Something Wicked: Witchcraft Then and Now

As you may have guessed, there are going to be a lot of witches, folk magick (not a misspell), and witchcraft in the Beckett Coven series. Some of you may be very familiar with witchcraft, along with the historic and modern opinions about it, but some of you may be brand new to what this is all about. Before we begin, I would like to explain a bit about the New England Puritan view of witches and witchcraft. Then I will head into some of the modern practices and beliefs you will discover in the books.

1600s Europe and America were one of the most dangerous time periods for women in the last thousand years, and that it not hyperbole. Childbirth and disease were two of the more prominent causes of death for women at this time, but depending on where you lived, being accused of witchcraft was also a tremendous threat.

Upon the end of Elizabeth I’s life in 1603, James Stuart became sovereign of what is now commonly referred to as the United Kingdom. For the first time in history, his reign united the realm of Scotland with Elizabeth’s England, Wales, and Ireland. He left a mark on this newly formed country for centuries after, much of which was fueled by his tumultuous childhood.

James was separated from his mother, Mary Queen of Scots, at an early age when she was arrested by her cousin, Elizabeth I. She was held captive for years in England and eventually executed. Elizabeth may have handed over her crown to James out of guilt.

While he was a child, James was susceptible to the opinions of the courtiers who raised him, which were often very misogynistic. As a young man, he became paranoid about all things supernatural, so much so that in 1597 he wrote the book Daemonologie about his beliefs on witchcraft and demons. This obsession helped fuel the witch hunts across Britain during his reign.

During the course of the 1600s, upwards somewhere between 4,000 to 6,000 people, mostly women, were accused of witchcraft throughout the United Kingdom. About half of those were executed by means of hanging or strangulation. Frequently the bodies were burned out of fear that the "witch" might somehow return.

In England about 300 were accused by one person alone, self-professed witch hunter, Matthew Hopkins. Over a two year period, he developed multiple witch hunting techniques. The most infamous was the water test. He would throw the accused person into a body of water. If they floated, they were a witch and would be immediately brought to trial. If they drowned, they were deemed innocent. Either way, if someone was accused of witchcraft by Matthew Hopkins, they had a high probability of dying.

Hopkins performed his witch hunts in the Southeastern part of England between 1620 and 1647. Accused Salem "witches", Bridget Bishop, Rebecca Nurse, and Mary Eastey, would have been familiar with him. Most of the women were outspoken or vulnerable, but men also got caught up in the hunt.

Another of Hopkins' witch hunting techniques was later performed on Bridget and Rebecca during the 1692 Salem Witch Trials. The witch mark test was typically done by a group of midwives looking for something Hopkins called a witch’s teat. He believed this was how witches fed the Devil. The very invasive examination was horrific. Accused women were stripped naked. Often their heads were shaved. Pins were used to draw blood. Every part of the body was scrutinized. If the midwives found anything, it was noted and handed over to the court.

In the case of the Salem accused, we don’t know if their heads were shaved, but we do know two examinations were performed on the women. One of the examiners was my tenth great-grandmother, Margery Collins Williams, who was the sister of Hannah Collins Ingersoll, Deacon Nathanial Ingersoll's wife. (There were also examinations performed on several men. These were done by constables and male jurors. John Cook Sr., also my tenth great-grandparent was both a constable and one of the witch mark examiners.)

In Bridget’s case, the matrons (most likely midwives) found what they deemed to be a witch’s mark on her during the morning’s search. It was gone by 4 p.m. when they did a second search after her trial at the courthouse had concluded. This mysterious disappearance was deemed to be more even evidence against her. Although at least one of the older matrons disagreed with the findings. This may have been Margery Williams or Lydia Pickman.

Picture of the Pickman House located at Charter Street Cemetery, S.A. Sizemore ©2025.

So, what was all this about? Who did they think witches were, and why were they deemed a threat?

Let’s focus on the Puritans in America since they are part of the Beckett Coven story. For our New England ancestors, the Devil was a real entity that wanted to do humankind harm. They believed he had been defeated in the Old World (Europe) but was still present in the New World (America). The Puritans' Devil was going to make one last stand in New England, and it was up to them to defeat him. Some of this belief felt very justified to them by how harsh the winters were, how difficult it was to grow crops, and how “savage” the indigenous peoples could be.

To the Puritans, Native Americans were initially both an inconvenience and a necessary teacher. The local Naumkeag band had been very patient with the English arrivals, even feeling sorry for them at times by showing them where to plant crops. But once their patience worn thin, they and other tribes became Tawny Devils to the English and a major threat. It became easy for the newcomers to forget that they were treading on stolen land.

Although the Devil sought to harm the Puritans and disrupt their new colony, they also believed he couldn’t harm them directly. He needed human intermediaries to do that and those intermediaries were known as witches and warlocks. If a neighbor felt they or a family member had been cursed with no rational explanation otherwise, then it was believed witchcraft was at play. Once the cause of witchery was established, a search would begin for the witch.

Several women throughout early colonial America were accused of witchcraft, but very rarely did it end in a conviction and execution. This changed in 1692 when a witch panic hit Salem Village and spectral evidence, which had previously been banned, was allowed to included. (For more information about what started the Salem panic, please check out my other blog, Why Did the Salem Witch Trials Happen?)

So, witchcraft in Puritan New England was heavily rooted in religious beliefs of good vs. evil, which allowed unfounded accusations to be made real. The other thing at play during this time was an effort to stomp out folk practices with roots in the old beliefs prior to Christianity. Many of these were nature-based, including herbal medicines, divination, ancestor veneration, rhyming “spells”, and celebrating the seasons or what we would now call “the turning of the wheel”.

Cunning folk, herbal healers, and fortune tellers quickly became targets during the 1600s. These practices were often seen as a gateway paths to something much darker. Most cunning folk were women, but not all. Midwives also became targets as the seedlings of modern medicine and male physicians started to displace them.

Dorcas Hoar was one of the more infamous cunning folk to be caught up in the Salem Witch Trials. She already wasn’t trusted in her community after running a burglary ring with her children when she was younger. But as an older woman, she had a penchant for predicting the future. Her worst habit was walking up to parents, pointing at their children, and saying that they were going die soon. That didn’t go over very well, as you can imagine.

Two cunning men were also accused. Roger Toothaker practiced herbal medicine. It’s not a wonder that he was accused by Elizabeth Hubbard, the niece of Dr. Griggs, who would have been his rival. Samuel Wardwell was a carpenter by trade, who helped build the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion, but he also loved reading palms. (He also had a connection to Bridget Bishop, having sired her nephew out of wedlock.) Apparently his obsession with palmistry drew undue attention upon himself. It was easy to point a finger in his direction when Ann Putnam Jr. and Mary Walcott rolled into Andover with the witch trials court in search of more witches. Roger died while he was in prison and Sam was one of the last to be executed on September 22, 1692.

To be honest, many of the women in Salem Village and Salem Town were cunning folk to some degree or other. They knew about poppets which could be stuck with pins or abused in some way or other to harm an enemy. All Puritan women kept gardens next to their houses that were full of herbs and native plants used in home remedies and everyday cooking. Protection jars were made to ward off evil spirits and witches. Mary Sibley taught Tituba Indian how to make a witch’s cake to sus out who was harming the Village children. It was all wonderful stuff that had been passed down to them from their mothers, aunts, and grandmothers. Also, super threatening stuff to anyone who felt this knowledge was too powerful and able to undermine patriarchal authority in the colony.

Let’s now fast-forward to the present. The witchcraft of today has roots in the cunning practices of the past, but we need to further define what modern witchcraft is. It’s still vilified and misunderstood, especially by many non-pagan religious groups. They still deem it evil and associated with an evil force. That is by design. Any ritualistic practice that rivaled Christianity in Europe or colonial America was systematically stomped out.

But at its core, witchcraft is just a system of traditional practices and rituals rooted in nature-based mysticism that existed in Europe well before Christianity arrived. If you took the word “witch” out of it and removed all aspects of the witchy aesthetic, many craft practices would seem quaint to modern folks. That is not meant to be a dig, it’s just meant to take the sting out of something that has been wrongfully cast as bad.

Now, are there things people do with witchcraft that are baneful? Yes, absolutely. Should they be done? That is an ethical question that everyone must answer for themselves. I would also point out that my Puritan ancestors murdered people by using witchcraft accusations to take care of old grudges. If that isn’t a baneful use of power, I don’t know what is. It doesn’t matter what rituals you practice or what religion you belong to, we as human beings are capable of turning anything into something baneful for our own selfish benefit.

Occult shop in Salem, Massachusetts, S.A. Sizemore ©2025

So, what exactly is witchcraft in the modern world?

Witchcraft is a set of rituals and practices that focus on a particular intent and will to manifest it. Sounds a lot like prayers, doesn’t it? That’s not too far off, but witchcraft in and of itself is not a religious practice. At its heart, it’s a collection of folk practices passed down through the centuries, often from mother to child, embodying knowledge. Witchcraft is something that is found around the world in all different cultures and ethnicities. For the Beckett Coven series, I focus on European witchcraft, specifically practices rooted in English and Celtic communities.

Some things have been lost to time and beaten out of our collective consciousness due to fear or patriarchal influences. Other practices have grown, expanded, morphed, or been created anew with each passing generation. Divination, herbology, necromancy, crystal magic, meditation, lucid dreaming, trance, and protection work are just some of the practices that you will come across in the Beckett Coven series.

There is no set way to practice. There is only practice. It’s called practice, or craft, for a reason. Ever learning, ever evolving, ever growing.

Hoodoo is another ritualistic traditional practice that doesn’t necessarily have a religion attached to it but can be paired with Christian or Islamic beliefs by the practitioner. Created by enslaved Black women as a spiritual method for healing, protection, divination, manifestation, and ancestral work, Hoodoo has rich roots in African and Native American traditions. It is at its heart a quintessential Black American form of conjure, and because of this history, it should be a closed-door practice. In the Beckett Coven series, only Black characters practice Hoodoo and perform rootwork. To protect its wisdom, I refer to Hoodoo rituals in an opaque manner. For anyone who wants to respectfully learn more about Hoodoo, conjure, rootwork, and its history, I highly recommend the book Sticks, Stones, Roots & Bones by Priestess Stephanie Rose Bird.

So now that you know a little more about witchcraft and hoodoo, let’s talk about pagan religion practices and how witchcraft folds into them. Many witches are devotees of one or more pagan deities, like Hekate, Odin, Diana, or other spirits, like the Archangel Michael. They keep icons of these deities and spirits on altars, focus their practices around them, and may even say they “work” with them. Some people are devoted to their ancestors and may wrap their rituals around caring for them. Many of the practices associated with pagan deities go back thousands of years.

A modern pagan religion rooted in witchcraft is Wicca. The name is a play on the Old English word for witch, wicce, and is believed to have meant “wise woman”. Wicca began in the early 1900s with occultist Gerald Gardner attributed as its founder. Traditional Wiccans tend to adhere to particular ways of practicing their faith and typically do not share their rituals or beliefs outside of their covens. There are several distinct philosophical traditions in Wicca. Gardnerian Wicca is the oldest group. Alexandrian Wicca came next. Each follows a particular path based on its founder.

Wicca is a pagan religion devoted to a god and a goddess, who they do not name outside of their practice. Most Wiccans are part of a coven, especially those who initiate into older, formal traditions. For covens that are Gardnerian or Alexandrian, there is a definitive process for initiating. First the initiate joins what’s called an outer grove to see if they are a good fit for the coven. After a bit of time and all is right, they will be invited to join the inner grove and become an initiate.

Generally, this training takes about a year and a day to complete. At the end there is an initiation ceremony, and the initiate will become a first-degree priestess or priest of the coven. Eventually they can move their way up to becoming a third-degree. At that point they would be able to help share in some of the High Priest or High Priestess duties or go off and form their own coven.

Over the years, some internal aspects of Wicca have been exposed via the internet or in published books. Many of the witches in the Beckett Coven series are Wiccans, so they do practice things like going skyclad, the Rede, and the Great Rite. As I go into these rituals and beliefs, I have chosen to purposefully limit or skew details out of respect to actual Wiccans. In the end, my books are works of fiction.

Witchcraft altar, S.A. Sizemore ©2025

The covens in the Beckett Coven series are primarily what are referred to as “eclectic”. In other words, they pull from multiple traditions as opposed to adhering to one in particular. For example, the Blood Moon Coven leans Gardnerian in its ritualistic practice but has adapted it for secretive purposes. Cathleen Mather’s Salem Coven of Diana is loosely based on Dianic Wicca, even with its divisive natal-born female restrictions.

Salem is home to thirty or more covens at present and for the most part they feel protected and safe within the Salem community. However, every year there are stories of people coming into town from outside of Salem being disrespectful and sometimes violent against the witches and pagans who live there. A hazard of hosting one of the country’s largest Halloween parties is that guests aren’t always polite to their hosts.

Hopefully this gives you a primer about witches, witchcraft, and Hoodoo before you dive into the Beckett Coven series. More will be revealed within the books.

Shall we begin?