Book review: The First Witches: Women of Power in the Classical World

With a background in ancient history and literature, author Alexis Hannah Prescott explores how Greek and Roman gods and folklore transcend time and place. 

The western world so admired the classical arts, culture, and history that centuries later schoolboys applying to the newly founded Harvard College in the 1630s had to be well versed in Latin grammar. And once enrolled, they studied Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. 

Curiously, students were reading classical texts imbued with the power of witches and witchcraft, which is incompatible to the Bible’s warnings. The Bible mentions forbidden practices such as divination, consulting with mediums or familiar spirits, interpreting omens, casting spells, and necromancy, though without much detail. The problem with witchcraft is in trying to manipulate spiritual forces instead of asking God for help. And the punishment for contacting demonic spirits is not being able to inherit the kingdom of God. 

In case you’re not a classical scholar, Prescott provides synopses of major works—like Homer’s Odyssey, Virgil’s Aeneid, Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and Lucan’s Erichtho—to explain the archetypes of Greco-Roman witches. As they transform from the strong, attractive but vindictive Greek witch to the bitter, haggard Roman one, Prescott mentions how dramatic social and political changes affected witches (and women’s) roles in society and in literature. 

The author also makes the point that witch hunts in Britain and the 13 Colonies were not based on the King James Bible (1611). Being able to read and have access to the Bible was mostly limited to the upper classes and to clerics. King James himself was extraordinarily concerned about witchcraft—believing witches caused the tumultuous seas that delayed his bride Anne of Denmark’s arrival in England—so much so that he wrote Daemonologie (1597). 

At the Salem witch trials in 1692, judges and some of the jury attended Harvard. They studied Greco-Roman literature featuring attractive, alluring Greek witches with deadly streaks of hostility, and Roman hag witches who torture, maim, and sabotage men. Classical witchcraft, mixed with regional folktales and backed by the Bible, was real in the dark woods and villages of Massachusetts Bay. A cursing beggar woman, a healthy cow that suddenly drops dead, sleep paralysis while dreaming of your neighbor, or shapeshifters in the shadows—what else could it be except witchcraft?

Prescott covers the witch’s metamorphosis from classical antiquity to the modern day, using literary characters we may be more familiar with, like Snow White’s wicked stepmother, Dr. Frankenstein, and Shakespeare’s weird sisters in Macbeth. Since the 1960s, she notes, Wicca and other trends have changed the classical witch dynamic. 

Or maybe it’s the women taking back their power.

Thanks to Pen & Sword History for the ARC.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The First Witches: Women of Power in the Classical World

By Alexis Hannah Prescott

Pen & Sword History, 2025

Book review: William Phipps and the Diving Bell Bubble

Before reading William Phipps and the Diving Bell Bubble by Leon Hopkins, I considered Phipps a shadowy figure in the Salem witch trials. He wasn’t actively involved and yet his arrival with the new Charter led to the formation of the Court of Oyer and Terminer, followed by guilty verdicts and the deaths of 20 innocent people. 

In October 1692, Phipps closed the court, tossed out spectral evidence, and in January 1693 opened the new Superior Court of Judicature. Within days, Phipps decisively shut down the witch trials after Judge William Stoughton issued execution warrants for several women whose earlier trials resulted in guilty verdicts that relied on spectral evidence.

Hopkins’ book showed Phipps (1651-1695) had the strength of character to get into situations which, in many cases, were beyond his experience and training. For an unschooled Maine backwoodsman, he fraternized with powerful men, even royalty. 

For a person with no military experience, he was hired to lead military campaigns in Acadia and Quebec. And for a non-government man, he ended up as a royal governor. Some would say these leaps in prospects happened because Phipps discovered the rich treasures of a Spanish galleon, and being required to share a percentage of that loot with the English monarch, earned a knighthood from King James II. 

But that’s not giving credit where credit is due. Phipps rescued his neighbors during an Indian raid in 1676, sailing them into Boston harbor on a ship he built. He attracted wealthy supporters through joint-stock companies to finance his treasure hunting. He married an enterprising widow who could hold her own while he was at sea or in England for months or years at a time. And he won the admiration of Rev. Cotton Mather, who wrote his biography.

At times, the book gets bogged down in tangential topics like the English Civil Wars and Cromwell or John Eliot (1604-1690), the Puritan missionary to the American Indians, and the Pequot Wars (1636-1638). Still, those topics connect to later events and people in Phipps’ life. Hopkins also drops curious historical tidbits—like the imposter royal heir, a secret deal between two monarchs on a Catholic conversion—that especially American readers may not know.

Thanks to Pen & Sword History for the ARC.

Rating: ★★★★

William Phipps and the Diving Bell Bubble 
by Leon Hopkins
Pen & Sword History, 2025

Book review: Reproductive Rites: The Real-Life Witches and Witch Hunts in the Centuries-Long Fight for Abortion

Sophie Saint Thomas’ latest book tackles reproductive rights, systemic injustices, and lack of bodily autonomy issues for women throughout the ages. According to an old medical papyrus, she writes, it’s been proven that ancient Egyptians used birth control and emmenagogues or abortifacients. Through withdrawal, suppositories, barrier methods, and nature’s own herbal pharmacy, earlier peoples learned by trial and error how to limit or encourage pregnancies as needed.

While misogyny certainly existed back then, it grew exponentially with the Roman Empire converting to Christianity—and controlled by (purportedly) celibate, cloistered men. After all, German monk Martin Luther (95 Theses) said “let [women] bear children to death. … They were created for that.” Although Catholic church policy was against birth control, some leaders like Saint Augustine of Hippo believed abortion was acceptable before a clearly human shape formed or the “ensoulment” of a fetus occurred.

For witches, Saint Thomas includes French midwife, abortion provider, and fortuneteller Catherine Monvoisin, who also provided deadly poisons and performed Black Masses for her clients. She was burned at the stake for witchcraft in 1680. In more modern times, Laurie Cabot (b. 1933) was designated the Official Witch of Salem in 1977 by the Massachusetts governor.

For witch hunts, Saint Thomas relies on Stacy Schiff’s The Witches: Suspicion, Betrayal, and Hysteria in 1692 Salem—a book lambasted by Jane Kamensky in the New York Times—causing her to repeat debunked information. For example, trial documents refer to Tituba as an Indian servant. After being released from jail, she disappears from the historical record. She later becomes known as Tituba the Black Witch of Salem. Saint Thomas says, “this indicates that she was associated with black magic … [but] it could also have a more straightforward explanation: her skin color.” Fifty years ago, Chadwick Hansen proved that Tituba’s metamorphosis from an Indian to a Black person occurred and was based on prevalent 19th-century racism, which in turn made Tituba the scapegoat for the Salem witch trials (New England Quarterly, March 1974).

For centuries, witches have been associated with Satan, since the (female) witch’s power comes from her pact with the (male) Devil. Between Anton LaVey’s Church of Satan and the Satanic Panic of the 1980s, Saint Thomas shows how wild ideas about devil-worshipping sex groups, Black Masses, and child sacrifices became rampant in the news.

And that’s how the Christian right uses Americans’ fears to demonize any person or movement supporting reproductive rights.

Written in a pop-history style, Saint Thomas makes accessible 4,000 years of health care. With Roe v. Wade overturned in 2022, reproductive justice is on the ballot in 2024. The difference between Republican and Democratic platforms are starkly different. As a reminder, Saint Thomas points out that Justice Samuel Alito cited 17th-century jurist Matthew Hale when announcing the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision. “Hale asserted that marital rape could not constitute a crime.” 

Your vote matters.

rating: ★★★★

Reproductive Rites: The Real-Life Witches and Witch Hunts in the Centuries-Long Fight for Abortion
by Sophie Saint Thomas
Running Press 

Book review: Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials

In Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials, Marion Gibson argues that witch trials from the late Medieval period to today were motivated not by the Bible but by demonology.

While the Bible does say “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live” (KJV, Exodus 22:18), it doesn't offer much detail. Demonologies, however, mostly focused on women—the weaker sex—succumbing to the forked-tongue lies of Satan’s minions. Misogyny was rampant, especially in male-dominated arenas like religion and government. Over the last 700 years, the most common trait of a witch was being female (though not all the accused were).

As Gibson discusses, German churchman and demonologist Heinrich Kramer (c. 1430-1505) failed in his first attempt to destroy the “witches” of Innsbruck, Austria. But afterward, he wrote the exceptionally popular Malleus Maleficarum in 1487, also known as The Hammer of Witches. By 1600, about 45 demonology titles were published in Western Europe, including one by King James VI of Scotland (later James I of England). These books were widely circulated among churchmen, rulers, the upper classes, and scholars—including Judge William Stoughton and ministers Cotton Mather and Samuel Parris, all of whom influenced the Salem witch trials in 1692.

For the Salem story, Gibson focuses on “Tatabe,” Parris’ Indian servant who had a prominent but short-lived role early in the Salem witch trials. Under duress, Tituba (falsely) confessed to practicing witchcraft but was not executed, while the ones who claimed their innocence at trial were. Instead of the power of Tituba’s testimony and its many parallels to British witchcraft beliefs, Gibson concentrates on the hypothetical Arawak birth story from Elaine Breslaw’s Tituba, Reluctant Witch of Salem. Highlighting those parallels would have helped to debunk the voodoo myths surrounding Tituba, often told by misguided writers and tour guides who haven’t delved into the original records.

Thirteen Trials includes cases from Europe, Africa, and the Americas, covering a wide variety of situations, cultures, and time periods. It’s a fascinating read, with each history connected to the underlying premise of misogyny and violence against women.

Today, in Salem and elsewhere, “people who have redefined witchcraft and embraced the identity of ‘witch’” embody the medieval demonologists’ worst nightmares (ch. 13).

rating: ★★★★

Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials
by Marion Gibson
Scribner Book Company

Book review: Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft

Dedicating herself to learning about and practicing witchcraft for a year and one day, Diana Helmuth does exactly what I would do: Buy lots of books on the subject. But here’s the problem: Witchcraft is a personal spiritual exploration, and what works for Gerald Gardner or Skyhawk or Laurie Cabot may not be your path—especially since there’s no defining text like, say, the Bible.

As a teenager, Helmuth had friends who dabbled in witchcraft. It was empowering and otherness wrapped into one. In her early 30s and without a strong connection to other religions and belief systems, Helmuth seeks that spiritual connection, one spell at a time. Living in the Bay area of California with her atheist boyfriend and a mischievous cat who intrudes upon her new practice, not everything goes as planned. And that’s what makes Helmuth’s story unexpected and entertaining.

While sharing her adventures at occult shops, lunar celebrations with strangers, clothing-optional weekends in the woods, interviews with practicing witches, and travels to famed witch cities, Helmuth doesn’t hold back on her internal dialogue. She expresses her frustrations of synthetic traditions and historical inaccuracies. She struggles with her magical intentions and doubts. And she cannot find all the props—candles, herbs, incense, bowls, crystals, et cetera—required for some rituals. So she learns to improvise and find her own path.

Besides her witchery, Helmuth’s memoir captures everyday life and momentous events, from learning how to raise chickens to pandemic quarantines. It's an interesting read, but stopping at day 366—though planned—felt too arbitrary in relation to her journey. 

(She also needs to return to Salem, Massachusetts, to get the full experience.)

rating: ★★★★

Witching Year: A Memoir of Earnest Fumbling Through Modern Witchcraft
by Diana Helmuth
Simon Element

Book review: Teaching Witchcraft

When you visit Salem, Massachusetts, you discover the city has many modern witchcraft shops, especially in the tourist areas of Essex Street and the wharf. It’s odd because the 20 people executed in 1692 for the capital crime of witchcraft were not, in fact, witches.

In Teaching Witchcraft: A Guide for Students and Teachers of Wicca, Miles Batty says witchcraft is not Devil worship or Satanism. Yet that’s what they were convicted of in 1692, even the stoutest of Puritans. The convicted witches were accused of harming people and animals, signing the devil’s book, or even trying to overthrow the Puritan church.

In contrast, present-day witches follow a rule to harm none. They celebrate seasonal changes, nature, the moon and stars, the god and goddess, and/or pre-Christian deities. Despite the blend of pagan ideology, Batty explains, their practices were not passed down through the centuries. Modern witchcraft began in the late 19th century, was influenced in the 1920s by the (largely discredited) works of Margaret Murray, expanded through the teachings of Gerald Gardner, and captured the imagination of the 1960s. Today’s witch has nothing in common with the accused witches of 1692.

Batty provides an interesting overview of religious development from pre-history to monotheism, followed by intentional acts to wipe out Pagans, Druids, heretics, magicians, wise women, and witches. What the conquerors couldn’t destroy, they converted for their own use (altars, relics) or absorbed (festivals and celebrations).

A collection of folkways, a lifestyle & philosophy

The second half of Teaching Witchcraft is more like a manual, providing the basics for incorporating different elements into a personal practice, either as part of a group or as an individual. Although designed for classroom or personal study, the book works well for curious readers like me who want to understand Wiccan beliefs, the cornerstones of magick, the meaning of rituals. Interspersed with charts and drawings, the book is a guide to the Wheel of the Year, the sabbats and esbats, moon cycles, signs and symbols, stones and crystals, amulets and talismans, auras and chakras.

Teaching Witchcraft is set up as lessons, each one ending with a series of questions and recommended reading. It closes with final exams and teacher resources.

The book is a solid introduction to modern witchcraft, whether you’re on that path or wondering what all those witches do in Salem.

rating: ★★★★★

Teaching Witchcraft: A Guide for Students and Teachers of Wicca 
by Miles Batty
Llewellyn Worldwide Ltd.