For those who might be interested, here is a personal summary of the seminar on the concept of the witch that I attended at the University in February 2026.

As for the evolution of the representation of the witch, her place in the collective imagination has shifted over time, depending on the purpose one wanted to serve back then. The earliest depictions, which were rather mythical, emerged in the Middle Ages in the form of an old woman, often ugly, with a large nose, a wart and crooked teeth. She was repulsive and cast evil spells: one had to keep well away from her.

Then the witch became demonic: she slept with and made pacts with the devil; she was the source of all vice, she revelled in evil. She was depicted naked, in scenes of debauchery, often accompanied by Satan in the form of a goat. Here, the portrayal was rather biblical: good versus evil.

Finally, the witch became an enchantress, erotic, a sorceress who used her power to seduce men who, in her presence, found themselves weak and powerless, with no choice but to obey her. Her gaze hypnotised, she was young, beautiful, voluptuous, her power was sexual.

Depictions in books, films etc always revolved around those kinds of stereotypes, which bear no resemblance whatsoever to reality. For to understand the witch, one must understand the Inquisition. At that time, two types of women began to fall out of favour with the Church:

– Women who provided support. Those who helped bringing new lives into the world, those who accompanued the dying, or those who knew about plants. Women who had accumulated a wealth of knowledge over generations, knowledge that had been passed down. Yet, as the official position of doctor was beginning to take shape, they found themselves in competition. Specially as they had the trust of local people. Their knowledge was a power that they started to fear.

– Women who had withdrawn from society, often to the mountains or the woods. Because they had chosen to live alone, to escape marriage, to live out their sexuality fully, to pursue a traditionally male-dominated profession, or simply to be independent, they had turned to nature for refuge. Problem: the Church had no hold over them, no one was monitoring what they where doing.

So how to regain control over these women? Easy: you start by turning them into scapegoats. If the harvests are poor, it’s their fault: they must have brought bad luck upon themselves by behaving as they do. When the Inquisition arrived in some villages, the inhabitants were waiting for them to denounce certain women and demand their arrest, on the basis of evidence as solid as ‘I’ve been told that’ and ‘It seems’. We know what happened next: thousands of women tortured, burned, beheaded, hanged, all across Europe, enabling the Inquisition to achieve its primary goal: stop the transmission.

The witch herself doesn’t really exist; she is more a symbol of a whole group of women, connected to the living world, who sought to live outside the constraint of the rules of the time. In its current form, we might cite ecofeminism, but also this whole wave of women (who, I’m sure, will soon be given some ridiculous nickname) who refuse or leave the institution of the couple, do not wish to become mothers, and find in celibacy a form of extended freedom.

Inquisition is not a thing at the present time, given that the Church no longer wields the same influence it did back then. But there is cause for concern about the current rise of deeply conservative politicians, who are prepared to roll back rights we thought were secure. Are feminists not sometimes called “witches”? Similarly, the new masculinist movement and its call to ‘go back to the kitchen’ revives age-old concepts that lie at the root of the witch myth: control over women’s bodies and freedoms. It’s a never-ending cycle…