MIAMI – Over the past few weeks, several TWH readers have noticed a possible increase in a specific term: “Burn the Witch.” Our readers observed that they seemed to be coming from specific segments of media and asked us to investigate. Some of the comments we received raised our concerns. This is what we found.
Using search data from sources like Google, the term “Burn the Witch” has held relatively steady and at a low search rate across the internet over the past 10 years. There are several sources associated with that term as part of a search. The most frequently associated search is fairly predictable with queries related to the Salem Witch Trials.
1892 Lithograph depicting an exaggerated presentation of the Salem Witch Trials.
As for US regions, Alaska has been particularly obsessed with this search term followed by Vermont and South Dakota. In terms of metro areas, Eugene Oregon, Columbia, South Carolina, Springfield, Missouri, Jackson, Mississippi, and Chattanooga Tennessee round off the top five searching for “Burn the Witch“.
The next was a series of song titles by bands such as Radiohead, PinkShift, Queens of the Stone Age, and Nothing More as well as artists such as Shawn James. There is also a manga series.
Regarding music, Nothing More is an American rock band out of San Antonio, Texas. They have been around since 2003. They released a song in 2009 called Salem with parentheses of “Burn the Witch.” It does have some troubling lyrics. The chorus is,
Burn the witch
Or stone and rope to bind her soul
(Down, down, down)
Sink or swim
And watch the truth drown below
(Down, down, down)
It’s followed by
Burn the witch!
Ha ha ha!
Burn the witch!
Ha ha ha!
The concluding section or, outro, repeats combinations of Hail, hail, the wicked witch is dead.
The lyrics are disappointing if not disturbing. The song has recently resurfaced likely due to the band’s upcoming Spirits world tour that begins in Melbourne, Australia next month.
The rock group, Nothing More.
Nothing More, however, is not a Christian band; nor do they appear to share an agenda that is anti-Pagan, anti-Witch, or anti-Wiccan. Their website is full of Pagan-adjacent imagery.
Reports on World Wide Tune do say that all the members of the band were raised Christian and were reportedly devout in their youth even attending Christian summer camps. In fact, the frontman Jonny Hawkins reportedly says he is an atheist-agnostic and does not rule out the possibility of a god.
TWH contacted Nothing More for comment and has not received a response at the time of publication.
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In cinema, there was a recent “Burn the Witch” film by director Tatsurô Kawano. “Noel Niihashi and Ninny Spangcole are witch and protection agents for Wing Bind an organization for dragon conservation and management. Their mission is to protect and manage the dragons within London on behalf of the people.” Of course, there was interest in characters like the Scarlet Witch and Agatha Harness, both from Disney’s Marvel Comics Universe, with occasional mentions of burning.
Another notable use of the “Burn the Witch” term in gaming. There is a Burn the Witch video game by Papani Games available via the Steam gaming platform. In the game, players are either a Witch or a Peasant, and the game is described as Action-Adventure and Hack and Slash. Witches try to rid the village or peasants who “try to discover who out of those in your village practice dark magics as Witches, before putting them to death using the various weapons.” The game was released in December 2020.
The game Warhammer 40K also uses the term as does Yu-Gi-Oh.
“Burn the Witch” via Pique Games.
But there was one “Burn the Witch” search result that attracted the attention of the Pagan community.
Earlier this week, Rev. Kzane Burdick of the Correllian Nativist Tradition organized a petition on change.org to stop the future selling, usage, and distribution of a new board game called “Burn The Witch” by Pique Games, an independent game publisher in California.
The tabletop game was announced earlier this month via Kickstarter as an indie project. The game is expected to be available in January and has already raised over US$24,000. It premiered earlier this summer at ComiCon International in San Diego.
The game mechanics involve social deduction to determine which players are zealots or sympathizers. The game notes that players represent houses and try to figure out who among them is aligned with each other but do not know who are witches with characteristics like freckles or red hair. The role of accuser and executioner rotates across players and voting identifies which characters are “burned.”. If the zealots find the witches, that team wins. However, if enough innocents are wrongly condemned and burned then the sympathizers win. Ultimately, it is a game of numbers; who is who matters less than the strategy of removing other players’ characters.
The game company features artwork by Ukrainian artist Inna Kozak and original music by Dekoningtan with songs like Walpurgisnacht and Malleus Maleficarum.
We would be remiss in failing to note that the owners of the company are husband and wife duo of James and Amy Fazio. Dr. James Fazio is a well-known Christian professor specializing in hermeneutics and historical literature.
Despite the game’s unappealing title, Burn the Witch focuses on game mechanics and contains both Pagan-adjacent and Christian imagery.
We reached out to Pique Games and Dr. Fazio who has not returned our request for comments.
However, Pique Games team did respond on Kickstarter to two FAQ questions: “Isn’t this topic a bit offensive?” and “Why make a game out of something so inhumane?”
For the former, they wrote “We understand the sensitivity around this issue and hope that we address the topic in a way that sheds an important light on the atrocities that were committed in this dark period of our past. The game’s creator is a Ph.D. historian specializing in religious history, who believes there is truth to the adage “those who don’t learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”
To the latter question in the FAQ about the topic being inhumane, presumably, Dr. Fazio wrote:
As the game’s creator, I would like to offer a personal response to this question:
1. I am a game designer. Making games is what I do.
2. I am a religious historian who specializes in the history of Christian Protestantism, and with particular interest in the religious minority group know as the anabaptists, who were among the primary targets of the European witch trials.
3. I am a professional educator who understands the power of subconscious learning through having fun.
As a historian, I am concerned by the posture of avoidance of certain topics. I also find that many of the topics people have an aversion toward tend to be the same ones that touch on sensitive issues that humanity has never been particularly good at addressing. I think we’ve all witnessed an increased tendency to shut down conversations that lead in a direction that people find uncomfortable, rather than discuss them with civility and mutual respect.
Rather than shy away from such topics, I choose to engage in them. I try to do so with charity and respect toward others.
The company also noted “The game is intended to showcase the senseless inhumanity and xenophobia that fueled the German witch hunts. The company quoted Friedrich von Spree, a well-known opponent of the inhumane treatment of women he witnessed who wrote in his 1631 book, Cautio Criminalis, “Many people who incite the Inquisition so vehemently against sorcerers in their towns and villages are not at all aware and do not notice or foresee that once they have begun to clamor for torture, every person tortured must denounce several more. The trials will continue, so eventually the denunciations will inevitably reach them and their families, since, as I warned above, no end will be found until everyone has been burned.”
Rev. Burdick also correctly points out that terms like “Burn the Witch” whether in gameplay or not, can promote hostility toward Pagans and Witches, especially from individuals seeking to justify violent actions. “This is unacceptable and can cause a horrific impact and emotional turmoil within the Wiccan/Pagan Community and those who follow Witchcraft. We prefer to be safe and peaceful in the community, ” Burdick wrote.
Overall, the frequency of the term “Burn the Witch” has remained relatively flat across the years. Nevertheless, there were some notable and understandable concerns shared by readers who are always welcome to share their tips. TWH will continue to monitor and report on content around this topic.
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