In the late fifteenth century, Europe launched the so-called Witch Hunts, claiming that people with supernatural abilities were witches possessed by demons who had brought plagues and wars upon the land through their magic.

Driven by fear and anger, large numbers of people—men and women alike, including government officials, nobles, clergy, and professional witch hunters—joined together in a frenzy of mass arrests, sexual abuse, trials, and executions of those accused of being "witches."