Yes, and thank you for asking.
The nine million figure was proposed sometime at the end of the last century and has been propagated in a variety of places, either through ignorance or willful disregard for historical standards. Besides Read's film, the number is mentioned in Charlie Murphy's song "The Burning Times," by Starhawk in her appendix to _Dreaming the Dark_, by Mary Daly in her _Gyn/Ecology_ and was promoted by Gerald Gardner both at the witch museum he took over and in his 1950's book _Witchcraft Today_. Current scholars put the number between 20,000
documented executions and estimates up to 200,000 total deaths (allowing generously for lost records and extra-judicial or collateral killings such as suicides, deaths under torture and vigilante murder).
The debate in Green Egg took place somewhere around issues #96-100, if I recall correctly, mainly in the letters section and in response to an Otter/Oberon editorial. One excellent article cited in a letter by the editor of _Enchante_ magazine was Professor Ronald Hutton's article on this which appeared in _The Wiccan_ a few years back. In it, Hutton estimates around 40,000 deaths. I've a copy of this article on my shell to post if someone can contact me and arrange written permission from Dr. Hutton to do so.
The issue of the great European Witch Hunts is an important one, deserving of serious study for a variety of reasons. Misinformation regarding any aspect of such study, however, is irresponsible. Below is a list of some books that address this question, from an annotated bibliography I have posted previously.
For the record, this largely WAS a war of terrorism against women, as very lucidly described in Read's film, by Mary Daly and in Murphy's song. Barstow in her _Witchcraze_ makes this very clear, noting that 80% of those accused and 85% of those executed during the trials were women. The killings, however, seem more to have been a byproduct of Catholic and Protestant conflicts around the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.
The misogyny of these hunts and trials was real. The killings were real. It is unlikely the women executed identified themselves as witches, though, and the "nine million dead" figure, while an appealing martyrology, is historically unsupported.
List of texts follows:
Ronald HUTTON, _The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles: Their Nature and Legacy_ (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991). ISBN 0-631-18946-7. Examines the pagan religions of the ancient British isles with an academic eye, touching on archaeological and other evidence often used to support mythological claims of Wicca. Notes the many ambiguities of examining such evidence, touching on key ideas and authors such as Frazer, Gimbutas, Graves, Murray, et al from an academic perspective. A strong and compassionate academic analysis.
Bengst ANKARLOO and Gunstav HENNINGSEN (eds), _Early Modern European Witchcraft: Centres and Peripheries_ (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990). ISBN 0-19-820388-8. A collection of academic essays touching on the wide variety of the great European witch-hunts while discussing issues and methods of historiography on a very specific basis. Fascinating particulars to counter notions of a monolithic and uniform "burning times."
Anne Llewellyn BARSTOW, _Witchcraze: A New History of the European Witch-Hunts_, (San Francisco: Harper, 1994). ISBN 0-06-250049-X. Addresses the witch-hunts from a feminist perspective and with academic particulars. Notes that 80% of those accused and 85% of those executed in these trials were women. Estimates 200,000 total dead during this period, with a "body-count" appendix, broken down by location.
Brian P. LEVACK, _The Witch Hunt in Early Modern Europe_, (London: 1987). A classic I haven't read, reportedly estimates total dead at 60,000. Levack is an acknowledged authority in this field, and editor of another, foot-wide collection of essays by historians examining witchcraft, the occult and trials through centuries of European modernity.
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