Witchcraft and Economics: a Very Brief Summary

A well-known illustration of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692

The Roman church didn’t officially condone witch trials before 1486. Locally authorized witch trials certainly happened before then, and some are documented, but the Roman canon officially held witches didn’t exist, and belief in magic was a form of heresy. Only in 1486 did Rome authorize witch trials. The last sanctioned witch trial happened in Dornoch, Scotland, in 1736. Witch trials, as an authorized Christian practice, lasted only 250 years.

Why, though, did this happen? If European Christendom didn’t authorize witch trials until 1486, it certainly wasn’t to expunge prior religions, as some pop sociologists claim; by 1486, Roman Christianity had unquestioned dominion in Europe. Like heresy trials, witch trials only commenced when Christianity had no serious fear of challenge. Yet they certainly feared something; otherwise, why use lethal force against women entrapped in pre-literate superstition?

I started thinking about this concern recently, when a friend posted a question: who taught us to fear witches, rather than the witch hunters? Coincidentally, I’d spent time with this issue several months earlier, but my friend nevertheless made an interesting point: where critics like Jules Michelet or Silvia Federici focus on women as victims of witch hunts, men were also targeted. She specifically cited Giles Corey, who died at Salem, Massachusetts, crushed under a pile of rocks.

However, Corey, a farmer, wasn’t just killed by compression. He died thus, where literally every other Salem witch was hanged, because though accused, he never entered a plea. (Only those who protested their innocence were hanged.) Authorities loaded hundreds of pounds of rocks upon 81-year-old Corey’s chest to extract a plea through torture. Because Corey didn’t plead either way, the courts had no authority to seize his property, and his children inherited his farm.

While the girls who levied charges wildly in Salem, 1692, possibly believed their fairy tales, the adults around them benefited directly, through the redistribution of land and other resources. Many people probably sincerely believed a manifest evil force moved among the True Believers, causing mayhem and destruction for Godless ends. But cynical humans definitely fanned their reactions, because it allowed them to hoover up and hoard cheap farmland.

As stated above, Rome endorsed witchcraft trials in 1486. The cultural context matters: in 1454, Rome also authorized Portugal and Spain to “discover” previously unknown lands, seize territory for Christendom, force conversions among the unbelievers, and take slaves. This culminated, of course, in Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas. Likewise, in the 1490s, Rome began selling plenary indulgences. These were initially quite popular, though eventually they hastened the Protestant Reformation.

The North Berwick witch trial of 1590

Both the “discovery” and slave-taking, and the selling of indulgences, served important fiscal purposes: the Vatican was cash-strapped, and needed new revenues for maintenance and repairs. Meanwhile, European aristocrats began seizing formerly common pastureland and other shared resources, declaring them private property. Though the Church approved this development, individual priests didn’t, and outspoken clerics, like England’s John Ball, and Germany’s Thomas Müntzer, led violent populist rebellions.

Witch hunting didn’t just concentrate male hegemony over women, as Michelet and Federici assert, and I’ve long believed. It also concentrated Vatican control over local religion, and aristocratic control over local land. My friend’s reference to Giles Corey makes that clear. Powerful people, in religion and government, sowed commoners’ fears of disorder and change, then promised to restore stability and the illusion of comfortable blandness.

Only I can fix things.

Consider the important movements we’ve witnessed in recent years. While BLM asks authority to please not kill civilians, especially Black civilians, so flippantly, observers like Robbie Tolan and Ibram Kendi note, the actual shooting police repeatedly claim they shot so-and-so because he (usually “he”) was supernaturally big, strong, fast-moving, or whatever. Restive African Americans are depicted possessing witch-like superpowers.

Authority figures demand increased prerogative to fight these Black supervillains: Stop-and-Frisk. Qualified Immunity. No-Knock Raids. Despite the modern, technocratic language, are these powers qualitatively different from witch-hunting techniques? I’d contend not. And like witch hunts, these extrajudicial powers effectively remove law-abiding citizens from the economy, and polite society. We no longer break witches on Catherine wheels, but we no longer need to.

Witch hunts, like crackdowns on Black youths, have multiple causes. It’s impossible to say definitively: “This belief causes witch hunts.” However, when we consider what sustains these repressions, we should ask ourselves who benefits. Both in 1486 and 2021, the rich and powerful pretend to champion common decency and religion. Just entrust your work, capital, and safety to us. We’ll kill the monsters. We’ll make Europe great again.