snow boatd

The witch hunts in early modern Europe were a series of persecutions and trials targeting individuals accused of practicing witchcraft. These hunts took place primarily between the 15th and 18th centuries and were most intense in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The witch hunts were fueled by a combination of religious, social, and political factors. During this time, Europe was undergoing significant social and religious transformations. The Protestant Reformation had sparked religious conflicts and divisions across the continent, leading to a heightened sense of religious anxiety and unrest. Authorities sought to maintain social order and religious unity by eradicating what they viewed as a threat to their communities.

Authorities sought to maintain social order and religious unity by eradicating what they viewed as a threat to their communities. Witchcraft was seen as a form of heresy and was condemned by both Catholic and Protestant leaders. The Catholic Church actively pursued the eradication of witchcraft, beginning with the publication of the papal bull "Summis desiderantes affectibus" by Pope Innocent VIII in 1484, which authorized the Inquisition to prosecute alleged witches.

For My Next Trick, Dessert

Jaya Saxena is a Correspondent at Eater.com, and the series editor of Best American Food Writing. She explores wide ranging topics like labor, identity, and food culture.

When the cloche lifted, I saw the chocolate mousse had become part of the magic trick. There had been some word association, some whispers around the table, and a secret written down where magician Scott Silven couldn’t see. But reveal left me astonished — how did the trick and the meal entwine? I squealed in delight.

Magic has a reputation for hokeyness. It’s too earnest, whether it’s the version where a magician pulls 18 scarves out of his throat or the version where the too-intense guy in the silk shirt levitates in the middle of the auditorium. Dinner theater gives the same vibe; it’s often a sub-par meal served alongside a bad play, requiring diners to split attention from food and performance. “At the Illusionist’s Table,” a combination of whisky tasting, communal dinner, and magic show running at NYC’s McKittrick Hotel through April 2, certainly risks cringe, participation in both meal and magic potentially becoming the ultimate oh no, performers coming into audience. You have to buy in. But if you do, there’s a wonder in watching something transformed.

Magician Scott Silven hadn’t originally conceived of the show, now in its third season, as a dinner: It was a whisky tasting that punctuated the show’s story about his childhood in Scotland. But he realized a meal would be more powerful, “not just to manipulate the audience’s senses, but to lead them deeper into the narrative of the show.” The meal, he says, leads audiences into a “safe space,” opening them up to the tricks being played on them. So as we ate chef Pascal Le Seac’h’s seafood risotto, braised beef with lardon, root vegetables, and Parker House rolls, we also watched as Silven guessed what postcard someone had in their hand. We gasped and applauded when Silven identified what someone drew on a pad of paper on the other side of the room, and as he produced a lottery card with the day’s date and the exact numbers that guests had shouted at random. We ate it up.

In The Prestige, a movie about two magicians deeply intent on pranking each other, Michael Caine’s character lays out the building blocks of a successful magic trick. “The magician takes the ordinary something and makes it do something extraordinary,” he says, whether it’s making an object disappear or escaping a straightjacket. As the viewer, “you’re looking for the secret. but you won’t find it, because of course you’re not really looking. You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled.”

To some extent, that desire extends to restaurant cooking, as well. I know what the Maillard reaction is and what it does to the taste of vegetables, and I know that restaurant food tastes good because it contains more butter and salt than I’d ever use at home. But the transformation of the ordinary to the extraordinary is why most people feel the pull of a restaurant in the first place. “You transform something from what you can see whole,” says Le Seac’h. “You see a mushroom on the ground full of dirt, it’s not really appetizing,” but in its final form, sliced and softened and manipulated to bring out its flavor, it’s new. The best meals are the ones that have you sitting back in wonder, marveling at what was accomplished, even if you know it was nothing magical. There is a sleight of hand at play, and we want to be fooled. We want to feel the extraordinary.

Besides the tricks, some of the most magical moments happened when Silven left the room, allowing diners to eat and chat among ourselves. It felt somewhat like the teacher had left the students alone — immediately we started talking about what we had seen, giving our theories on how it all worked, and getting to know each other. That time exists by design, says Silven, because it allows the audience to grow more intimate and comfortable as the night goes on. “It creates this sort of Agatha Christie sense of mystery and paranoia,” says Silven. “What else may be happening?” And when he left the room we investigated. The lotto ticket looked real, surely he hadn’t printed it today. Did he plant the postcards? Was there a mirror somewhere where he could see what was going on? And then, wow these rolls are good, how did they get them so soft?

We weren’t really looking to be proven right and to see a trick fail. The joy is in buying in and in being proven wrong. Technically, all of the tricks could have been done without the meal, and the meal could have existed without the magic. Both would have been fine. But when the cloche came up and the trick was revealed on the dessert we were preparing to eat, the alchemy happened. It was bafflement and delight and yes, the knowledge that this was the result of not the supernatural but human hands and ingenuity. Why shouldn’t that be as incredible an achievement? Isn’t that just as magical? I walked away with the same question about both acts: How did they do that? And of course I didn’t really want to know.

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These religious rulings and the subsequent creation of witchcraft manuals, such as the Malleus Maleficarum, provided justification for the persecution of suspected witches. Social and economic factors also contributed to the witch hunts. The early modern period saw widespread societal upheavals, including the breakdown of feudalism, population growth, and economic instability. These changes created a climate of fear and uncertainty, making people more vulnerable to believing in supernatural explanations for misfortune and hardship. Accusations of witchcraft often arose from personal conflicts, jealousy, or the need to explain unexplained events. The witch hunts were characterized by intense hysteria and mass paranoia. Accusations and denunciations spread rapidly, leading to the arrest, torture, and execution of thousands of people, the vast majority of whom were women. Methods of execution included hanging, burning at the stake, and drowning. The accused were subjected to an unfair legal process, with confessions often obtained through torture and the use of cruel and unusual punishment. Over time, skepticism toward the existence of witches grew, resulting in a gradual decline in the intensity of the hunts. In the late 17th century, legal reforms and a more rational mindset began to prevail, leading to a decrease in the number of prosecutions. Eventually, the witch hunts came to an end. The witch hunts in early modern Europe represent a dark chapter in history, characterized by fear, ignorance, and the abuse of power. They reflect the deep-seated anxieties and social tensions of the time, as well as the influence of religious and political authorities. The impact of these hunts is still felt today, serving as a reminder of the dangers of mass hysteria and the importance of protecting innocent lives from unjust persecution..

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