Not a Relic, Not a Metaphor: Thirty Days of Persecuting Witches

Michalea Moore
Feb 15
5 min read

T.H. Matteson, Examination of a Witch, 1853 Public domain via Wikimedia Commons — T.H. Matteson, *Examination of a Witch*, 1853 Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

I set up Google Alerts to do what I’ve always done as a writer: pay attention. (You can set them up, too; click here.)

What I'm Seeing

The alerts arrive quietly in my inbox—links gathered by an algorithm trained to notice patterns long before we do. I’ve asked it to monitor topics I care about: ancient Egypt, Egyptian archaeology, Isis the goddess, Paganism, Tarot, Wicca, and Witchcraft. They're subjects of history, spirituality, culture, and meaning. Nothing inflammatory. Nothing dangerous.

And yet. . .

Nearly every day, those alerts bring news that makes my stomach tighten. Not metaphorical witch hunts. Not rhetorical overreach. Actual persecution. Actual violence. Actual death.

From January 9 to February 9 this year, I collected 34 articles. (See Links to Articles.) That number is not symbolic. It is not curated. It is simply what arrived in my mailbox around 8 PM every evening.

NOTE: You don't need to read all the articles. They are disturbingly similar. I included the links to show that I'm not just making things up.

The number 34 is not symbolic. It is not curated. It is simply what arrived in my mailbox around 8 PM every evening.

Some days it’s legislation—plans to abolish or criminalize spiritual practices that fall outside an approved religious framework. Some days it’s social persecution—harassment, intimidation, public shaming. Too often, it’s murder.

One article opened with words that should chill anyone who believes the witch trials are safely entombed in history books:

"Witch-hunting" remains widespread across India, targeting mostly village women who are often single, widowed or otherwise isolated. Many endure severe psychological torment, social ostracism and abuse including sexual violence. Although several states have enacted laws to curb it, "witch-hunting" remains a threat to women. According to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), more than 2,500 women have been killed over "witchcraft" since 2000.

Two thousand five hundred women.

Not accused in theory. Killed.

Most of this violence occurs outside the United States—but not all of it. A dismembered mother in New Mexico reminds us that geography is no guarantee of safety. Cultural explanations vary. In Yorubaland, journalist Bamidele Ademola-Olateju points to the abdication of responsibility by both religious leaders and civic institutions, creating a vacuum in which superstition is weaponized and violence justified. See Witches, pastors, and the abdication of responsibility in Yorubaland. Also check out Dementia is not Witchcraft: How films, faith leaders and social ignorance are failing Africa’s elderly by Otunba (Dr) Taiwo Olubanwo

There are, of course, glimmers of reckoning. Historical witchcraft convictions have been overturned. Legislative exonerations and official apologies have emerged in Scotland and in U.S. states like Massachusetts and Connecticut. These acts matter. They are acknowledgments that injustice occurred—and that silence prolonged it.

But they are not enough.

Because while governments apologize for the dead, the living are still being targeted.

Across the United States, Pagan Pride events, metaphysical shops, and witch markets are increasingly met with hostility:

Verbal and online harassment include ridicule, threats, and calls for violence.
Physical intimidation occurs when groups of men confront attendees, sometimes led by religious figures.
Books and media now openly position Paganism as a “threat” to American values. That language is not neutral. It creates a climate where harassment feels justified, where intimidation feels righteous, where violence becomes thinkable.
Here are a few of the articles I've seen:

Saving The Youth From The Dark Side The Pagan Threat” is talking about us

Pagan Threat: Confronting America's Godless Uprising JD Vance Says Abortion Debate Is a Choice Between God and Paganism

Concerns Over Targeting of Pagan Community in Pickens, SC

Pagan Market threatened with backlash: “our daddy can whip their daddy,” local pastor prays Formal Complaint against Salem Disruptions and Ancestor Altar Desecration

Activists Disrupt Salem Witches Market Amid Renewed Calls to Oppose Halloween

Christian Nationalism Inspiring Protestors To Harass Witch Gatherings?

Auburn/Opelika Community Concerned Library Event Promotes Witchcraft

This is not random. It is framed. Ideologically. Intentionally.

Recognizing the Patterns

Witches are trained—by history, if not by choice—to recognize patterns. Not just who is targeted, but how. The shift from belief to threat. From difference to danger. From neighbor to suspect. Once you see that pattern, it becomes impossible not to notice how easily it surfaces in other contexts, wearing more respectable clothes.

It is tempting to locate persecution elsewhere—to imagine it as something shaped by unfamiliar cultures or distant belief systems. But persecution does not require superstition to function. It requires authority, fear, and a public willing to accept that some people deserve heightened scrutiny “for the greater good.” When those conditions are met, the language changes, but the mechanism remains the same.

No one ever believes they are living at the beginning of something.

Beginnings are rarely dramatic. They arrive as policy language, as opinion pieces, as enforcement actions described as routine. They look procedural. Reasonable. Easy to scroll past. They ask only one thing of the rest of us: to accept a little more fear as normal.

In Minneapolis this winter, federal immigration enforcement has become precisely that — and in doing so, has shown how easily systems meant to protect can instead entrench violence. Protests have spread nationwide after the fatal shooting of local residents by federal agents and the ongoing deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement whose actions have ignited community resistance and scrutiny. What began with headlines has become a lived reality for neighbors watching one another’s backs, documenting encounters, and refusing to treat fear as normal.

So this is not hysteria, and it is not nostalgia for old fires. It is documentation. It is pattern recognition. It is the oldest work witches have ever done: watching closely and writing it down.

That is the spell.

Not fear — but attention.

Not outrage — but witness.

And witness, quietly kept, has a way of surviving long after denial burns out.

Michalea Moore — Author

Not a Relic, Not a Metaphor: Thirty Days of Persecuting Witches

What I'm Seeing

Recognizing the Patterns

Links to articles from January 9 to February 9, 2026

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​Michalea Moore — Author

What I'm Seeing

Recognizing the Patterns

Links to articles from January 9 to February 9, 2026

Comments

Michalea Moore — Author