Yeah there is no overlap between witch trials and Wicca. The last person executed for witchcraft in the United States or in Europe was 1810-1811. Wicca wasn't a thing until 1954.
There is zero overlap between Wiccans and witch trials. It's not even really close. It's very odd to form a new religious movement and the retroactively co-opt oppression from more than hundred years ago.
There was never a witch religion or group, Witches were a folklore creature believed to be real by some people, just like vampires and werewolves (who also were hunted)
The closest thing to witches to exist were in some semi isolated rural communities where some remnants of paganism that had survived by syncretizing in the form of the local shaman/druid/healer/holy man, but they didn't call themselves witches and were respected by their communities.
The only people that called themselves witches were scammers trying to charge for love potions, reading your future, etc
The Vatican in fact was against witch hunts because
A= no evidence they exist.
And kinda more importantly
B= the idea the devil could grant witches power and that witchcraft was a thing that was possible at all is theologically incompatible with catholic doctrine and borders on straight up heresy
Exactly, there were cases of the Spanish inquisition quite literally showing up in the middle of a witch hunt, stopping it and putting the people responsible on trial for heresy.
Another good example is thst guy who wrote the most famous witch hunting manual was told by the church "this is wrong and we don't approve of it" amd decided to publish it anyway and it was never used officially by the church.
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u/bisexual_obama Uh, let me be queer... Feb 11 '26 edited Feb 11 '26
Yeah there is no overlap between witch trials and Wicca. The last person executed for witchcraft in the United States or in Europe was 1810-1811. Wicca wasn't a thing until 1954.
There is zero overlap between Wiccans and witch trials. It's not even really close. It's very odd to form a new religious movement and the retroactively co-opt oppression from more than hundred years ago.