Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works dot com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow
Speaker 1: your Mind. My name is Robert lamp and I'm Julie Douglas.
Speaker 1: We are recording this episode on Halloween on the thirty
Speaker 1: one of October, which is kind of fitting because we
Speaker 1: are talking about witches, uh, and we're talking about the
Speaker 1: persecution of which is and the hammer of which is
Speaker 1: the malius mellificarum. We'll get into all that in a minute,
Speaker 1: but really the starting point here is, of course, the
Speaker 1: idea of the which the modern idea of the witch
Speaker 1: that emerges from past lies, truths, atrocities, all of which
Speaker 1: we're going to discuss in this episode. For your part, Julie,
Speaker 1: what what do you think of when you hear the
Speaker 1: word which, Well, I always think about the archetype, right,
Speaker 1: I think about a witch on a broom. I think
Speaker 1: about all the children's stories which are rife with witches,
Speaker 1: from Snow White to the Wizard of Oz, right, which
Speaker 1: is are so ingrained in our culture, and so on
Speaker 1: a personal level, I think as a female, it's always
Speaker 1: been of interest to me because I think it's some
Speaker 1: sort of subconscious level when you are a female. You
Speaker 1: know that this is an archetype and that you know,
Speaker 1: society has been saying for a long time, you know,
Speaker 1: women have the sort of evil side to them, and
Speaker 1: that's really where the roots of this idea of which
Speaker 1: is comes from. Which we'll discuss and will unpack this
Speaker 1: idea a little bit more later, but backing up and
Speaker 1: sort of looking at this topic, I think it's fascinating
Speaker 1: in the context of the last four hundred, six hundred
Speaker 1: years of history to try to get a bead on
Speaker 1: psychologically where we're coming from. Um, no matter what topic
Speaker 1: it is that we're covering, there's always going to be
Speaker 1: a bit of flavoring from this idea, of of which
Speaker 1: is whether or not we know it just sounds like
Speaker 1: a ridiculous statements to say, but kind of looking you
Speaker 1: to your own life and look at how stories or
Speaker 1: even news stories or fiction is created, and then look
Speaker 1: back to these tales of witches and you will see
Speaker 1: some of some of the roots or the blueprint of
Speaker 1: how we go about our lives. Like from a modern standpoint,
Speaker 1: which the gender issues involved in the idea of the
Speaker 1: witch are fascinating. Think of Hollywood, for instance, countless beautiful
Speaker 1: younger actresses, they have all the starring female roles. Then
Speaker 1: they get a little older, what do they inevitably play?
Speaker 1: They end up playing witches. I mean, it's almost a
Speaker 1: joke at this point. In fact, I've heard maybe it
Speaker 1: was Glenn Close, I want to say, who was joking
Speaker 1: about reaching the age where she suddenly was receiving a
Speaker 1: lot of roles for witches. Yeah, you know which, Like,
Speaker 1: what does that say about us? And certainly the witch
Speaker 1: is an important character in fiction. I always think to
Speaker 1: the witches in Macbeth is just one of the classic
Speaker 1: examples of of eagle witchery in modern fiction and in
Speaker 1: our modern understanding of what a witch is. That's obviously
Speaker 1: that's a huge archetype to fall back on. But where
Speaker 1: do these archetypes arise from? That's what we're gonna talk
Speaker 1: about in this episode. And one thing we need to
Speaker 1: get out and get clear right off the bat is
Speaker 1: the difference between which and wiccan and uh. For me,
Speaker 1: I mean I tend to I didn't think about this
Speaker 1: all that much because I tend to think of them
Speaker 1: in two distinct categories like wickens. To me, those are
Speaker 1: people I know, I know wickens in real life I
Speaker 1: see them, you know, these are people who have a
Speaker 1: particular religious, um spiritual belief system and more power to them.
Speaker 1: And then in the other category, I tend to lump
Speaker 1: the witches from mcbethum historical witches and everything else. Well.
Speaker 1: And it's so we have weakens in one pocket, and
Speaker 1: we're talking more about in nature based system right um.
Speaker 1: And then we have witchcraft, which is entirely different witchcraft
Speaker 1: we're going to discuss um more in terms of religion
Speaker 1: and how it was actually something that was created uh
Speaker 1: and not something necessarily practiced by people throughout the ages.
Speaker 1: That witchcraft is this largely um fictionalized account all boils
Speaker 1: to the surface around fourteen hundred as well discussed now
Speaker 1: before that. You obviously have stories of monsters, hags in
Speaker 1: female female monsters that prey upon on children and cause mayhem.
Speaker 1: Those are as old as his human history, and they
Speaker 1: exist in every society on Earth. Every culture has a
Speaker 1: sort of which and in likewise cultures around the world
Speaker 1: have There are always there's always gonna be a history
Speaker 1: of females who are in important roles that may or
Speaker 1: may not have some sort of attributed uh, spiritual or
Speaker 1: or healing powers about them. That's also as old as time.
Speaker 1: But fourteen hundred that's when we see the emergence, the
Speaker 1: real emergen gents of the idea of the evil witch,
Speaker 1: the demonic witch. And out of that time bubbles all
Speaker 1: of this horrible witchcraft persecution, right because at that point
Speaker 1: we are people went from looking at which is as
Speaker 1: a psychological embodiment of evil and wrongdoing and try to
Speaker 1: then say that humans could actually physically embody this idea
Speaker 1: of evil. Okay, so that gives license to do a
Speaker 1: lot of horrible things. And when we talk about horrible things,
Speaker 1: what we are talking about are people who were killed
Speaker 1: and tortured. And from the fourteen hundreds to the seventeen
Speaker 1: hundreds and estimated half million people were executed for witchcraft,
Speaker 1: were accused and executed, mostly women. Them are women, some
Speaker 1: men and then also children as youngest like seven or
Speaker 1: eight were tried and executed on crimes as hard and
Speaker 1: unbelievable as the sexual relations with a demon. So we're
Speaker 1: going to go and try to do is get to
Speaker 1: the bottom of the reason why this happened. Um, try
Speaker 1: to take this long view and look back in history
Speaker 1: and figure out all the different elements that led up
Speaker 1: to this. But I did want to mention that it's
Speaker 1: not just in past history. We'll talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that later on. Exorcism still take place around
Speaker 1: the world, and the magical thinking involved in all of this.
Speaker 1: We're gonna look at a lot of the different sources
Speaker 1: of this witchcraft persecution, and so many of those sources,
Speaker 1: be they cultural or economic, they're still around today. To
Speaker 1: think about that as we move forward. It is absolutely
Speaker 1: relevant to today. And I just wanted to read a
Speaker 1: quick quote from Erica Johng in her book, which is
Speaker 1: she says, clearly, there are pagan beliefs still present in
Speaker 1: our modern world, and none of them inspires in us
Speaker 1: a lust for torturing and incinerating our neighbors here in
Speaker 1: the West. That's what she's talking about. But lest we
Speaker 1: make the mistake of assuming that our ancestors were less
Speaker 1: intelligent than we, a concept known as doom height or
Speaker 1: primeval stupidity, let us think of all the things we
Speaker 1: would kill our neighbors for. That which is not dead,
Speaker 1: she is merely hibernating, and which hunting itself, is hardly dead.
Speaker 1: It is merely waiting to be born again under a
Speaker 1: different name exactly. So let's go back to fourteen hundred again.
Speaker 1: This is a key point in history where suddenly we
Speaker 1: see this idea of the witch rising to the surface
Speaker 1: of thought in Western Europe. It's interesting if you look
Speaker 1: back before Dred you had plenty of stories of individuals
Speaker 1: seeking advice from the devil or his demons, engaging in
Speaker 1: various magical spells and and and seeking demonic aid. But
Speaker 1: they were called necromancers. They were They were men. They
Speaker 1: were generally learned men, members of the clergy, or for
Speaker 1: all intents and purposes, scientists or wizards if you will.
Speaker 1: They were. They were the kind of people who owned
Speaker 1: a library, had access to quote unquote secret knowledge, and
Speaker 1: could could really dive into the sort of occultist nonsense,
Speaker 1: hardcore and it was it was generally considered that this
Speaker 1: was not something that women were up for. This was again,
Speaker 1: this was something that learned, powerful men did, not some
Speaker 1: crazy woman down the street with too many cats. Okay,
Speaker 1: it was. It was a very sexist idea because you know,
Speaker 1: every all things equal, why shouldn't women be able to
Speaker 1: reach out to the devil for aid? Right prior to
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred when it came to seeking the advice of
Speaker 1: demons and entering packs. It was a man's world for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And and necromancer would have been one of a triumvirant
Speaker 1: of dark arts here. So you'd have white magic, dark magic,
Speaker 1: and then you would have necromancy. Yeah. White magic would
Speaker 1: be a stuff like you go to your local healer
Speaker 1: and and he or she would have some sort of
Speaker 1: shamanist expels. So it would be a mixture of things
Speaker 1: that were you know, some of it were probably actual
Speaker 1: folk remedies that worked, and some things that were purely
Speaker 1: superstitious and magical thinking. Likewise, the dark magic would be
Speaker 1: your area of putting hexes on things or curses. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: magical thinking uh and too, maybe into a limited extent,
Speaker 1: maybe actual folk uh, anti remedies if you will, um.
Speaker 1: But but for the most part, magical thinking in that
Speaker 1: department as well, aimed at harming people. And then you
Speaker 1: had necromancy, which was reaching out into the void, trying
Speaker 1: to contact the realms beyond death, trying to contact spirits
Speaker 1: and demons and uh and and really it brings my
Speaker 1: mind back to our previous episode on Luigi Boards and
Speaker 1: Bloody Mary in these various semi occult parlor tricks that
Speaker 1: we played at our various sweepovers when we were kids,
Speaker 1: Like those were all things that you would do with
Speaker 1: this kind of butterfly in your stomach nervousness, because we
Speaker 1: were reaching out to see if there was something out there,
Speaker 1: to see if you could touch this supernatural idea that
Speaker 1: we create in the world. And uh and necromancy was
Speaker 1: was basically that, and on some levels a very learned
Speaker 1: example of that, where you would have books and books
Speaker 1: about how to reach out and touch something that exists
Speaker 1: only in your mind. So to your point, this was
Speaker 1: male territory. And so you would have scholars, you would
Speaker 1: have clergy who would look to this and say, there's
Speaker 1: no way that a woman could be a witch as
Speaker 1: we know, as we have come to term a witch.
Speaker 1: There's no way that she could be or have this
Speaker 1: sort of relationship with the devil and and um, you know,
Speaker 1: fly on broomsticks during the night. It's impossible. So they
Speaker 1: were actually that that was really sort of their position
Speaker 1: on women couldn't assume this this type of power. And
Speaker 1: in the churches, um and certainly you would have stories
Speaker 1: of people doing magical things and because because again magical
Speaker 1: thinking is as oldest human history. Likewise, paranormal experience is
Speaker 1: a biological reality. As we've discussed when we've talked about
Speaker 1: UFO abductions and whatnot in the past, those experiences, no
Speaker 1: matter how we color them with with our cultural pigments,
Speaker 1: um things such as sleep paralysis are real and occur,
Speaker 1: and then our interpretation of them that may involve anything
Speaker 1: from uh an extraterrestrial to a wood nomp. Likewise, individuals
Speaker 1: of varying degrees of psychosis are going to have experiences
Speaker 1: that do not match up with everyone else's real world experiences.
Speaker 1: I mean, the list goes on and on. But if
Speaker 1: you came to the clergy prior to fourteen hundred and
Speaker 1: you said, hey, lady down the road, she's flying around
Speaker 1: at night and summon in goblins, they the official church
Speaker 1: stance was that is nonsense, that does not fly with
Speaker 1: church doctrine. Cut that stuff out. Yeah, And actually there
Speaker 1: were some laws that were saying, hey, there are no
Speaker 1: witches first of all, the second of all, do not
Speaker 1: persecute or kill witches. Okay, so this was generally the
Speaker 1: accepted idea. Yeah, but then that begins to change and
Speaker 1: That's what's so fascinating about this because around fourteen hundred,
Speaker 1: not only does the idea of the witch the demon
Speaker 1: summoning which arise in Europe, but it is pushed for,
Speaker 1: it is campaigned for, it is the literature is published
Speaker 1: and distributed into the world. Making the case and having
Speaker 1: that the point is having to make the strong case
Speaker 1: because prior to four hundred, it was not a generally
Speaker 1: accepted idea that women could women could do this, We're
Speaker 1: doing this. It was a reality that had to be
Speaker 1: created by men. Well. Also, you have different religious I
Speaker 1: guess you could say sex of um of Christianity who
Speaker 1: are really trying to be the completely religious monopoly out there.
Speaker 1: And so we have talked I actually talked about this before,
Speaker 1: but I think it's pretty well known that a lot
Speaker 1: of pagan sites where their rituals occurred, you know, churches
Speaker 1: were built there. Um, there's a lot of appropriation of Pagans.
Speaker 1: You'll see that in saints and in Catholicism. Yeah, you
Speaker 1: see if saints, old heroes become saints, old gods are
Speaker 1: wrapped up in demonology and become demons. Uh, the opposite
Speaker 1: been of the various angels before four. This was for
Speaker 1: a few hundred years as a craze of angelology and demonology,
Speaker 1: where you were just sort of populating the ranks of
Speaker 1: imagined havens and hells with different demons and angels. So,
Speaker 1: I mean the problem here is that, um, not only
Speaker 1: are you trying to have a monopoly on religion here
Speaker 1: through Christianity, but um, you have you have this imaginary,
Speaker 1: wicked religion that is basically created by some people in
Speaker 1: Christianity to try to further define this this evil and
Speaker 1: work against it, um, and and feel as though these
Speaker 1: persecutions are justified by lines like an exodus, this is
Speaker 1: thou shalt not permit sorceress to live. So there seems
Speaker 1: to be these justifications coming online. And in addition to that,
Speaker 1: if you look at previous to the fifteenth century, you
Speaker 1: have a lot of grappling with what is Christianity. And
Speaker 1: we'll talk more about that later about trying to define
Speaker 1: it and order it and take all the different interpretations
Speaker 1: and all of the different writings and come up with
Speaker 1: some sort of cohesive like let's all fall in line
Speaker 1: behind this idea. Yeah, and let's not add to it
Speaker 1: too much with a bunch of angels and demons, because
Speaker 1: that's that's an example there where the Church had to
Speaker 1: finally say, whoa guys, let's stop making up angels and demons.
Speaker 1: We have enough, We probably have too many. And certainly
Speaker 1: you also see the history of heresy in the adxistence
Speaker 1: of the Spanish Inquisition, um in in the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: that was there too sort of edit the text to
Speaker 1: keep people from adding too much to it, from deviating
Speaker 1: what was perceived to be the core message of Christianity.
Speaker 1: So so if you were off message, then you were
Speaker 1: committing heresy right that you were ringed in For instance,
Speaker 1: the Dalcinians, they were a heresy that believed not only
Speaker 1: the poverty of Christ, but that everyone should be poor,
Speaker 1: that the Church should be poor, and that the rich
Speaker 1: should be violently opposed, sort of a much bloodier version,
Speaker 1: say of occupy Wall Street. I guess you could say,
Speaker 1: with a certain harsh medieval flare, but that is an
Speaker 1: idea that sprang up and it had to be, in
Speaker 1: the Church's eyes, squelched. But the heresies are all things
Speaker 1: where for the most part the heresies were real. It
Speaker 1: was somebody with an opinion or a view of Christianity
Speaker 1: that that deviated from what was seen as the core path.
Speaker 1: You might add some lies on top of that to
Speaker 1: press the case to actually eliminate them, but for the
Speaker 1: most part, they were going after actual beliefs, right, So
Speaker 1: I mean this is I mean, if you look at
Speaker 1: the Inquisition and different aspects of the campaign you're talking
Speaker 1: about from eleven to sixteen hundred, and because of religious
Speaker 1: or political beliefs, people are are being questioned and they're
Speaker 1: off message, right, they're trying to rein them in. But
Speaker 1: but where we really differentiate with witchcraft is again that
Speaker 1: this is stuff that was almost entirely made up. There
Speaker 1: were no actual witches, not like the ones that that
Speaker 1: the charges and the trials claimed existed. Okay, So so
Speaker 1: in order to try to get a bead on how
Speaker 1: this sort of get this idea of which is sorted
Speaker 1: to get into the fabric of religion and also education,
Speaker 1: you have to understand that colleges and universities were largely
Speaker 1: under the thumb of religion until you know fairly recently. Um,
Speaker 1: if you are a degree candidate in theology at the
Speaker 1: University of Paris in the fourteen hundreds, you would be
Speaker 1: expected to demonstrate your knowledge of demonology and angelology by
Speaker 1: commenting publicly on the Four Books of Sentences. Now, this
Speaker 1: was a standard university textbook used throughout the Middle Ages
Speaker 1: and into the early Modern period. So already you would
Speaker 1: have been steeped in this mythology of demons and angels. Now,
Speaker 1: not only that you are now training, essentially um an
Speaker 1: army of clergyman to then go out into villages, into
Speaker 1: society's all over Western Europe and to spread this word
Speaker 1: about demons and angels. So you know, some people say, well,
Speaker 1: how could you know between the years of four and
Speaker 1: fourteen eighty there have been such a seed change in
Speaker 1: this idea of which is and there was h there
Speaker 1: was something that I read and I can't remember. I apologize,
Speaker 1: I can't remember who it was who made this point.
Speaker 1: But he said, well, if you look at the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: and you look at the civil rights movement, and you
Speaker 1: look at the sea change between nineteen sixties in present day,
Speaker 1: and you consider all the modes of communication we have
Speaker 1: that affected this change, Um, it's it's not inconceivable to say, like,
Speaker 1: look back at fourteen hundred and realized that this was
Speaker 1: all bubbling up, all of this sort of doctrine about
Speaker 1: which is and evil and demons and angels um. So
Speaker 1: that when something like this publication of Malius Maleficarium get
Speaker 1: arrives on the scene in fourteen eighties six, that it's
Speaker 1: really running with the idea of demons and which is
Speaker 1: in creating a blueprint really for um, particularly Catholicism, to
Speaker 1: follow through on what they think is essential to man's nature,
Speaker 1: in particular when them, Yeah, Mallius malificarum is is a
Speaker 1: key text when you when you look at the history
Speaker 1: of witchcraft, persecution and just the idea of the witchcraft.
Speaker 1: This was published again the work of Heinrich Kramer, Hammer
Speaker 1: of the Witches, and it is a guide book to
Speaker 1: identifying which is, knowing what they're up to and then
Speaker 1: persecuting them or well, I guess prosecuting them and executing
Speaker 1: them if you want to use the of the book,
Speaker 1: because the book is making the the argument that all
Speaker 1: of this is real and pressing it really hard. Is
Speaker 1: a book that we used in part on this episode
Speaker 1: called Demon Lovers by Walter Stevens, and he's primarily concerned
Speaker 1: with the accusation that existed in all of these trials
Speaker 1: that witches were engaged in physical sexual activity with demons.
Speaker 1: That's his his The whole book is an exploration of that.
Speaker 1: But he also does a great job of just really
Speaker 1: diving into two witchcraft in general. But there's a whole
Speaker 1: section where he just takes apart Malius malificarum and and
Speaker 1: analyzes what Heinrich Kramer is doing in each part, Like
Speaker 1: what is he thinking is he's writing this and he's
Speaker 1: having to make really strong cases to again press the
Speaker 1: idea that there are female which is out there, that
Speaker 1: there are women out there in the world that are
Speaker 1: actively engaging not only impacts and spell work with the
Speaker 1: devil and his demons, but in actual physical sexual contact
Speaker 1: with demons. Right and knowing that that they can shape
Speaker 1: shift into animals, they can ride the brooms through the air,
Speaker 1: the broomsticks, um, they can cause um spontaneous abortions, um,
Speaker 1: just by that the exterior touch that they affect the weather,
Speaker 1: they can create hill storms. Yeah, I mean he's not
Speaker 1: he's not preaching to the converted here. This is not
Speaker 1: a book where it came out and was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I picked up him on Hendrick's book because this is
Speaker 1: everything I believe in already they would already have bought
Speaker 1: into some of it, certainly, But again the demonology and
Speaker 1: anginal angeology craze and post fourteen D the witchcraft thing
Speaker 1: was already gaining steam. But this comes, and this just
Speaker 1: pushes it even even further. It was the authoritative text Um.
Speaker 1: Let me read a bit from it, Um, And of
Speaker 1: course it came out in Latin, by the way, and
Speaker 1: within thirty five years there were twenty different editions, so
Speaker 1: it was a very popular book among the learned. This
Speaker 1: is a bit from it. It says, which is offered
Speaker 1: to devils or otherwise kill the children that they do
Speaker 1: not otherwise devour, They cause abortion, kill infants in the
Speaker 1: mother's womb by a mere exterior touch. Um also said
Speaker 1: that midwives offered newborns to the devil at birth, and
Speaker 1: that a woman knows no moderation and goodness or advice.
Speaker 1: Devils do these things through the medium of women. So
Speaker 1: again a lot of effort is being made by men
Speaker 1: like Heinrich Kramer into making this argument, this very strong argument,
Speaker 1: that women are engaging in witchcraft and engaging in physical
Speaker 1: contact with demons. Why that's the that's the big question,
Speaker 1: right as we look back through the ages, why does
Speaker 1: this suddenly be I'm such a pressing issue. Why are
Speaker 1: men wasting their lives and committing and when ultimately either
Speaker 1: committing or inspiring a horrible atrocities in the name of
Speaker 1: this ridiculous idea. And this is an important thing to mention. Two,
Speaker 1: When we look back on witchcraft persecution, we have a
Speaker 1: habit to think, oh, that was the Middle Ages. People
Speaker 1: were stupid, people were crazy religious, and it was just
Speaker 1: a violent or horrible time. So yeah, of course, horrible,
Speaker 1: violent stuff like this is gonna happen. But the more
Speaker 1: you look at when you look at what people were
Speaker 1: writing in in these days and before and after, and
Speaker 1: when when you start really analyzing the culture, you see
Speaker 1: this wasn't really the case. I mean, it was a
Speaker 1: different world, uh for sure, but it was it was
Speaker 1: still an age in which you had reasoned men and women.
Speaker 1: When you when you had educated men who were not
Speaker 1: only exposed to a bunch of theological garbage about angels
Speaker 1: and demons, they were also engaging in older philosophical text
Speaker 1: They were familiar with the works of Aristotle. They were
Speaker 1: in touch with individuals who were trying to understand how
Speaker 1: the observable world works, and not only what was happening
Speaker 1: happening in some unobservable spirit world. So bear that in
Speaker 1: mind as we move forward. So, why was this happening?
Speaker 1: It wasn't. It's not. So it's not just a case
Speaker 1: of men deciding, Hey, I bet which is exists. Let's
Speaker 1: make a case for it. What other energy is involved
Speaker 1: in this pursuit? Well, again, I think part of it
Speaker 1: is Christianity trying to assert itself in fallen line under
Speaker 1: one doctrine. And so throughout history you had different um
Speaker 1: takes on women and their their part in society. But
Speaker 1: here is the dark view of women. Here's this idea
Speaker 1: that women are weak and therefore they are subject to
Speaker 1: being vessels of of demons. Um. You also have this
Speaker 1: idea of women during this time coming into play, this
Speaker 1: idea that women aren't necessarily companions to say, like their
Speaker 1: their husbands, their counterparts. Um, there are more just you know,
Speaker 1: part of what your wealth is, your accumulation of wealth.
Speaker 1: And so if you if you begin to objectify this
Speaker 1: person and and sort of say, okay, there's some distance
Speaker 1: between me and this other person and not look at
Speaker 1: them just as another human, then if you can see
Speaker 1: how the Church sort of runs with this idea of well,
Speaker 1: let's have the female as this embodiment of evil and
Speaker 1: not just like you know this, hey, let's this is
Speaker 1: our game plan for this century. But um, but you
Speaker 1: know you have clergy clergyman who have been steeped again
Speaker 1: in this sort of mythology, this mysticism, because think about
Speaker 1: this is particularly in Catholicism. This is a religion that
Speaker 1: that really relies on mysticism. Okay, this idea, um, that
Speaker 1: there's all these unseen forces. Um. And if a woman
Speaker 1: can embody that she can be the lightning rod, then
Speaker 1: not only can she be sort of the scapegoat for
Speaker 1: for everything, um, she can really play to this idea
Speaker 1: of magical thinking which is already going on. Um if
Speaker 1: you look at, say, for lack of a better word,
Speaker 1: during this time, the lower classes merchants, peasants who are
Speaker 1: really attached to magical thinking and panganism. So if the
Speaker 1: Church can take this and run with it, then they
Speaker 1: can exercise some sort of control over society. And then
Speaker 1: there's also the idea that so the Christian world, the
Speaker 1: medieval world, and to a lart extent, the modern world,
Speaker 1: is highly matriarchal, but especially in this stage, you have
Speaker 1: men at the top of it. You have a religion
Speaker 1: and governments that are filled with men, and you have
Speaker 1: a religion that has a male god. So the idea
Speaker 1: is that if you go back far enough in history,
Speaker 1: in fact, if you if you actually transition out of
Speaker 1: recorded history, you find that the old religions are not
Speaker 1: strictly male religions. They're not completely occupied by masculine gods
Speaker 1: that are that are occupied with with with ideas of violence. Right,
Speaker 1: And I know I want to go deeply into this,
Speaker 1: but when you say the old religion, there are some
Speaker 1: accounts of actually Jesus having um. I guess you could
Speaker 1: say very different things to say than what is documented,
Speaker 1: and that his relationship with Mary Magdalen was very different,
Speaker 1: and that there was more of a sort of equals
Speaker 1: um in play there in terms of their their relationship.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah. And then you also have traditions, especially in
Speaker 1: medieval art, where you see increasingly feminine portrayals of Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1: The idea and the idea of being there that people
Speaker 1: were connecting more with a feminine godhead than they were
Speaker 1: with this uh, this Old Testament bearded man who liked
Speaker 1: to destroy cities, and that was something that again when
Speaker 1: the Church was rooting out heresy and trying to to
Speaker 1: edit down what they actually were, this is one of
Speaker 1: the things that they went after and said, guys, let's
Speaker 1: let's chill with the female Jesus Is because you're you're
Speaker 1: bordering on heresy here. The basic idea here is that
Speaker 1: in our past we had more of a matriarchal view
Speaker 1: of the universe and of nature and of the gods
Speaker 1: that ruled over nature, and then over time that is
Speaker 1: replaced with the patriarchal Godhead, and throughout history then the
Speaker 1: patriarchal side has to continually reinforce the wall, to reinforce
Speaker 1: the barriers and keep the matriarchal view from from working
Speaker 1: its way back into into our thinking. And who is
Speaker 1: the one human in Catholicism, uh, who would be closest
Speaker 1: to God? Well, that would be the Son of God
Speaker 1: right well? Or living Oh, that would be the Pope
Speaker 1: right So in four four you have a papal proclamation
Speaker 1: by Pope Innocent the eight who essentially says, all right,
Speaker 1: let's let's go after which is and then this results
Speaker 1: in this continent wide genocide of people. Yeah, so misogyny
Speaker 1: is a is a definite theory and and certainly there's
Speaker 1: no denying misogyny plays a role in witchcraft persecution because
Speaker 1: it's mostly men convicting mostly women on entirely trumped up
Speaker 1: charges of supernatural activity. Uh and uh. And people like
Speaker 1: Heinrich Kramer again are making a case in their books
Speaker 1: for the inherent evil of women. So I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's a no brainer, and it's it's horrible, but but
Speaker 1: it's it's undeniable that misogyny plays a huge role in
Speaker 1: all of this. So again, that's sort of where you
Speaker 1: see the sea change coming into play, where between fourteen
Speaker 1: hundred and fourteen eight four six and Mallius Mala Krum
Speaker 1: comes on the scene, you see in Earnest Christianity sort
Speaker 1: of going after this idea of witchcraft and really developing
Speaker 1: the idea of witchcraft and adding to the mythology of it.
Speaker 1: So yeah, learned men are developing it, they're publishing it,
Speaker 1: books like like the Malleus mall of Acram are making
Speaker 1: its way out there spreading the idea, and it's it's
Speaker 1: trickling down then to the lay people. The normal people
Speaker 1: out there in their villages and uh, and this is
Speaker 1: important to note too, because it's not misogyny is one
Speaker 1: of the the the powers in play here. But then
Speaker 1: also on a local level, you're gonna have people engaging
Speaker 1: in the same old craft that people always engage in,
Speaker 1: petty disputes, spite, mistrust of outsiders, mistrust of the crazy
Speaker 1: lady with all the cats, that kind of thing. So
Speaker 1: when the the environment for witchcraft persecution takes hold, um,
Speaker 1: you're gonna see some petty disputes that are going to
Speaker 1: be taken care of on a local level via the
Speaker 1: witchcraft trial system. You're gonna see you can see people
Speaker 1: on the local level by into it, by into the
Speaker 1: paranoia that the church and learned the members of society
Speaker 1: are passing down. So it begins to distill through society.
Speaker 1: So rather than looking at say some livestock that I
Speaker 1: lost in you know, say four um as a product
Speaker 1: of let's say a parasite, I might look to my
Speaker 1: neighbor and say, ah, they put a spell on me. Yeah, accursed.
Speaker 1: We love to blame somebody for for something that happens,
Speaker 1: you know, be it if something bad happens to our animal,
Speaker 1: better that we can point a finger at somebody or
Speaker 1: something and if that somebody and something happens to be
Speaker 1: that strange guy who lives on the edge of town
Speaker 1: or that weird looking woman and the devil, so be
Speaker 1: it right. And likewise, children are dying. All sorts of
Speaker 1: horrible things are happening because there's death and childbirth. It's
Speaker 1: the Middle Ages. Life is tough, just as life is
Speaker 1: tough today, and people are gonna seek excuses, they're gonna
Speaker 1: see answers, and if they can find somebody to blame
Speaker 1: for something like this, all the better, right, Yeah, absolutely,
Speaker 1: And so what you're starting to see is is a
Speaker 1: bit of a flavor of the social contract. At that time.
Speaker 1: We've talked about the social contract and various podcasts about
Speaker 1: how we all have signed onto it, whether or not
Speaker 1: we know it. So what we're seeing here is this
Speaker 1: script really for what's happening in life, and the script
Speaker 1: is being provided, uh, usually by the local clergy m.
Speaker 1: So we're gonna take a quick break, but when we
Speaker 1: get back, we're going to talk about the script and
Speaker 1: how it is used in confessions in torture. All right,
Speaker 1: we're back. So we've we've discussed what was happening post
Speaker 1: fourteen hundred, Essentially this war on women begins. I mean
Speaker 1: that term is thrown around today, and I'm not saying
Speaker 1: it's completely pointless to throw that term around today, But
Speaker 1: in the post four world this there's a lot of
Speaker 1: truth to the idea. Well. And that's not to say
Speaker 1: that this happening in the subteen hundreds doesn't somehow inform
Speaker 1: our idea of what the war on women today is like.
Speaker 1: It certainly does. But an important part of this, of course,
Speaker 1: is that ultimately, if you're you can accuse people witchcraft
Speaker 1: all day, but ultimately you're you're gonna need them to confess,
Speaker 1: they have at least enough civility that they need them
Speaker 1: to confess. You need And it comes down to, if
Speaker 1: you're gonna make this horrible case and you're ultimately going
Speaker 1: to do something horrible, you need need the victim of
Speaker 1: this to buy in, or at least seem to buy
Speaker 1: into the idea. You need some sort of acknowledgement that
Speaker 1: what you're doing is real. Yeah, there are no Miranda
Speaker 1: rights here and now due process, no guilty or innocent
Speaker 1: until proven otherwise. Um, you essentially have you know, if
Speaker 1: you think about This is called the witch craze. And
Speaker 1: if you have fingered someone and said that you are
Speaker 1: a witch, then you certainly have an audience that is
Speaker 1: waiting for you to prove that right. So you have
Speaker 1: witch theorist. You have people like Heinrich Kramer who are
Speaker 1: coming up with all of the ideas of what should
Speaker 1: be happening and essentially what a witch a convicted which
Speaker 1: should be telling her interrogator. And then you have an
Speaker 1: interrogator whose job it is to go talk to the
Speaker 1: witch and get this story out of her. Now, I
Speaker 1: believe you have some of the questions to which would
Speaker 1: be asked, and we're going to run through those, or
Speaker 1: at least some of them real quick, just give you
Speaker 1: a taste of what kind of charges were being leveled
Speaker 1: and what kind of answers were being sought. And these
Speaker 1: are eighteen questions. I'm not gonna go through all of them, obviously,
Speaker 1: but um and I think try to take the position
Speaker 1: of the person who is accused of being a witch
Speaker 1: and having these questions applied to you over and over again,
Speaker 1: and which you began to see is that you're being
Speaker 1: told in the script right. And I remember again, there
Speaker 1: are no witches. Nobody is doing the things that this
Speaker 1: this question like put the fiction out of your mind,
Speaker 1: all right, So how long have you been a witch?
Speaker 1: Why did you become a witch? Why did you become
Speaker 1: a witch? And what happened on the occasion? What demon
Speaker 1: did you choose to be your lover? What was his name?
Speaker 1: What was the name of your master among the evil demons?
Speaker 1: What was the oath you were forced to render him?
Speaker 1: How it starts to get a little bit more involved
Speaker 1: in more more colored here, Um, how did you make
Speaker 1: this oath? And what were its conditions? Where did you
Speaker 1: consummate your union with your incubus? Because it goes on
Speaker 1: and on to say, uh, what is the ointments with
Speaker 1: which you rub your broomstick made of? How are you
Speaker 1: able to fly through the air? That do all the questions,
Speaker 1: but it talks about the cyber than quet every little
Speaker 1: detail of what the church thinks is going on with
Speaker 1: which craft because the ultimate story here is that the
Speaker 1: woman is engaging in sexual relations with a demon. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: this will initially start with oh, there, I saw this
Speaker 1: handsome fella, and then we started fooling around fella. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because that's a that's another important and then if it's
Speaker 1: a man being accused, it's a woman. But but it's
Speaker 1: never a male demon and a male um human engaging
Speaker 1: in sexual activity, because the writers of this is like
Speaker 1: the idea of of homosexual relations between even a demon
Speaker 1: and a human was was just too much for them
Speaker 1: at the time, And that's a whole separate issue. But
Speaker 1: the case again would be all right, you you saw
Speaker 1: somebody attractive, you started messing around with them, and inevitably
Speaker 1: you end up noticing something unnatural about them. Generally they
Speaker 1: would have like the feet of a goose. That was
Speaker 1: actually in a number of accounts. And the argument here
Speaker 1: is that, well, God would never completely one over allowed
Speaker 1: the demons to pull one over you completely. You'd have
Speaker 1: to have some sort of sign so that the faithful
Speaker 1: could back out of it. And then only your sinful
Speaker 1: nature would allow you to keep going with this. Right,
Speaker 1: so you engage in sexual relations with this demon. You
Speaker 1: eventually end up traveling via the air or some sort
Speaker 1: of unnatural steed to go to this sabbath where all
Speaker 1: the other witches and their demons would gather, and maybe
Speaker 1: the Horned One himself would appear before you. But never
Speaker 1: would you be engaging in actual relationships with the devil.
Speaker 1: Because even though we're we're we're giving a lot of
Speaker 1: power to women with these charges of witchcraft, you don't
Speaker 1: want to give them too much power. Again, the misogyny
Speaker 1: still has to be in play, and you don't want
Speaker 1: to imply that, yes, this, uh, this woman on the
Speaker 1: edge of town is important enough to actually um mess
Speaker 1: around with the Prince of Darkness himself. So it's not
Speaker 1: really her power. It's the Prince of darkness, right right,
Speaker 1: It's never her power, because heaven forbid, we'd give her
Speaker 1: too much power. Likewise, a lot of the things she's
Speaker 1: a tribute with, for instance, making men's penises disappear, which
Speaker 1: was a big charge along with impotence and various other
Speaker 1: things of that nature. With the disappearance of the penis,
Speaker 1: it would be a charge of illusion. They're not actually
Speaker 1: powerful enough to manipulate physical reality in this instance, but
Speaker 1: they can create the illusion of it happening. So you're
Speaker 1: giving them tremendous attributing with them tremendous power, but it's
Speaker 1: not their power and there are limits on it, and
Speaker 1: you can't blame God too much for this happening. So okay,
Speaker 1: you have the the script, you have the idea of
Speaker 1: what witchcraft is. No doubt that has been bandied about
Speaker 1: in pubs and various villages and all sorts of talks about.
Speaker 1: Really what we're talking about here is the Boogeyman. So
Speaker 1: now you have um, you have to have these questions answered.
Speaker 1: We have to have these questions answered. How do you
Speaker 1: force someone to answer these questions? Unfortunately, the reality as
Speaker 1: you put the screws to them literally literally in most cases. Now,
Speaker 1: it's interesting you look at some of the differences between
Speaker 1: which for secution in England and which persecution in mainland Europe.
Speaker 1: And in mainland Europe they had full use of torture
Speaker 1: at their disposal, you name it, they could employ it.
Speaker 1: Now you'll look around and on the internet and you
Speaker 1: can find any number of lists of horrendous torture devices,
Speaker 1: and certainly they're there are a number of inventive and
Speaker 1: then sometimes um, possibly fictitious items out there. When when
Speaker 1: you really come down to it, though, and if you
Speaker 1: really start looking at the history of torture, there are
Speaker 1: a number of very basic things that people have been
Speaker 1: doing to each other since time out of mind, they're
Speaker 1: not that inventive they're not that creative, but they work
Speaker 1: their ways to inflict pain and ultimately make the the
Speaker 1: tortured individual confess to anything you tell them to. Now
Speaker 1: you start, say, using a thumb screw on somebody, they're
Speaker 1: gonna scream. They're going to eventually give up on their
Speaker 1: principles unless they have some sort of as we discussed
Speaker 1: in our Martyrs episode, some sort of extenuating circumstance going
Speaker 1: on with their body or their mind, they're gonna they're
Speaker 1: going to break and so they're going to confess to anything.
Speaker 1: They'll confess to running around with the devil himself. And
Speaker 1: that's why the script is provided, because you don't want
Speaker 1: them to confess to things that are disagreeable with your
Speaker 1: world view, such as the idea that they are best
Speaker 1: buds with the demon with the head devil himself. Again,
Speaker 1: that doesn't jive with the with the overriding misogyny of
Speaker 1: of the claim. So you have to use these questions
Speaker 1: to draw unbelievable, untrue things out of the torture victim.
Speaker 1: But again coming back to the UK, they did not
Speaker 1: have full torture available to them in the persecution of witches.
Speaker 1: They actually weren't able to burn witches in England. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and in the persecution they were not able to administer
Speaker 1: all these different modes of torture. So these stories that
Speaker 1: they were able to get out of the the women
Speaker 1: in England were different. They were they were more tame.
Speaker 1: So while in mainland Europe you'll find just ridiculous accounts
Speaker 1: of just all sorts of gory sexual details, you won't
Speaker 1: see that as much in UK, which is you'll see
Speaker 1: charges of well, she has a weird cat that is
Speaker 1: a demonic familiar, and she has a strange nipple on
Speaker 1: her body that she's probably milking it with that kind
Speaker 1: of thing, while the mainland European which is flying off
Speaker 1: and engaging in a demonic orgy, that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: But again you're resulting to your physical pain to get
Speaker 1: these confessions out of out of many of these women, right,
Speaker 1: So you're talking about thumb tacks versus you know, something
Speaker 1: like the rack being stretched on the rack um and
Speaker 1: the types of confessions that that would come out of
Speaker 1: that situation. UM. I wanted to read a quick excerpt
Speaker 1: from a letter from accused which Johannes Genius, burgomaster at Bamberg,
Speaker 1: who detailed his torture and his confession in a goodbye
Speaker 1: letter to his daughter Veronica. Yeah, to set this up,
Speaker 1: this was in the Bavaria, all right, And this was
Speaker 1: a case where this was no weird outsider in the
Speaker 1: edge of town. This was a successful and learned man.
Speaker 1: His wife had been executed on on witchcraft charges previously,
Speaker 1: and he was an outspoken critic of what was going on,
Speaker 1: and eventually, uh surprise, surprise, the witchcraft allegations were leveled
Speaker 1: at him as well. So if he writes many hundred
Speaker 1: thousand good nights, dearly beloved daughter Veronica, innocent? Have I
Speaker 1: come into prison? Innocent? Have I been tortured? Innocent? Must
Speaker 1: I die? He goes on to talk about some of
Speaker 1: some of the conversations he has with his um torture,
Speaker 1: and he says, the executioner put the thumb screws on me,
Speaker 1: both hands bound together, so that the blood ran out
Speaker 1: at the nails and everywhere, so that for four weeks
Speaker 1: I could not use my hands, as you can see
Speaker 1: from the writing. Thereafter they first dripped me, bound my
Speaker 1: hands behind me, and drew me up in this torpado.
Speaker 1: Then I thought heaven and Earth were at an end.
Speaker 1: Eight times did they draw me up and let me
Speaker 1: fall again, so that I suffered terrible agony, And so
Speaker 1: I made my confession, but it was all a lie.
Speaker 1: Now follows, dear child, what I confessed in order to
Speaker 1: escape the greatest anguish and bitter torture which it was
Speaker 1: impossible for me longer to bear. And he goes on
Speaker 1: and on to discuss it. So what we're talking about
Speaker 1: with estrapado is essentially tying the victim's arms behind his
Speaker 1: or her back and then hanging weights to the feet
Speaker 1: and hoisting that person into their over and over again
Speaker 1: until that person confessed. And obviously arms would come out
Speaker 1: of socket. So it is very rough on on the
Speaker 1: physical body, and um, absolutely a ton of agony would result. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's a it's a horrible story that of of poor Johannes.
Speaker 1: There's another segment from his his letter where he mentions
Speaker 1: the executioner leading him back to his prison all right
Speaker 1: after after he suffered, and but before he's he's completely broken,
Speaker 1: and the executioner says to him, says, sir, I beg you,
Speaker 1: for God's sake, confess something, whether it be true or not,
Speaker 1: invent something for you cannot endure the torture what will
Speaker 1: be put to you, And even if you bear it all,
Speaker 1: you will not escape, not even if you were an earl.
Speaker 1: But one torture will follow another until you say you
Speaker 1: were a witch. Not before that, he said, will they
Speaker 1: let you go? As you may see by all the trials,
Speaker 1: for one is just like another. So and and that's
Speaker 1: that's key there too. And Walter Stevens in his book
Speaker 1: really points out that that I did it. One trial
Speaker 1: is just like another. This is a factory industry. Here
Speaker 1: there is a process with a desired result, with a
Speaker 1: desired confession that that has to be met too to
Speaker 1: carry out this idea and to make this idea real
Speaker 1: in everyone's minds. Well and not you don't have just
Speaker 1: a Malle's Mouth carum as a text. You also you
Speaker 1: have many other texts out there there are reinforcing this
Speaker 1: idea of which is in the hammer and having to
Speaker 1: to really use brute force. I mean, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like when you think today about anyone who has a
Speaker 1: fringe idea, whether it's a belief in Bigfoot or some
Speaker 1: sort of crazy left or right wing conspiracy theory. They
Speaker 1: have a shelf of books devoted to that. They have
Speaker 1: website sites they can go to. Maybe they even have
Speaker 1: you know, a TV channel they can they can turn
Speaker 1: into as well to have those ideas reinforced. And again
Speaker 1: for the for the witch theorists, the worst witch persecutors,
Speaker 1: and just the average joe. Even there, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of material out there to back up this world view.
Speaker 1: That's right. So you're exactly right. So if you think
Speaker 1: about Bigfoot today and all the sort of sort of
Speaker 1: information that's out there that can try to construct this
Speaker 1: story for you, um, with absolutely very similitude, the same
Speaker 1: thing as going on is this confirmation bias, totally completely
Speaker 1: trying to select texts and ideas that line up with witchcraft.
Speaker 1: And I wanted to read this this quick excerpt from
Speaker 1: text called Strips by Jian Fresco uh Pico della Mirandola,
Speaker 1: and he says, um, speaking of a hammer, he says,
Speaker 1: theologians will tell you that these things can be done
Speaker 1: by the by the devil. And you can understand many
Speaker 1: examples from the book of Germans Friar Heinrich and Friar Jacob,
Speaker 1: excellent theologians of the Dominican order called the hammer, and
Speaker 1: you can have this hammer if you want to use
Speaker 1: it against those who are hard headed and do not
Speaker 1: want to believe the truth, So you can either bend
Speaker 1: them to believe what they are supposed to or else
Speaker 1: smash them into a hundred thousand pieces. Yeah, again, this
Speaker 1: is this idea that is fueling all these atrocities. So
Speaker 1: if you look back at this time period and it
Speaker 1: just seems too ghastly to be true, you have to
Speaker 1: remember again these texts are informing confirmation bias, but also
Speaker 1: cognitive dissonance is at play. Yeah, this is really important.
Speaker 1: You mentioned the texts that people are coming back to
Speaker 1: because again they're they're having to work really hard, and
Speaker 1: this was something that did not exist a four fourteen hundred.
Speaker 1: They do bring this ridiculous idea into the world that
Speaker 1: again would have been not just not just talking as
Speaker 1: a modern observer, this would have been ridiculous pre fourteen hundred.
Speaker 1: That you have to enforce this idea and make a labored,
Speaker 1: intensive k for it being true. So they're turning to
Speaker 1: all of the text they're finding support in the Bible,
Speaker 1: and obviously there's some places there where you can find
Speaker 1: some meat for the idea of female which is but
Speaker 1: then they're turning inevitably to Aristotle. Aristotle was the most
Speaker 1: revered of the the the old philosophers, among the learned
Speaker 1: in medieval times, like this was this was the guy, right,
Speaker 1: his observations about life and observable reality and speculations on
Speaker 1: on things beyond that they ring true, and this man
Speaker 1: was really esteemed for the way that he viewed the world. Well,
Speaker 1: he was hybeological and very much into categorizing everything and
Speaker 1: making sense of the world and cataloging it. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: it's it's really difficult, if not impossible, I mean, really
Speaker 1: it's impossible in several places to unify the works of
Speaker 1: Aristotle with Christian theology. All right, that didn't didn't stop
Speaker 1: people from trying. But ultimately with Aristotle you find that,
Speaker 1: i mean, Aristotle did not believe in the immortality of
Speaker 1: the human soul. And of course, yeah, a big part
Speaker 1: problem because most of Christianity is about the fact that
Speaker 1: when we die there is something else, that there's something
Speaker 1: immortal in ourselves and in the world. So you see
Speaker 1: a certain amount of cognitive dissonance there where someone is
Speaker 1: is saying, hey, Aristotle is great. Christianity is the thing
Speaker 1: that defines my life. But in between, there's this burning question,
Speaker 1: these two things. Why don't these two things go together?
Speaker 1: What is wrong? But we've talked about cognitive distance before.
Speaker 1: It's the idea that you have two conflicting opinions going
Speaker 1: at it in your mind and how do you deal
Speaker 1: with those? And again, the Middle Ages don't think of
Speaker 1: it as a completely unenlightened time. It was an age
Speaker 1: in which you had clever individuals, educated individuals trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how the world works. And while there wasn't
Speaker 1: really a huge population of atheists in Europe at the time,
Speaker 1: there was still a lot of doubt. There was a
Speaker 1: lot of trouble to believe, because ultimately, you're born into
Speaker 1: this story, this religious story of how the world works
Speaker 1: and what it means and what your places in it,
Speaker 1: and there's not really an outside to that. There's it's
Speaker 1: not like today, like if if you're born into Christianity,
Speaker 1: you grow older and you can say, well, I'm actually
Speaker 1: maybe not Catholic anymore, maybe I'm Protestant. Alright, fine, you
Speaker 1: can make that transition. You can say I don't really
Speaker 1: feel Protestant anymore. I feel like I want to explore
Speaker 1: Buddhism or Hinduism, or maybe I'm just completely agnostic. That's fine.
Speaker 1: They're groups for all of those, and in other words,
Speaker 1: there's like a meeting you can go to for each
Speaker 1: of those. It is support group. But within within Catholic
Speaker 1: Europe of the time, there was Catholicism and there was
Speaker 1: the outside, which was damnation, so it was harder to
Speaker 1: wrap your head around. You couldn't just choose the path
Speaker 1: that agreed with you the most, so a lot of
Speaker 1: people were struggling with belief. In fact, French historian Lucien
Speaker 1: Febre argued that the sixteenth century and the three or
Speaker 1: four preceding centuries were quote centuries that wanted to believe
Speaker 1: and despite what we may think, and despite what they
Speaker 1: even wrote. There might have been a few pure blighted atheists,
Speaker 1: but there was no shortage of apathy, agnosticism, and doubt.
Speaker 1: So you talked about cognitive dissonance, and I'm thinking about
Speaker 1: how you're going to react in one of two ways
Speaker 1: if you're met with cognitive dissonance. So if you have
Speaker 1: one idea about the world and then something comes along
Speaker 1: and it's the opposite of that, you're either going to
Speaker 1: have a sea change of opinion, or you're going to
Speaker 1: somehow try to fit that into your worldview even though
Speaker 1: it doesn't really make sense. So I think about Thomas
Speaker 1: Aquinas in terms of this, because he was very into Aristotle,
Speaker 1: and the reason why it was so important to a
Speaker 1: Klinus in the church is because Aristotle gave the kind
Speaker 1: of order that the church needed, an order to to
Speaker 1: really formalize what they were trying to put forth to
Speaker 1: the public their doctrines. And so only that, but you know,
Speaker 1: there's a bit of appropriation of the esteem of Aristotle
Speaker 1: is Oh, so that's why you see this happenings, why
Speaker 1: you see the convergent of these two different ideas and
Speaker 1: the need to get some sort of order in place
Speaker 1: so that you can formalize these ideas and make it
Speaker 1: seem authoritative. And one of the ideas, I mean, the
Speaker 1: the key idea that Walter Stevens pushes in Demon Lovers
Speaker 1: comes down to the idea that in the midst of
Speaker 1: this what is essentially a crisis of belief, you have
Speaker 1: an age where people are born into a religion that
Speaker 1: they're finding that they're doubting. That doesn't completely jive yet
Speaker 1: with the world and it's not working the way it should.
Speaker 1: But there's no outside, there's no legitimate way to establish
Speaker 1: a different version of how the world works. They have
Speaker 1: to make this one work. So what can you do?
Speaker 1: What can you do to prove to yourself that there
Speaker 1: is a supernatural that there that there are angels, and
Speaker 1: that there is a God, and ultimately that your own
Speaker 1: soul is immortal and not something that dies with your body.
Speaker 1: So this version of Christianity needs witchcraft, right, and I
Speaker 1: mean it's uh. And that that's the actual words of
Speaker 1: John Wesley, founder of Methodism. In seventy eight, he argued
Speaker 1: that quote giving up witchcraft is in effect the giving
Speaker 1: up of the Bible. Now that's how that's after the
Speaker 1: witchcraft craze finally huffs its last breath. Uh for that period.
Speaker 1: But certainly the argument Walter Stevens makes here is that
Speaker 1: essentially the theorist, the witchcraft theorists, the Hinrich Kramers of
Speaker 1: the time, they were kind of like not NASA scientist,
Speaker 1: forming these ideas of how the world beyond our planet works,
Speaker 1: all right, And then the tortures you can think of
Speaker 1: them as the astronauts, the individuals that are sent out
Speaker 1: to gain that proof. And how are you going to
Speaker 1: gain proof? How can you possibly gain proof of the supernatural,
Speaker 1: something that is by its very nature invisible and as
Speaker 1: an article of faith. Well, you have these witches. And
Speaker 1: if you can somehow get a witch, especially lots and
Speaker 1: lots of witches, to testify, to confess that they have
Speaker 1: had physical sexual relations with a demon, with a supernatural being,
Speaker 1: with a fall an angel, then she has an expert witness.
Speaker 1: She's providing expert testimony to the existence of the supernatural,
Speaker 1: to the existence of God, to the immortality of the
Speaker 1: human soul. And so, in a in a twisted, just horrible,
Speaker 1: just heartbreaking way, you have a half a million women
Speaker 1: die because a bunch of broken, renegade Christians doubt their
Speaker 1: own faith. Well, but also appeasing this idea of magical
Speaker 1: thinking right sating people's thirst for this idea that right
Speaker 1: can be wronged and that the unexplained can be explained
Speaker 1: in this very simple way. As she is a witch.
Speaker 1: Therefore my leaf stock died. At the same time, you're
Speaker 1: distracting from political problems, you're distracting from poverty, from a
Speaker 1: host of issues that should be on the mind of
Speaker 1: the average person, but instead their mind is occupied with witchcraft. Well,
Speaker 1: and I think that what is truly evil about this
Speaker 1: is that these people, these clergymen, were staring in the
Speaker 1: faces of innocence as young as seven years old, seven
Speaker 1: years old, as young as seven year old, convicted of
Speaker 1: having sexual activity with the demon and then executed for it.
Speaker 1: And so again you get this idea of cognitive dissonance.
Speaker 1: What do you do when you are met with that
Speaker 1: sort of innocence, You double down on your beliefs, and
Speaker 1: particularly if you again return to the line of Exodus,
Speaker 1: Thou shalt not permit a sorceress to live, and you
Speaker 1: feel as though you are the representative of God on earth,
Speaker 1: carrying out God's wishes. Yeah, we're shaking our heads. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's it's horrible stuff. I mean, in Walter
Speaker 1: Stephen's book, he he makes a very thorough case for
Speaker 1: the importance of that physical relationship between the witch and
Speaker 1: the demon in virtually every witchcraft text that came out,
Speaker 1: including Malie's Malificarum, where it's it's it's not only making
Speaker 1: the argument that women are are having physical relations with demons,
Speaker 1: but it's having to create the idea that they could,
Speaker 1: because prior to four hundred it was also largely thought
Speaker 1: that demons did not have physical bodies, so they were
Speaker 1: purely spirit. So they had to rewrite um metaphysics to
Speaker 1: to to have that makes sense. They had to figure
Speaker 1: out what kind of body would a demon have? How
Speaker 1: would it come to have a body? Would it be
Speaker 1: composed of air, would it be composed of some different
Speaker 1: form of flesh? How would this possibly happen? Because they
Speaker 1: needed it to happen so badly well, and cast doubt
Speaker 1: on women in every single enterprise of their life, should
Speaker 1: including midwiffery, in which then you know, of midwife, we
Speaker 1: become suspect because it would think you would think that
Speaker 1: if she were delivering your baby should be offering up
Speaker 1: to the demon. You know. So there's a lot of
Speaker 1: different things that play um. But I think what we
Speaker 1: find ourselves with today is this legacies of angels and
Speaker 1: demons and this idea of women as which is um
Speaker 1: that that continues just to flavor the fabric of our society. Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I mean, certainly the misogyny still exists, the magical
Speaker 1: thinking still exists of in not only much of the world,
Speaker 1: but in everyday life. There's a certain magic of magical thinking.
Speaker 1: I don't care how steeped in skepticism you are, you're
Speaker 1: gonna engage in a little bit of magical thinking. At
Speaker 1: least when you see somebody draw a smiley face on
Speaker 1: the wall, you're gonna see a human face there. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's just on a very basic level, we think magically.
Speaker 1: But then, just as the post fourteen hundred world was
Speaker 1: an age of of religious doubt and change and technological innovation,
Speaker 1: I mean we continue to see that every every day
Speaker 1: in our modern lives. Every age has to have to
Speaker 1: have the same crisises that emerge of where we have
Speaker 1: to doubt what we've been taught and and somehow come
Speaker 1: to terms with with what the world is showing us.
Speaker 1: And you see people that resisted that again double down
Speaker 1: to that cognitive dissonance. So I mean, just think to
Speaker 1: your own self, Think to the politics you see on
Speaker 1: the TV every day, to what depths would would you fall?
Speaker 1: What hellish crimes would you commit in order to cling
Speaker 1: to a faith that deep down, or to a political
Speaker 1: idea or what have you that you no longer really believe.
Speaker 1: What would you become in order to maintain that barrier
Speaker 1: between your worldview and the outside, you know, in order
Speaker 1: to defeat the steaming of cognitive distance. Yeah, and as
Speaker 1: Erica Jonging says that witchcraft is, it doesn't. It's not
Speaker 1: something that just went away. It just sort of re arises, uh,
Speaker 1: from time period of time period under a different guys. Um.
Speaker 1: So I did want to point this out to that
Speaker 1: if you're interested in in learning more about witchcraft, at
Speaker 1: least in modern times, um, you can check out an
Speaker 1: HBO documentary Saving Africa's which is. It's a two thousand
Speaker 1: and ten documentary and and actually talked about the plight
Speaker 1: of young Nigerians branded as which is some as young
Speaker 1: as three months old, and some of some of these
Speaker 1: ideas that continue to pervade different cultures. Also, be sure
Speaker 1: to check out which is by Erica jong Um. It
Speaker 1: has some incredible illustrations. It is a wonderful history of
Speaker 1: which is and John also has some great poems in
Speaker 1: there as well. Um. The illustrations are wonderful as well.
Speaker 1: But the one in the cover, like Julie brought it
Speaker 1: to my desk, and that covers a little hippie dippie
Speaker 1: looking because at first glance you only see this this
Speaker 1: very sort of flowers and goodness pagan which at the top,
Speaker 1: but then it becomes a more of a hag at
Speaker 1: the bottom. So when I first saw it, I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is some sort of this is not really necessarily
Speaker 1: gonna be in keeping with a lot of what we're
Speaker 1: talking about, but but it's it's really great. And then
Speaker 1: the illustrations inside the book, Uh, trust me, there are
Speaker 1: plenty of goat men and naked ladies prancing around for
Speaker 1: for any reader to find interesting. And the content is excellent.
Speaker 1: And again, Walter Stephen's Demon Lover is a great book
Speaker 1: if you want to a deeper dive into that whole
Speaker 1: discussion of the importance of physical contact between a witch
Speaker 1: and a demon. It's a great book, but it's also
Speaker 1: kind of a it's kind of a heavy read, so
Speaker 1: I don't recommend that to everybody. But I would like
Speaker 1: to close out with a quote from Walter Stevens in
Speaker 1: the book, where he's he's looking forward from the medieval
Speaker 1: ages and looking to our own age and again talking
Speaker 1: about the energy that that perpetrated and and propped up
Speaker 1: these atrocity and how that energy is still alive in society. Today,
Speaker 1: He says, the insecurities that produced experiments with witches are
Speaker 1: not a thing of the past. Both witchcraft theory and
Speaker 1: scholastic natural philosophy resemble the creation science of late twentieth
Speaker 1: century Christian fundamentalist All three attempt to make knowledge of
Speaker 1: the physical world conform to the most literal possible interpretation
Speaker 1: of the Bible. This is always an exercise and damage controlled.
Speaker 1: How much of the Good Book can be salvaged when
Speaker 1: experience collides with tradition and authority. So there you have it.
Speaker 1: If you have anything you would like to share, if
Speaker 1: you have something something about which culture today, about how
Speaker 1: we view the idea of a witch, I'm sure we
Speaker 1: have some wicked listeners out there. We would love to
Speaker 1: hear from you. Guys and gals. Let us know what
Speaker 1: you think about the legacy of the witch in human society,
Speaker 1: and if anyone has anything I would like to share
Speaker 1: their thoughts on the history of which persecution and what
Speaker 1: it meant the various things that made these atrocities happen.
Speaker 1: We'd love to hear from you. You can find us
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Speaker 1: can also drop us a line at blow the Mind
Speaker 1: at discovery dot com. For more on this and thousands
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