Many of us are all too familiar with the stories of the witch persecutions.
And the all too famous, Salem witch trails along with the trails held in Europe, and around the world.
The witch hunts were a world wide phenomena, usually trialed by the church to either burn down or drown, those who were accused of being witches.
It’s a terrible time in our history.
Some examples reported by a science historian, are as follows:
“In June of 1510, sixty-four women and men were burned at the stake in Val Camonica, Italy, for causing drought and fires and for harming people, animals and land.
“In July of 1518, sixty women and men were burned at the stake in Breto, Italy, for triggering thunder and lightning and for causing sickness and death of nearly 200 people.
“In June of 1582, the wife of an English sawyer named Alice Glosscock from the town of Chelmsford was stripped naked and her body searched for ‘the marks of a witch,’ which were found, leading to her conviction and execution.”
And yet, I find we are so fascinated by these times in history.
I am learning in my practice, that even though some may have tried to burn them, or mass murder societies out, the souls come back.
I believe, some return to have their voices heard and their stories told through their eyes. For their own justice and also, their own peace.
And so, I dedicate this post, to the witch they could not burn. The one who came back to tell her story, her way.
The setting started off with the client regressing back to a time where she was standing on a field.
Let’s call this client Rebecca (pseudonym.)
She stood on a grassy field. It was sunny out, she could hear the breeze and a river flowing from behind the large cliff. She wore a long gown, that grazed her ankles. And she wore a crown on her head, a crown made of white flowers which she hand picked probably from this same very field she was standing on. She was only a teenager.
We then traveled to where she lived, in a humble cottage in what appeared to be the woods.
It was a log-like cabin. Made of wood, one bedroom. A cozy fireplace lit to keep her warm. A table, sink. And a flickering candle light.
She had a cow on her property. And sheep, lots of sheep where she would gather the wool. For me, she sounded well off, her and her family in this particular time period.
Now we move forward to an important day.
She is standing at a parade. There are soldiers. A big crowd gathered in this parade. She felt lost in the crowd. She couldn’t breath. She felt like she was suffocating.
She felt alone, abandoned and lost.
There were families and little kids around, but I wondered about hers. And this is where, her story begins.
Rebecca: They left me behind. They left me behind.
P: And who are they, that they left you? Would this be your family, do you have a family?
R: Yes.
P: Describe your family?
R: (Pause.) Mother, father. A little brother and sister.
P: And where are they now, while you’re in the parade?
R: I don’t know, they didn’t want me, they left me there.
P: So you live alone in that house, do you have a partner or someone with you, other then the animals?
R: I’m alone.
We left this scene, and moved forward to another significant day that her SC – Subconscious, wanted to bring forth.
R: Dark skies, stars. Bright moon.
P: What colors is the moon?
R: Bright yellow.
P: Are you looking up at the moon?
R: I’m dancing around a fire.
P: And what are you wearing, as you are dancing around the fire? Clothing… (We ask clothing questions to get a time period as much as possible.)
R: Nothing.
P: (Laughs.) Is there anyone else with you?
R: Other women.
P: And how do you feel, is it a circle around the fire?
R: Yes, we are dancing in a circle, the moon is full. We are celebrating.
P: (Finally clicked in, full moon festival but I didn’t say it to not influence the client.) Oh, it’s a … okay is this a festival?
R: We…..re…..worshiping the moon.
P: Um-hmm…And the women around you, who are they? How do they feel about them, do they feel familiar?
R: Yes.
P: Can you describe to me what’s happening?
R: We are celebrating the start of a season. Harvest season.
P: Do you have anything around you?
R: We made dolls or idols. We made things.
P: And this is to celebrate the full moon or the harvest?
R: Yes.
P: Can you describe one of the dolls you made?
R: It’s a female, black hair, wool. Burlap dress. Fertility, I feel fertility. (Fertility dolls are common among many cultures, given as gifts to assist woman with childbirth.)
P: So it’s like a woman’s event or gathering?
R: We’re witches.
P: Witches! (Excited. I always wanted to meet/interview a witch.) Okay. And what else do you do for your full moon ceremony, how many other women are there?
R: There’s five of us.
P: Are they like your sisters or close friends?
R: We are all friends, two have dark hair. One has red. Blonde hair. (Pause. This usually happens, when they pause they are gathering more information.)
P: And yourself, what color is your hair? Is it long or short?
R: It’s looong hair.
P: And what color is it?
R: RED.
P: Red! Is it curly or straight?
R: It’s curly.
P: Wow, so red, curly, hair. And you’re going around the fire?
R: Yes, rubbing mud on ourselves. Paint.
P: Do you eat, or do you, at the ceremony?
R: Wild boar. We caught it.
P: Wow, so one of the women caught a wild boar. That must be quite the event. Is there anything else you would like to share with me, as the day goes by?
R: That was the last we celebrated.
The tone changed after this, it felt very sad. For all of us, I knew something unpleasant was coming.
P: Okay.
R: They came to get us.
P: Okay, and who came to get you?
R: Guards or soldiers.
P: Is that why you felt uncomfortable during the parade? Were those the same kind of guards or soldiers?
R: Yes, we were all taken and separated.
P: Hmm…and why did they do that?
R: They think we’re evil.
P: But you’re just celebrating the seasons and the harvest, how is that … there’s nothing (I laughed, at the stupidity of humans here, forgive me) .. they didn’t understand that?
R: No, they didn’t understand that.
P: Okay, so what did they do next after they separated you guys,….(corrected myself) women?
R: They put me in a dark, stone cellar. (Very, long pause.) They gave me stale, moldy bread. And water.
P: Are there any windows in the cellar?
R: One, one tiny window. It’s dark.
P: You must have felt, alone.
R: Yes.
P: Did you try to at least talk to the man and explain that….did they not understand?
R: No….(Pause.) They’re going to kill me. (Getting emotional, starts to cry.) They are going to tie me up and burn me. They don’t believe me. They are calling me evil. They beat me, they tied me up. They are coming at me with fire.
I took the client away from this scene so she doesn’t have to experience the death experience as if she is going through it, clients can observe what is going on, from the other side without having to go through it again.
R: They said I was bad, I’m evil. (That) I’m a dark witch. It’s not true, I’m a healer.
P: Yah.
R: They think my healing, my powers are for bad. And to hurt. (None of this was true. But this is what they did back then, was make accusations and that was enough to get you burned at the stake. It was here, when I had her describe her last day.)
R: I’m in the middle of the town, there are people gathered around. They tied me to a post.
P: Okay.
R: I’m not wearing any clothes.
P: Okay, and then what happens.
R: They are coming at me with torches.
P: What about the other women you were with, do you see them around?
R: They’re beside me, I’m in the middle. They are screaming, we’re all screaming.
Again, I remind the client they don’t have to go through the event, but to just describe what happens next. It is very important we review their last day, to see if they are carrying anything over from that event, into their present lifetime.
R: They lit us at our feet. One by one, they lit us.
P: Okay so they burned the bodies, correct?
R: They burned us alive.
So now that, that life was over. It was time to ask, what was the purpose of that life.
R: People don’t see the good I do. They judged me, they judged me. I wasn’t dark and evil. I was healing.
P: Were you healing people in the village?
R: Yes.
P: And how did you do that?
R: I made potions.
P: And what were in the potions?
R: Herbs.
P: Can you describe to me a time when you helped somebody? With the herbs? (i.e. – Potions.)
R: There was a little boy, he hurt himself. I applied, my potion. He healed.
P: Well that’s pretty fantastic work that you did.
R: They didn’t like it. He was suppose to die.
P: Well, why didn’t they like that? When you’re helping to heal people?
R: Humans of this world could not perform such miracles.
P: They were taught that, though right?
R: Yes. Somebody was jealous of me.
P: And who was that?
R: It was another woman…
P: Was it another witch?
R: Yes.
P: So why was the other woman jealous of you, that you get to heal all these (epiphany) oh, so that’s why…
R: She didn’t want to help, she wanted to harm.
P: Oh, okay. (Her story was starting to unravel now.) So the other witch wanted to harm people, and you wanted to help people.
R: Yes. Yes.
P: So when the little boy healed, the parent or guardian must have thanked you, did they try to protect you at least, as in, was this something not talked about?
I wanted to know, who called her out as a witch. Someone made an accusation about her being a witch, and I had to find out who that was.
R: They needed to save themselves, they denounced me.
P: Was there a trial?
R: (A confident.) YES.
P: Can you take me to the time of the trail and describe to me what’s happening during the trail. Somebody must have said something right, I mean, how did they find out that … you were healing people.
R: She made a lie, that I tried to sleep with her husband. I tried too, I tried to seduce him. I cast an evil spell. He wanted to have relations with me, for helping the child. They accused me of casting a spell and turning him.
P: I see, so this man had feelings for you?
R: Yes.
P: Ok. Because you helped his son?
R: Yes. He saw the good. His wife was friends with the evil witch.
P: Tell me more.
R: She brain washed his wife, that I was out to harm the child, not heal.
P: Ohhh, okay. Than what happened?
R: She turned the wife against him. They took him.
P: The boy or husband?
R: Husband. They accused him of adultery, and how he was poisoned by me.
P: Why did you poison him?
R: I didn’t. Tried to love him. They said I poisoned him. He died.
It was later after the session, when I slipped and said you were beheaded for some reason. That the client said, that was it, that was how they killed him, the husband. They beheaded him.
P: How did he die then?
R: Evil witch.
P: The evil witch, okay. And did you love this man?
R: Yes.
P: And he was married or had a wife.
R: Yes.
P: Okay, and the trail, how did they do the trail?
R: I was in a room, all men.
P: Were they the towns people or?
R: A…a council of men.
P: And so, do you stand somewhere?
R: Yes.
P: So you tried to help this boy, and they created this story with the evil witch, and turned it against you because she was jealous of your powers.
R: Yes.
P: Alright, I see what’s happening here. Okay. What happened to your family then, because they left, what was going on there, because the house was just your house and you mentioned your mum, your dad, siblings…how come they weren’t around during your trail?
R: I was different, I had powers.
P: Okay.
R: They were afraid of me. They wanted to save themselves and the rest of the family.
P: Right. That’s what I was thinking. (They fled before…s**t hit the fan.) And so they left town?
R: Yes.
P: The parade what was the parade a celebration of…?
R: A new mayor. Some new, important person.
P: What caused the discomfort during the parade?
R: The abandonment.
P: That your family had left right?
R: Yes.
P: And it sounded like, you were young, like maybe, like a teenager?
R: Yes.
P: Yah, that’s young. So here you are trying to help these people, and it sounded like you helped a few or many.
R: Yes.
P: Was the evil witch, was she burned as well during your last day?
R: Not with us, but shortly after us.
P: Did the town, remove all the witches and kill them all?
R: Yes.
P: Well, that’s sad. So what was the purpose of that lifetime? I asked again….because she still had lots to share.
R: To do good, to be the good.
P: Even though people burned you and judged you?
R: Yes, stand in light.
P: Were you able to, I mean you did speak up for yourself right?
R: Yes.
I asked that question because sometimes if they were unable to speak their truth in a past life. They come again, to speak their truth and use their voice in this lifetime. Once you aware of it, you let it go and no longer carry the theme forward.
P: But there was too many of them, I guess they weren’t listening.
R: No, I gave up. I stopped fighting, I gave up.
Now, we left that lifetime in the past where it belongs. When I asked the SC why it chose to show us this lifetime today, the SC said this…
“To show her why….to show her why, she was always willing to put herself before others.”
The client still does or may I say did, this in her present life. So the SC advised:
“And she will suffer consequences for actions that are not her own, she will take it all on.”
So the SC advised, she was taking too much on again for others, even other people’s stuff.
And she did sacrifice herself in the past, they burned her as she tried to heal people.
The SC reminded her that she is light. And she is truth. And to let go of pleasing others, and neglecting her own needs. This was an important message that I believe every healer should hear, that the SC brought forth that day:
You cannot heal or save everybody.
Later, it was discovered by the SC, that the child she saved, was actually hers. And she had that child with that very husband, she had relations with.
It turned out, the wife stole the baby and said she found it in a field. This wasn’t true. It was her child. The wife told her, the child had died and so the wife of the husband, took the child as her own.
She had to conceal the pregnancy from society at that time, because she was unwed. And she was not married to him. If the village found out, they would have killed her and the child, as the SC stated.
So it was a very unraveling of events indeed. And hard lessons learned.
I feel privileged to have shared her story with us all today. So…she could speak her truth, from the past.
She was merely a teenager, celebrating in the woods.
And even today, our society has flipped the celebration of seasonal changes to hallmark holidays like Halloween, and painted witches around a cauldron, as evil.
As they say, with any great power comes great responsibilities. Some use it for good, some do not.
Thank you to all my clients, in which I may gather and share your stories with the world.
With love and friendship,
Pamela N. Singh
References:
Royalty free header image via unsplash
Image of women dancing around fire, credit unknown.
Historian Source: http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03/the-inquisition-and-witch-hunts/
Painting of witch trials titled The trial of George Jacobs, August 5, 1692 by Tompkins H Matteson.
Cottage image via Mike Petrucci via Unsplash
http://churchandstate.org.uk/2019/03/the-inquisition-and-witch-hunts/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salem_witch_trials
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch-hunt