The thing about witches (and to a large extent modern feminists as well) is they were mostly old, barren, ugly, masculine and poor women – with bad attitudes! - all of which is indicative of bad (maladaptive) genes, and being bitter they could and did infect others (like how we all are influenced by friends in general and have to deal with enemies in particular). So what we saw with their apparently irrational persecution was in fact an intuitive, if unconscious, beneficial form of eugenics, to remove the most obvious spiteful mutants from the gene/psychic pool.

I find the concept of the "spiteful mutant" incredibly resonant and even paradigm shifting (undermining so much of what has become politically correct thinking in the past 130 years). It's embodied perfectly by people like Greta Thunberg, people whose genes would not have survived childhood in the harsh pre-industrial era, but whose influence now can affect and infect the healthier aspects of civilization - aspects which have survived for millennia and shown the test of time. Greta is an irritating and obnoxious example of this popular "anti-Life" trend in the modern era, but it's the spirit behind it (the demonic or Satanic in older symbolism) that's the real issue, and the one destined to lose in the evolutionary battle of Life and Death.