of the most powerful legal petitions in American history. Written from prison. Written for others. Not for herself.Also in this episode: the Annabelle doll is headed to Salem. A comedian now manages the Warren artifacts. The Conjuring is a great horror film. These are the real people underneath it.Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack host The Thing About Witch Hunts, a podcast from End Witch Hunts nonprofit. New episodes every week.See the real Mary Easty Petition Learn more at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.comSign the Boston Exoneration Petition#TheConjuring #Annabelle #EdAndLorraineWarren #SalemWitchTrials #MaryEasty #BathshebaSherman #ConjuringUniverse #horrorpodcast #paranormal #truestory #1692 #witchhunts #historypodcast #haunted
Transcribe →
Cunning Folk at Stanford's Cantor Arts Center: Witchcraft and Occult Knowledge
Apr 800:45:03Tap to summarizeWhat can a five-foot-long magic scroll tell us about early modern fears, beliefs, and the people who sought protection through cunning folk? Sara Lent Frier, Assistant Curator of Prints and Drawings at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University, joins Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack to explore her exhibition "Cunning Folk: Witchcraft, Magic, and Occult Knowledge."Sara walks us through this collection show, which draws from both the Cantor Arts Center and Stanford's Green Library to present rare artifacts from the early modern period, roughly 1500 to 1750. The exhibit also features contemporary California artists whose work responds directly to that history, creating a conversation across centuries.In this episode:What cunning folk were and the roles they played in early modern communities How the Cantor Arts Center brought together artifacts and contemporary art in a single exhibition The stories behind objects including magic scrolls and a miniature bureau connected to the Salem witch trials What Stanford's collections reveal about the intersection of magic, medicine, and knowledge in early modern Europe How contemporary artists are engaging with this history todayWhether you are a historian, an art lover, or someone drawn to the deeper history of witchcraft accusations and occult belief, this conversation offers a rare look at objects that survived centuries and the scholars keeping their stories alive.The Thing About Witch Hunts is hosted by Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack.Learn more at endwitchhunts.org and aboutwitchhunts.com.LinksView Cunning Folk Exhibit Cantor Arts Center🎥 Watch more on YouTube: youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts🌐 Learn more about our work on historical and contemporary witchcraft accusations at endwitchhunts.org
Transcribe →
Vampires, Witchcraft, and the Dangerous Dead in Folklore and Ritual: Professor John Blair
Apr 100:48:58Tap to summarizeOxford historian Professor John Blair explores vampire beliefs, predatory corpses, and the deep connections between witchcraft and folklore in medieval and early modern Europe — and colonial New England.What do vampires, witch trials, and shroud-chewing corpses have in common? More than you might think.In this episode of The Thing About Witch Hunts, hosts Josh Hutchinson and Sarah Jack sit down with Professor John Blair, Emeritus Professor of Medieval History and Archaeology at the University of Oxford and Fellow of The Queen's College, Oxford. Professor Blair is the author of the book Killing the Dead: Corpses, Vampires, and the Unquiet Dead in Medieval and Early Modern Europe — a landmark study of how premodern communities understood the body, fear, and the threat of the dangerous dead.This conversation goes deep into the history of vampire beliefs and folklore, including:The origins of the word "vampire" and the many names given to predatory corpses across culturesCorpse execution practices in medieval and early modern EuropeSleep paralysis and its role in shaping beliefs about the unquiet deadThe Malleus Maleficarum and its connections to vampire and witchcraft loreShroud-chewing, witch cakes, and vampire cakes — and what these practices reveal about community fearStriking parallels between vampire beliefs and witchcraft accusations in colonial New England, including the Salem Witch TrialsWhether you're interested in medieval folklore, the history of witchcraft, vampire mythology, early modern European history, or the Salem trials, this episode offers essential historical context for understanding how fear, the body, and the supernatural intersected in the premodern world.📖 Pick up Killing the Dead at bookshop.org/shop/endwitchhunts https://bookshop.org/a/90227/9780691224794🎥 Watch more on YouTube: youtube.com/@aboutwitchhunts🌐 Learn more about our work on historical and contemporary witchcraft accusations at endwitchhunts.orgIf this episode was valuable to you, please leave a review and share it with someone who loves history, folklore, or the early modern world. It helps others find the show and keeps this important work going.HASHTAGS: #VampireHistory #VampireFolklore #MedievalHistory #WitchcraftHistory #TheDangerousDead #SalemWitchTrials #EarlyModernEurope #Folklore #UnquietDead #MalleusM aleficarum #SleepParalysis #HistoryPodcast #WitchHunts #OxfordHistory #TheThingAboutWitchHunts #KillingTheDead #ProfJohnBlair #ColonialNewEngland #HistoricalFolklore #WitchTrials
Transcribe →
Salem Witch Trials Daily Covers the Witchcraft Panic of 1692 in Real Time
Mar 3000:03:06Tap to summarizeCheck out Salem Witch Trials Daily, our new podcast that follows the 1692 Salem Witch Trials in real time, day by day, court date by court date, through the documented record. In Salem, Massachusetts, 19 people were executed, one man was pressed to death for refusing trial, and more than a hundred others were accused and imprisoned, leaving a lasting mark on American history. Building on the extraordinary listener response to this series when it launched within The Thing About Salem, the show now has its own dedicated feed, available wherever you get podcasts. Each micro-episode is tied to the actual calendar of 1692 and draws directly from primary sources like court documents, examination transcripts, petitions, letters, and contemporary accounts, alongside established scholarship and our own research. We also provide weekly companion blog posts and downloadable worksheets on aboutsalem.com for deeper, self-paced learning.Salem Witch Trials Daily – The Thing About Salem Podcast
Transcribe →