The Witch-Cult Hypothesis: A Discredited Theory

In the shadows of history, during the Early Modern period, a chilling narrative unfolded, one that painted a portrait of witchcraft trials as a campaign against an enduring pagan religion. This theory, known as the witch-cult hypothesis, suggested that the accused witches were not just practitioners of dark arts, but followers of a clandestine pagan faith. A faith deeply rooted in the worship of a Horned God, a deity of fertility and the underworld, whom the Christian Church demonized as the Devil. The adherents of this alleged religion were said to gather under the veil of night for their sacred rites at the witches' Sabbath.

The Origins of a Controversial Theory

The seeds of the witch-cult hypothesis were sown in the early nineteenth century by two German scholars, Karl Ernst Jarcke and Franz Josef Mone. They posited that the witch trials were not merely a lawful pursuit of justice but an attempt to obliterate a pre-Christian religion. This idea found further champions in the French historian Jules Michelet, American feminist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and American folklorist Charles Leland, all of whom expanded upon the theory and spread its influence.

The hypothesis reached its zenith with British Egyptologist Margaret Murray, who articulated her views in "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe" published in 1921. Murray's work, followed by "The God of the Witches" (1931), and her contributions to the Encyclopædia Britannica, brought widespread attention to the theory. Despite its popularity among some academic circles and the general public during the early and mid-twentieth century, the witch-cult hypothesis was never embraced by scholars of witch trials. Through rigorous research in the 1960s and 1970s, experts dismantled the theory, branding it as pseudohistorical.

Flaws and Criticism

Modern scholars of European witchcraft beliefs have since reached a consensus: those accused and executed as witches were not part of any pagan religion. Critics argue that the witch-cult hypothesis suffers from selective evidence usage, misrepresenting both the accused and their persecutors. It assumed that confessions extracted under duress were truthful and failed to recognize that these admissions were often shaped by the interrogators' expectations. Moreover, no tangible evidence supports the existence of a pagan witch cult surviving into the Middle Ages.

Despite its discreditation, the witch-cult hypothesis has left an indelible mark on literature and religion. It inspired works by authors like John Buchan and Robert Graves and significantly influenced Wicca, a modern Pagan religious movement claiming to be a continuation of the ancient witch cult. Although some scholars, including Carlo Ginzburg, have explored the influence of pre-Christian traditions on early modern witchcraft stereotypes, the relationship between these elements and the Murrayite hypothesis remains a topic of scholarly debate.

Early Modern Precedents

The witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries were driven by the belief in a vast conspiracy of witches allied with Satan. This perceived threat to Christendom led to organized efforts to eradicate the supposed Satanic counter-religion. Unlike other folk beliefs, which were common worldwide, the notion of an organized witch cult was a hallmark of early modern witch hunts.

The Malleus Maleficarum, published in 1486, played a pivotal role in shaping the idea of a demonic conspiracy. This belief persisted through witch trials over the next two centuries, eventually waning with the Enlightenment's dawn in the early 18th century. Accused witches' testimonies, often extracted under torture, were deemed unreliable. Historians like Norman Cohn suggest that these confessions reflected the imaginations of the times, rather than reality. However, Carlo Ginzburg and Éva Pócs argue that some testimonies offer insights into the accused's belief systems, pointing to groups like the benandanti, who claimed to combat witches with magic from 1575 to 1675.

The Development of the Theory

Jarcke and Mone

By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, educated Europeans largely dismissed the existence of a witch cult. However, two intellectuals, Karl Ernst Jarcke and Franz Josef Mone, revisited the possibility that stereotypes and pre-Christian customs influenced the witch trials. In 1749, Girolamo Tartarotti proposed that pre-Christian folk beliefs shaped the witch stereotype, a notion echoed by Jacob Grimm in 1835. Despite being misinterpreted as advocates of a surviving pagan cult, neither claimed the witches were part of such a religion.

Jarcke, a professor of criminal law, first suggested that witchcraft was a pre-Christian religion that, after being condemned as Satanism, devolved into malevolence, prompting trials. This theory, intended to absolve the Christian Church, was paralleled by Felix Mendelssohn's Die Erste Walpurgisnacht, a composition depicting pagan villagers masquerading as witches.

Mone expanded on Jarcke's ideas, positing that the witchcraft religion originated from slaves who merged Greek cults with their pagan traditions. Despite these theories, English historian Norman Cohn criticized their lack of evidence for pre-Christian worship in Early Modern Germany. Both Jarcke and Mone's conservative political stances may have influenced their depiction of a threatening witch-cult, mirroring fears of secret societies in nineteenth-century Europe.

Michelet, Gage, and Leland

In 1862, Jules Michelet published "La Sorcière," portraying the Witch Cult as a peasant resistance against the upper-class Roman Catholic Church. Michelet, who admired women, described witches as healers and worshippers of Pan, later equated with the Devil. Matilda Joslyn Gage expanded this narrative in 1893, suggesting that prehistoric matriarchal societies worshipped a great Goddess and that witches preserved this religion.

Charles Leland, an American folklorist, embraced Michelet's theories and, in 1899, published "Aradia, or the Gospel of the Witches." Claiming it as the sacred text of Italian witches, Leland's work influenced the neopagan religion of Stregheria.

The Impact of Margaret Murray

During World War I, Margaret Murray, an Egyptologist at University College London, turned her attention to witchcraft. Her interest led her to write articles for Folklore and other journals, culminating in "The Witch-Cult in Western Europe" in 1921. Murray's research focused on Great Britain, with some references to France, Flanders, and New England. She differentiated between "Operative Witchcraft," involving charms and spells, and "Ritual Witchcraft," the "ancient religion of Western Europe," a fertility-based faith she called "the Dianic cult."

Murray argued that the witches' god, mistaken for the Devil, was worshipped through personification at gatherings. She described initiation ceremonies and hereditary transmission of the religion, though her conclusions faced criticism for lack of evidence and speculative connections.

Sources

For more information, visit the original Wikipedia article.