Why witches have brooms

According to some historical accounts, rather than ingest these mind-altering substances by eating or drinking, which would have caused intestinal distress, witches chose to absorb them through the skin—often in the most intimate areas of their bodies.

Most of what we know about medieval witchcraft today comes from the records of religious inquisitors, legal officials and testimony from accused witches themselves often while being tortured. Beginning in the 17th century, accounts of witches using broomsticks to fly up and out of chimneys became more commonplace, even as women became more closely associated with the household and domestic sphere than ever before.

According to one custom, women would prop a broom up outside a door, or place it up a chimney, to let others know they were away from the home.

Perhaps because of this, popular legend embraced the idea that witches left their houses through their chimneys, even though very few accused witches ever confessed to doing so. Popular anxiety about witchcraft had subsided by the 18th century. But the image of witches flying on broomsticks endures—especially on Halloween. And what about the flying? Part of the connection may have to do with brooms' place in pagan rituals.

As a tool, the broom is seen to balance both " masculine energies the phallic handle and female energies the bristles "—which explains why it was often used, symbolically, in marriage ceremonies.

But the more likely connection has to do with the fact that users of "witch's brew" were, in a very practical sense, using their ointment-laden broomsticks to get high.

They were using their brooms, basically, to "fly. Here's how Gustav Schenk described the effects of tropane alkaloid intoxication , in My teeth were clenched, and a dizzied rage took possession of me … but I also know that I was permeated by a peculiar sense of well-being connected with the crazy sensation that my feet were growing lighter, expanding and breaking loose from my own body.

Each part of my body seemed to be going off on its own, and I was seized with the fear that I was falling apart. At the same time I experienced an intoxicating sensation of flying …. I soared where my hallucinations—the clouds, the lowering sky, herds of beasts, falling leaves … billowing streamers of steam and rivers of molten metal—were swirling along. Using sonic frequencies that register just below human audibility, this exhibition in Richmond, Virginia provides site-specific experiences for sound to be deeply felt.

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How did that odd choice of transportation get tied to witches and locked into our collective imagination? One proposed explanation has its roots in a pagan ritual where people danced astride poles, pitchforks, and brooms in their fields, jumping as high as they could to entice their crops to grow to that height.

Another explanation is that the broomsticks and the potions that witches brewed in their cauldrons are linked, and the former was a tool for delivering the latter.

During the witch panics of the Middle Ages, authorities confiscated various brews, ointments, and salves from people accused of witchcraft and sorcery. Why I was surrounded by all the delights in the world.