Historian Debunks The Biggest Witchcraft Myths on Reddit

Over 100,000 people were accused of witchcraft.

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Why were most accused witches women?

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What's an example of a modern-day witch hunt?

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There are a lot of misunderstandings on the internet

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I'm Mikki Brock, professor and historian.

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Let's take a deep dive and set the record straight.

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Jumping over to see what the folks at r/HighStrangeness

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Why were people accused of being witches?

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because their neighbors thought they were a witch.

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to say they were accused of witchcraft

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because someone was jealous of them, wanted their money,

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because there was a family feud that was going on.

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that those things weren't important.

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But people typically accused their neighbors of witchcraft

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because they thought their neighbor

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Something went wrong on their farm,

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something went wrong in their family,

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and there was someone in their life

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who had maybe already amassed this reputation,

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and named in the taverns on the streets.

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And they could say, Hey, this bad thing

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what sorts of people were most likely to be accused

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And that's what we get into: questions of gender.

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And that's when we start to talk about things

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like the story that's told in Genesis 3

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about Eve being initially tempted by the devil

Original source: https://www.wired.com/