marxistbarbie:

i’m in the middle of writing my dissertation on the european witch trials and the more research i do into it the more it bothers me that the whole thing has become such a gimmick today, like the town i live in runs a nightly ‘ghost tour’ which ends on the hill where they hung 12 women for witchcraft in the mid 17th century. the reality is the witch trials were a crime against humanity, the victims were mostly children, widows and elderly women and some historians have estimated that the total number of people tortured and killed was upwards of half a million. it’s such a torrid chapter of human history but it’s viewed almost entirely as a joke outside of academic spheres and i think we all know the reason why