Letters From The Time Traveler: Cancel Culture: The 21st Century Version of a Witch Hunt

Dearest,

When you wrote and told me about our neighbor and friend Martha being accused of being a witch, I was aghast. Surely, in your time this is no longer occurring. Right? I know she will not be hung in 1850’s America but this can be very damaging to her reputation.

While I contemplated Martha’s fate, I began research in this time and found that despite my opinion witch hunts were over, they were much aren’t. They are just approached a different way.

Witch hysteria has been going on since they took hold of Europe as early as the 1400s and continued until 1660.

Witch hysteria really took hold in Europe during the mid-1400s, when many accused witches confessed, often under torture, to a variety of wicked behaviors. Within a century, witch hunts were common and most of the accused were executed by burning at the stake or hanging. Single women, widows and other women on the margins of society were especially targeted.

Between the years 1500 and 1660, up to 80,000 suspected witches were put to death in Europe. Around 80 percent of them were women thought to be in cahoots with the Devil and filled with lust. Germany had the highest witchcraft execution rate, while Ireland had the lowest.