Throughout history, magic and those who wield it have been regarded with equal parts fascination and fear. Just as sorceresses were believed to conjure strange creatures and forces out of thin air, artists have created otherworldly scenes and shaped the narrative around witchcraft for hundreds of years.

It is no coincidence that one of the darkest periods of human history was also one of the most prolific–and bizarre–in depicting magic and miracles. The Black Plague and the Little Ice Age contributed to a period of enormous upheavals. Communities grappling with profound struggles needed a scapegoat. And artists needed to project their frustrations and anxieties about earthly and theological changes to the status quo.

The devil’s cloven hooves were a convenient place to lay the blame for such widespread suffering. As his purported earthly minions, witches have been a classic symbol of conflict from the Bible to Shakespeare’s works. The imagery of this era both fueled and was fueled by the witch hunts that swept Europe, targeting and torturing thousands of healers, midwives, herbalists, and other “wise women”.

But while early covens on canvas sowed chaos and engaged in satanic acts both deviant and diabolical, later works offer a more satirical interpretation: that the lustful or haggard figures and their dark rituals are an allegory of religious authority. The church exploited hysteria and a fear of the occult to maintain trust and faith in God and the priesthood; the trope of the witch may have been deployed to criticize paranoia and human irrationality.

As time passed and rationality (somewhat) triumphed over superstition, the representation of magical practitioners shifted from the gruesome to the exotic. With occult spiritualism’s rise in popularity, sorcery became a symbol for mastery and authority. Rather than signifying evil, priestesses, prophets, and mythological figures were depicted as beautiful, even beneficial. As heralds of transformation, they came to represent the progression of the soul toward salvation.

Our cultural obsession with witches lives on in books, television, and social media trends. From darkness to enlightenment, with wand and cauldron, spellbook, and smartphone, these magical outsiders continue to inspire us with their irreverence and subverting of societal norms.