Hot History - Salem Part 2: The Witch Trials

Episode Date: September 7, 2026

We're back, and we're ready today to chat about the drama, deceit and devilry involved in the Salem Witch Trials!From Abigail and Betty's affliction to the role of race and gender, the anatomy of hysteria, death by crushing and the accusation of a four-year-old baby who was chained up in prison, we're dissecting the anatomy of hysteria piece by piece. Plus, because this is Hot History, drawing parallels to the present digital witch hunts.I'm so excited to finish this series for you guys; please also find the hilarious Joe Hegyes here!Shout out to our incredible researcher Gracie McCamish and editor Jamie Rose for pulling this together.If you're wanting more Hot History you can follow along on ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Instagram⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠TikTok⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠, ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ and of course, right here!'Til next week, Ainslie x

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free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Advertising on Spotify. with audio and display ads helps brands turn attention into results. Download the 2026 performance playbook and discover why Spotify belongs in your media plan. All right, divas, so we are lighting our sage today to cleanse this space before we get into the Salem Witch trials because it covers some really, really heavy subject matter, including racism, misogyny, and really the ideas of religious autocracy that we see in things like

The Handmaid's Tale, for example. But as heavy as it is, the Salem witch trials started with, I don't want to say comical, because it's obviously not funny, but kind of like delusional, nonsensical things like egg whites, cold weather, and basically a family feud. So as much as this is a deeply political story and the impact that it has is so huge, It starts with kind of gossip and frivolity and tricks, which just fed every single person in this region's worst qualities and worse fears. So the burning of sage today here is not just performative. We're going to need it to deal with the level of drama incoming.

So roll that whimsical medieval theme. Hi guys and welcome back to Heart History, your corner of the internet where we cover all the things in history that you probably should know, but don't. I'm Ainsley Harvey, your hot historian here, joined today by my own familiar, Governor the Westie, because we are ready to continue our series on the Salem Witch Trials by getting into all of the details, all of the drama, the accusations, and the Puritan crazed hysteria in Salem itself. So last week in kind of part one, if you haven't gone to watch it, by the way, definitely go and do that. We covered the history of witchcraft, exactly what a which is how the trials in Europe mounted and, of course, the role of Amalius Malapacarum

and the church in spreading hysteria, plus how the colony of Salem actually came to be. But today, we are covering the trial and the hangover that comes as a result of this. So let's jump right back in by doing a quick recap on the difference between Salem Town and Salem Village, because this is absolutely central to the story. So, Salem was founded in 1626, but was formerly built in 1629 when a larger group of people began to inhabit the area, particularly Puritans, who, as we said last week, were the kind of radical Protestants that wanted to purify the Church of England of practices that they believed were too Catholic, and basically just kind of build a society governed by strict biblical principles, which they practiced at the first Church of Salem. Now, this was located in Salem Town, which was the more mercantile centre focused on things like shopkeeping and trading, and as such, was wealthier than Salem Village, located about five miles outside of town. This was made up of the farming and agricultural families who tended to be both

poorer and more radically pious. But, like, I do want to be clear here when we're talking about the difference between these two. Yes, the village was, you know, kind of more conservative, but this is like one big, you know, puritanical society. So this is essential to why the witch trials were so successful in Salem versus anywhere else. So this radicalism, guys, really is the backdrop of our story, which kicks off in 1689 when Salem Village decides that it no longer wants to be affiliated with the first Salem Church and as such formed its own distinct church in the village. Now, you and I listening to this today may go, you know what? Fair enough. Like who wants to go trekking the five miles from the village to the town all the time to go to church or consult religious

authorities, which again, this is a Puritan society. So this would have been a common occurrence. It's quite a bit to travel. But for the workings of Salem as an entire community and region, this was a big fucking deal. Okay. Basically the equivalent, I always think of it like this, is if your group of friends was like, hey diva, we're going to go do a our own thing and have our own rules and our own kind of party at this new place. And it's all made worse by the fact that the owner of this new place was an extremely controversial minister by the name of Reverend Samuel Paris. So he's our first character in this story, okay? And absolutely essential in how the witch trials came to be. Not just because he is very orthodox and kind of,

you know, like this strict religious figure in the village, but because the first accusations of witchcraft started in his very home. So let's get into it, guys, by jumping up to 1692, which is where we're going to stay for the most of this episode and focus specifically now on the home of Reverend Paris, who, as we said, is relatively new to the village, having initially pursued a career as a merchant in London and Barbados, but eventually decided to join the ministry. As Salem Village Church's first ordained minister, he has zero tolerance for spiritual weakness in his own congregation and in his own home, which included his wife of 12 years, Elizabeth Eldridge, their three children, Thomas, Betty, and Susanna, and most importantly, to the story here, his niece Abigail and servant, Tichiba. So that's the Paris household, okay, who really are supported. and championed by one of the biggest forces in Salem Village.

The Putnam's. Yes, you see, my divas. Even amongst the smallest rural backwaters, local politics runs rife, and for Salem Village, the Putnams were a real and present force. Headed up by Thomas and his wife Anne Senior, the Putnams were one of the wealthiest and most influential families in Salem Village,

thanks to their extensive landholdings and prestige as one of the original farming families. in the region. So like these big agricultural family with money and influence and heritage and, you know, all those kind of things, who are pushing for an even greater divide from Salem town, which again is more mercantile in nature. And as part of this push, the Putnam's really rally behind Reverend Paris and his strict religious practice as a kind of figurehead for this division, right? We've got our own church, we've got our own minister, like or a reverend, like we should be separate. But the Putnam's weren't the only family of note in Salem Village, for there was also the wealthy and commercially successful Procter family, who also owned substantial property,

but unlike the Putnam's, generated large parts of their wealth thanks to their strong connection with Salem Town. So just within this kind of small village, right, we have two opposing families and two opposing economies, with the Putnam's representing the more agrarian and very conservative methods and the proctors, the more commercial kind of economy that was linked with Salem Town, which means that we have one side who wants greater division and the other side wanting further integration. And this is important here, guys, I know it seems kind of like boring, but it is important because what is essentially a family feud ends up becoming the very beating heart of the Salem Witch trials, which historians Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum

make note of in their book Salem Possessed, saying, quote, the Agrarian faction viewed their commercial rivals, the Proctor's, not merely as political opponents, but as morally defective individuals. And while, yes, the anatomy of these trials and kind of the hysteria that comes with that is more complex than simply kind of family feuds and neighbourhood rivalries, this Proctors v Putnam, Agrarian versus Commercial, Salem Village versus kind of Salem Town, all underpins what is about to happen next, which brings us back to Reverend Paris's home in January 1692,

where the first use of magic and witchcraft seems to be at play. So as we said, the parrises have three children, one of whom is nine-year-old Betty, who is very close with her 11-year-old cousin Abigail, who, come 1692, is staying with the family as she is orphaned. Now these girls spend all of their time together guys, which given they lived in a wildly radical Puritan household meant they would sew, spin yarn, prepare food, clean, tend fires and help in the gardens. But they were never unattended or let loose. Because if Reverend Paris or Elizabeth weren't at home, the girls would be watched over by their servant, Tichiba. Now, as we said earlier, Reverend Paris wasn't always a reverend. He was a former mover. and spent a lot of time in Barbados, which is where he first met Tichiba, an enslaved person assigned

to his household, along with a man named John Indian. Now, we do not know a lot about the origins of either of these people, but it is largely believed that at least Tichiba was indigenous to a region in South America or the Caribbean. With historian Elaine Breslow, believing that Tichiba in particular was potentially connected to the Arawak-Ollukono peoples around what is now modern. Venezuela. This working theory is really that she was taken from here, transported into slavery in Barbados, and taken by Paris to Salem with John Indian, who she actually ended up marrying. And Tichibur is an important figure in this story, guys, because she is Salem's first witch. Also, she was accused. And this all really stemmed, as the story goes, from her watching over

Betty and Abigail while the rest of the family were away. The girls were reported. The girls were reportedly bored, and Tichiba, looking to entertain them, suggested they try the egg and glass trick, which basically involved cracking the whites of an egg into a glass of water and kind of seeing what shapes would form, which were often then interpreted as signs of the future, kind of like reading tea leaves. Now according to Reverend John Hale, who was involved in the Salem proceedings, the egg and glass, also known as the Venus glass, was used to discover, quote, what trade their sweethearts should be of. And this was a phenomenon. And this was a phenomenon popping up not just in Salem, but in the surrounding villages, particularly amongst young girls at the time,

again, who were kind of seeing, oh, you know, what's my future husband going to do for a job? Which is relatively harmless. I mean, think about when you poach an egg, for example, it's basically the same thing, like what these whites do in this water. But for the radical Puritans, this was seen as an act of folk divination and fortune-telling, which was strictly forbidden. So it's a bit naughty, right? It's a bit spoofing. for Betty and Abigail to be doing this, something which goes to a whole other level when the egg whites wind and fold into the shape of a coffin. An omen of death and suffering like that like, um, wolf thing in fucking Harry Potter, right?

Which would ultimately prove fruitful, with young Betty Paris soon becoming afflicted with an unknown, undiagnosable, ungodly affliction. First, she was absent-minded and aloof, staring off into space without the ability to respond to anyone, and then came the howling in animal noises as she complained of bites on her flesh, hammering in her head, and ultimately broke out in contorted-like seizures. Seeing this, the Reverend and Elizabeth are shocked, obviously, but hoping this was kind of a fever-like illness as a result of the cold January-Massachusetts weather, kind of go, you know, we're going to wait and see.

However, soon after this, 11-year-old Abigail is also struck down with the same affliction. So the parrises are kind of like, okay, this is serious, they rally, and they spend four weeks, a whole month, guys, fasting, praying and feeding the girls all sorts of like weird home remedies, while their conditions only worsened. After four weeks of this, their conditions continued to go downhill, and it got so bad that the Reverend had no other choice but to call for a doctor. And so William Griggs paid a visit to the Paris House, where he concluded without a shadow of doubt that Betty and Abigail was suffering from the evil effects of witchcraft. Visit BetMDMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know the same way you can skip an ad? I get it. I'm Siaya and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today I'm still figuring it out. Somehow things usually get worse before they get better. Apparently, that's how I roll.

So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. Noting they had been touched by, quote, the evil hand, the Reverend believed he could keep these supernatural forces within the confines of his home. After all, guys, he is the fucking Reverend, right? Like, quite literally, the supreme religious authority in the region who can combat supernatural spookiness. But this is Salem Village and any small town, just like this one, means that news spreads like wildfire, which meant that neighbours began visiting the Parises to

observe the girls, after which, by pure coincidence and happenstance, the affliction, like an oozing postule, leaks out beyond the Paris home to take 17-year-old Elizabeth Hubbard, the doctor's niece, and most importantly, 12-year-old Anne Putnam, Jr. So now, my divas, one of the village Nepo Babies has been struck, and with four active cases of the evil hand at play, answers were needed. And this was something Betty and Abigail were happy to do, giving them the name of Tituba. Now, when asked about this, they start recounting the story about the egg and glass, which, FYI, guys, I do want to be really, really clear here.

is almost certainly fucking bollocks. All the evidence in this is literally bollocks, but there is no proof in this particular incident that Tichaba ever introduced the girls to this, or that either of them even actually did it. But it didn't really matter. It was the word of two little white girls in the reverence household against an enslaved woman of colour. And so Tichabar was examined on the 1st of March at Ingersoll's tavern, after which she was taken to jail for further interrogation. During this time, Anne Putnam Jr. and Elizabeth Hubbard are also questioned, telling the Reverend they were plagued by terrible attacks from invisible specters and apparations, which we largely translate to kind of ghosts today, although some historians speculate that Reverend Paris actually

beat Anne Putnam to get this information out of her, which also coincides, just like so many coincidences here, guys, with two other women being named as witches, Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne. So I'm just like kind of collectively when you hear me call the Sarah's. I'm speaking about these two deers. Sarah Goot was impoverished and known to frequently beg from neighbours with a reputation for being rather quarrelsome. While Sarah Osborne was older, ill, had been involved in an inheritance dispute with her late husband's family and as such rarely attended church.

So last week when we spoke about kind of the stereotype of older exiled, menopausal, isolated, difficult women being witches, we are seeing this brought to life right here. So these three women are interrogated at Ingersoll's Tavern, like we said, where magistrates John Hawthorne and Jonathan Corwin examined them, as did Hannah Ingersoll, the tavern owner's wife, who checked the women's bodies for the Witch's Mark. Now, this was obviously, guys, like such a fucking sham, because there's no definitive mention of what the Witches Mark is.

It's not like in Barbie Princess and the Porpo, where the Princess has the little, like, crown birth mark, okay? This witch's mark, as it was called, could be anything from moles to unusual freckles to rashes and birth marks or discolourings, which means my dermatitis and surrises divas would have been straight to jail. Okay? But Hannah, she's a girl's girl. She's like, these divas are all completely normal human women. There's absolutely nothing to worry about here, just regular old kind of freckles and, you know, skin rashes from it being fucking 1692.

Okay? But they were still suspicious. And both of the saras maintained their innocence throughout all of this. However, in a very surprising turn of events, Tichibah confessed to witchcraft, admitting she had experienced visions of the devil. Now hearing this, the entire village is set alight, including Reverend Paris, who I do want to know was cautious of kind of jumping on the witchcraft kind of bandwagon and instead told the community to, quote, wait upon God, But after this, he really is convinced that evil is at play, and as such sends nine-year-old Betty off to live with his friend in Salem Town in the hopes that being isolated from the other afflicted girls and kind of away from the centre of these witchcraft and magical

accusations that she would improve. Now, whether this was out of genuine concern because Betty was seriously ill, or he's kind of looking around and maybe thinks this is a bit suss and doing a bit of a test, and doing a bit of a test thinking, you know, if I remove one, let's see what happens. We don't know. But what we do know is that Betty remained in Salem Town for the trial, where she does make a rapid recovery back to normal. But Abigail, her cousin, okay, slightly older 11 years old, the orphan, she does no such thing, guys. In fact, with Betty gone, her illness progressed rapidly, so much so that when an ex-Salem village minister visited the paramed.

us home sometime in mid-March, he actually found Abigail running around the room, claiming to see the specter, again, the ghost, of a woman named Rebecca Nurse, who was allegedly forcing the devil's book on her, which you guys will remember, again, if you've listened to last week's episode, you know, kind of is an essential part in the formation of the ideas of witches, is this devil's pact, the signing of the devil's book. So they're really leaning into this now. So Tichibah's confession here was the fuel that lit the witchcraft believers beyond all measure. And after Abigail ran right up to the family fire and pretended to fucking fly, even the most sensible of adults were convinced that this

was witchcraft. Which then left one big question. If Tichipper has confessed, is she the only one? Well, according to her, no. In fact, when she confessed to seeing the devil, she did so with the very immediate providing of a list of other witches in Salem. Now, before we keep going into kind of who the rest of these women were and why Tichibah is kind of grassing them up, we have to stop and talk about the complexities of Tichaba being the first person accused of witchcraft, because it really is impossible when we are looking at this situation to separate her position as an enslaved indigenous woman in a white Puritan community from the accusation of witchcraft. So, firstly, guys, yes, she was accused alongside

two white women, which at face value may suggest that race isn't as bigger factor here. But both of the sarahs were targeted because they were highly vulnerable and did not fit the ideals of Puritan women versus Tichibar, who likely was targeted for her race, which in the almost 350 years that have passed since then has been questioned and dissected a million ways. So let's unpack this. Now, as we already spoke about before, historian Elaine Bresslaw, believes that Tichiba was potentially connected to an indigenous group of people in what is now modern Venezuela. But at the time, she was identified merely as Indian, with the original March 1692 records saying, quote, Tichiba an Indian woman brought before us. Now, I want to be clear,

this doesn't necessarily mean like she is Indian as in from the subcontinent of India, but rather as a term used for indigenous people, something these colonizers also used for Native Americans, hence cowboys versus Indians. And this is actually an invaluable piece of evidence for us to squash a big rumor which emerge after the witch trials around the time of the Civil War and beyond, that Tichibah was actually a black woman. In this, her use of witchcraft and black magic was used to prove her race was sinister and sinful, something that Arthur Miller's 1953 hit the Crucible didn't help

by calling her, and I do quote here guys, directly from the text for the historical context, Tituba, a Negro slave. Now, if this were true, her race as a black woman would have been noted directly by the authorities versus as Indian. So this is just wildly incorrect and like plainly racist, right? There's also the false claim that Tituba herself was from Barbados, which, as we know, is where she was enslaved first under Reverend Paris, not where she was born, with the link here being that she learned the art of voodoo and black magic,

which were considered a part of the Caribbean world at the time. Hello, Tia Delma, in Pirates of the Caribbean, which when we do think about it here, guys, Tidjibah, Tia Dalma, not a big jump here. And again, this is all fabulous storytelling, but it's fundamentally untrue. She wasn't black, she wasn't from Barbados, She wasn't a voodoo master, and there's no evidence to suggest she ever did or encouraged Betty and Abigail to do the glass egg trick. So this accusation of Titchabah being the first witch really is dripping with prejudice, which originated in the home of Reverend Paris, where Tituba as an enslaved person was already actively being treated as a kind of, you know, second-rate human by all of the household members, including the girls.

So when it came time for them to level this accusation, Tichiba, as a non-white, enslaved woman, was an easy person for them to throw under the bus. They're kind of prejudiced already to think of her in this way. And I do want to know, guys, this was largely led by Abigail, who notoriously acted with such brutality and such prejudice in the trials that historian Francis Hill describes her as, quote,

quite without mercy. Now, she, of course, guys, is just a child. And a lot of the witch trials in Europe as well were based on the testimony of children who simply adapt to the environment and the beliefs of the society that they're raised in, which, for Salem, was a place already obsessed with Satan, witchcraft and spiritual warfare. Again, remembering, she is literally living in the home of the Puritan Reverend, which I guess begs the really big question here. Why did Titiba confess? Well, firstly, Reverend Paris later acknowledged that he had, in fact, beaten Titibah during her March 1st interrogation to obtain this confession, which was recorded

in the trial documents, with Paris saying he, quote, beat her and otherwise abused her. So absolutely, confession under duress here. But I also think in this, guys, Tichiba is a clever cookie, okay? Our diva's not dumb. And she knows of all of the of the people in Salem Village, she is the most vulnerable. It's what made her the easiest target for Betty and Abigail, as she really exists at the intersection at this point of race and gender and enslavement and foreignness, which makes the accusation easy for these people to believe. And I think if we are being honest, guys, and looking kind of at Salem and at the way that these puritanical societies operate and the kind of belief and religious system around that,

they wanted this to be true. They were desperate. They were begging for it because it ultimately meant that their fears and therefore their faith was justified. So Tichippus confession is really just like giving the authorities what they wanted, which made it far safer for her to confess than to deny. So why then, I suppose is the next question. Did she? drag these other innocent women into this? Well, firstly, I do think it's a little bit of kind of take your own medicine here, right? She's kind of going, you want to accuse me of witchcraft, which given my race and gender and kind of enslavement, is easy for you to do. Well, how about I accuse your very white, very puritanical, very stock standard neighbour? You know, how do you like

those apples kind of thing? But the bigger factor, and this is what makes her really smart, guys, is that she knows by making the threat of witchcraft bigger than herself and kind of becoming the catalyst for exposing this satanic conspiracy, that she will be saved because a witch who confessed could provide testimony, which is exactly what Tichiba did. Telling magistrate John Hawthin that Sarah Good and Sarah Osborne were involved in Salem's Hidden Witch Network, Tichibah also claimed that she and the Sarah's could travel superiors. and had seen supernatural figures and animals, including, and she was very precise here, guys, a black dog, a red cat, a black cat, a yellow bird, and a strange hairy creature.

So a lot of very interesting details in Tichibah's kind of testimony here, which again to me shows one, like this was all obtained under duress, she's just talking nonsense, and two, it's all fucking BS, right? But it does also show, I think anyway, that Tichiba made a real concerted effort to make this invisible threat, right, this kind of words on a page, seem far bigger than just herself to essentially make her testimony and therefore her life more valuable, which she drove home by telling the magistrate that a mysterious man, who was interpreted as the devil, had shown her a book containing the names of people who served him. And while she wasn't able to provide any new names to them, she did claim there were nine people.

At this point, so we're like mid-March, 1692 now, Reverend Paris is so deeply alarmed, especially because this all originated in his house, that he said to the whole village in a public sermon, quote, the devil hath been raised amongst us. This, as you can imagine, was the spark that lit the pires that shone from here to the moon and back. And soon, Salem Village was engulfed by hysteria. This then saw Sarah Good move to Salem Jail with Sarah Osborne, where their questioning continued, despite maintaining their innocence. It also saw Elizabeth and Abigail temporarily recover from their sickness,

as though the kind of capturing of these three initial witches had released the girls from their evil hold. But Anne Putnam, Jr., remained very unwell, and under pressure from the Reverend and her parents, she started making her own accusations. First, N claimed to see the ghosts of a local woman and new member of the congregation, Martha Corey, an accusation which shocks many, as Martha at this point is highly respected and very, very pious. Like, guys, if you're looking for like a snapshot of a stereotypical Puritan woman, it's Martha Corey, which really led to this break in the pattern of who we

considered to be a witch. Remember, Tichiba and the Sarah's, they're not the stereotypical Salem woman, but Martha absolutely was. So this is a huge shock and really reinforces the idea that any woman could be a witch. Next on Anne's hit list was Rebecca Nurse, the 71-year-old highly respected member of the Salem community, whose allies were endless, so much so that friends, neighbors, and family members immediately stepped up to testify for her innocence. And also, claimed, which is just like so fucking sick. I reckon it's probably the most diabolical thing out of all of this, because these girls really do have so much to answer for, but this is so fucked. Anne says that Dorothy Good, the daughter of the already accused Sarah Good, was also

now haunting her, which may have made sense given the relation. However, Dorothy Good was four years old. A fucking toddler. Like what? I can't even make sense how like this baby could be haunting people. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive. The Price is Right Fortune Pick. BetMDM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly.

If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. free of charge. BetMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. The biggest accusation of this, though, came not in Martha or Rebecca Nurse or even four-year-old Dorothy, but in one Elizabeth Proctor, which is when our family feud comes back into question here, my deavers, because Elizabeth is the matriarch of the Procter family, which means that a Putnam has now publicly accused a proctor of witchcraft.

After this point, it then just really becomes politics, politics, politics. Because guess what? The other girls, Abigail and Elizabeth, miraculously regained their affliction and began leveling accusations at Elizabeth as well. Things then went from bad to worse for the proctors when one of their own servants, a woman named Mary Warren, also began to have fits, claiming she too had seen the specter of a local farmer named Giles Corey. Now, he was formerly accused of murder and not overly well-liked, so there could be

some motivation for this accusation, but John Proctor, the daddy, right? He's not hearing of it. Watching how this hysteria has gripped the town as these young girls spread their nonsense like some kind of fucking contagion, John and the Proctor's stood firmly, on the opposite side of this crisis, believing this behaviour to be fraudulent, and according to contemporary reports, he threatened to whip any servant or member of his household who claimed to be afflicted. As such, Mary Warren made a full recovery and her accusation of Giles was dismissed. Not that I really helped him much because he too was later called in for questioning, and he was actually killed in like the most brutal way, if anyone. But more on that later.

After this, more and more girls seem to become inflicted, including one of the Putnam's servants who claimed to be visited by, quote, the great black man, i.e., the devil, who wanted her to be his servant. And pausing here quickly, guys, like, I think it's pretty obvious, right? This is all made up, and it's a big fucking performance. But you do have to take your hat off at some points to these girls for the creativity. Like there's dark men, there's mystical ghosts in rock, Chas, Tichiba, right? The nine marks in the devil's book. Like, these divas were born 300-ish years

too early because they'd have made amazing screenwriters, all right? So at this point, it's mid-March 1692, so we're only three months into this year. And the affliction has mainly taken girls. But around this point, it takes its first woman, Anne Proctor Senior. Reporting Spectral Torment, she is followed by several other adults. who report they too are infected with the mysterious illness. All the while Elizabeth and the dreaded demon herself, Abigail, have truly regained the affliction and the person that everybody is now pointing their big, old red, fat, lying fingers at, is Elizabeth Proctor.

So just to recap here at this point, we have Tichibah, who's confessed, the sarahs who are in jail and say they're innocent, we have Martha Corey, Rebecca Nurse and Dorothy Good who also claim innocence, although again Dorothy's fucking fours, so how could she claim innocence? And they're all arrested between March 21st and 24th. And now we have the wife of one of the most prominent families in Salem Village, who outwardly opposes these trials, accused by all parties. Something which could not go unpunished.

And so Elizabeth Proctor was arrested on April 4th, alongside another woman also named. Sarah. So many Sarah's in this fucking story. In response to this, as you can imagine, John Proctor flies off the fucking handle guys, outwardly calling the girls and now the women frauds and liars while at his wife's public examination on April 11th, which was basically like a big forum where these women were kind of asked questions and their bodies examined for witch's marks. But it didn't really matter. They were all going to prison regardless. At this examination, John refused to simply sit and watch, making such a show that the afflicted girls present began falling into fits around the room, claiming that John Proctor's specter was

attacking them. Like, he's literally in the room with them and they're like, his ghost is getting me. Like, what the fuck? Anyway, this then leads to his own arrest and imprisonment. Like, honestly, anyone who basically calls out this injustice at this point is just getting locked up straight away. including guys anyone who really stood against the Putnam's, which included the whole Proctor household like we said, who were all but gutted at this point. Okay, both parents in prison. Their three children, Benjamin, William and Sarah Proctor also accused, as was John's sister Mary and many of their associates who, guess what, divas also supported the more mercantile push to integrate with Salem Town. So again, we come back to this kind of family feud

and clashing of economies and commerce and politics between the village and the town. This led to more than 50 men from Salem Village Town and the surrounding areas signing petitions saying they do not believe the evidence against the proctors nor the accounts of the women afflicted, which led to even more conflict and accusations in the regions, which by the end of May reached such a fever pitch that Governor Sir William Phipps had to intervene on May 24th. by creating the court of Oya and Termina, which is basically just a legal phrase, meaning to hear and determine, I think it was, to really deal with this mess. Right, there is an enormous number of witchcraft cases now on the docket, and all of these people are just kind of sitting in jail, taking

up space. And this is where the trial element kicks in here. So like, we're kind of midway through the year now and only just getting to a trial. That's how much drama and just like gossip and an accusation and hysteria is building in the first half of the year. But we are in the trial now, guys, and this was presided over by William Staun, the lieutenant governor, who became Chief Justice alongside Samuel Seawall and John Hawthorne as judges. The trial proceedings mainly took place in Salem Town Hall. However, there were exceptional changes of venue when there was more interest in the public for certain cases, for example, Martha Corey, the kind of respected div we were talking about earlier,

her examination took place at the Salem Village Meeting House because so many people wanted to attend, but that's kind of later. For now, the first woman to take the stand on June 2nd was Mrs. Bridget Bishop, a 60-year-old twice-widoed woman who was known for two things, guys. Firstly, quarreling with her neighbours, and secondly, being incredibly quick-witted, something she maintained throughout her entire sham of a trial. So how did these things work? Well, the key to pay at the heart of the witch trials is what constitutes evidence. Because as we've heard so far, all these claims are really propped up by the testimony of these girls seeing ghosts, which was known as spectral evidence. Now this was paramount in the prosecution with Abigail Williams

and Putnam Jr., Elizabeth Hubbard, and others all claiming Bridget Bishop Spector had attacked, bitten and choked them. They even went so far as to imitate and mimic kind of Bridget's movements like the copycat game, right, in the courtroom to drive the point home. So when I say sham, and when I say these girls have a lot to fucking answer for, I absolutely mean it. Another piece of evidence in Bridget's case, which has really lived on in legend and kind of taken a life of its own, is that of John and William Bly, who had previously worked on Bishop's property and claimed to find small dolls, or as they called it, several poppets made up of rags and hogs bristles, with headless pins stuck into them inside the walls. Now it's key to note this is all

100% alleged and no puppets were found and the blies were actually allies of the Putnam's. But it didn't really matter here, guys. Salem, as we said, was out for blood. And so Bridget Bishop was the first to be tried, found guilty and hung on June 10th, 1692 at Proctor's Ledge on Gallows Hill. Now this was a major moment. Okay, the first like execution, the first death of a witch, which ignited both further bloodlust from the community, especially the Putnam's, and major blowback from the court, with one judge, Nathaniel Sultan Stahl resigning from his position because he was so appalled by the conduct in the courtroom, with 12 ministers of the colony advising the court a mere five days after Bridget's execution

not to rely on spectral evidence. But this was ignored and the trial proceeded. After Bridget came five other women, including Rebecca Nurse and Sarah Good, who were tried and executed under spectral evidence, which leads to one of the most dramatic and, like, badass, notorious moments of the entire trial, which I think actually inspired Sarah J. Mass to write that scene in Akamaf, when Nesta, spoilers, where Nesta is thrown into the magical cauldron and she, like, sinks down. pointing a finger at the King of Highburn, okay? Chilling and obsessed with this. Sarah Good did something so similar, so she was one of the three original accused. And she basically gets straight up onto the gallows. She stares Reverend Nicholas Noyes, who was there kind of proceeding over the executions. She stares him dead in the eye, guys, smack bang, and says to him,

You are a liar, and I am no more a witch than you are a wizard. and if you take my life, God will give you blood to drink. Obsessed, guys, I fucking love Sarah Good. These were her last words with her and the four other accused co-conspirators meeting their end in the news. But at least his Diva went out with style, okay? And she's calling out being like, fuck you. You want to send me to death. God will haunt you back.

After this display and kind of at this point we've got what, five, five, six, seven or so executions under, like the belt here. It's just a fucking free-for-all, okay? There are another five accused hanged in the next four weeks, including guys, John Proctor, a death that was shocking to both Salem Village and the town, given his prominence, and of course, guys, to his own family. For while Elizabeth escaped the noose thanks to her being pregnant, the idea that like one of these great men of this region could be struck down so easily and no one really intervened showed the injustice of this court and the kind of like real grip that the hysteria had on the town of Salem. Everybody's like, I can't believe this

is fucking happening. This is just insane, right? But John's death had little shock factor in comparison to that of George Burroughs, to which I hear you say, who the fuck is that? And it's a fair question. There's so many names in this and so many accused, but he was the former Puritan minister of Salem Village from 1680 until 1683. And he basically, after this, finds himself in debt to the Putnam's, and despite paying it back in full, he's dragged back to Salem from where he was in Maine and accused of being the witch's quote ringleader. Now, this isn't a neighbourhood busybody, okay, or an unhoused woman. or a politically opposed man.

This is a man of God, the minister, or former, anyway, minister of the village. And so this is a huge claim to level. And one which really kind of fell through when it came to his execution. Because he stands up, kind of like does the opposite of what Sarah Good does here, he stands up before everyone and recites the Lord's Prayer without a single error. Okay, he's spitting bars, right? something that was deemed impossible for any witch to do. So this absolutely generates some real doubts amongst the crowd present,

but not enough for his acquittal. With Cotton Mather, the most stupid fucking name ever, Cotton Mather, you serious? What are you fucking builder bear? Right, Cotton Mather, a prominent Boston minister and author, who was a staunch believer in witchcraft, kind of telling everyone to calm down and like get on with it, saying to them, quote,

the devil has often been transformed into an angel of life. So he's like, it doesn't matter if he's a minister, he's still a witch, like fuck him. And so George is hung. Now by this point, guys, it is September, which is without a doubt the deadliest period in Salem history, okay, with September 19th bringing the trial of Giles Corey, who he said is kind of this 71 year old older man who was formerly accused of murder and he's kind of not very well liked. Plus there was the kind of previous almost accusation of him by the member of the proctor household. That was dropped. It's all kind of very confusing as to how Giles Corey like kind of gets wound up in this, but eventually he's brought back in for questioning and accused, okay? But he refuses to enter a plea when he's kind of asked by

the court, are you guilty or are you innocent? And he's like, I'm not going to fucking tell you, like this is a sham. So as such, his punishment for this is to be taken out to a field near the Salem jail and subjected to torture by pressing to death under heavy stones, which as it suggests, is where he is literally like laying down on this flat stone and more weight is pushed upon him before until he kind of confesses, which he refuses to do until the very end. Which is probably a good point for us to stop and discuss the use of torture and the methods of execution in Salem, because there is a lot of exaggeration and misinformation out there. Now, as we already said in the Titrebe example with Reverend Paris, physical violence and torture were used on the accused

to obtain confessions, as was deliberate misleading legal questioning, with magistrates such as John Hawthin questioning suspects publicly and repeatedly, with questions that often assumed guilt, rather than tried to establish it. For example, we know from the court reportings that he would ask questions like, why are you hurting these children, who else is working with you, and how long have you served the devil?

So basically like legal entrapment here, which is how Tichibah's account, I think anyway, becomes so wild. Right? There's all these coloured animals and devil's marks. And it's all a product of this back and forth style of questioning, which is also how the confessions of other witches names were obtained. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive.

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bodies for unusual moles, scars, growths, or quote, witch's teats, which were believed to be the places on the body where a familiar spirit might suck on, just like fucked up, right? And stupid and nonsensical and all the things. And these searches were deeply humiliating. often in the presence of other people, after which these people were loaded up and sent back to prison, where they spent months in extremely poor conditions, with some of them even being chained or restrained, including, and hold on to your hats here, people, the four-year-old Dorothy Good, a preschooler, chained to a fucking wall. And like, I really want to take a minute here, guys, to acknowledge and say that, like, the crucible and, and things like American Horror Story Coven, you know, are a bit silly.

And they kind of make Salem seem kitschy and kind of drama-filled and all in all a bit nonsensical and like he-he with these little girls kind of making accusations about egg yolks and whatever the fuck. But this was brutal and not only a miscarriage of justice, but a miscarriage of humanity, which we see in the case of Giles and the Stonecrushing, a method of torture that was apparently never used before or sense in colonial New England.

And the reaction to this was shock, with whispers of his death being very clearly unlawful starting to spread, but still, guys, it was not enough to put a stop to the madness. And so eight more people were executed on September 22nd, including Martha Corey, which really at this point is the nail in the coffin. Appalled by this conviction, increased Mather, the son of Cotton Mather, again another stupid fucking name, called basically a big meeting of the minister. to warn them yet again against using spectral evidence, calling directly on Governor Phipps, the guy who ordered the court of OIA and Terminator in the first place, to put an end to this,

writing, quote, it were better that 10 suspected witches should escape than one innocent person should be condemned. And he has a point, one that even the most radical folks started to resonate with. As 26 days later, Governor Phipps dissolved the court, with the lower house passing, quote, an act against conjuration, witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked spirits, which still had witchcraft as an offence punishable by death, but lessened the penalties for minor acts of magic, like using it to find love, to fortune tell, or to unsuccessfully try to harm another person with magic, which like, I don't fucking get, are we in Hogwarts? Like, it's okay to cast some spells and use some magic, but like if you are a witch,

which you'd have to be to do that anyway, then it's all good, or it's bad? I'm confusing myself here. Like, this is just nonsensical, right? It's stupid. And at this point, we are at the end of 1692, when the general court decides that in the new year, the Massachusetts Superior Court will try to get to the bottom of this, and they're going to meet for a special session to oversee the remaining cases of those left waiting in jail.

With the express note that the new court will not accept Spectrum. evidence as part of this. This ruling allowed Tichibah to be freed alongside, thank God, four-year-old Dorothy Good, who was released to her father, but still many, many members of Salem Village and the surrounding areas remain locked up and under suspicion of witchcraft. So what happens in 1693 with this new order? Well, despite not accepting spectral evidence, the Superior Court still condemned three of the 56 people accused of witchcraft who hadn't yet gone to trial, with Chief Justice Stoughton signing their death warrants alongside another five who were previously convicted by the Oya and Terminor Court the previous year, who kind of hadn't

been hanged yet. But guys, Governor Phipps, he finally decides to do something good, he comes in clutch in the end and issues reprieves for the eight scheduled for execution, before allowing any and everyone accused of witchcraft to go free once they paid their jail fee. Now, for those who could kind of scrape their pennies together and pay this. It's fine, right? They go on and they live the rest of their lives in Salem Village, kind of, you know, trying to put this behind them. But the majority of the remaining accused by this point were incredibly poor citizens who couldn't afford this. And as such, often died in prison, like 79-year-old Lydia Dustin, who was cleared for her charges, but had no funds to be released. So even after the kind of last execution from the trials and kind of

this pardoning has happened, the Salem witch trials are still taking lives, which by the beginning of 1693 totaled to over 200 people being accused, 150 plus being arrested, 50 confessions, 19 hangings, and of course, Giles Corey being pressed to death, with the impact of this hysteria, reaching around 10% of the entire Salem Village population, which begs the big question, and the one that I've kind of been holding my tongue on the most here, guys? What the fuck happened to all those girls who made these accusations? Chief amongst them, Abigail. Well, Betty, as we know, was sent to Salem Town and made a full recovery.

And while she never apologised for her role in the witch trials, she seems to have integrated herself back into the community, marrying Benjamin Barron, a tradesman associated with the town of Sadbury in Massachusetts around 1710. Together, they had several children, and she died in 1710. As for her father, Reverend Paris, the trials deeply damaged his reputation, and he eventually left the ministry in 1697. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Hubbard, the eldest of the first accusers, and like we said, the niece of the doctor, she largely disappears from the surviving historical record, with some evidence of a Hubbard woman around her age, marrying and later dying,

but there's no real proof that this was Elizabeth, who also never apologised. Someone who was genuinely remorseful though was Anne Putnam Jr. Who at 27 years old asked to be readmitted into full communion within the Salem Village Church and made a public confession of her role in the trials saying, quote, I desire to be humbled before God and that she had been, quote, deluded by Satan for her accusations. And while she stopped short of saying, I lied, she did specifically express remorse over the death Rebecca Nurse, saying, quote, I desire to lie in the dust for what I have done, and asked repeatedly for forgiveness from nurses' family and others who she helped accuse. So Anne Putnam, Jr., really does

seem to develop an understanding of what her actions did and the impact they had on many, many lives, which she expressed before her death only 10 years later at 37. This was something that one Abigail Williams never did. In fact, aside from knowing she never apologised, we know very little about what actually happened to her. She literally vanishes from the historical record altogether after 1692, with no mention of her life, her marriages, her children, her well-being, or even her death, as though she herself was one of these kind of great spectres that she claimed to see. This, of course, is not true, but I do find it ironic that we know so much about the lives and deaths of the victims, but very little of the perpetrators here. So if that's the people,

right, the kind of individuals involved, what about the government? After all, how does a region recover from something so rampant and so traumatic? And what happens to the legal system as a result of this? Well, five years after the trials in 1697, the Massachusetts General Court made public apologies to the victims, with 12 of the original jurors on the court of Oyer and Termina, signing a statement of apology, as did Samuel Sewell, the serving magistrate in 1692, who personally read a statement of shame to the congregation and asked for God's forgiveness. The following year, a new minister was elected to Salem Village, the 22-year-old Joseph Green, who was also determined to fix these rifts, even going so far as to kind of rearrange the seating plan in church, so families of the accusers

and accused had to sit side by side. This was icy at first, but eventually, tensions thawed, with Anne Putnam, Jr., giving her confession in 1706, like we said, which did kind of help reconciliation. Still, though, the stain of such a horrific period lingered, something the village and townfolk tried to aid in 1752, by kind of rebranding under a new name. They became known as the Denver region. And this did work for a while, but in 1953, Arthur Miller released the Crucible, a play which centres on the Salem trials. But it is no historical retelling. This is laden with mass exaggeration and flat out lies for dramatic effect,

from calling Tichiba a black woman who practiced voodoo, to making Abigail and John Proctor have an affair, and then she runs away with all of his money after he's killed. Like, it's all very dramatic, and, you know, it's entertaining to kind of watch and read, but it has all really muddied the historical reporting on the trials. With the play's success only growing in the years that passed, like I, for example, don't know if it's the same internationally, but we studied it in school. And fair enough that this was in the context that Miller had written about the Salem trials

to kind of draw comparisons to the behaviour of Americans in the 50s with communism and kind of the red terror taking hold of society, which again he compares to the witch trials in Salem. But the effect of the narrative was immense, so much so that in 1957 the state of Massachusetts formally apologized for the trials. and even though they'd all been dead for hundreds of years, the accused were formally pardoned. So that's Salem and the trials, okay, looking at the people involved, the beliefs of the town, how the drama kind of goes down, and the aftermath in Massachusetts specifically. But what about beyond? After all, more than any of the witch trials, which,

or most of them were far more brutal and bloody in Europe, Salem seems to have the biggest effect. So how did it change the rest of the world? Well, from the 1700s onward, we start to see the repealing of many of the laws which prosecuted and punished witches all over the Western world. So well beyond just kind of Salem or the USA. And while this didn't mean people stopped believing in witches, it did mean the standard of proof for prosecuting them changed. This all coincided with the increase in education and legal training, plus, of course, the wee old thing called the Scientific Revolution.

And even though this began far earlier, around the time of Copernicus in the late 1400s to early 15th, it shows society is now reaching a place of greater reasoning, which the events in Salem, particularly guys, the crushing of Giles Corey, helped make happen. The other reason Salem has such impact comes down to the breadth of its victims. For while the first accused did tend to be outcasts or marginalised women, which we see in most of, you know, Europe, the big dogs also faced serious accusations. After all, guys, let us remember, in Salem, there were two village church officials, five ministers, four ministers' wives, and even the governor's wife, Mary Fipps, who were also accused, which really makes Salem the best example of how hysteria can take

hold and lead to absolutely devastating consequences. But just because we understand this and made the necessary steps to end public witch trials doesn't mean the treatment of marginalised women, or just kind of general suspicion of all women stopped. In fact, since the end of the trials, the term which has been transformed. No longer a term of the supernatural, but rather weaponised to encompass difficult, scheming, troublesome, bitter women who usually fall into two camps, okay? The first of which is pretty standard, right? We have the old, ugly, bitter, manipulative, malicious woman evoking the familiar cultural image of the crooked nose, the wrinkles, the shrill voice and black clothing. And the point of using this term to categorize these,

women specifically, is to essentially turn female aging itself into something threatening, right? Something to fear, which recalls all of those same principles we spoke about last week in 15th century Europe, with menopause and this idea of kind of drying up of menstruation, diminishing women's values. Because guess what, guys? Despite the fact 500 years have passed since then, we still value fertility and youth above all, because the basis of society is patriotic. as such, women's roles within that society are linked to having babies. So if you can like no longer have those babies, you are marginalised, right? As this difficult, jealous, bitter other, which is not only just like the most fucked up thing to say, okay, that women only have

value because we make babies, but even more fucked up that this was the view 500 years ago in which the stereotypical old kind of witch was established, and that we still hold now 500 years later. 500 fucking years. I mean, it's insane. Even Meryl Streep made mention of this in this clip here. When I was 40, when I turned 40, I was offered three, which is in one year.

Oh. And it was sending me a signal I felt about Hollywood and how they felt about people turning 40. So I felt bad. And it made me sort of, I had like a little, my backup, you know, and so, no, I didn't want to play them. So she does kind of, you know, make light of it, which is largely the only way it is digestible. But it's just fucking diabolical. And guess what, my divas, it actually gets worse.

Which I will just say here, I don't want this episode to be a whole kind of defeatist. We're all fucked. We've made no progress thing. Because we have made progress. And I feel like I really have to look at the world through a nondon. a fetus lens, given how much time I spent in the past, otherwise I'd just be fucking depressed all the time. But I will say this has been a really hard series to research and dig into because of just how systematic this issue still is. Like the kind of parallels and comparisons that can be drawn

are just insane. Because we do see this every day, day in and day out. In Australia, for example, I remember, I think I was in about year six at the time, so maybe 10. We had our first female Prime Minister. Her name was Julia Gillard. And she was the victim of a campaign called Ditch the Witch, a movement which led her to ultimately deliver this absolute fucking banger. I will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. I will not.

And the government will not be lectured about sexism and misogyny by this man. Not now, not ever. The leader of the opposition says that people who hold sexist views and who are misogynists are not appropriate for high office. Well, I hope the leader of the opposition has got a piece of paper and he is writing out his resignation. Because if he wants to know what misogyny looks like in modern Australia, he doesn't need a motion in the House of Representatives. He needs a mirror. That's what he needs. But that's just Australia. I hear you say.

you guys have a rampant misogyny problem, which we do. So here's another example. Ex-UK.K. Prime Minister, Theresa May, she went viral for having a, quote, witches cackle. Now, you're still probably thinking, you know, from last week, this is the country of the witch-mad king James VI. So of course, this kind of impact still lingers. And perhaps you're right. So let's jump over the pond to the US, where Kamala Harris's laugh was blasted on social media for its, quote, crazy, exaggerated, inappropriate and cackling nature, which is exactly what Hillary Clinton experienced on social media when she ran for president, seen wearing a black hat and riding a broomstick.

But, you know, maybe you're thinking, it's 2026, we're better than that now. Okay, well, let's come back to Australia. Where very, very recently, the ex-Victorian Premier Jacinta Allen was also depicted in AI photos wearing a witch's hat with the sign, ditch the witch, on a fucking mobile billboard truck, which was driven around Melbourne, one of our biggest metropolitan cities. And I mean, just to drive home, not that we really even need it at this point, but just to drive home how deluded this is, even fucking Beyonce has faced which accusations, guys, and still people think there's no misogyny problem in 2026.

Honestly, I can't even sit here and tell you there's no which problem, because according to recent reporting out of the UN, there has been a solid rise in women killed for witchcraft in the last decade, especially in Ghana, where they still exile women to so-called witch camps as punishment. Now, you may be thinking, well, let's pump the fucking breaks here, okay? We're not talking about rural Ghana or kind of tribal religious systems. We're talking about the modern Western world at large here, Diva. And yes, I will grant you, okay? The last woman killed for witchcraft in the Western world was in 1782.

But even without the physical punishment, the impact of the term witch is still life-altering today. With modern research findings like that of academic Jennifer Burdall, showing that women who violate feminine ideals can face harassment in the workplace leading to job loss, something that one 19th century suffragette by the name of Matilda Jocelyn Gage recognized, saying persecution of witches has nothing to do with fighting evil or resisting the devil, but is merely good old-fashioned misogyny in action, with the express aim of repressing the intellect, influence, and therefore power of strong women.

One key example like I always think of, and perhaps for our international listeners, this may not make as much sense, but for the Aussies here, I'm sure you will know, one of the media's most prominent, favorite fixtures is a woman called Abby Chatfield. Okay? She is a podcaster, she's an author,

and really like a social, commentator in her own right, who constantly speaks on her ideas of feminism, power, kind of dynamics in relationships, and her own treatment in the media, which is nothing short of a modern-day witch hunt, guys. I am so fucking serious here. The amount of words that get put into her mouth or, like, removed from quotes, which make her look fucking deranged, is insane. It genuinely scares me because now the digital sphere is the new Salem Village Town Square and social media is the noose these media companies used to vilify these powerful women. But it's not all bad guys, okay? I said we weren't going to be fully defeated us here and we have reason to celebrate because we do have women like Abby who despite being a part of this digital witch hunt refused to be silenced. So many others come to mind Jamila Jamil for example and before them we had the like.

of Matilda Jocelyn Gage, who even back in the 19th century suggested we needed greater media literacy and awareness of the derogatory nature of the term, saying that instead of reading the word witch on a page, we should read the word woman instead. And yes, once again, guys, I will say and make caveat, because I know people are going to be in my comment saying it, men were also accused of witchcraft. But, as the Guardian says, these days when we say which, we do almost exclusively mean women, with any association with men long gone in culture today, and instead used and linked to other words like whore, which intend to police women and shame them into socially prescribed behavior. Which is why so many incredible women have fought really hard to reclaim the term.

I don't know there's lots of kind of other podcasts and social people who will say, you know, hey, bitches and witches and things like that, but their entire feminist activist groups, including witch, standing for Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell, which was established in the US in 1968 to adopt witch imagery as a symbol of rebellious female power. Pop culture has also been essential to this fight, with fabulous witches being written into books, TV, films and stage. From Hermione Granger to Elfabar, both incredibly smart and powerful characters, to Sabrina the Teenage Witch and the Owen Sisters in Practical Magic,

which, FYI, guys, Practical Magic 2, I think, comes out this Friday. So I'm definitely going to be going to see that. Who give us these kind of non-threatening, almost mundane, I guess you could say, look at the life of witches, which helps normalize the term. Then, of course, we have our supernatural divas from Willow from Buffy the Vampire Slayer to Bonnie Bennett from the Vampire Diaries. And of course, guys, just all of the incredible herbalists and midwives and scientists and gals, and gals right back to the beginning of time, who have helped transform the term which

from the idea of something wicked to one which is linked to power as a result of resistance to conformity, to which I say my devers, get out your cauldrons and broomsticks because we ride at Dong. Which brings us to the end of another episode of Hot History, guys. Thank you so much for listening along to this first series that we've done. I have loved digging into this with all of you. and make sure to come back next week because we are finally going to do the long-awaited, much-requested multi-part deep dive on the Romanovs, okay? Taking up all of September, which means that you will get seven episodes of hot history this month versus the normal for.

That is how much I love you guys. So make sure to tune in this Friday for that, first part, which will focus on the rise of the Romanovs from the first to the final. Final. Until then, if you are looking for some more Hot History, you can find us on Instagram and Substack at Hot History Club and on YouTube and TikTok at Hot.Hot history. As always, guys, it has been a pleasure getting down and dirty in time with you and I will speak to you all next. No wait. This week, guys, this Friday. Thank you so much, guys. Love for you. Bye. This episode of Hot History was recorded on Derek Land. Always was, always will be.

Aboriginal land.