{"id":64541,"date":"2014-10-27T09:00:37","date_gmt":"2014-10-27T14:00:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=64541"},"modified":"2016-10-22T14:50:13","modified_gmt":"2016-10-22T19:50:13","slug":"why-do-witches-ride-brooms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2014\/10\/27\/why-do-witches-ride-brooms\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Do Witches Ride Brooms?"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to an\u00a0article<\/a> by Megan Garber at The Atlantic<\/em>, they did it for the drugs.<\/p>\n

Starting in the 1300s, Europeans developed a taste for hallucinogenic drugs. Unfortunately, ingesting them often caused nausea and vomiting. Absorbing them through the skin\u00a0came with fewer side effects and\u00a0delivering them through\u00a0the mucous membranes of the female genitals was\u00a0ideal.<\/p>\n

A physician\u00a0quoted<\/a>\u00a0at\u00a0The Guardian<\/em>\u00a0says the claim is medically sound:<\/p>\n

Ointment would have been very effective as a delivery method… Mucous membranes are particularly good at transporting drugs – that’s why cocaine is snorted…\u00a0Vaginal application would be pretty efficient, and the effects of the drugs would be noticeable quite rapidly.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to legend, then, witches\u00a0would coat the handle of a broom — a convenient household item — lift their skirts and get high.<\/p>\n

The women who trafficked in hallucinogenic substances were often accused of being witches. \u00a0Or, conversely, women accused of being witches were also accused of making magic ointments (from\u00a0the fat of murdered children, no less). And witch experts in the\u00a015th century claimed that they used these ointments not just to get high, but to get high; that is, that they literally<\/a>\u00a0flew<\/a>\u00a0using\u00a0ointments.<\/p>\n

Hence, witches on brooms.<\/p>\n

\"5\"
Flickr photo by Metro Centric<\/a>; creative commons license.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\nLisa Wade, PhD<\/a> is an Associate Professor at Tulane University. She is the author of <\/em>American Hookup<\/a>, a book about college sexual culture; a textbook about gender<\/a>; and a forthcoming introductory text: <\/em>Terrible Magnificent Sociology<\/a>.\u00a0You can follow her on Twitter<\/a> and Instagram<\/a>.<\/em><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

According to an\u00a0article by Megan Garber at The Atlantic, they did it for the drugs. Starting in the 1300s, Europeans developed a taste for hallucinogenic drugs. Unfortunately, ingesting them often caused nausea and vomiting. Absorbing them through the skin\u00a0came with fewer side effects and\u00a0delivering them through\u00a0the mucous membranes of the female genitals was\u00a0ideal. A physician\u00a0quoted\u00a0at\u00a0The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":69500,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[664,253,254,290],"class_list":["post-64541","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biology","tag-history","tag-holidays","tag-sciencetechnology"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2014\/10\/6-1.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64541"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64541\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69502,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64541\/revisions\/69502"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/69500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}