Toil and Trouble Quotes

“If people could use the occult as shorthand for invented power to be taken away, then why couldn’t women use it as a way to gain power for themselves?”
― Lisa Kröger, Toil and Trouble: A Women's History of the Occult

“Calling a woman a witch was a way to punish her for any behavior that could be interpreted as outside a woman’s place in a Puritan community. Whether women were seen as too seductive or too outspoken, the accusation of witchcraft was a warning of what would happen should that power ever be too real.”
― Lisa Kröger, Toil and Trouble: A Women's History of the Occult

“When women engage in rebellion in the form of occult resistance, they are labeled witches, for good or for bad.”
― Lisa Kröger, Toil and Trouble: A Women's History of the Occult

“In a way, women have always existed in occulted space. They were meant to be hidden; their role was one that existed behind the scenes, as caretaker of the family and keeper of the home. Their role was never intended to be public—that is, until the occult told them that they could step forward and take control of their own destiny.”
― Lisa Kröger, Toil and Trouble: A Women's History of the Occult

“Over the years, women have been variously cast as unnatural, supernatural, angelic, demonic, attuned to death, or in league with the Devil.”
― Lisa Kröger, Toil and Trouble: A Women's History of the Occult