The Witches’ Ointment and the Broom: Knowledge, the Body, and the Fear of Women Who Knew

A misunderstood practice at the edge of medicine and spirituality

Few images are as deeply embedded in Western imagination as that of a witch flying on a broom, her body carried through the night by a mysterious ointment. For centuries this image has been treated as fantasy, superstition, or moral panic. Yet when examined through historical, botanical, and anthropological lenses, the so-called witches’ ointment emerges not as a fairy tale, but as evidence of a sophisticated body of female knowledge rooted in plants, physiology, and altered states of consciousness.

The expression witches’ ointment, often appearing in early modern texts as unguentum sabbati, was not a name used by the women themselves. It was a label imposed by theologians, inquisitors, and physicians attempting to explain experiences that challenged Christian doctrine and patriarchal control. The women associated with these practices were not practitioners of evil, but herbalists, midwives, healers, and caretakers of embodied knowledge, passed orally through generations.

Nightshade plants and the Science of Altered Perception

The plants repeatedly linked to the witches’ ointment belong to the nightshade family, a group botanically remarkable for its potent chemical defenses. These plants contain tropane alkaloids, substances that act directly on the human nervous system and profoundly alter perception, memory, and bodily awareness.

Witch Flying On Broomstick. Nwood Engraving, English, 19Th Century.

Deadly nightshade, with its deep green leaves and glossy black berries, contains atropine, a compound that disrupts neurotransmission in the brain. Botanically, it thrives in shaded woodland soils and has long been recognized for both its toxicity and medicinal potential. When absorbed through the skin, atropine can induce disorientation, dilation of the pupils, altered sensory input, and vivid hallucinations, often accompanied by a sensation of detachment from the physical body.

Henbane, a sticky-leaved plant with yellow flowers veined in purple, produces high concentrations of scopolamine, an alkaloid known for inducing dreamlike states, trance, and somatic hallucinations. Unlike substances that merely distort vision, henbane affects the body’s internal sense of movement. Users report sensations of floating, riding, or flying, experiences strikingly similar to historical descriptions of nocturnal journeys.

Datura, or thorn apple, is perhaps the most powerful of these plants. Its large trumpet-shaped flowers and spiked seed pods conceal compounds capable of producing fully immersive hallucinations, often indistinguishable from reality. These experiences frequently involve journeys, conversations with beings, and complete loss of temporal awareness, followed by partial amnesia.

Why the ointment was not consumed

One of the strongest indicators that the witches’ ointment was grounded in real pharmacological knowledge is the method of application. These plants are extremely dangerous when ingested orally, frequently causing fatal poisoning. Historical sources, however, consistently describe the ointment as being applied to the skin, not eaten or drunk.

Absorption through the skin, particularly through mucous membranes, allows alkaloids to enter the bloodstream efficiently while bypassing the digestive system. This method demonstrates a clear understanding of how to control potency while reducing lethal risk, a level of medical knowledge rarely acknowledged in discussions of early modern women.

The broom as tool, not symbol

The broom did not originate as a magical emblem. It was a practical household object, associated almost exclusively with women and domestic space. Its long, smooth wooden handle made it an ideal tool for applying ointment to areas of the body where absorption was most effective.

The Flying Witches by Francisco Goya. From 'Los Caprichos' - 1799

/To purchase prints in withchcraft style click on the image/

Historical medical commentaries and trial records suggest that the ointment was often applied using sticks, staffs, or broom handles, which were then placed between the thighs. Application through the vaginal mucosa ensured rapid absorption of psychoactive compounds. This practice was neither obscene nor symbolic to the women themselves. It was functional, embodied medicine.

Under the influence of the ointment, users reported intense sensations of lifting, riding, and flying, often accompanied by visions of traveling across landscapes or gathering with others. These experiences felt entirely real, not imagined or metaphorical. The broom became associated with flight only later, when male observers attempted to rationalize women’s testimonies through literal interpretation.

Sexuality, trance, and demonization

What most disturbed religious authorities was not the plants, nor even the visions, but the fact that women accessed altered states without institutional mediation. The union of body, pleasure, and spirituality contradicted Christian doctrines that demanded separation between flesh and sacred experience.

Female sexuality, particularly when autonomous and ecstatic, was reframed as sinful, diabolical, and dangerous. Experiences of trance were reinterpreted as sexual deviance. Healing knowledge became heresy. The broom, once a tool, became a caricatured phallic symbol in demonological imagination.

From knowledge to persecution

As witch trials escalated across Europe, diverse practices were compressed into a single narrative of the Sabbath, a fictionalized gathering defined by devil worship and moral inversion. Confessions extracted under torture standardized stories of ointments, flight, and broomsticks, erasing local variation and lived meaning.

In truth, these practices likely reflected fragmented memories of trance, seasonal rituals, and individual visionary experiences amplified by psychoactive plants. The ointment was not a gateway to evil, but a technology of consciousness.

Witch as the one who knows

In Slavic languages, the word WITCH corresponds to WIEDŹMA, derived from WIEDZIEĆ, meaning to know. A <wiedźma> is not a sorceress, but a woman who possesses knowledge. A woman who understands plants, bodies, cycles, birth, death, and altered states.

This meaning is not accidental. It reflects an older worldview in which knowledge was embodied, relational, and often held by women.

A final remembrance

It is worth remembering that without conscious women, without women who knew, there would be no continuity of human life as we know it today. Midwives, healers, caretakers, and knowledge keepers sustained communities long before institutions claimed authority over medicine or spirituality.

Thanks to all conscious women, we are still here, now, in the form we are.

SALVE FEMINA!

If you are interested in Witchcraft, you can explore our collection of prints and talismans here: