What does a witch look like? William West, an English writer of the time of Elizabeth I (16th century), gives the following description: "A witch or sorceress is a woman who, having been deceived by the devil and having made a covenant with him through his persuasion, promises, and lies, thinks that she can do all kinds of evil by intent or curse, as well as shake the air with thunder and lightning, cause hail and hurricanes, carry crops and trees to other places, can be carried away by her familiar spirit (which takes on the false form of a goat, a pig, or a calf) distant mountains, in a remarkably short period of time, can sometimes fly on a broomstick or a pitchfork or on some other object, and spend whole nights near his lover in games, amusements, drunkenness, dancing, amusements, and various other devilish lustful pleasures, uttering a thousand monstrous blasphemies and ridicule."

The second event that contributed to the great witch hunt was the publication in 1486 by Jacob Sprenger and Abbot Heinrich Kramer of the book "Malleus Maleficarum" ("The Hammer of the Witches"). It became a reference book for "hunters".

The papal bull and the "Hammer of the Witches" led to a three-hundred-year nightmare. People saw witches everywhere. Those who were accused of doing so had little to no defense against their accusers. During this period, more than 100 thousand people were executed on charges of witchcraft in all European countries.

Witches were endowed with unprecedented abilities, so that fear was universal as a result. But the greatest horror was caused by witchcraft - the ability of witches to cause illness and death.

Roger Hart writes in this regard: "It is easy to imagine that at a time when medicine was in its infancy, so many diseases could be regarded as the result of witchcraft: paralysis, trismus (pathological clenching) of the jaws, fever, anemia, sclerosis, epilepsy, hysteria. The symptoms of these diseases frightened both the uneducated and the educated."

To this list can be added the "dance of St. Vitus" (Huntington's Chorea) and Tourette's syndrome. The first, as a rule, is observed in persons over 30 years of age. Those suffering from this disease are distinguished by strange, involuntary movements of the body, fits of anger, dementia.

Patients often have unreasonable fits of laughter, they scream like children and talk endlessly. It is therefore easy to understand that such patients were easily perceived as victims of witchcraft or as witches. The dance of St. Vitus is a hereditary disease, and this convinced superstitious people that the spell was transmitted to children.

Tourette's siidromoma is a rare disease that usually begins in childhood A sufferer of it develops tics - involuntary movements of muscles throughout the body, and especially on the face. The patient may also twitch and stamp his feet. Making a frightening face, "big" against his will, he makes strange sounds—screams, grunts, swearing. All these manifestations are beyond the control of the patient, but they appear to an ignorant person as signs of a witch.

Roger Hart writes, "Probably no episode of the witch-hunt has attracted so much attention as the one that took place in Salem, New England, in 1692. This American witch-hunt is notable not only for the large number of people accused (Salem is a small town), but also for its late date."

Although there were only 100 households in Salem, the percentage of those convicted of witchcraft was enormous. Historian R. H. Robbins says: "Somehow, the Salem bell, a place with a hundred households, sounded deafening. During the hysteria, almost 150 people were arrested. Searches in the court archives leave no doubt about this. After each prisoner had been compelled to testify for a long time, thirty-one persons were convicted, not counting Sarah Churchill and Mary Warren, who soon retracted their testimony. The court sentenced thirty-one defendants to death, including six men. Nineteen were hanged. Of the remaining twelve, two (Sarah Osborie and Aina Foster) died in prison: one (Giles Corey) was tortured to death, one (Tituba) was held in prison for life without a sentence. Two (Abigail Faulkner and Elizabeth Protor) had their sentences postponed because they were pregnant, and they lived for quite a long time. One (Mary Bradbury) escaped from prison after the sentence, the other five repented and secured leniency for themselves."

Fourteen years later, one of the accusers, Anna Putnam, retracted her accusations, claiming that she and others were responsible for the deaths of innocent people.

The great witch hunt in the Middle Ages is remarkable for many reasons. First, it lasted 300 years and cost hundreds of thousands of lives. It captured the era when interest in knowledge was revived.

It was not ignorant fools who participated in this madness, but rather the most educated people of the time. Among them are scientists, philosophers, lawyers: this indicates that superstitions and prejudices know no boundaries from the point of view of education.

Unfortunately, the persecution came from those who professed Christianity and acted in the name of God. The passages of Scripture that were supposed to justify the witch hunt were interpreted arbitrarily and out of context. The prosecution of such crimes in the Old Testament was part of the theocracy system in force in Israel at that time.