If You Lived in 1692, Would They Have Called You a Witch?

…And Why Are So Many People Remembering Those Gifts Now?

It is a question that comes up often when people talk about the witch trials. If you lived in that time, would you have been accused?

For many people today the answer comes quickly and almost jokingly. Probably. But the question becomes much more interesting when you begin to look at who those women actually were. Not the dramatic version we see in movies or Halloween stories, but the real people who were accused.

When you look closely at the historical records, something becomes clear. Many of them were not random outcasts or villains. They were often the women people already went to when life needed tending. The midwife, the herbalist, the one who knew which plants healed, the one who listened when someone was grieving, the one who seemed to sense things before others did. In many ways they were the keepers of knowledge within their communities.

As someone who works with energy healing and spirit communication, I sometimes read these stories and recognize something familiar. Not the accusations or the fear, but the role these women played in their communities. It makes you wonder whether history misunderstood them.

When you begin to look more closely, certain patterns appear again and again. Many of the people accused during the witch trials were healers and herbalists. They understood plants, the body, and the rhythms of nature. Long before modern medicine, this was how communities cared for themselves.

They also worked closely with the natural world. Honoring the moon, seasons, and cycles of the earth was once a normal part of spiritual life. These traditions existed long before religious institutions attempted to control them.

Many were known for their intuition. Historical accounts describe women who seemed to “know things.” They offered guidance, interpreted dreams, and helped people make sense of difficult moments in their lives.

Others were simply independent. Widows, landowners, unmarried women, and those who spoke with authority were often seen as suspicious in rigid social systems. Practicing spirituality outside the dominant church could also attract suspicion. Personal prayer, folk rituals, and nature-based traditions were common in many villages and communities.

The societies they lived in believed strongly in unseen forces. Illness, crop failure, and weather were often interpreted through a spiritual lens. When fear spread through a community, accusations sometimes followed.

Knowledge itself could also be threatening. Understanding herbs, childbirth, or natural healing could appear mysterious to people who did not share that knowledge. Many confessions that fueled the witch trials were later shown to have been forced under pressure or torture. Once those confessions existed, they reinforced the belief that something supernatural was happening.

Yet underneath all of this was something very simple. Many of these women carried traditions that had been passed through generations. Knowledge about healing, intuition, and the natural world. Those traditions never disappeared. They simply went quiet for a time.

There is another piece of this that I think about often. For most of human history people lived much closer to the natural world than we do now. Before electricity, before cars, before computers, life moved with the rhythms of the earth. The moon mattered. The seasons mattered. Weather, plants, animals, and cycles of nature were part of everyday awareness.

When you live that closely with nature, the subtle influences of the world around you become easier to feel. Energy was not an abstract idea. It was simply part of life. People noticed when the air shifted before a storm, which plants helped the body heal, and when someone’s presence brought calm to a room or tension into a space.

Much of what we now call intuition was simply part of being human in a world where the natural environment was always present.

Over time, as society industrialized and life moved indoors and onto screens, that sensitivity did not disappear. It simply became quieter.

In my work with energy healing and spirit communication, I see this often. People arrive wondering why they feel so much, why they sense energy so strongly, or why they seem to notice things others overlook. At first they question it. Then something shifts, and they begin trusting what they feel.

What feels different right now is that many people are remembering this awareness at the same time.

We are living in a moment where spirituality and human consciousness seem to be shifting more quickly than before. The frequency of the world feels different to many people. Sensitivity is rising. Intuition is returning. Practices that once had to stay hidden are now being explored openly.

That is one reason there is such a visible rise in interest around witchcraft, energy work, and intuitive practices today.

In another time, those abilities might have been misunderstood or feared. Today, many people are beginning to understand them within themselves.

In my own life and spiritual work, I continue to uncover layers of this remembering.

Which brings us back to the question.

If you lived in 1692, would they have called you a witch?

And if the answer might be yes, perhaps the more interesting question now is this.

What ancient part of your intuition and inner knowing is returning to you now?