A Roman soldier stationed in Gaul around 58 BCE wrote home that the local druids kept no written records. Everything was memorized. The joke, centuries later, is that the people who burned for witchcraft left no testimony either. The Burning Times Testament is a 20th-century document, not a medieval one, and it was written to give voice to the dead. It is a poetic lament, a political manifesto, and a ritual text rolled into one, composed by the American Wiccan priestess Ann Moura (Aoumiel) in the 1990s. It has no historical basis as a genuine artifact from the witch trials, but it has become a central devotional text in certain traditions of modern witchcraft.
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The Burning Times Testament is a 1990s Wiccan ritual text by Ann Moura that mourns the European witch trials and reclaims the voices of the accused. It is not medieval, but it is widely used in modern pagan practice.
What the Burning Times Testament Actually Says
The text is a first-person confession spoken by a witch who has been condemned to burn. It opens with a declaration of identity: “I am a witch. By that I mean I am a healer, a teacher, a seeker of the hidden knowledge.” The speaker recounts her crimes: gathering herbs, speaking to spirits, refusing to attend church. She names the tools of her craft and the gods she serves. The document ends with a curse on her accusers and a blessing on those who remember her.
The full text runs about 800 words. It is written in a cadenced, almost biblical English, with repeated refrains. The phrase “I am a witch” appears seven times. The word “burn” appears five times, always in the context of fire as both punishment and purification.
Ann Moura published the Testament in her 1997 book Grimoire for the Green Witch. She claimed it was based on “traditional sources” but never specified which ones. No manuscript of the Testament predates the 1990s. No trial record from the European witch hunts contains language that matches it. The document is a modern composition, and its power comes from its emotional truth, not its historical accuracy.
Where the Phrase “Burning Times” Comes From
The term “Burning Times” itself is a 20th-century invention. It was popularized by the feminist writer Mary Daly in her 1978 book Gyn/Ecology, where she used it to describe the European witch hunts as a gendered genocide. Daly estimated that nine million women were executed. That number has no basis in any historical census. Modern scholarship, led by historians like Brian Levack and Anne Barstow, places the total number of executions for witchcraft in Europe between 40,000 and 60,000, of whom roughly 75 to 80 percent were women.
The phrase stuck because it was useful. It condensed centuries of persecution into two syllables. It made the suffering concrete. By the 1980s, “the Burning Times” had become a standard term in Wiccan liturgy, used in rituals, songs, and invocations. The Burning Times Testament emerged directly from this context. It gave the dead a script.
How the Testament Is Used in Practice
The Testament is not a historical document, but it is a ritual one. We have seen it read aloud at Samhain circles, at women’s spirituality gatherings, and at public pagan events. The reader typically stands alone, often in a dark robe, holding a single candle. The text is spoken slowly, with pauses after each accusation.
The ritual function is clear. The reader becomes the voice of the executed. The congregation becomes the witnesses. The act of speaking the words is meant to break the silence that the trials imposed. The curse at the end is usually softened in group settings, or omitted entirely. The blessing is always kept.
Some solitary practitioners use the Testament as a meditation text. They read it by candlelight on the night of October 31, then sit in silence for thirteen minutes. Thirteen is the number of moons in a solar year and the number of women traditionally said to make a coven. The silence is for the names that were never recorded.
What the Testament Gets Wrong (and Why It Matters)
Historians have pointed out several problems with the Burning Times Testament, and we should name them plainly.
First, the method of execution. Most convicted witches in Europe were hanged, not burned. Burning was reserved for those who refused to confess or who relapsed after confession. In Scotland, witches were strangled before being burned. In Germany, some were burned alive. But the majority died on the gallows. The Testament’s focus on fire reflects symbolic truth, not legal reality.
Second, the identity of the speaker. The Testament presents the witch as a wise woman, a healer, a pagan. Most accused witches were ordinary Christian villagers. They prayed to the same God as their accusers. They did not worship a Horned God or a Triple Goddess. The charge of heresy was imposed on them, not claimed by them.
Third, the number of victims. The Testament implies a vast, uncounted multitude. The actual number is smaller, though still horrifying. The exaggeration does not honor the dead. It distorts the historical record and makes it harder to understand what actually happened.
We state these facts not to dismiss the Testament, but to place it where it belongs: in the category of devotional literature, not historical evidence. A modern prayer can be sincere without being ancient.
The Testament’s Place in Modern Witchcraft
Despite its historical inaccuracies, the Burning Times Testament has become a fixture in certain traditions. It appears in the liturgy of the Reclaiming tradition, founded by Starhawk in San Francisco in the 1970s. It is used in some Dianic Wiccan circles, where the focus on women’s suffering aligns with feminist theology. It is less common in British Traditional Wicca, which tends to emphasize mythic cycles over historical trauma.
The Testament also appears in the growing body of “witchcore” content online. TikTok videos and Instagram posts often quote the opening lines without attribution. The text has been stripped of its author and its context. It floats free, presented as an ancient curse or a recovered manuscript. This is how misinformation spreads, even among people who mean well.
We recommend reading the Testament as what it is: a 1990s ritual text by a specific author, written for a specific purpose. It is not the voice of a medieval witch. It is the voice of a modern witch imagining what that voice might have said. That distinction matters, not because it diminishes the text, but because it makes the text honest.
How the Testament Compares to Other “Witch Trial” Documents
The Burning Times Testament is not the only modern text that claims to speak for the executed. The Malleus Maleficarum (1487) is the most famous witch-hunting manual, but it was written by two Dominican inquisitors, not by witches. The Compendium Maleficarum (1608) is a similar work by Francesco Maria Guazzo. Neither contains the voice of the accused.
The closest parallel to the Testament is the Ars Goetia, the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon, which claims to contain the seals and names of 72 demons. That text dates to the 17th century, but its attribution to King Solomon is legendary, not historical. Both the Goetia and the Testament are pseudepigrapha: works attributed to a source that did not write them.
The difference is that the Goetia pretends to be ancient. The Testament, in its original publication, was presented as a modern composition. The confusion arose later, as the text spread beyond its original audience.
FAQ
Is the Burning Times Testament a real medieval document? No. It was written by Ann Moura in the 1990s and published in her 1997 book Grimoire for the Green Witch. No medieval copy exists.
Who wrote the Burning Times Testament? The American Wiccan author Ann Moura, who writes under the craft name Aoumiel. She is known for her Green Witchcraft series.
What is the Burning Times Testament used for? It is read aloud in Wiccan rituals, especially at Samhain, as a way to honor those executed in the European witch hunts. Some practitioners use it for personal meditation.
Were most witches actually burned at the stake? No. Most convicted witches in Europe were hanged. Burning was less common and was reserved for specific legal categories.
Related Guides
The Burning Times Testament belongs to a larger conversation about how modern pagans remember the past. For a broader look at the documents that shaped occult history, see our guide to occult historical texts. To understand the symbols that appear in the Testament, including the pentacle and the cauldron, visit our glossary of ritual symbols. And for the full context of the witch trials themselves, read our guide to the European witch hunts.
The Testament is not a relic. It is a prayer written in the 1990s, spoken by people who needed a voice for the voiceless. That need has not gone away. The text will keep being read, and we will keep pointing out where it came from. Both things can be true at once.