If you’ve hung around folklore for long, you’ve probably heard of the witching hour. In occult terms, it’s apparently that time when witches (and demons) are at their most powerful. It’s sometimes referred to as a ‘chime hour’.
The phrase does also have uses in different areas. So the time your baby might cry every night, or even stock market
It seems the journalists of old enjoyed the mystery associated with the phrase.
But for the purposes of this post, we’re sticking to the occult version. We’ll look into what the witching hour is, when the witching hour is, and whether it may exist.
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So what time is the witching hour?
Some people believe it begins at midnight with a new day. This would make it the hour between midnight and 1 am. Look at the fairy tales in which a spell breaks, or wears off, by midnight.
A simple news article about a heavy snow storm in Cheshire refers to “the witching hour of midnight” (Chester Chronicle 1857: 6). They’re pretty definite on when they think it happens.
But a short piece in the Shields Daily Gazette from 1890 by Blackwood’s Magazine disputes the idea of a witching hour. For them, it lasted far longer. According to the piece, “[t]he witches of the olden times had a much longer time to themselves – clearly up to sunrise” (1890: 4).
The article disputes the idea that witches “are nearly always represented nowadays as fleeing at the midnight hour” as being “a very modern notion” (1890: 4). For them, the witches actually have from sunset to sunrise. Depending on the time of year, that could be a pretty lengthy period!
Bear in mind the article doesdraw its ‘facts’ from the legend of Tam o’ Shanter and the apparent folklore knowledge of Robert Burns. So we can potentially take their argument with a pinch of salt.
Possibly not midnight then?
Others believe the witching hour to be the hour between 3 am and 4 am. So it’s a time when most people are safely tucked up in bed, fast asleep and ostensibly dead to the world.
The trouble with this interpretation is that 3 am is sometimes known as the Devil’s hour. Christ is believed to have died at 3 pm, so naturally, the Devil is an inversion of that. Or could it be the fact that the demonic likes to do things in threes to mock the Holy Trinity? That really depends how much you want to listen to Ed Warren in The Conjuring.
Commentators noted the fact that Butch DeFeo (of Amityville Horror fame) murdered his family at 3:15 am. (I’d also point out I was born between 3 and 4 am…make of that what you will).
While researching this post, I did find some people disputing the time. The rather amusing New Zealand horror comedy Deathgasm even sees the hapless heroes tasked with performing the Black Hymn during the Devil’s Hour to avoid the ascension of a demon. They (quite logically) ask if the Devil observes Daylight Savings Time.
The trouble with saying the witching hour is 3 am is this confuses witches with the Devil. The Devil, or Satan, whatever you want to call him, has nothing to do with witchcraft.
But we’re not going to split hairs about the time of day. We’re just going to look at what it is.
So where did the witching hour gets its name?
Some believe it was because witches were more active at midnight (or 3 am, if you’re sticking to the Devil version). According to this theory, the forces of darkness are more active during the night. They make it a more powerful time to do magic.
I’d venture to say “hogwash” to that. Given the persecution of those labelled as ‘witches’, it’s hardly surprising they’d conduct their activities under the cover of darkness. Not to generate more power – but to simply work without interruptions.
If you were mixing up a love potion for a client, would you want all and sundry gawping at you?
(Read Willow Winsham’s Accused to learn more about the persecution of witches).
Also, patterns of sleep were very different in earlier times.
Lucy Worsley explains the theory first put forward by historian Roger Ekirch that before the industrial revolution, people largely slept in two instalments (2011: 95). It’s unsurprising since heating and lighting was scarce, so spending time in bed was a good way to pass the cold winter nights.
That said, “[t]he British night lasts fourteen hours in winter, and human beings simply don’t need to sleep for that long” (2011: 95). Hence the first and second sleep, with a break in the middle. Growing urbanisation and better forms of artificial light meant people could dispense with the two-sleep model.
So many people could have been up and about at either midnight or 3 am, doing very mundane things indeed!
Does the time affect ghost stories?
Sometimes. Many believe that ghosts are more active at this time because the veil between the worlds is thinner.
Apparently, mediums are more active during the witching hour. Precisely because the ghosts are.
Perhaps that theory might have more credence if ‘psychics’ like Sally Morgan held their seance stage shows at 3 am, instead of 8 pm.
But I digress.
It’s possible that ghosts are more active at this time purely because people notice the time when they’re startled during sleep. If something wakes you during the night, your first instinct is usually to check the time.
When I did paranormal investigations at sites like Newcastle’s Castle Keep, we often finished up at 3 am. Everyone was tired and any activity had often calmed down by 2 am, if not sooner. Were the ghosts finding it harder to manifest because we ran out of energy?
Or we were just too tired to see them? I’ll leave that one with you.
Does the witching hour actually exist?
Popular culture would have you believe that it does. Personally? I don’t think so. When even Martha Stewart is getting on the witching hour bandwagon, you have to start asking questions.
Time zones make things difficult, as they always do. I’m in GMT so my witching hour will be different from that of EST. Don’t forget the problems associated with clocks going forwards or back to suit the season. Although that could lead to some comic encounters among the dead.
“Oh Stan, you went out early again! Did you forget to put the clocks forward?”
I don’t think supernatural entities restrict their activities to a certain time of night. I also don’t think that witches were only active for an hour.
The folklore is surprisingly scant. Much of it relates to the supposed activities of witches, demons and ghosts. But I did find one incredibly interesting reference in American folklore. Candi K. Cann discusses La Mala Hora, translated as ‘The Evil Hour’. Naturally, that becomes ‘the witching hour’.
But here’s where it gets interesting. The Evil Hour is not a time of day, but rather an evil spirit. She wanders country roads and haunts lone travellers late at night.
La Mala Hora often appears at the crossroads, and seeing her is apparently an omen of death. She doesn’t actually kill anyone – she just reminds people that they will die at some point. (Well, she’s right. We will). Here, La Mala Hora is essentially a warning to avoid lonely places late at night.
I think I prefer that interpretation of the witching hour. And there’s a lesson there to be learned by us all.
How about you? Do you believe in the witching hour?
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References
Blackwood’s Magazine (1890), ‘The Witching Hour’, Shields Daily Gazette, 25 September, p. 4.
Chester Chronicle (1857), ‘A Wise Sheep’, Chester Chronicle, 18 April, p. 6.
Worsley, Lucy (2011), If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home, London: Faber and Faber.
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I’ve always been told the witching hour was the safest time to celebrate pagan rituals/do pagan work during the burning times, as you described. The stuff about the devil just sounds like religious propaganda.
I always quite liked the wee hours because it’s so quiet. It’s hardly surprising others might choose such times if they don’t want to be disturbed.
i was just reading this between 3 and 4 am. i do not believe in christianity, as a polytheist, yet i heard 3 knocks from inside my bedroom closet and, in all honesty, i got quite scared
Did you go and see what made the knocks?
I am a not a religious woman but i am starting to become worried i am lacking the knowledge of the bible so fully intend on reading all of it.
I heard footsteps climbing the stairs in my ex boyfriends flat, an nobody but him aand i were there an had settled down asleep on the living room sofa when this happened, it was 2:50 or 3:00 or 3:10am when i looked at clock to see what time it was as i was so frightened. I waited an listened while sat up a little with my head poking above my boyfriends, but next i felt a ball of something i could not see move around the outside of the tv room and then past my face. I was so frightened but wanted to prove it was not what i thought it was..a spirit, it really was something like this though. The thing i felt was kind of like if you hold your had in front of your face an move it around past your mouth while talking,you will feel and sort of hear the change in sound, that is best how i can describe what i felt. I also heard this thing running around the small flat, a 1 bedroomed flat which did not have as much floor to run on as what it sounded like this spirit was, i cannot explain sorry but i no what i felt.
And yes i asked myself at the time if it could be an open window or door etc but the fact i heard the kitchen tap turn of and it sounded like a glass being filled up i had no idea what else this could be.
This was not an old flat either. The boyfriend was 23, a guy who’s grandad had just died a week before but he never new very well at all.
My boyfriend later believed it was his grandad saying bye to him. The spirit sounded to me to be a child because the footsteps were slow and the running was fast.
Gillwilly, Castletown Drive in Penrith Cumbria where this happened and i want to go back see if the other people living there noticed anything but it would be wrong i no. There had not been anything like this happen ever again to me though at the flat. When my dad died i begged for him to do something so id no he was safe and happy in another world but nothing ever has,. I no this was a spirit an i fully believe in the 3am thing.
I really hope the three am thing isn’t real because I wake up at three every morning-on accident. I don’t have an alarm or anything. Its really been freaking me out. then again, maybe i can contact my Tia…or maybe i’m turning into a ghost!!!XD
Sometimes, once you start a habit of waking at a particular time, it trains the body into always waking at that time. Hopefully that’s all it is!
For many of us witches it’s the witching hours and it’s generally between midnight and 6am. That’s when I feel the most power from the moon. Depending on the time of the year is when the witching hours change, because we need the moon for our Majick, to charge our water, stones, crystals, mirrors, tea, herbs. As you said it’s the thin veil between worlds. Especially since the spirit realm is largely used in our meditation to seek guidance from our Spirit guides, deity, and ancestors.
How about Friday 13th? My grt grandfather is supposed to have died on the thirteenth hour of Friday the thirteenth. I usually try to avoid doing dangerous things on Friday 13ths!
Friday the 13th would be another blog post entirely!
I was in the middle of the woods on friday the 13th and I woke up at 3:00….then again, Ive been waking up at 3 for a while now…without an alarm. ill let you ponder over that
The “witching hour” is 3 AM ~ that is what I have always heard…and though it is technically 3 “in the morning”, it is truly the “dead of night” when most of us are sleeping and it is the best time for demons to come out and play
I have also heard that it was noon until 1 am, hence the blog post.
Yes, I do believe in the Witching Hour. It was a little past 3 a.m. I was in the bathroom washing my hands when I looked up and seen an orb float behind me like a fluttered butterfly, never seen one without a camera
I was told that It was time to take off my Vail, and that we have to open our third eye. Jan
How would I open my (third eye) 3rd eye? My names is James David Purtlebaugh Jr. Please contact me back on facebook if you could I would greatly appreciate it.
Another interesting post. Thank you!
My pleasure!
I tend to wake up frequently between 3-4 am. Tonight, I was awoken by a bat flying in my face randomly in my dream. I do believe there’s something going on while we’re out of it. Thank you so much for your well-informed article!!
Glad you found it helpful!
Me too I wake up at 4am regularly…my “protective ” dog many times gets us up at 3 ish and comes back to bed at 4:05 and yes after we turn the clocks back it will be 2-3. …
Ah dogs know what is really going on!
every morning at three i wake up with the feeling that someone-or something is watching me, and i started sleeping in my sisters room because i saw a THING outside my window. it had a bony face and hollow eyes, its back was kinda slouched and bony and it had these claws… ugh. its a true story. it also had these horns like an elks. If you have any sort of explanation, plz tell!!!!
i belive in it i mean my sister heard weird sounds at 3 am lights turned all of at 3am so
Me too I smelt ramen noodles at that time and i wasn’t hungry
the ghost is eating your noodles lock them somewhere
Great article!
Does Friday the 13th affect 3 AM? PLEASE reply before 12 o clock PM. I need this information!!!!!!!!!!
Sorry, I didn’t see this sooner! I would have thought it was 3am every day… and there’s lots of evidence to suggest Friday 13th has no bearing on anything anyway.
I’m guessing my 11 yr old daughter is a medium because that’s what my medium friend says. My daughter sees lots of different spirits in our home and she says she gets woken up almost every morning at 3am on the dot. She says she doesn’t know whether the spirits are waking her up or what the reason could be. She doesn’t mention seeing them a whole lot at that time except for when it’s a full moon or a new moon. She came in my room the other night and says “mom I see them everywhere in there. What’s going on?”. So I look up the moon phase calendar and it was a new moon. She sees the spirits all the time even during the day but more of them and more often on a full or new moon. We still are not sure why she wakes up at 3 am every morning though.
It could be the Witching Hour. But the body also gets used to waking up at set times. Does she also wake up at 3 am if she’s not at home? Like on vacation?
First of all I want to thank you for an enjoyable read.
The way I was taught the ‘witching hour’ was when the moon is at its peak in the sky. This time constantly changes and to my understanding spells were cast when astrological alignments were favorable for the certain spell, which all could effect the actual time of day. What are your thoughts on that?
My thoughts on a time of day that ghost activity is higher; is on the fence. I have had experiences during the day with shadowy figures appearing in photos taken during the day. I feel like the energy presence could just chose to interact or not.
You’re right, a lot of magical systems follow ‘correspondences’ so to get the best results, you’d cast a spell when the astrological conditions were right. Based on that logic, yes, the witching hour would move throughout the day depending on what you needed!
I’ve come across 2 different scientific papers that confirm that cosmological alignments actually affect chemical reactions. One had to do with a silver compound and the phases of the moon, and the other a lead compound and the occultation of Saturn (occult literally means “hidden”, and Saturn, represented by lead, was being hidden by Jupiter at the time). I have a strong scientific background, but I also believe in the genuine meaning of science… don’t “throw the baby out with the bath water”, so to speak. There was a reason alchemy involved and incorporated astronomy/astrology into chemical reactions…it has a definite effect. We should LEARN from our history… not just throw it out.
I would like to clarify to everyone. I am a pagan witch and the crap you see in movies is well crap. The true witching hour is from 11:30 pm-11:59 pm when you do good work. 12 am-12:30 am is when you do workings for bad things. Christianity believes that the Witching Hour or “Devils Hour” is at 3 am as an inversion of Christ. However; they are wrong and have been.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never come across that in any of my reading. Most of the witchcraft texts I have recommend planetary hours for workings, which have nothing to do with 11:30 – 12:30. I suppose it just depends what people are taught.
He is referring to pagan, witchcraft, pagan, wicca, Hermes, celts, etc, are all separate identities yet tend to mingle with one another from time to time. That might be his take on his religion, however it’s different for every witch. Like for me and my coven it’s more than just an hour, it follows the moon so it’s between midnight and 6am. We choose midnight simply because it’s the moment between the old day and the new.
I have to say there is something to the idea of a witching hour. I was in the fire service for 30 years and after about 15 years I began to notice a pattern in our calls. Most emergency calls at night were between the hours of 3 and 4 a.m. I began to notice this pattern and did a history search of our response reports and found that there were a higher percentage of calls during that time than at any other time of the day. Strange.
That is weird. Did you ever figure out why?
Have you heard of the Praying Medic? He has discussed along the lines of this. I’m sure most people here would find some of the topics to be ‘out there’, but he has witness quite a lot of very interesting stuff as an EMT. He has discussed spiritual translocation, and the hour when some people that delve into the occult, will utilize it to affect others in some way or another, sometimes for bad, sometimes for what they may think is ‘good’
I have had many phenomena happen to me at night and not in the daytime !
Ooh like what?
My name is Alina and I don’t belive on devil hour because I believe on our God and when I go to bed I always read a line of holy quran (our holy book) but
I’m thankful that you gave us such a information
Similar here, but prayers to Jesus. Prior to me becoming a more involved follower of Christ, I had things disturb me at night, around 3am. Waking up to knocking noise under the bed several nights in a row, someone jumping on the bed like a child but no one there, a floating dark dusty presence along side my bed and above me, for example. Once I began to read about the spiritual realms and God and how Jesus gives us a portion of power and authority over demons and sickness, I began to use the authority in prayer. 1st night after my husband and I prayed over our house, it was like a heavy weight taken from it. No more knocking. Pray every night for heavenly holy protection, for unholy spirits to leave, and for a hedge of protection to be placed around the home.
Please does anyone know what this floating dusty dark presence . Like cloud mist almost ?i felt like my eye sight is deteriorating but I’ve gotten my eyes checked and have my new prescription soooo i feel like I’m going crazy but I know I’m not and I don’t like telling people but I more and more weird stuffs happening especially 12am on ward til the sun comes out basically
I have ignored the stuff during the daylight but it’s there i just haven’t been knowledginh it I just can’t take it anymore ! Please help
In order to fully believe in God you have to acknowledge the existence of the devil, the prince of power of the air! He is as said, because he’s hijacked the airwaves of the earth from the 2nd heaven where he dwells, sending messages of deception and chaos and his many spirits of sin. The better you’re much more aware of his dealings, the better you can equip your self to protect against attack!
I have experienced 3 knocks on my mums bed and another one knock what does that mean ?
Hm, I’m not sure. Was it a wooden bed?
Look up hypnopompic and hypnogogic hallucinations.
I’m aware of both of them.
I have woken up at 3am my whole life, since I was a child, almost every night. I do not know why. I never saw or felt anything supernatural or strange. It doesn’t matter what time zone, USA, Europe, Hawaii, or if clocks were changed. It is always 3am local time. BTW I was born at 3pm EDT. I was also born in a heatwave an prefer warmer climates.
In my experience, between midnight and 1 am is the sinister dark hour. More likely to get nightmares or sleep paralysis. 3 – 4 am is when the celestials come out. The room is light, and busy, even in winter. Ideas and inspiration gets thrown at ya like coconuts!
I do work nights in a care home and from some time we do have a very strong spiritual appearance bang on at 3am and it last from few minutes to few hours. We do hear someone whistling same tune on and on, feet shuffling and our floor does creack. I didn’t hear about witching hour till my manager mentioned today.
Did your manager say when they thought the witching hour was?
I thought that witching hour is between 1 am to 3:30 am…..
I haven’t heard that one before – it’s amazing how many variations there are!
Not once have I seen anything about 3am… being a perversion of the holy trinity; which is what I was taught?
I think it’s activity at 3 am being the perversion of the time Christ apparently died, rather than the time itself being an issue.