This text presents a discussion of the history of one course in historiographic and anthropological studies of mass witch persecutions, namely the course that considers them a psychopathological phenomenon, and considers the Early Modern Period a period of madness – hysteria, mass hysteria, fantasy. Such studies are based on the tradition of medical, neurological, psychiatric and psychoanalytical work which started with the psychopathologization of women accused of witchcraft, where Charcot and Freud play a significant role. An example of a witch trial record from a trial held in Križevci in 1751 and 1752 is discussed from the point of view of hysteria as a sort of lust and fear in relation to the dominant aff ective policy and the affective atmosphere, indicating an inseparability between personal fears and anxieties and social dynamics.