The Real Witch Hunt...and Beyond

This three-week workshop series will explore the early modern  "Witch Craze" (15th-18th centuries), marked by the violent (and unfounded) persecution of women, healers, and religious outsiders. From the Inquisition, we'll move on to the 19th- and early 20th-century movement that created a new religion built on the imagined practices of bygone "witches." In the final week, we'll turn to the varieties of the modern Wiccan and neopagan movements. Along the way, we'll touch on the destructive "satanic ritual abuse" hoax.

Our topics will include the Inquisition's use of the  fiction of Satan worship to repress the feminine spiritual dimension in Christianity, the evolution of the witch in folklore from practitioner of dark magic to the beneficent and healing adept of modern practice, and the broad social and political spectrum of modern neopaganism.

The series promises to be a fascinating excursion into witchcraft, one of the least understood varieties of individual and communal spiritual practice, healing, and celebration of the natural world.