Entertainment
Historian Fact Checks Witchcraft Slop
AI slop is littering your feed and spreading misinformation, so WIRED’s here to set the record straight. Join Professor & Historian of Witchcraft & Demonology Mikki Brock as we fact check the internet, Witchcraft edition. WIRED recommends: #Witchcraft #Witch #Halloween Still haven’t subscribed to WIRED on YouTube? ►► Download the WIRED app: Listen to the…
@tuxedonoir7970
October 23, 2026 at 5:22 pm
This is what you want to do with actual history? Waste it on garbage? Why don’t you add a “Which quirky Greek god are you” quiz on the end?
@Unknowntyper
October 23, 2026 at 5:46 pm
Being religious / spiritual opens you up to stupid.
@Unknowntyper
October 23, 2026 at 5:47 pm
The fear was rooted in superstition
@Nojustno592
October 23, 2026 at 6:00 pm
Anyone else just naturally expected her to say professor of witchcraft & wizardry? Like I was thrown when she didn’t 🤣
@watchwithauntykitty
October 23, 2026 at 6:05 pm
I have a question for any booze historians out there. I know that women often brewed beer, but was it really as profitable for cottage brewsters back then as the whole ‘witches were alewives who were persecuted for being girlbosses!’ myth makes it out to be? Ale was ubiquitous, so I can’t see people being able to charge the medieval equivalent of modern craft beer prices for it unless they were producing absolutely amazing stuff, and the limits of working in a (quite literal) cottage industry meant they couldn’t produce massive supplies. I just can’t see a woman being outrageously financially independent in the medieval era by brewing small batches of ale mostly for her household and selling off any excess to her neighbours.
@georgedorn_fnord
October 23, 2026 at 6:29 pm
Ick, AI video. So gross.
@mirthenary
October 23, 2026 at 6:37 pm
I was turned into a newt!
@kitkat1380
October 23, 2026 at 6:46 pm
….. I got better
@federatas84
October 23, 2026 at 6:43 pm
14:07 Aaaand, I hate it.
@MrGksarathy
October 23, 2026 at 6:43 pm
Pretty sure medieval people had access to clean water.
@anthonypc-248
October 23, 2026 at 6:45 pm
11:11 No one accused or punished for witchcraft was a real witch.
Magic is fictional.
This is why superstitious thinking is inherently risky. Even when a particular belief could seem benign in a certain context, if it’s actually untrue it can mislead our judgments and actions in unexpected ways, or when spread to other gullible people.
We can’t control for that when we are genuinely convinced it’s as true as anything else we take for granted.
Also, just enabling a superstitious epistemology — a flawed way of forming beliefs — will lead to other, more problematic conclusions next.
@mirthenary
October 23, 2026 at 6:46 pm
I’m not a witch, they dressed me like this! ….And this is not my nose, it’s a false one!
@crazyquilt
October 23, 2026 at 6:47 pm
2:39 I was lifted by the devil’s wind itself last night after a particularly delicious bowl of beans
@dasstigma
October 23, 2026 at 6:54 pm
“I don’t know what this is. It must be magic.”
– Smartest Species on the Planet
@mikeblair2594
October 23, 2026 at 7:08 pm
So at 8:20 your talking about the ice raids currently killing people all over the US. Right?
@mikeblair2594
October 23, 2026 at 7:13 pm
Yeah, the puritans would have strung the catholic as a witch in a heartbeat. I’d like to say that it’s just because us colonials were rather provincial hicks, but it happened all over Europe in some of the most cosmopolitan cities in the western world.
@ComplicatedSandwich
October 23, 2026 at 7:19 pm
Need you to do another AMA!
@darrellray8763
October 23, 2026 at 7:30 pm
Don’t forget that in many/most areas of Europe the people or organizations that “convicted” a witch got the property of the witch.
@mikeblair2594
October 23, 2026 at 7:31 pm
Pressure? You mean torture, right? Say like it is.
@AeonWaves
October 23, 2026 at 7:51 pm
Meanwhile, multiple Muslim-majority countries still have laws prohibiting “sorcery” in 2026, and in many of them, such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Afghanistan, those laws are actually enforced on a regular basis. The West has its own modern metaphorical witch hunts (e.g. the War on Drugs), but the case of “sorcery” in the Islamic world is on another level of absurdity.
@AnnaBanana-t2s
October 23, 2026 at 8:40 pm
They aren’t wrong. People often invent perverse-inverse ideas, in the shadows of such strict religions. I wouldn’t be surprised, at all, if Mormons or Amish had some secretive, “Satanic” sects. Transgression of taboos becomes a religious practice, itself. I would suggest some books, but…you’re going to need some lectures on world religions, before you really understand what I mean.
@JamesBlow-q5v
October 23, 2026 at 7:54 pm
QUEEN ISABELLA 👸 BELL 🔔 SAMUEL MASS CHRISTOPHER CHRIST MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎅 BIRTH OF A NEW NATION SANTA MARIA SANTA CLAUSE SATAN’S CLAWS HO HO HO
@Dersabom
October 23, 2026 at 7:57 pm
Would have prefered this to not focus on AI content, though I did like it
@Rezail_Uhhh
October 23, 2026 at 8:35 pm
Wait a minute!!!!! look at her ear rings!!!!!! She is trying to divert our attention with this video. WITCHES GOLD!!!! ITS THE DEVIL MARK. Get the flamer brother!! The heavy flamer!!
@AnnaBanana-t2s
October 23, 2026 at 8:36 pm
I love her fashion. Under-stated office-goth. Very cute.
@lifeunfiltered4822
October 23, 2026 at 8:45 pm
Why are you hust reviewing stupid obviously false AI videos? Very disappointing.
Abd I was expecting to hear about real witchcraft practices, not witch trials and false witches.
Make another one, a morevreal video.
@rimaco196
October 23, 2026 at 9:08 pm
11:19 Five minutes earlier they weren’t stupid. Now, even white magic is bad magic. So, healing the blind, curing leprosy they’d have burned Jesus? Of course they would, religion… You missed people were stupid, because they’re stupid now.
@Muahehe_10
October 23, 2026 at 9:20 pm
Idea for you: Fertilizer Specialist