Historian Mikki Brock joins WIRED to answer the internet’s bubbling cauldron of questions about witches, witchcraft, and witch hunting through the ages. Can men be witches or only women? Do witches really cast spells and create potions? Who came up with the concept of witches flying on brooms and why? Why do cartoon witches always have such a pointy nose? Why do we associate black cats with witches? Why did the Salem Witch trials start? Answers to these questions and an entire coven more await on Witchcraft Support.
0:00 Witchcraft Support
0:17 Boy Witches
2:11 Witch torture in old Scotland
3:59 Whoever is in charge of marketing over at the Salem Witch Trials, amazing job
5:14 Burned in the USA
5:49 Witch Tests
7:01 Concurrent witch trials worldwide?
7:35 Spells? Potions?
8:44 Wouldst thou like to live deliciously?
10:57 Brooms: Why?
12:51 Malleus Malefic arum
15:18 Mass hysteria
16:32 Why are you booing me I’m right
18:02 Witch noses
20:04 Cats and witches through history
21:39 How to spot a witch
22:38 Why did The Salem Witch Trials start?
26:09 Actual witches or ergot poisoning?
27:27 Five-fingered Anne Boleyn
28:56 How does one avoid being accused of witchcraft?
30:52 Regretfully we have not beaten the witch charges
32:41 The witch slander must end
33:33 Blessed to report that we have beaten the witch charges
34:14 Witches: Origins
36:57 Witch hunting never ends
37:43 “Come, we fly!”
Correction: An edit in this episode makes out that Elizabeth I was the first queen of England. In fact, she was the first unmarried queen of England; the first queen was actually her half-sister, Mary I.
Director: Anna O’Donohue
Director of Photography: Ben Dewey
Editor: Philip Anderson
Expert: Mikki Brock
Line Producer: Joseph Buscemi
Associate Producer: Paul Gulyas; Brandon White
Production Manager: Peter Brunette
Production Coordinator: Rhyan Lark
Casting Producer: Nicholas Sawyer
Camera Operator: Constantine Economides
Sound Mixer: Lily Van Leeuwen
Production Assistant: Kalia Simms
Post Production Supervisor: Christian Olguin
Post Production Coordinator: Ian Bryant
Supervising Editor: Doug Larsen
Assistant Editor: Billy Ward
Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►►
Listen to the Get WIRED podcast ►►
Want more WIRED? Get the magazine ►►
Follow WIRED:
Instagram ►►
Twitter ►►
Facebook ►►
Tik Tok ►►
Also, check out the free WIRED channel on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, and Android TV.
ABOUT WIRED
WIRED is where tomorrow is realized.
@billih8sclowns
October 31, 2024 at 8:54 pm
Brilliant video and completely agree with her opinion of the film The VVITCH. Such a great depiction of the psychological anxiety that many puritans must of felt when they believed they were the victims of witchcraft.
@mattmorales4320
October 31, 2024 at 8:55 pm
Ser Drunken the Tall is most certainly an ASOIAF reference, a play on Ser Duncan the Tall.
@Amel-fk8ll
October 31, 2024 at 8:57 pm
I would listen to her for hours!
@vincentwinqvist4023
October 31, 2024 at 8:58 pm
15:09 Professor, with all due respect for both you and with fascinating topic: 8 am is too early for anything.
@mcribbedherpleasure668
October 31, 2024 at 8:58 pm
Men cannot be witches,we are warlocks
@chipdamage9374
October 31, 2024 at 9:02 pm
It’d be interesting to hear a historian talk about the way that this same phenomenon takes place even today in modern societies. I think it’s pretty easy to see the parallels in America right now.
@schaissewolfhausen9363
October 31, 2024 at 9:04 pm
The Devil is active. It looks like 💵
@MeredithHagan
October 31, 2024 at 9:04 pm
What drives me crazy are those shirts and buttons that say “They didn’t burn witches, they burned women,” mostly because people accused of witchcraft were mostly hanged or drowned or tortured/starved to death. Burning was for heretics.
@schaissewolfhausen9363
October 31, 2024 at 9:05 pm
God is active too. It looks like🦠
@wendelynmusic
October 31, 2024 at 9:05 pm
I remember reading that belladonna would spread on the broom. and then women would absorb the belladonna through our genitalia and the ensuing hallucinations would feel like flying on the broom. any truth to this or is it an old coven’s tale?
@erinmccurdy2326
October 31, 2024 at 9:06 pm
I need more videos of her!!
@xXVannXx
October 31, 2024 at 9:07 pm
So interesting 😱
@Dan-vo7vc
October 31, 2024 at 9:07 pm
They were HANGED. When you say someone is “hung” that means something very, very different.
@bursegsardaukar
October 31, 2024 at 9:11 pm
And Helen Duncan was the last person in England to be imprisoned in 1944 under the Witchcraft Act of 1735.
@jorge6207
October 31, 2024 at 9:11 pm
‘No creo en brujas, pero que las hay, las hay’
@lienmeat
October 31, 2024 at 9:11 pm
Um, I’m not clear on her stance about witch trials: “but it wasn’t a panic”… very next question about Hansel and Gretel… “when it comes not just in witch hunts, but to moral panics in general”. Alright…well…I think you need to re-explain how the witch trials weren’t a hysteria or panic again or something, because it sounds like you said they are a panic right after that, and then went on to to compare it to other moral panics.
@nero-e8n
October 31, 2024 at 9:12 pm
We all know that the cause of this is Anti-Semitism. I bet the ADL and Ben Shapiro would agree.
@cccouzelis763
October 31, 2024 at 9:14 pm
I just wish she opened with the disclaimer that the thousands of people murdered during witch hunts were NOT WITCHES (in the US & Europe). They were ordinary people, mostly women (as she does mention – 85%ish females)… and 50% older women (>40 yrs old). In some villages, there were almost no women left. A truly chilling example of state-sanctioned deadly misogyny. I have to also say the way she discusses horrific torture practiced upon these ordinary citizens is disturbing to me. The witch hunts were an incredibly tragic & terrifying period of history that still very much shape our culture today. What would society be like now had such deep fear not been sewn into the experience of simply being female? The BBC podcast series called Witch is excellent for more thorough details.
@MrCarlbrooks
October 31, 2024 at 9:15 pm
If you’d read your John Bellairs you know for a fact that witches were often men. Do your research people!!
@DigitalAndInnovation
October 31, 2024 at 9:16 pm
These are always great, but she is exceptional!
@FrancoisBourque
October 31, 2024 at 9:16 pm
ednbruh in proper scohish accent 😅
@KMO325
October 31, 2024 at 9:16 pm
38:16 I mean when you bring in Bewitched, you go through a whole different lane of witch mythology. That show went to Japan and gave us the whole magical girl genre of anime/manga. Think about it, Sailor Moon even has a black cat familiar as a nod to the meta-influence.
@paulocapella1774
October 31, 2024 at 9:20 pm
One of the best you ever did. It breaks your norms, very good indeed.
@matthewpereira
October 31, 2024 at 9:25 pm
this was so informative!!!! obsessed lol
@michaeleggimann106
October 31, 2024 at 9:26 pm
Asking for more weight is not defiance.
At that point.. it’s just helping him have it done. Like tugging on down the legs of someone hung without a big drop