Kamsa instructed a Witch named Putana

After consulting with his demonic ministers, Kaṁsa instructed a witch named Pūtanā, who knew the black art of killing small children by ghastly sinful methods, to kill all kinds of children in the cities, villages and pasturing grounds. Such witches can play their black art only where there is no chanting or hearing of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa. It is said that wherever the chanting of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa is done, even negligently, all bad elements–witches, ghosts, and dangerous calamities–immediately disappear. And this is certainly true of the place where the chanting of the holy name of Kṛṣṇa is done seriously–especially in Vṛndāvana when the Supreme Lord was personally present. Therefore, the doubts of Nanda Mahārāja were certainly based on affection for Kṛṣṇa. Actually there was no danger from the activities of Pūtanā, despite her powers. Such witches are called khecarī, which means they can fly in the sky.

This black art of witchcraft is still practiced by some women in the remote northwestern side of India. They can transfer themselves from one place to another on the branch of an uprooted tree. Pūtanā knew this witchcraft, and therefore she is described in the Bhāgavatam as khecarī.

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From the Sixth Chapter of Kṛṣṇa, “Pūtanā Killed.”

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https://prabhupadabooks.com/kb/1/6?d=1

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PŪTANĀ

Pūtanā represents the pseudo-guru. The pseudo-guru may appear in one or both of two forms:

1. A deceitful, so-called guru who preaches sense gratification or liberation or both. In some cases this may be a person who is engaged in some Kṛṣṇa conscious activity but has not realized the course of pure devotional service and tries to give instructions to his disciples beyond his own understanding, or without regard for their situations

2. The inwardly manifest “spiritual” guide, in the form of the mundane empiric reasoning faculty (the material mind), is also like Pūtanā.

In order to show mercy to His devotees Kṛṣṇa sucks the life out of Pūtanā’s breast to protect His own innocent ecstasy, which has arisen within the young devotees’ hearts.

According to the Brahmā-vaivarta Purāna, in her last life Pūtanā was Ratnamāla, the younger sister of Bali Mahārāja, although the Garga Saṁhīta says she was his daughter.

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Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thākura on Pūtanā

In one issue of the Harmonist Śrīla Bhaktisiddhānta Sarasvatī Thākura wrote extensively on the subject of Pūtanā, as follows:

(Point 3)
Pūtanā is the slayer of all infants. The baby, when he or she comes out of the mother’s womb, falls at once into the hands of the pseudo teachers of religion. These teachers are successful in forestalling the attempts of the good preceptor whose help is never sought by the atheists of this world at the baptisms of their babies. This is ensured by the arrangements of all established churches of the world. They have been successful only in supplying watchful Pūtanās for effecting the spiritual destruction of persons from the moment of their birth with the co-operation of their worldly parents. No human contrivance can prevent these Pūtanās from obtaining possession of the pulpits. This is due to the general prevalence of atheistic disposition in the people of this world.

(Point 4)
The church that has the best chance of survival in this damned world is that of atheism under the convenient guise of theism. The churches have always proved the staunchest upholders of the grossest form of worldliness from which even the worst of non-ecclesiastical criminals are found to recoil.

It is not from any deliberate opposition to the ordained clergy that these observations are made. The original purpose of the established churches of the world may not always be objectionable. But no stable religious arrangement for instructing the masses has yet been successful. The Supreme Lord Śrī Caitanya Mahāprabhu, in pursuance of the teachings of the scriptures enjoins all absence of conventionalism for the teachers of the eternal religion. It does not follow that the mechanical adoption of the unconventional life by any person will make him a fit teacher of religion. Regulation is necessary for controlling the inherent worldliness of conditioned souls.

(Point 5)
But no mechanical regulation has any value, even for such a purpose. The bonafide teacher of religion is neither any product of nor the favourer of any mechanical system. In his hands no system has likewise the chance of degenerating into a lifeless arrangement. The mere pursuit of fixed doctrines and fixed liturgies cannot hold a person to the true spirit of doctrine or liturgy.

The idea of an organized church in an intelligible form, indeed, marks the close of the living spiritual movement. The great ecclesiastical establishments are the dykes and the dams to retain the current that cannot be held by any such contrivances. They, indeed, indicate a desire on the part of the masses to exploit a spiritual movement for their own purpose. They also unmistakably indicate the end of the absolute and unconventional guidance of the bona fide spiritual teacher. The people of this world understand preventive systems, they have no idea at all of the unprevented positive eternal life. Neither can there be any earthly contrivance for the permanent preservation of the life eternal on this mundane plane on the popular scale.

(Point 6)
Those are, therefore, greatly mistaken who are disposed to look forward to the amelioration of the worldly state in any worldly sense from the worldly success of any really spiritual movement. It is these worldly expectants who become the patrons of the mischievous race of the pseudo-teachers of religion, the Pūtanās, whose congenial function is to stifle the theistic disposition at the very moment of its suspected appearance. But the real theistic disposition can never be stifled by the efforts of those Pūtanās. The Pūtanās have power only over the atheists. It is a thankless but salutary task which they perform for the benefit of their unwilling victims.

(Point 7)
But as soon as theistic disposition proper makes its appearance in the pure cognitive essence of the awakened soul, the Pūtanas are decisively silenced at the very earliest stage of their encounter with new-born Kṛṣṇa. The would-be slayer is herself slain. This is the reward of the negative services that the Pūtanās unwittingly render to the cause of theism by strangling all hypocritical demonstrations against their own hypocrisy.

(Point 8)
But Pūtanā does not at all like to receive her reward in the only form which involves the total destruction of her wrong personality. King Kaṁsa also does not like to lose the services of the most trusted of his agents. The effective silencing of the whole race of pseudo-teachers of religion is the first clear indication of the appearance of the Absolute on the mundane plane. The bonafide teacher of the Absolute heralds the Advent of Kṛṣṇa by his uncompromising campaign against the pseudo-teachers of religion.

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