What is the Witch Wound?

How is it affecting our world today?

The Witch Wound is a personal, collective and cultural scar that stems from a 300 year period known as The Burning Times, an era of persecution and execution of mainly women, wrongly accused of witchcraft.

It was an institutionalised femicide* started and endorsed by the Christian Church and estimates of how many women were wrongly killed range from 50,000 to over 2 million.

It is a past life imprint, an ancestral wound and a collective trauma, a deep cellular memory carried down through generations and perpetuated in our patriarchal society.

The terror and mass killings spanned generations.

The legacy of that terror and persecution continues today.

For many years I had a private practice in a doctor-led Integrative Medicine clinic in the UK. It was there and in my global practice online that I observed thousands of women having past life/deep memory flashbacks reliving horrific events from the witch trials.

Everything from drowning and strangling to beheading and being burned or locked in a box and crushed by a large boulder.

As an energy intuitive mapping the pain bodies of thousands of women’s stored wounds I saw the Witch Wound in its energetic form held in particular places within the body, most notably in the throat and lower abdomen.

But here’s the thing….none of the women I worked with had flashbacks of being ‘Witches’. Certainly not the evil stereotype or caricature version of a Witch we have been sold for generations, wearing pointy black hats and mixing potions in a cauldron.

And this is because the women who were killed weren’t evil Witches. They were women.

Women with red hair.

Women who owned a cat.

Women with money.

Women without money.

Women who stood up for themselves.

Women who spoke with other women.

Women who committed the crime of walking along the street after sunset.

Women who were nurses and midwives.

Women in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Women seen reading or writing.

Women that others simply wanted out of the way.

Women others wanted revenge upon.

Women husbands wanted rid of so they could re-marry.

Women who were older and lived alone.

The list goes on…

Things that many of us do today would have got us killed:

Having an opinion and sharing it.

Growing herbs on your window sill.

Dying your hair red.

Choosing to be ‘single’.

Going out after dark.

Placing crystals in the moonlight.

Having an altar.

Mixing salves and ointments.

Meeting with other women in circle.

Dancing.

Singing.

Not going to Church.

Helping the sick.

It is a misconception to believe that the witch trials were all about magic, spirituality, intuition, the Devil or witchcraft. They largely weren’t.

That’s not to say that there weren’t or aren’t still people today around the world using Witchcraft to do harm. There are. Most do not.

The women (and men) who were tortured, interrogated and ultimately killed during this period in history were at most sharing generations of natural medicine and wisdom and at the least were caught up in some local scandal or conflict, in the wrong place at the wrong time or an inconvenience to a husband.

The fear culture created by the witch hunts was used to control people and get rid of people that were doing nothing at all. Often by someone who wanted their inheritance, their land, their husband or their wife!

It became the most potent propoganda tool of the age.

Wanted someone out of the way?

Call them a Witch!

The idea that any woman could be a Witch working with the Devil to harm others and destroy crops was a lie rooted in gossip, ignorance and fear, used to justify the executions.

But make no mistake, the core of this dark era was about destroying what men in power feared most, the Feminine and anything connected to Her.

The witch hunts were the result of a patriarchal domination system of colonisation that had existed for thousands of years already, a system afraid of the uncontrollable power and unquantifiable nature of the Feminine.

A potent multidimensional, uncontrollable, creative, unlimited energy within us all. Regardless of sex or gender.

The witch propaganda of the Burning Times was also part of a 'political' campaign strategy, a competition between the Catholic and newly formed Protestant church to prove their ability to vanquish evil. The most successful (at killing more women!) would secure a larger congregation and more financial wealth.

It was a dark PR agenda, to secure patriarchal power and to dominate and destroy anything pertaining to the Feminine.

SHE was deemed a threat to the male-dominated control culture.

Let me just say that many men were also killed. In fact in countries such as Iceland and Russia it was mostly men who were killed for Witchcraft.

Sexuality, creativity, natural medicine, midwives, nurses, wise women, women’s gatherings, women’s income, women’s education, women’s right to speak, women recorded in the bible, historical references or ritual Pagan traditions of the Goddess and of mother nature that had existed for hundreds of thousands of years, were all now targeted as signs of evil.

It was a misguided belief that served a specific agenda that was repeated so often, over and over, for hundreds of years and was spread so widely via the new mass produced hand-printed pamphlets or 'Chapbooks' of the day (like today's tabloids or Twitter) that it became accepted as the truth and handed down through generations.

It is these programmed beliefs, prejudices and inequalities that continue in various forms today, affecting every sex, gender and identity, but in particular those socialised as women.

In contrast to the thriving Chapbooks, generations of women's ancestral ‘receipt books’ were destroyed. These were precious hand-written records of remedies, recipes, local wisdom, foraging sites, household practices, natural cycles and seasons and family history and traditions, gathered and curated across lifetimes and handed down from mother to daughter for generations. All burned. But not before the most potent healing knowledge was stolen and re-purposed for the new men-only medical schools!

Women’s stories and victories, inventions and greatness was deemed irrelevant and so not recorded in the HIStory books.

It was a profoundly traumatic period in history that has gone unrecognised for too long. Women didn’t matter so why would anyone care.

Fast forward to today and the trauma from those times has become so woven into us and our society that we can’t even see it.

We have come to normalise symptoms of trauma and of the Witch Wound.

It has become what I call 'internalised patriarchy', showing up in how we hold ourselves back, shame ourselves, repress our intuition, stifle our desires and belittle our creativity. It arises when we compete with or put down other women. It is woven into modern medicine and every boardroom. Women’s voices have historically been ignored and their pain and defiance has been pathologised.

The Witch Wound has also become somatised for many people, flaring up as health issues, woven into our DNA passed down genetically and also perpetuated culturally via Epigenetics.

For me and my ancestors I believe it has shown up as depression, anxiety, chronic Fatigue, M.E., Fibromyalgia and female cancers.

The Witch Wound has also led to a repression of our 'mediumicity', of our natural ability to connect with our inner world, with unseen spirit realms, the web of life, and with our intuitive and creative gifts.

Repressed Mediumicity can lead to various forms of physical and mental illness. This is recognised by the widespread Spiritist Centres of North and South America where mental illness is treated as a symptom of spiritual sickness and intuitive/mediumistic suppression.

The widespread disbelief and fear of unseen realms and inner power, which resulted from the witch trials, has led to an underdeveloped ability to navigate those realms safely and to use our untapped natural gifts in a way that would serve us and the world.

It has led to a mistrust and downright ridicule of the invisible 90% of our reality.

Talk online about the Witch Wound has become more popular recently. And I celebrate that.

However, for me it isn’t a new age buzz phrase or the latest trend, ‘spiritual commodity’ or bandwagon to jump on.

I have been quietly exploring the Witch Wound for much of my 50+ years on this earth.

I coined the term Witch Wound decades ago and have become accustomed to friends and peers quoting me back to me and not realising it. I’ve also experienced the ‘sisterhood wound’ aspect of the Witch Wound with some women seeking to undermine me and criticise me with some also sadly copying my work without due credit.

When speaking up about it I was shamed, attacked and gaslit (“it’s so UNspiritual and UNgenerous to claim ownership, there is no ownership at the level of spirit”. True but I am also a human being). These are all parts of the Witch Wound in motion. Each of our precious directly downloaded gifts and wisdom need to be honoured as such.

I understand genuinely that sometimes people just get the same ideas and downloads and don’t know where they’re coming in from and believe me I am grateful not to be holding this work alone anymore!

However, men have been stealing energy, inventions, creations, credit and ideas from women for generations then gaslighting them if they protest. We need to be aware of how we might also be doing that to each other if we truly want to move forward in Feminine power together.

As a child I wrote about the Witch Wound in my diary. As a highly intuitive, clairvoyant, claircognizant, clairsentient and psychic child I clearly saw its impact on my mother, grandmother and great grandmother. They read Tarot and tea leaves and held séances in secret, practising quietly behind closed doors, or when husbands were at work. They largely suppressed their gifts and I saw them struggle and wither as a result.

I wrote my first story about the Witch Wound when I was around 9 years old, a story of a woman walking through a misty graveyard at night and being visited by the spirits of women killed during the witch trails. This dark tale became a script for a rather unusual drama club production! My first screenplay.

I have done over 20,000 hours of deep 1:1 work with awakening women all over the world for over 20 years professionally, tending to the Witch Wound and seeing it clearly in their energy fields, helping them unweave it, reawaken their gifts and embody their true nature.

My article about the Witch Wound from around 10 years ago is what went viral and lit the touch paper on social media and has been referred to in several books (including ‘Witch’ by Lisa Lister. Hay House), but my teachings had been out there for many years before that.

I wanted to understand the Witch Wound from a new science perspective so I studied Quantum Activism with Quantum Physicist Dr Amit Goswami.

I have trained with Starhawk, one of the first modern witches and wise women to speak of the impact of the Burning Times, as seen in the three part documentary series ‘Women and Spirituality: The Goddess Trilogy’ (1989-1993 National Film Board of Canada).

I wanted to understand it in terms of Transpersonal Psychology and Epigenetics and Trauma so I also gained diplomas in those subjects.

I am currently studying for a PhD in ancestral healing specialising in the Witch Wound and simultaneously studying metaphysical and interfaith ministry to further help people connect directly with the Divine within. ‘Reverand Witch Doctor’ here we come!

I have spoken on many podcasts, global summits and panels about the Witch Wound and rebirthing the Sacred Feminine.

I created the Witch Wound Workbook and the free Healing the Witch Wound guided Shamanic meditation.

This is my life’s work and at the core of my purpose.

A while ago I gathered in the woods, around a fire with sisters. We told our stories, spoke wisdom, shed tears, drank wine, drummed and sang. The wind howled, the rain poured and medicine was shared.
 
There was a time when this was commonplace among women, daily, weekly, on the full/new moon, for every rite of passage or festival through the wheel of the year and the cycles of our lives.

It felt beautiful to let my body remember.
 
Then I gathered in a totally different kind of circle, as guest lecturer at New York University, teaching a class to Applied Psychology undergraduate students about the Witch Wound and how it relates to women’s mental health. It was a modern wisdom circle, with extraordinary young people with open hearts and hungry minds. It was apparently their favourite class of the course.

Our future medicine people, psychologists, psychotherapists and counsellors are now aware of the Witch Wound. What an honour it was to teach them.

I believe the Witch Wound sits tangled among the roots of our world's problems, the culmination of 3000 years of dominating and deleting the Feminine, central to how patriarchy has thrived and done so much harm and why humanity is so disconnected from itself and from the Great Mother, from Mother Earth and from the Goddess.

The Witch Wound has led to our disconnection from ancient Feminine wisdom and the web of life, to the suppression of our unlimited potential and to the trauma programme keeping most of the planet disconnected from the infinite capacities of human consciousness.

In our full power we are a threat to existing harmful structures of control.

It is in the interests of existing patriarchal domination paradigms to ensure we do not heal the witch wound, that we do not awaken and reconnect with our inherent intuitive knowing, gifts and true unlimited sovereign potential.

But here we are waking up anyway! ;)

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All writings are copyright Kimberley Jones

'Healing the Witch Wound' is a registered trademark.

Please credit all quotes to Kimberley Jones and link back to this blog post.

*Commenting on a TV3 documentary entitled 'Witches, the Big Lie', the Catalan president, Pere Aragonès, described the witch-hunts as “institutionalised femicide”. In January 2022 Catalonia pardoned up to 1000 people, mainly women, who were killed for witchcraft during the witch trails over 400 years ago.