The witch trials were real. The ancient religion later said to have survived them is a different story altogether.

In historical account, I follow the Malleus Maleficarum-the fifteenth-century demonological treatise that helped give authorities its image of a diabolical witch conspiracy. It examines how accusation, coercion, legal power, and fear shaped the surviving trial record and why tens of thousands of people were executed in Europe; and why those records cannot be listened to as the hidden history of a unified pagan or Wiccan religion.

I discuss Margaret Murray's influential witch-cult theory to Gerald Gardner's modern religious synthesis and Doreen Valiente's ritual poetry, this book traces how modern Wicca took shape through folklore, ceremonial magick, literary sources, occult traditions, and "creative" revisions.

Now please note, this book is NOT an attack on Wicca nor a defense of historical myths. I made sure that it is a clear account of what the evidence supports, what remains uncertain, and much more. The people accused of witchcraft deserve to be remembered as people, not as proof for an origin story they never chose. And modern practitioners deserve a history that does not confuse a religion's documented beginnings with the meaning it holds today for many millions of people.