What Was in the Witches Cauldron?

What we know about the poisons and ointments of the witches

Lewis Ungit Substack, 3/24

In the iconography of witches, we have an old lady, often in the woods, mixing something in a large cauldron. Many people haven’t really thought much about where these tropes come from. Why do we show a witch with a cauldron? 

The obvious answer is that witches had a reputation of making magical concoctions to create potions. One of the very common potions was the “love potion”. Potions of this sort created love and attention from people who might not otherwise be interested. And then there were actual poisons that could be used to kill or sicken whoever drank from them. 

But there was another mix that the witches were thought to have made – often described as the “witches’ ointment” – that did something much stranger. These ointments were said to have allowed witches to fly. Sometimes the ointment would be applied directly to the body. Sometimes it would first be applied to a broom stick. But once applied the witch could travel to far away lands (there were differing accounts on whether this was in or outside the body). The broom, if first applied with the ointment, was often described as the tool used for flying.

Exactly what this ointment has been the subject of a lot of speculation. 

In my book, The Return of the Dragon, I document the use of drugs for spiritual purposes that were prevalent throughout the ancient world. I argued that sorcerers, seers, shaman, and witches would use drugs to see visions and commune with the gods. I argued that it is highly likely that at least some of the fear around witches had to do with these sorts of practices – combined with occult methods and dark practices such as human sacrifice. The evidence for my argument is substantial and I think fairly obvious to anyone looking with an open mind. 

Unfortunately, a lot of the scholarship on witches comes with some fatal blind spots. Many researchers approach the topic with a decidedly anti-Christian bias and assume that all the fears about witches were irrational. It is hard to read a book on the witchcraft of the late middle ages early modern period without being given the sense that something similar to what was going on in Arthur Miller’s famous novel The Crucible (irrational people driven by grudges, fear, and paranoia making baseless claims against each other). [2] Further, there is a perpetual ignorance about Christian theology regarding other gods. Time and time again I have read scholars who say some version of “the witches were actually worshipping the goddess Diana but Christians ignorantly started saying they were worshipping demons.” Within Christian theology, the pagan gods are demons (see 1 Corinthians 10:20). 

There is also an unfortunate lack of knowledge or belief in the paranormal among modern scholars. As I have discussed in the past, the US Government studied paranormal practices for decades and concluded that they were effective and real. Remote viewing (leaving your body to observe distant things) was shown to be real. Experiments on telling the future were shown to be surprisingly effective. Telekinesis (the ability to move things without touching them) was also shown. But when these claims are made by medieval or early modern Christians about witches, almost all scholars reject them out of hand. And within much of this government research, drugs were experimented with (sometimes with success) to enhance or improve these disciplines. 

So scholars of modern witchcraft overwhelmingly assume that the primary sources (usually Christians concerned about witchcraft) are fictional and superstitious – not even considering that at least some of their accounts could be genuine and they do so in part because the Christians are making claims that the witches are doing paranormal things (e.g. “We know we can’t trust this account because it said the witch did some impossible paranormal thing.”). 

These problems become more pronounced when it comes to the witches’ ointment. Scholars, assuming Christian concerns are baseless, either assume the ointment was completely fictional or they assume that it was some harmless drug (perhaps a soporific that caused dreams). But the idea that it was an ointment similar to what Christians claimed (allowing witches to fly and see far away places) is dismissed as fanciful Christian fictions. 

But I don’t think we can or should dismiss these accounts. There are so many of them and the lore was so well established that it really requires believing that all these Christians across multiple nations and time periods were ignorant and naïve – while simultaneously being well versed in witch lore and literature. Many of the people from this era raising the alarm on witches were among the most educated and scholarly. Many of them are otherwise very reasonable men who have no track record of spreading gullible rumors. Further, if the work done by the CIA and other researchers is to be believed, than many of the claims thought to be fanciful or impossible are not outside of the realm of possibility.

So what was in the ointment? 

That ancient religions and later witches used drugs is fairly easy to document. What was in the drugs is much harder to document for a number of reasons. First, many of the practices were secret – just as a modern magician never says how he does his tricks, many practitioners of witchcraft desired to keep their best methods to themselves. Second, given the rates of illiteracy among the people in this era, many of the people engaging in these practices could not have written things down if they wanted. Third, to further complicate things, the words used for various plants and herbs have changed over time – or were always imprecise (with the same word referring to various plants). Finally, given that much of what happened with witchcraft was taking place among the lower classes, there was a surprising disinterest among the learned about what they were doing. It was only as the church’s focus turned to rooting out witchcraft in the late middle ages that many serious studies were done on the specific practices of those involved. 

But we do know some things about the plants and medicines known at the time thanks to medical texts. Here are some of the drugs used at the time that are known to have hallucinogenic effects. In, the Witches’ Ointment, by Thomas Hatsis, a list of herbs and chemicals known to the folk peoples of Europe are identified that have had psychotropic and hallucinogenic effects. “The most infamous among these,” writes Hatsis, “are mandrake (Mandragora officinalis); henbane (Hyoscyamus niger); deadly nightshade (Atropa belladonna); and datura or thornapple, (Datura stramonium).” [3] He also lists opium, hemlock, ergot, and toad poison. And these are the potential sources we know of. Given the difficulties in knowing all the details of the practices of those engaged in such magic it is likely there were other ingredients not known to us. Further, it is also possible that there were practices of preparation and application that could have induced stronger psychotropic or hallucinogenic effects (consider the complicated technology employed by the Inca in producing ayahuasca). 

But if we consider that they had these ingredients and were at least at times using them, they make much more sense of much of the primary source material. For example, consider this passage from the 15th century Spanish Bishop, Alonso Tostado (ca. 1400–1455),

“…some of these mixtures are the kind that dull the sensation of pain, such as those used when a person is [operated on]. We know, too, that this kind of anointing causes such mental disassociation that man becomes separate from himself, and for a short period of time feels no sensation . . . [T]here are certain women we call witches that admit to using certain ointments and ritual words to transport whenever they wished to diverse places to meet with other men and women, where there are all sorts of pleasures and foods which they enjoyed and indulged.” [4]

Or consider this passage from a 16th century English historian Raphael Holinshed, recounting the investigation of one Lady Alice Kyteler,

“In rifleing the closet of the ladie, they found a pipe of oyntment, wherewith she greased a staffe, upon which she ambled and galloped through thick and thin.” [5]

Or consider the writing of the 15th century Dominican witch researcher Giordano de Bergamo, 

“[T]he common folk generally believe, and witches themselves also admit . . . they smear a stick with a particular ointment . . . or they [push the ointment] under their nails, the mouth, ear, or under their hairy areas [i.e., vaginas] or underarms.” [6]

Or consider the case of Abraham of Worms (ca. 1362–1458), a German Jewish mystic, who met a woman who said that a particular ointment would allow Abraham to travel to any place his heart desired. When Abraham tried it, he did indeed get the sensation of traveling to the city of his heart’s desire but he later concluded that the ointment had caused him to dream it and that he had not actually left his starting place. [7]

There are many other accounts of ointments being used to fly, travel, see visions, and even cause people to go mad. Given the historic use of drugs for spiritual purposes found in religions around the world, coupled with these accounts and many others that give every appearance of being drug induced visions, the reality that there were clearly folk potions that had psychedelic properties that were being used by witches to travel out of body seems likely. 

And many scholars (including Hatsis and John Mann) would agree with this possibility. But very few would be open to the idea that at least some of the visions might be real – in the paranormal sense. Very few would be open to the idea that the drugs might not just mess with brain chemistry but might actually be part of the tool kit of witches to truly see the goddess Diana or other pagan gods (demons in Christian theology and the witch accounts). 

And this brings me back to a theme in my book and in much of my writings. The trend of increasing embrace of psychedelics within western society is messing with a technology that is not new or dryly medicinal. These technologies have been used throughout history to see real entities and have real experiences. This is the technology of the witches’ cauldron. And the assumption of naturalism and the willingness to sleep walk into a practice that Western civilization worked like a dragon slayer to drive out of use seem reckless in the extreme. 

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[1] Hatsis, Thomas. The Witches’ Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic (p. 14). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition. 

[2] It is important to note that Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is clearly a metaphor for post World War II paranoia about Communism and is not a scholarly work yet its influence on our thinking about what the witch trials involved has been substantial. 

[3] Hatsis, Thomas. The Witches’ Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic (pp. 76-77). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition. 

[4] Hatsis, Thomas. The Witches’ Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic (p. 150). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition. 

[5] https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2017/10/31/the-origin-of-witches-riding-broomsticks-drugs-from-nature-plus-shakespeare

[6] Hatsis, Thomas. The Witches’ Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic (pp. 175-176). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition. 

[7] Hatsis, Thomas. The Witches’ Ointment: The Secret History of Psychedelic Magic (p. 137). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition. 

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