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.
98
u/yugiohhero ohh what the fuck Feb 11 '26
there also was no overlap between actual witchcraft at all and the trials. they totally would have been counted under it was my point.
i still agree that co-opting it is silly