March 18, 2025 • 23 mins
Welcome back to our Podcasthon series, "Ending Witch Hunts."
In this fourth installment, Josh and Sarah explore the pervasive issue of witch hunts across Asia. As Sarah notes, "The witch hunting story continues to unfold in ways many people don't realize." We examine how witch hunts and witch branding remain significant problems throughout parts of Asia, with a particular focus on India.
Throughout the episode, we highlight the work of many local advocates who are fighting these dangerous practices through education, survivor support, and influencing the development of appropriate legal protections and governmental interventions.
Podcasthon is a global movement to spread awareness about charities. Join us each day March 15-21 as we participate in Podcasthon 2025, where more than 1,500 podcasters unite to amplify causes close to their hearts. We're proud to participate with our nonprofit End Witch Hunts, which works to educate about persecution of alleged witches worldwide.
Donate to Witch Hunt Podcast Conference Fund
Boris Gershman Witch Hunt Podcast Episode
Witchcraft Beliefs Around the World: An Exploratory Analysis
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hi, I'm Josh, She's Sarah, and this is Witch Hunt podcast.
Welcome back to our Podcast on 2025 series Ending Witch Hunts.
Our nonprofit and witch hunts isa podcast on participating
charity and podcast on is a global movement that involves
thousands of podcasts amplifyingthe work of charities and
(00:21):
causes. March 15th through the 21st.
In this episode, we're going to continue telling the witch hunt
story by covering the concerningreality of witch hunts across
Asia. In this story layer, we'll
explore how witch hunts and witch branding remain
significant problems in parts ofAsia, particularly in India.
(00:43):
Laws against witchcraft practices exist in many
Southwest and Central Asian nations.
Elsewhere, as in India, witchcraft is not a crime
against the state, but is viewedas something akin to a crime by
many who take justice into theirown hands.
But in Asia, the witch hunts in India are most widely known, and
(01:04):
I would like to thank the many experts that have contributed to
our podcast already about the witch branding in the South
Asian nation. Yes, several of the experts
who've been guests of our podcast contribute to legal
perspectives across Indian states, work on the ground with
victim recovery programs, and use field research to raise
(01:25):
awareness about current issues. Look, it's an awesome word cloud
featuring all their names. Don't you want to hear what they
all have to say? That's possible because we have
an India episode playlist that you need to listen to so that
you can hear about this country and the incredible advocacy
(01:47):
directly from India. This collection we have in forms
from different backgrounds and different perspectives.
India is a nation of more than 1.4 billion people who occupy a
land area of more than 1.2 million square miles, four times
the population of the US, is living in an area roughly 1/3
(02:09):
the size of the US. In different Indian States and
cultures, there is a diversity of patriarchal and matriarchal
structures. In some societies, land is
inherited through the matrilineal line.
In these structures, variously women have different amounts of
(02:33):
authority. Of course, they have more in the
patriarchal and matrilineal societies than they do in the
patriarchy. And so we will be coming back to
this subject of patriarchy laterin the show.
And if you want to know more about the matriarchal societies,
you can tune into that India playlist.
(02:56):
In addition to the social stratathat we see in society, such as
American Society, where there are different income classes,
different earnings for differentpeople, and a lot of what we
think about is in terms of upperclass, middle class and lower
class. In India, there's also another
(03:19):
layer called the caste system that people are born into.
This caste system is a hierarchical structure where
people in the upper caste have more privileges, more
expectations, generally more wealth than the people in the
lower caste. Because what job opportunities
(03:39):
have been historically availablebased upon caste is generally
ordered by higher income. Jobs go to the higher cast.
They're the ones getting the professional degrees,
historically speaking. And the lower caste is known as
the Dalits. They're the people who have been
(04:02):
historically marginalized and oppressed, and there were
formerly known as untouchables. Now they're known as the
scheduled casts officially, but Dalit informally, and there are
more than $200 million in India.Expert guests of Witch Hunt
(04:23):
podcast, Preeti Lalaksha Nagabini has done an episode
with us called Witchcraft Accusations and Cast in India.
You've listened to that to learnmore about the caste system and
how members of the lower caste continue to be vulnerable to
witchcraft accusations and otherhuman rights violations.
(04:45):
So Josh, how do witchcraft accusations look in India?
Well, which branding, which by the way, doesn't mean we're
ending like we would with cattle.
It's not putting a mark on somebody.
It's it refers to which brandingrefers to labeling someone as a
(05:06):
witch and then harming them in some way.
And we'll talk some more about that, but witch branding, like
all forms of witch hunting, results in heavy punishment
being enforced by individuals orgroups.
And this is occurring outside ofthe court system.
These are private citizens taking matters into their own
hands. These social punishments are
(05:30):
experienced by innocent women, not witches, and they include
social ostracization, exclusion from economics of a community,
banishment, public humiliation, assault, torturous violence,
rape, and murder. So the total number of people
(05:52):
victimized by which branding is unknown.
Over the period from 2010 to 2021, the National Crime Bureau
in India recorded about 1500 cases of individuals falling
victim to violence, including burning and lynching, following
allegations of witchcraft. This figure does only include
(06:15):
murders. There's still a hype.
There's still a prevalence of crimes perpetrated against those
accused of witchcraft that don'tescalate to murder but are still
violent and destroy their lives.Reports of these murders do
reach international news outlets.
Individuals who brand others as witches have a variety of
(06:38):
motivations for their actions. These motivations, you have
heard many of these in our previous episodes.
They include the fear of witchcraft, patriarchal control,
property disputes and scapegoating for misfortune and
unexplained death. And regardless of the primary
(06:58):
outward reasons for the switch brand Dean, the underlying motif
is gender based violence. As patriarchal control plays
out, it's reducing the authorityand agency of women, which leads
to men feeling empowered to commit gender based violence.
We've heard over and over from our advocates that entire
(07:21):
communities do turn on women whohave been branded as witches,
and this is what leads to collective social and economic
exclusion and in these extreme cases, mob violence resulting in
murder. However, as dire as all of this
sounds, and as dire as the situation is in reality, we have
(07:43):
heard from experts and advocateswho are developing and
implementing holistic strategiesto eliminate which branding.
There's many programs and authoritative reports that are
bringing visibility to the experiences of marginalized
people in India and connecting them with support.
(08:06):
Reiterating what we told you about in the first episode of
our Ending Witch Hunt Series A few days ago, holistic solutions
involved several key steps. One of those steps involves
education and awareness. This same model that we've been
Speaking of is also applicable to the communities in Asia.
(08:27):
All of these holistic solutions require everybody to help out
and pitch in. So we've talked to many experts,
men and women, who are involved in this advocacy.
Women are the primary victims ofwhich branding, but men are
often the accusers, and often for very misogynistic reasons.
(08:53):
Even if that's not the overriding outward facing
motivation somebody has, underneath it all is that layer
of fear or mistrust of women. So it's very important for for
that reason that men get involved in advocating and work
(09:14):
hand in hand with women to pursue effective solutions to
the problem. And when you look at the global
network of advocates, you do seeboth men and women experts
(09:36):
working. It's such a great example
showing that kind of gendered collaboration across the network
working to end witch heads. Another step in the holistic
approach to solving the witch branding crisis is to strengthen
(09:57):
laws and the enforcement of lawsalready on the books.
There's need for strong central legislation because currently
it's up to the states to decide if they're going to specifically
ban which branding practices. Now, of course, a lot of the
(10:18):
harms that are done are already illegal, such as the murder and
violence, but the branding itself is not illegal and there
needs to be specific laws to give some more weight in order
to curb the violence. There just needs to be more
weight. There's needs to be a will among
(10:40):
the police and the judicial system to bring justice to those
who have done wrong, to the always innocent women and
sometimes men who are accused ofwitchcraft.
Hand in hand with that is this need to support the victims.
(11:03):
You want law enforcement to be there, hopefully have a presence
to prevent people from being victimized.
But once someone has survived a witch branding, they need a
variety of supports, psychological counseling,
therapies, practical supports. Often they're driven out of
(11:23):
their communities and need resources, need to be able to
get jobs, they need education, they need clothing, housing,
food support. So all of these supports are
being considered in the holisticsolutions that are are being
proposed right now. And the arts are used for
(11:46):
community engagement in India toreach survivors.
The theater of the oppressed is the survivors coming together to
put on performances of situations that they themselves
have been in, to act out the scenarios so people can learn
(12:06):
what is actually happening. Another aspect of a holistic
solution is to involve international collaboration.
It's very important for people working in advocacy against
witch hunts in one nation to connect with advocates working
against witch hunts in other nations, to learn from each
(12:26):
other. And one way that that is being
done is through the International Alliance to End
Witch Hunts, which has advocatesin many countries, including
several in India. They have regular meetings and
seminars and discussions of what's going on in different
(12:49):
countries, Ghana, Tanzania, manycountries all around the world
are involved in this. And the collaboration, the
effort, collective efforts that come out of joining in together
and working cooperatively, it just elevates.
(13:11):
The solutions that come out are enhanced and so much better.
And also within India, because it's such a very large country,
state to state interaction is very critical.
And one of the things that's been great to see through Witch
Hunt podcast is actually advocates have come together
(13:34):
who've heard each other on different episodes of the show
and they've decided we've got toconnect, we've got to work
together. This research you're doing is
interesting. This approach you have to the
holistic solution is innovative.Let's work hand in hand and it's
just very nice to see all of this collaboration.
(13:57):
Like we've said several times, for the problem to be solved, it
takes all of us coming together.One specific project that is
rolling out is called Bold Building Opportunities for Lives
and Dignities, and this is a project to end witch hunting.
This is a project that is looking for academic
(14:19):
collaborations and funding, so please reach out if that is
something that interests you. This is a survivor direct
program to enrich and enhance their lives so that they can go
on and live the lives that they want to live in the community
that they belong in. And the bulk project, we focus
(14:40):
on several key areas. One is raising awareness and
changing attitudes, also supporting survivors,
strengthening legal and institutional frameworks,
data-driven interventions, and community empowerment and
sustainability. As we talked about, this is the
(15:01):
holistic way of going about addressing the issue because any
one of these solutions on its own is not going to do it.
You can put whatever law you want in the books.
Humans are going to be humans, and witch hunts are still going
to happen unless you do change attitudes.
And of course, as Sarah said, supporting the survivors is just
(15:24):
so critical for their well-beingand for restoring harmony to
unities that have been ripped apart by these allegations.
Thank you for tuning in to this series this week, Ending Witch
Hunts, and if you've been listening, we have thrown a lot
(15:44):
at you in a short amount of time.
It is a lot to hear about, it's a lot to process, but ending
witch hunts is something everyone needs to be familiar
with because it's all of our responsibility to end them.
Yes, we all need to come together.
We all need to understand what the situation is and get
(16:06):
involved in whatever way we can to our own capacity through
utilizing our own skills, abilities and resources,
everything we've got. It's our duty to end injustice
anywhere that we see it, and witch hunting is a grave
injustice. And you probably have something
(16:31):
to offer and advocacy you may not realize.
You can simply share one of the episodes or the information.
You could post about it, blog about it,
integrateitintoyourownwritingorpresentationsyoucanlearnmore@endwitchhunts.org.Learning about what is being
(16:53):
done to end witch hunts is advocating because you're
probably going to talk about what you're learning.
Talking about what's going on just in your own circle of
friends and acquaintances, engaging in conversations,
getting discussions started is so important because we know
when we first started talking about this, especially Sarah and
(17:17):
I and the rest of In Witch Huntsstarted talking about this,
people just looked at us baffled.
What is this you're talking about?
So it's important to break the ice and get the subject out
there so people are aware that it's going on.
(17:39):
And it's also important to learnmore about the organizations
working on the ground. You can look in our show notes
for links for the International Alliance and other
organizations. And if you have the ability, do
you consider a financial contribution to one of these
organizations either to in witchhunts?
(18:02):
You can contact the International Alliance through
their website and find out from them how to contribute or
volunteer. Volunteering time is very
helpful to do any of the many, many tasks that we've talked
about that go into all of this solution.
(18:24):
We would also appreciate donations to support the
production of our podcast, Josh.We have covered a lot of
countries the last few days while telling the story of witch
hunts. Yeah, we really have.
And the great news is we still have three more fabulous
episodes coming to you this weekfor podcasts on so we can
(18:49):
complete the story of witch hunts.
And tomorrow we're airing our regularly scheduled weekly
episode, as we do every Wednesday.
Witch Hunt podcast episode is going to feature expert guest
Holly Bamford and it is part of podcasts on 2025 Ending Witch
(19:10):
Hunt series. Because part of the witch hunt
story is historical witch hunts.And Holly is a history PhD
candidate at Liverpool University and she researches on
late medieval and early modern witchcraft and superstition.
And we met her last year at the Magic and Witchcraft Conference
(19:32):
in New York, England. If you are like us at all and
you love stories from history, you're going to absolutely be
tickled by tomorrow's episode. We've got great stories of
witchcraft cases in England, so be ready to learn about the 1674
Hinchcliffe case, which saw Susan and Joseph Hinchcliffe and
(19:56):
their daughter Anne Shillato accused of witchcraft notably.
Neighbors petitioned the courts defending the family's
innocence, a documented instanceof community support for the
accused. But there's more.
You will also hear the story of the 16 O1 Travisard case. 12
(20:17):
neighbors approached the magistrate directly to accuse an
entire family of witchcraft. This case features a remarkably
distinctive magistrate's signature, and we have a picture
from Holly of that document. I want to see that, like Sarah
said, we met Holly at a conference and in fact, we've
(20:40):
met many of our podcast guests at conferences that we've
attended. And your support for our
attendance at these conferences helps us meet even more guests,
network with previous guests we've met last year, several
people in person who we had talked to previously on the
show. And we also at the conferences,
(21:03):
we do learn an immense amount inevery presentation, every talk
that's given. We learn a ton about witch
trials and about contemporary witch hunts.
And that gives us a lot of data and insight.
So when we have new episodes andgifts coming on, they're talking
(21:24):
about their experience and research.
We find parallels and it just enables us to take these deep
dives into the history. So when you're done listening to
one of our episodes, you have a lot of new information and
you're excited to get some more questions answered about witch
hunts. So those conferences are just
(21:45):
really great fuel for continuingto grow this space around the
discussion of witch hunts. In 2024, we were able to present
our research on modern witch hunts and it sparked important
conversations about those historical patterns and the
present day persecution. And this year, 2025, we hope to
(22:07):
go back to the Magic and Witchcraft conference in York.
This year it's in June and we need your help to get there.
The theme this year is what is awitch?
A very big important central theme to wolf understanding
historic witch trials and the modern day situation.
(22:28):
So we plan to go and present on what a witch is in the context
of modern witch. So to attend conferences in the
2025 conference season, we've set up a GoFundMe page and you
can go on there and donate any amount that you are comfortable
with so that this will happen. Thank you for making this
(22:53):
nonprofit work possible with your donations.
And thank you for joining us forpodcast, Son.
Don't forget tomorrow you will hear from Holly Bamford on some
historical family witchcraft cases in England.
Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
Hi, I'm Josh, She's Sarah, and this is Witch Hunt podcast.
Welcome back to our Podcast on 2025 series Ending Witch Hunts.
Our nonprofit and witch hunts isa podcast on participating
charity and podcast on is a global movement that involves
thousands of podcasts amplifyingthe work of charities and
(00:21):
causes. March 15th through the 21st.
In this episode, we're going to continue telling the witch hunt
story by covering the concerningreality of witch hunts across
Asia. In this story layer, we'll
explore how witch hunts and witch branding remain
significant problems in parts ofAsia, particularly in India.
(00:43):
Laws against witchcraft practices exist in many
Southwest and Central Asian nations.
Elsewhere, as in India, witchcraft is not a crime
against the state, but is viewedas something akin to a crime by
many who take justice into theirown hands.
But in Asia, the witch hunts in India are most widely known, and
(01:04):
I would like to thank the many experts that have contributed to
our podcast already about the witch branding in the South
Asian nation. Yes, several of the experts
who've been guests of our podcast contribute to legal
perspectives across Indian states, work on the ground with
victim recovery programs, and use field research to raise
(01:25):
awareness about current issues. Look, it's an awesome word cloud
featuring all their names. Don't you want to hear what they
all have to say? That's possible because we have
an India episode playlist that you need to listen to so that
you can hear about this country and the incredible advocacy
(01:47):
directly from India. This collection we have in forms
from different backgrounds and different perspectives.
India is a nation of more than 1.4 billion people who occupy a
land area of more than 1.2 million square miles, four times
the population of the US, is living in an area roughly 1/3
(02:09):
the size of the US. In different Indian States and
cultures, there is a diversity of patriarchal and matriarchal
structures. In some societies, land is
inherited through the matrilineal line.
In these structures, variously women have different amounts of
(02:33):
authority. Of course, they have more in the
patriarchal and matrilineal societies than they do in the
patriarchy. And so we will be coming back to
this subject of patriarchy laterin the show.
And if you want to know more about the matriarchal societies,
you can tune into that India playlist.
(02:56):
In addition to the social stratathat we see in society, such as
American Society, where there are different income classes,
different earnings for differentpeople, and a lot of what we
think about is in terms of upperclass, middle class and lower
class. In India, there's also another
(03:19):
layer called the caste system that people are born into.
This caste system is a hierarchical structure where
people in the upper caste have more privileges, more
expectations, generally more wealth than the people in the
lower caste. Because what job opportunities
(03:39):
have been historically availablebased upon caste is generally
ordered by higher income. Jobs go to the higher cast.
They're the ones getting the professional degrees,
historically speaking. And the lower caste is known as
the Dalits. They're the people who have been
(04:02):
historically marginalized and oppressed, and there were
formerly known as untouchables. Now they're known as the
scheduled casts officially, but Dalit informally, and there are
more than $200 million in India.Expert guests of Witch Hunt
(04:23):
podcast, Preeti Lalaksha Nagabini has done an episode
with us called Witchcraft Accusations and Cast in India.
You've listened to that to learnmore about the caste system and
how members of the lower caste continue to be vulnerable to
witchcraft accusations and otherhuman rights violations.
(04:45):
So Josh, how do witchcraft accusations look in India?
Well, which branding, which by the way, doesn't mean we're
ending like we would with cattle.
It's not putting a mark on somebody.
It's it refers to which brandingrefers to labeling someone as a
(05:06):
witch and then harming them in some way.
And we'll talk some more about that, but witch branding, like
all forms of witch hunting, results in heavy punishment
being enforced by individuals orgroups.
And this is occurring outside ofthe court system.
These are private citizens taking matters into their own
hands. These social punishments are
(05:30):
experienced by innocent women, not witches, and they include
social ostracization, exclusion from economics of a community,
banishment, public humiliation, assault, torturous violence,
rape, and murder. So the total number of people
(05:52):
victimized by which branding is unknown.
Over the period from 2010 to 2021, the National Crime Bureau
in India recorded about 1500 cases of individuals falling
victim to violence, including burning and lynching, following
allegations of witchcraft. This figure does only include
(06:15):
murders. There's still a hype.
There's still a prevalence of crimes perpetrated against those
accused of witchcraft that don'tescalate to murder but are still
violent and destroy their lives.Reports of these murders do
reach international news outlets.
Individuals who brand others as witches have a variety of
(06:38):
motivations for their actions. These motivations, you have
heard many of these in our previous episodes.
They include the fear of witchcraft, patriarchal control,
property disputes and scapegoating for misfortune and
unexplained death. And regardless of the primary
(06:58):
outward reasons for the switch brand Dean, the underlying motif
is gender based violence. As patriarchal control plays
out, it's reducing the authorityand agency of women, which leads
to men feeling empowered to commit gender based violence.
We've heard over and over from our advocates that entire
(07:21):
communities do turn on women whohave been branded as witches,
and this is what leads to collective social and economic
exclusion and in these extreme cases, mob violence resulting in
murder. However, as dire as all of this
sounds, and as dire as the situation is in reality, we have
(07:43):
heard from experts and advocateswho are developing and
implementing holistic strategiesto eliminate which branding.
There's many programs and authoritative reports that are
bringing visibility to the experiences of marginalized
people in India and connecting them with support.
(08:06):
Reiterating what we told you about in the first episode of
our Ending Witch Hunt Series A few days ago, holistic solutions
involved several key steps. One of those steps involves
education and awareness. This same model that we've been
Speaking of is also applicable to the communities in Asia.
(08:27):
All of these holistic solutions require everybody to help out
and pitch in. So we've talked to many experts,
men and women, who are involved in this advocacy.
Women are the primary victims ofwhich branding, but men are
often the accusers, and often for very misogynistic reasons.
(08:53):
Even if that's not the overriding outward facing
motivation somebody has, underneath it all is that layer
of fear or mistrust of women. So it's very important for for
that reason that men get involved in advocating and work
(09:14):
hand in hand with women to pursue effective solutions to
the problem. And when you look at the global
network of advocates, you do seeboth men and women experts
(09:36):
working. It's such a great example
showing that kind of gendered collaboration across the network
working to end witch heads. Another step in the holistic
approach to solving the witch branding crisis is to strengthen
(09:57):
laws and the enforcement of lawsalready on the books.
There's need for strong central legislation because currently
it's up to the states to decide if they're going to specifically
ban which branding practices. Now, of course, a lot of the
(10:18):
harms that are done are already illegal, such as the murder and
violence, but the branding itself is not illegal and there
needs to be specific laws to give some more weight in order
to curb the violence. There just needs to be more
weight. There's needs to be a will among
(10:40):
the police and the judicial system to bring justice to those
who have done wrong, to the always innocent women and
sometimes men who are accused ofwitchcraft.
Hand in hand with that is this need to support the victims.
(11:03):
You want law enforcement to be there, hopefully have a presence
to prevent people from being victimized.
But once someone has survived a witch branding, they need a
variety of supports, psychological counseling,
therapies, practical supports. Often they're driven out of
(11:23):
their communities and need resources, need to be able to
get jobs, they need education, they need clothing, housing,
food support. So all of these supports are
being considered in the holisticsolutions that are are being
proposed right now. And the arts are used for
(11:46):
community engagement in India toreach survivors.
The theater of the oppressed is the survivors coming together to
put on performances of situations that they themselves
have been in, to act out the scenarios so people can learn
(12:06):
what is actually happening. Another aspect of a holistic
solution is to involve international collaboration.
It's very important for people working in advocacy against
witch hunts in one nation to connect with advocates working
against witch hunts in other nations, to learn from each
(12:26):
other. And one way that that is being
done is through the International Alliance to End
Witch Hunts, which has advocatesin many countries, including
several in India. They have regular meetings and
seminars and discussions of what's going on in different
(12:49):
countries, Ghana, Tanzania, manycountries all around the world
are involved in this. And the collaboration, the
effort, collective efforts that come out of joining in together
and working cooperatively, it just elevates.
(13:11):
The solutions that come out are enhanced and so much better.
And also within India, because it's such a very large country,
state to state interaction is very critical.
And one of the things that's been great to see through Witch
Hunt podcast is actually advocates have come together
(13:34):
who've heard each other on different episodes of the show
and they've decided we've got toconnect, we've got to work
together. This research you're doing is
interesting. This approach you have to the
holistic solution is innovative.Let's work hand in hand and it's
just very nice to see all of this collaboration.
(13:57):
Like we've said several times, for the problem to be solved, it
takes all of us coming together.One specific project that is
rolling out is called Bold Building Opportunities for Lives
and Dignities, and this is a project to end witch hunting.
This is a project that is looking for academic
(14:19):
collaborations and funding, so please reach out if that is
something that interests you. This is a survivor direct
program to enrich and enhance their lives so that they can go
on and live the lives that they want to live in the community
that they belong in. And the bulk project, we focus
(14:40):
on several key areas. One is raising awareness and
changing attitudes, also supporting survivors,
strengthening legal and institutional frameworks,
data-driven interventions, and community empowerment and
sustainability. As we talked about, this is the
(15:01):
holistic way of going about addressing the issue because any
one of these solutions on its own is not going to do it.
You can put whatever law you want in the books.
Humans are going to be humans, and witch hunts are still going
to happen unless you do change attitudes.
And of course, as Sarah said, supporting the survivors is just
(15:24):
so critical for their well-beingand for restoring harmony to
unities that have been ripped apart by these allegations.
Thank you for tuning in to this series this week, Ending Witch
Hunts, and if you've been listening, we have thrown a lot
(15:44):
at you in a short amount of time.
It is a lot to hear about, it's a lot to process, but ending
witch hunts is something everyone needs to be familiar
with because it's all of our responsibility to end them.
Yes, we all need to come together.
We all need to understand what the situation is and get
(16:06):
involved in whatever way we can to our own capacity through
utilizing our own skills, abilities and resources,
everything we've got. It's our duty to end injustice
anywhere that we see it, and witch hunting is a grave
injustice. And you probably have something
(16:31):
to offer and advocacy you may not realize.
You can simply share one of the episodes or the information.
You could post about it, blog about it,
integrateitintoyourownwritingorpresentationsyoucanlearnmore@endwitchhunts.org.Learning about what is being
(16:53):
done to end witch hunts is advocating because you're
probably going to talk about what you're learning.
Talking about what's going on just in your own circle of
friends and acquaintances, engaging in conversations,
getting discussions started is so important because we know
when we first started talking about this, especially Sarah and
(17:17):
I and the rest of In Witch Huntsstarted talking about this,
people just looked at us baffled.
What is this you're talking about?
So it's important to break the ice and get the subject out
there so people are aware that it's going on.
(17:39):
And it's also important to learnmore about the organizations
working on the ground. You can look in our show notes
for links for the International Alliance and other
organizations. And if you have the ability, do
you consider a financial contribution to one of these
organizations either to in witchhunts?
(18:02):
You can contact the International Alliance through
their website and find out from them how to contribute or
volunteer. Volunteering time is very
helpful to do any of the many, many tasks that we've talked
about that go into all of this solution.
(18:24):
We would also appreciate donations to support the
production of our podcast, Josh.We have covered a lot of
countries the last few days while telling the story of witch
hunts. Yeah, we really have.
And the great news is we still have three more fabulous
episodes coming to you this weekfor podcasts on so we can
(18:49):
complete the story of witch hunts.
And tomorrow we're airing our regularly scheduled weekly
episode, as we do every Wednesday.
Witch Hunt podcast episode is going to feature expert guest
Holly Bamford and it is part of podcasts on 2025 Ending Witch
(19:10):
Hunt series. Because part of the witch hunt
story is historical witch hunts.And Holly is a history PhD
candidate at Liverpool University and she researches on
late medieval and early modern witchcraft and superstition.
And we met her last year at the Magic and Witchcraft Conference
(19:32):
in New York, England. If you are like us at all and
you love stories from history, you're going to absolutely be
tickled by tomorrow's episode. We've got great stories of
witchcraft cases in England, so be ready to learn about the 1674
Hinchcliffe case, which saw Susan and Joseph Hinchcliffe and
(19:56):
their daughter Anne Shillato accused of witchcraft notably.
Neighbors petitioned the courts defending the family's
innocence, a documented instanceof community support for the
accused. But there's more.
You will also hear the story of the 16 O1 Travisard case. 12
(20:17):
neighbors approached the magistrate directly to accuse an
entire family of witchcraft. This case features a remarkably
distinctive magistrate's signature, and we have a picture
from Holly of that document. I want to see that, like Sarah
said, we met Holly at a conference and in fact, we've
(20:40):
met many of our podcast guests at conferences that we've
attended. And your support for our
attendance at these conferences helps us meet even more guests,
network with previous guests we've met last year, several
people in person who we had talked to previously on the
show. And we also at the conferences,
(21:03):
we do learn an immense amount inevery presentation, every talk
that's given. We learn a ton about witch
trials and about contemporary witch hunts.
And that gives us a lot of data and insight.
So when we have new episodes andgifts coming on, they're talking
(21:24):
about their experience and research.
We find parallels and it just enables us to take these deep
dives into the history. So when you're done listening to
one of our episodes, you have a lot of new information and
you're excited to get some more questions answered about witch
hunts. So those conferences are just
(21:45):
really great fuel for continuingto grow this space around the
discussion of witch hunts. In 2024, we were able to present
our research on modern witch hunts and it sparked important
conversations about those historical patterns and the
present day persecution. And this year, 2025, we hope to
(22:07):
go back to the Magic and Witchcraft conference in York.
This year it's in June and we need your help to get there.
The theme this year is what is awitch?
A very big important central theme to wolf understanding
historic witch trials and the modern day situation.
(22:28):
So we plan to go and present on what a witch is in the context
of modern witch. So to attend conferences in the
2025 conference season, we've set up a GoFundMe page and you
can go on there and donate any amount that you are comfortable
with so that this will happen. Thank you for making this
(22:53):
nonprofit work possible with your donations.
And thank you for joining us forpodcast, Son.
Don't forget tomorrow you will hear from Holly Bamford on some
historical family witchcraft cases in England.
Have a great today and a beautiful tomorrow.
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