More than 40,000 people were executed during Europe’s witch hunts. But where was the evidence that these alleged witches committed supernatural crimes?
By Wayne C. Robinson | The Robinson Reports
What If History Has Been Blaming the Wrong People?
For centuries, witches have been portrayed as among the most dangerous and evil people imaginable.
We have been told that witches worshipped Satan, placed curses on innocent families, caused mysterious illnesses, killed children, destroyed crops, and brought death and destruction into their communities.
According to these beliefs, witches possessed supernatural powers granted by the Devil himself.
But there is one question that deserves a serious answer.
Where is the credible evidence that the people executed for witchcraft actually possessed these supernatural powers?
We have historical records of people accused of witchcraft. We have accounts of interrogations, confessions, court proceedings, torture, and executions.
We know that thousands of people suffered and died because their communities believed they were witches.
Yet none of those records establishes that an accused person could actually summon demons, cause death through a magical curse, or make a supernatural agreement with Satan.
And that leads to an uncomfortable question.
If the supernatural crimes attributed to witches were never credibly demonstrated, but their accusers imprisoned, tortured, and executed them, who was actually committing the documented acts of cruelty?
This is the question that inspired my book, Who Was Really Evil? Witches, Satan, Christianity, and the Evidence of Who Actually Caused Harm.
More Than 40,000 People Executed. For What?
The European witch hunts were not isolated incidents involving a handful of frightened villagers.
They were widespread persecutions that continued for centuries, particularly during the early modern period.
Historical estimates generally place the number of people executed for witchcraft in Europe between approximately 40,000 and 60,000. The number of people accused, investigated, and tried was considerably higher.
Many of those executed were women, although men were also prosecuted.
These were human beings with families, occupations, neighbors, and ordinary lives.
Some were poor. Some were elderly. Others were caught in personal disputes, religious conflicts, or periods of tremendous social anxiety.
Imagine living in a community where a neighbor could accuse you of possessing supernatural powers.
A child becomes sick.
A cow suddenly dies.
A harvest fails.
Someone experiences a seizure.
A family suffers an unexplained tragedy.
Instead of investigating natural causes, someone declares that witchcraft must be responsible.
And suddenly, you become the suspect.
How do you prove that you did not cast an invisible spell?
How do you establish that you never communicated with a supernatural being?
How do you defend yourself against an accusation involving powers that nobody can objectively demonstrate?
For thousands of accused people, there was no satisfactory answer.
The accusation itself could become the beginning of a nightmare.
The Crimes Witches Were Accused of Committing
The allegations against witches were extraordinary.
They were accused of making agreements with Satan, attending secret gatherings with demons, flying through the night, controlling the weather, causing infertility, killing livestock, and bringing illness or death upon their enemies.
Some were accused of using supernatural powers to harm children.
Others allegedly transformed themselves into animals or sent invisible spirits to attack their neighbors.
These allegations were taken seriously by people who believed that Satan was actively attempting to destroy Christian society.
But believing something happened is not the same as proving that it happened.
A storm is real.
A disease is real.
A person’s death is real.
The claim that an accused witch caused those events through supernatural powers requires evidence of an entirely different kind.
That evidence was never reliably established.
It is important to make a distinction here. People in historical communities could certainly harm one another through ordinary human actions, including violence or poisoning. But an ordinary criminal act is not proof of supernatural witchcraft.
The central failure of the witch trials was the willingness to punish people for alleged magical powers and demonic relationships that could not be credibly demonstrated.
When Torture Became a Way to Produce Confessions
One of the most disturbing aspects of the European witch hunts was the use of torture.
In various jurisdictions, accused individuals were subjected to painful interrogations intended to make them confess.
Imagine being arrested and repeatedly told that you had made a pact with Satan.
You deny it.
Your interrogators refuse to believe you.
They inflict pain.
You continue denying the accusation.
The suffering becomes unbearable.
Eventually, you may confess to virtually anything in the hope that the torture will stop.
Under such conditions, a confession cannot be treated as reliable evidence of supernatural wrongdoing.
The historical record includes confessions describing impossible events, including meetings with the Devil and participation in supernatural activities.
But a statement extracted under torture tells us far more about the coercion imposed on the accused than about the truth of the allegation.
Consider the case of Agnes Sampson, accused during Scotland’s North Berwick witch trials of 1590–1591.
She was implicated in allegations that witches had raised storms threatening King James VI. Historical records document her interrogation and confession, which was probably obtained after torture.
Sampson was ultimately executed.
We have evidence that authorities investigated and condemned her.
We have evidence that she was accused of supernatural crimes.
But do we have credible evidence that she possessed the ability to control storms?
No.
The difference matters.
It is the difference between documenting an accusation and proving a crime.
How Christianity Helped Transform Witchcraft into a Satanic Threat
Beliefs in magic and harmful supernatural practices existed long before Christianity.
Ancient societies had their own traditions involving spirits, curses, divination, and supernatural forces.
But Christian theology gradually developed a particularly dangerous interpretation of witchcraft.
Witches were increasingly imagined not merely as individuals suspected of harmful magic, but as participants in a conspiracy involving Satan.
By the late Middle Ages, some religious authorities and theologians presented witchcraft as a form of devil worship and a threat to Christianity itself.
One of the most influential works was the Malleus Maleficarum, commonly known as The Hammer of Witches, published in 1486–1487.
Associated principally with the Dominican inquisitor Heinrich Kramer, the book promoted aggressive prosecution of alleged witches and reflected deeply misogynistic assumptions.
It helped spread the idea that witches represented a dangerous spiritual and social enemy.
The consequences were enormous.
When a person is portrayed as an ordinary criminal, investigators are expected to establish what that person actually did.
But when someone is portrayed as an agent of Satan, fear can replace evidence.
Any unusual behavior may become suspicious.
Any tragedy may become proof of a supernatural attack.
Any denial may be interpreted as deception.
Once authorities convinced themselves that Satan was operating through ordinary people, the absence of evidence did not always protect the accused.
It could become another reason to believe that the Devil was hiding the truth.
Catholic and Protestant communities both participated in witch persecutions, although the laws, intensity, and attitudes toward prosecutions varied considerably across Europe.
Religious doctrine was an important influence, but secular courts, political leaders, and local communities also played substantial roles.
Responsibility cannot be assigned accurately to one institution alone.
Nevertheless, the theological association between witchcraft and Satan helped create a climate in which frightening accusations could carry deadly consequences.
Salem: When Fear Overwhelmed Reason
The Salem witch trials of 1692 provide one of the most recognizable examples of what happens when supernatural accusations influence a legal system.
In colonial Massachusetts, accusations spread through communities already experiencing religious anxiety, political uncertainty, and social tensions.
More than 200 people were accused.
Nineteen were hanged.
Another man, Giles Corey, was pressed to death with heavy stones after refusing to enter a plea. Several accused people died in custody.
One of the most troubling aspects of the trials was the use of what became known as spectral evidence.
This involved testimony that the accused person’s spirit or apparition had appeared and harmed someone.
Think about that.
A person could be accused because someone claimed to have seen that person’s supernatural form.
How could the defendant demonstrate that the apparition did not exist?
How could a court independently verify an invisible spiritual attack?
The Salem proceedings were more complicated than spectral testimony alone. Courts also considered other allegations, testimony, and confessions. Historians continue to examine how different forms of evidence influenced convictions.
Nevertheless, the trials illustrate the danger of allowing unverified supernatural beliefs to influence decisions involving human life.
Eventually, opposition to such evidence increased, the original court was dissolved, and the prosecutions came to an end.
But for those who had already been executed, the change came too late.
The Evidence Against Witches Versus the Evidence Against Their Accusers
Here is where I believe the historical discussion becomes especially revealing.
When we examine the accusations against witches, we encounter allegations of supernatural activities that cannot be reliably verified.
When we examine the actions of the authorities who prosecuted them, we encounter something entirely different.
We have evidence of arrests.
We have court documents.
We have interrogation records.
We have accounts of torture.
We have convictions and execution records.
And we have evidence that people were killed because others believed they possessed supernatural powers.
The contrast is difficult to ignore.
The supposed supernatural crimes remain unproven. The persecution and executions are documented historical events.
Does this mean every individual who accused someone of witchcraft was deliberately evil?
Not necessarily.
Many sincerely believed they were protecting their communities from a terrifying supernatural threat.
Others may have been motivated by prejudice, personal grievances, political interests, or the desire to exercise authority.
And some people actively opposed witch trials, challenged the evidence, or defended the accused.
Historical responsibility requires examining what individuals and institutions actually did rather than assuming that everyone acted with the same motives.
But sincere belief does not erase responsibility for cruelty.
A person who inflicts suffering because of an unproven accusation still inflicts suffering.
And a legal system that executes people for crimes it cannot credibly establish has committed a profound injustice.
Were the Witches Actually Evil?
Before answering that question, we need to define what we mean by witch.
The people accused during the European witch hunts were not all members of a common religion or spiritual tradition.
Many were ordinary Christians.
Some were accused because they practiced folk remedies or unusual customs. Others became targets because of personal disputes, misfortune, suspicion, or community tensions.
Some modern witches identify with Wicca, Paganism, or nature-centered spirituality, but these contemporary practices should not automatically be projected backward onto historical defendants.
The historical accused were a diverse collection of people who shared one devastating experience.
Someone believed—or claimed—that they were involved in witchcraft.
That accusation did not establish their guilt.
Nor did it transform them into evil people.
If we judge individuals by their actual conduct rather than frightening stories told about them, the historical picture changes dramatically.
We begin to see human beings instead of supernatural villains.
We see people who experienced fear, isolation, and suffering.
We see families torn apart.
And we see the extraordinary consequences of allowing religious and supernatural accusations to substitute for verifiable evidence.
Why I Began Questioning What I Had Been Taught
For much of my life, I accepted the Christian teachings I encountered about Satan, demons, and witches.
I believed witches were associated with evil because that was how they had been presented to me.
Years later, while conducting fall foliage tours in Salem, Massachusetts, I became increasingly interested in the history of the witch trials.
During that period, I met the sister of Laurie Cabot, a prominent figure associated with modern American witchcraft.
That experience encouraged me to question the assumptions I had carried for years.
I discovered that many modern people who identify as witches emphasize nature, healing, personal responsibility, and spiritual exploration rather than the evil conduct traditionally attributed to them.
Of course, modern spiritual beliefs do not establish what happened during the historical witch trials.
But the encounter motivated me to investigate the history for myself.
The deeper I researched, the more interested I became in a question that seemed to receive less attention than it deserved.
Why do we continue repeating stories about the evil supposedly committed by witches without giving equal attention to the documented harm inflicted upon the people accused?
I began examining the history of Satan, Christian demonology, witchcraft accusations, and the role of religious and governmental authorities.
That investigation ultimately became the foundation of my book, Who Was Really Evil?
The Lesson We Should Learn from the Witch Hunts
It would be comforting to believe that the witch hunts were simply the product of an ignorant past.
But the underlying dangers have not disappeared.
Human beings remain vulnerable to fear, prejudice, group pressure, and the influence of powerful authorities.
People can still be accused without sufficient evidence.
Rumors can still destroy reputations.
Communities can still turn against those who are different.
And individuals can still justify harmful actions by convincing themselves that they are fighting evil.
That is why the history of the witch hunts matters.
It demonstrates what can happen when accusations become more powerful than evidence and when moral certainty replaces careful investigation.
The lesson is not that every religious person is dangerous or that every person who identifies as a witch is virtuous.
The lesson is that we should judge people by evidence of what they actually do, not by frightening claims about what others believe they are capable of doing.
So, Who Were the True Villains?
Historians can establish that thousands of people were executed during the witch hunts.
We can examine records of trials, interrogations, torture, and punishment.
We can identify authorities who authorized prosecutions and individuals who participated in them.
What we cannot establish through credible historical evidence is that the condemned possessed the supernatural powers attributed to them.
For me, that distinction changes the entire story.
The accused were described as dangerous because of supernatural crimes they supposedly committed.
Their persecutors frequently claimed to be defending society against evil.
Yet the clearest evidence of actual violence often points toward the institutions and individuals carrying out the persecution.
If evil is measured by deliberate cruelty, injustice, and harm inflicted upon other human beings, then history gives us compelling reasons to question who deserved to be called evil.
For centuries, witches were put on trial.
Perhaps it is time to examine the conduct of their accusers.
Discover the Book: Who Was Really Evil?
Witches, Satan, Christianity, and the Evidence of Who Actually Caused Harm
By Wayne C. Robinson
For centuries, witches were put on trial. This book puts their accusers on trial.
What began as my personal investigation into the Salem witch trials became a much broader examination of religious history, the origins of Satan, and the persecution of people accused of witchcraft.
In Who Was Really Evil?, I explore the historical evidence behind witchcraft accusations and challenge readers to reconsider centuries of accepted beliefs.
This is not simply a book about witches.
It is about the consequences of fear, the influence of religious authority, and the importance of demanding evidence before condemning another human being.
Historical sources for this article
These references support the execution estimates, treatment of accused people, and historical cases discussed above.
- Encyclopaedia Britannica — Witchcraft: Historical estimates and the development of witch persecution.
Britannica.com
- UK National Archives — Witchcraft: Original records, including Agnes Sampson’s confession.
The National Archives
- UC Berkeley Law — Witch Trials in Early Modern Europe and New England: Legal processes, religious influences, and regional differences.
UC Berkeley Law
- Smithsonian Magazine — A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials: Salem executions and the controversy surrounding spectral evidence.
Smithsonian Magazine
Wayne C. Robinson
Author | Researcher | U.S. Navy Veteran Journalist
© 2026 Wayne C. Robinson. All rights reserved.