How Did Witches Come To Ride Brooms?

[Roger Barr]

How Did Witches Come To Ride Brooms?
A Gallery of Historical Illustrations.

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WITCHES/witches.html

"...In smaller doses, ergot is a powerful hallucinogenic drug. And
because the enjoyment of such things is not confined to this age alone,
it became quite popular among those who were inclined towards herbalism
and folk cures. It's mentioned in Shakespeare's plays, and turns up in
virtually every contemporary writing of the witchcraft age. In
particular, it is the inevitable central ingredient in the ointment that
witches rubbed their broomsticks with.

You see, when eaten, there was the risk of death, but when absorbed
through the thin tissues of the female genitals, the hallucinogenic
effects were more pronounced with less ill-effects. The modern image of
a witch riding a broomstick was inspired by the sight of a woman rubbing
herself on the drug coated smooth stick of her broom, writhing in the
throes of hallucinations, and no doubt, some intense orgasms as well. To
her unsophisticated neighbors, such a sight would have been terrifying.
The lack of an equivalent mechanism for men is one reason why
"witchcraft" was seen as a predominantly female phenomenon. The addition
of clothing to the witch is a modern embellishment to protect 'Family
Values'...."

Interestingly ergotinum is considered predominantly a female remedy but
I don’t see much about the mental state in the literature except
depression & anxiety.

[Natasha Pelech]

Dear Roger,

I haven't heard this particular story and brooms and ergot but it does bring
up an interesting topic. The story I have heard that does make sense to me
is about the ergot (Secale cornutum) connection to "witches" or being
"bewitched".

The PBS television station has a series called "secrets of the dead" and
they featured a book that researches the connection between - wet years -
rye crops - and incidents of witch accusations. PBS has a website that
briefly describes the story
(http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/case_salem/index.html) but the real
research can be found in the book: "Poisons of the Past: Molds, Epidemics,
and History " by Mary Matossian (ISBN: 0300051212 and it is available at a
lot of libraries) and follows the pattern of rye/wet years/bewitching
throughout Europe and N.America.

If you look at the proving of Secale cornutum, the delusions and convulsions
are consistent with the behaviours that made people believe that witchcraft
had been worked on people. The Salem, Mass. witch trials are particularly
interesting because the people who had been "bewitched" had rye as their
primary grain and lived in a boggy (ie: wet) area, where it had been a
wet/cold year. Wet weather and fluctuating temperatures increases the
percentage of fungus.

Why brooms are associated with witches makes no sense to me but the effects
of ergot on a community would definitely be a scary thing because of the
unknown cause/source and the sudden and dramatic effects. The really scary
thing was that these outbreaks would be without warning - you would eat your
breakfast or supper one day and be fine because your flour/grain was clean
and safe. The next day you would use a portion of flour/grain that was
contaminated and everyone who ate would become ill and/or insane. So, under
the influence of an ergot poison, those effected could....

Mental symptoms of Secale cornutum (from Vermeulen):
- Weakness of mind; after spasms; after exhausting coition.
-Puerperal mania; exposes body, tears at genitals, inserts her finger into
vagina and scratches until it bleeds;
all idea of modesty lost.
- Raving delirium [rare]. Anxiety & fear of death, restlessness and
difficult breathing.
-. Grasping at genitals during spasms.
- Indifference to exposure of person.
- Impulse to jump into river. Sardonic laughing.
- Nymphomania during menses; during metrorrhagia.
- Wandering talk and hallucinations.
- Rage, followed by continuous deep sleep.
-Mania: with inclination to bite; with inclination to drown. Etc.

Can you imagine how shocking this would be for normal people in a very moral
social structure to experience something that was beyond their control?

To me, the real source of the witch-trials and many incidents about people
and animals being bewitched comes from ergot poisoning. At the same time,
ergot, was used by "wise-women" and other herbalists as a medicine -
sometimes homeopathically and sometimes not.

Anyway, for anyone interested in this story, I highly recommend the above
mentioned book.

Take care,
Natasha
Homeopathic Student
Canada

PS: Here is Murphy's Materia Medica information on:

Secale cornutum (ergot of rye)
Pharmacy: Sec. Secale cornutum. Ergot of Rye. Spurred Rye. Claviceps
Purpurea. N. O. Fungi. The black, hornlike spur into which the grains of rye
cereal are changed by the fungus Claviceps purpurea. Tincture of the fresh
spurs collected just before harvest. Historical dose: Tincture and all
potencies, first to thirtieth potency.

History: Rye and grasses are apt to be affected with the Ergot disease in
damp seasons and when grown on damp, ill-drained lands. If breeding cows are
turned on pastures where infected grasses grow they are very liable to drop
their calves. Ergot has been known to hasten of childbirth from remote
times.

Secale's other actions have been for the most part learned from the
terrible epidemics of «Ergotism» which have occasionally devastated
districts in which Rye infected with Ergot has been ground into flour and
eaten by the population. Death takes places in convulsions or else from
gangrene and consequent exhaustion or from exhausting hemorrhages or
discharges, as diarrhea.
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