Alternate History Challenge: Create a world where Witch Hunts come back after 1850

JustinianTheGrand

JustinianTheGrand

Somehow make witch hunts common again after the year 1850.

Edit: So I have received some....clarification of the broadness of my post. I'll clarify a bit. I was talking about witch hunts in Europe and the Americas and I'll say that the time frame is 1850-1930.
 
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Skallagrim

Skallagrim

Banned
Witch hunts occur in certain parts of Africa to this day, so... OTL. If you want it to be in the West, however, I suspect @Wolttaire rightly points to the only option that'll get the trick done by the present day. Only a complete civilisation-wrecking disaster can accomplish this.

However... I don't believe the Whiggish myth of history being an upward trajectory, nor do I believe that the current culture of secularism is in any way a permanent "evolution". It's merely a phase, that's going to pass in time. So a future history scenario where witch hunts are once again a viable policy option doesn't strike me as at all implausible. Although I must note that any true fervour for such things was a historical anomaly, and it will again be such if it should happen again.
 

sarahz

Skallagrim said:
Witch hunts occur in certain parts of Africa to this day, so... OTL. If you want it to be in the West, however, I suspect @Wolttaire rightly points to the only option that'll get the trick done by the present day. Only a complete civilisation-wrecking disaster can accomplish this.

However... I don't believe the Whiggish myth of history being an upward trajectory, nor do I believe that the current culture of secularism is in any way a permanent "evolution". It's merely a phase, that's going to pass in time. So a future history scenario where witch hunts are once again a viable policy option doesn't strike me as at all implausible. Although I must note that any true fervour for such things was a historical anomaly, and it will again be such if it should happen again.
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You need to ensure that any historical departure removes the Catholic Church from any position of power. Belief in witchcraft is heretical and historically the Vatican was far more likely to prosecute witch hunters than alleged witches. The only real exception being Jeanne D' Arc and she of course was later canonised. A protestant theocracy, however, is pretty likely to be into witch trials.
 

TRH

sarahz said:
You need to ensure that any historical departure removes the Catholic Church from any position of power. Belief in witchcraft is heretical and historically the Vatican was far more likely to prosecute witch hunters than alleged witches. The only real exception being Jeanne D' Arc and she of course was later canonised. A protestant theocracy, however, is pretty likely to be into witch trials.
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It doesn't have to be a universal thing, though. Perhaps the Great Awakenings could add focus on witchcraft to their agenda? Then it would be baked into the character of evangelical Protestantism, and witch hunts would become part and parcel of periodic spikes in religious fundamentalism, at least in the Anglosphere.
 

Kerney

Go after minorities.

They were throwing Indian Shamans into insane asylums and jails into the 1930s. Take them to Indian boarding schools and have the kids burn them to cut them off from "Uncivilized" cultural ties.

Make Louisiana go after Voodoo practioners in order 'educate/suppress' black people.

Then, with these fine examples, have poor whites start to turn on each other.
 

Fabius Maximus

Skallagrim said:
If you want it to be in the West, however, I suspect @Wolttaire rightly points to the only option that'll get the trick done by the present day. Only a complete civilisation-wrecking disaster can accomplish this.
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IDK, the spiritualism and occultism had a bit of a revival during the Victorian period, and it's not too much of a stretch from "Occult powers exist" to "We must punish people who misuse occult powers".
 

Strategos' Risk

How would a post-Carrington American Civil War go? Not to mention that this is the height of the Taiping Rebellion, and shortly after the end of the Crimean War.
 

Byzantion

JustinianTheGrand said:
Somehow make witch hunts common again after the year 1850.

Edit: So I have received some....clarification of the broadness of my post. I'll clarify a bit. I was talking about witch hunts in Europe and the Americas and I'll say that the time frame is 1850-1930.
Click to expand...
Didn't a death occured in France in 1870 because of Mass hysteria?
 
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