Kiss me goodbye, I'm defying gravity…

Witches are found in almost every culture of the world and date back to the beginnings of civilization. What’s crazy is that many of the traditional witch images and stereotypes are actually rooted in science; my favorite example being how witches fly on broomsticks.

Early Modern period Europeans believed a witch could disguise their magic wand as a broom or even temporarily hold spirits within their broom. Most importantly, witches used their brooms to fly across the night sky, conducting evil and getting to their Sabbath. Although there were accounts of it prior, the first officially reported case of a witch flying on a broomstick was in 1453. It’s crazy, but it actually is possible to fly on a broomstick – kind of…

One part of broomstick lore that has seem to been forgotten by popular culture is that before riding the broom, a witch first had to cover it in a flying ointment. There are several recipes recovered for the ointment and all contained several herbs that were stocked full of alkaloids (carbon compounds with nitrogen in them) including atropine and scopolamine. By heating some toxic plants found in the Solanaceae family and adding some animal fats, a nice little oil could be made. This totally organic oil was actually highly hallucinogenic.

These are very odd ingredients to be using – the plants were known to be toxic by ingestion. No normal villager would actually go out to find them, let alone make anything with them. Reports of witches boiling these crazy ointments, comprised of bizarre and poisonous plants and animal fats, are where the images of a witch’s cauldron come from.

The broomstick was coated in the ointment and used as an applicator to the body. Although the ointment was toxic by ingestion, it was slowly absorbed across the skin making it safer. A witch riding a broom covered in this brew would end up getting it all over themselves. As it absorbed across the skin, the witch would begin tingling (the magic must be kicking in) and would start hallucinating – complete with out of body experiences. As they jumped and ran around on their broom, they would feel as though they were flying high. Well, they may not have been flying, but they sure were high. Imagine how creepy it is to see people today hallucinating – now imagine how scary it would have been if you saw this as a non-scientific thinking early European. You would think it was the devil’s magic.

There are even a few accounts of witches using the boom as an applicator to the “lady cavern of no return”. The thin membranes would have absorbed the oil faster and the tingling sensation would have been pleasurable. A few noises from the pleasure and, just like that, you have the stereotypical witch’s cackle!

Thanks to the scientific properties of some indigenous plants, humans were able to create an entire vision and culture of witches!

Now I am going to listen to the Wicked soundtrack on repeat for the rest of the day.