“None of them actually believe in witchcraft at all.”
Not to defend witch hunts, or the opportunity of a witch hunt for revenge or profit, which surely happened; but at the time, witchcraft, demons, spirits, and the like were universally believed.
Two dynamics came together at the time. First, there was no understanding at all of the natural forces of disease, adverse climate, natural disasters and the like, so supernatural explanations were all they had.
Second, it’s not a coincidence that all that occurred during the Little Ice Age. The cold climate resulted in repeated and prolonged failure of crops, massive starvation, and suffering from winter cold. The debilitation from malnutrition and cold made the entire European population vulnerable to epidemics. Entire towns died off in a matter of weeks, even days, from plague. In the seventy five years 1350–1425, perhaps two thirds of the population died from disease, cold and starvation.
This was after centuries of benevolence and easy living, ample crops, flourishing of the arts, population boom. People naturally tried to make sense of all that. In that condition, given the ignorance of science, the only answer they had was supernatural.
Widespread belief in witches and witchcraft was just one part of that gestalt.
