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Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is

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Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or

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Speaker 1: learn this stuff they don't want you to know. A

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Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show.

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Speaker 3: My name is Matt, my name is Noel.

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Speaker 4: They call me Ben. We're joined as always with our

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Speaker 4: super producer Paul Rady Day Decads. Most importantly, you are here.

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Speaker 4: That makes this the stuff they don't want.

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Speaker 3: You to know.

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Speaker 4: It is the most wonderful time of the year. Fellow

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Speaker 4: conspiracy realist. Happy Halloween. We hope that this finds you

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Speaker 4: in good spirits. We also hope that you tune in

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Speaker 4: to a couple other Halloween episodes our crew is doing.

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Speaker 4: As we mentioned, Thirteen Days of Halloween is officially out.

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Speaker 4: Do check it. You will enjoy it, we hope.

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Speaker 5: And also, and if you haven't listened to all of

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Speaker 5: the other three seasons, as you're like going through one

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Speaker 5: episode per day for season four, just go back and

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Speaker 5: relift the.

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Speaker 4: Other Yeah stories.

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Speaker 6: Almost done with my spooky synth score for the story

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Speaker 6: we talked about last episode. I'm really excited China crank

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Speaker 6: that out today for the future, because now by the

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Speaker 6: time you hear this, it will already be out in

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Speaker 6: the world.

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Speaker 4: And Matt has for many years with Aaron Mankey and

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Speaker 4: Alex Williams ran the ship for thirteen days. I have

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Speaker 4: been privileged to write several episodes every season. You will

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Speaker 4: probably be able to tell which ones in Oh and

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Speaker 4: last plug check out ridiculous history or episode on trick

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Speaker 4: or treating. And you're never too old to trick or tree.

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Speaker 4: You're never to wear it.

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Speaker 6: Here's a cutoff, I think for expecting candy. But you

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Speaker 6: can like get accompany kids, you know, if you.

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Speaker 4: On a costume and people are already walking around.

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Speaker 3: I mean, cons are trick or treating for adults.

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Speaker 4: I think you know, respectfully disagree, but yeah.

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Speaker 6: Never mind, you can't be an adult trick or treat

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Speaker 6: expect that's like a whole thing.

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Speaker 3: People will we'll look at you funny.

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Speaker 4: Well, let us know what you think, folks.

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Speaker 5: I just have to say, so far, for eight years,

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Speaker 5: I have gone to costume and walked around with my son,

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Speaker 5: uh you know, kind of trick or treating with him

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Speaker 5: as his surrogate when he was too young to actually

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Speaker 5: say the words. And then you know, now I just

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Speaker 5: kind of stand back, and but I still wear a costume.

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Speaker 4: You had some epic costumes too, twickle tweet, I love

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Speaker 4: it twickle teating. And we since we love Halloween so

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Speaker 4: very much, we also like to do an episode that

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Speaker 4: speaks to some of the conventional tropes and ideas of Halloween.

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Speaker 4: We wanted to dive into something pretty bizarre tonight. There

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Speaker 4: is a tinge of ridiculous history to this story, allegations

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Speaker 4: of unearthly powers and infernal contracts. Most importantly, there's a

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Speaker 4: hell of a lot of conspiracy. In this evening's exploration,

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Speaker 4: we're talking about witch hunts, the fact, the fiction, and

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Speaker 4: the big question how did witch hunts actually work? Why

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Speaker 4: were they so prevalent in the past, in the Middle Ages,

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Speaker 4: and particularly at the end, why do they remain prevalent

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Speaker 4: in parts of the world today. Here are the facts,

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Speaker 4: I guess, Noel Matt we got to talk about the

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Speaker 4: fictional version and also say we're not dunking on Wickens

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Speaker 4: at all or any like non Christian belief systems.

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Speaker 3: Never.

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Speaker 6: I mean, some of my favorite people in my life

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Speaker 6: are Wickens. Every Wicked I've ever known has been a lovely,

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Speaker 6: kind human.

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Speaker 4: Person, super nice, like Midwestern or Canadian level nice. The Wickens,

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Speaker 4: you know, they're like, hey, we're gonna come hang out.

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Speaker 4: We're always having a pot luck, you know, and you

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Speaker 4: might not get all the levels of conversation, but they're

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Speaker 4: they're just like anybody else, very kind to people who

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Speaker 4: have a set of beliefs that you may not share.

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Speaker 4: The fictional versions of witch hunts, though shout out to

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Speaker 4: shout out to one of the first things Aaron Manke

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Speaker 4: worked on with us. The fictional versions of witch hunts

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Speaker 4: in the West are usually depicted like this. This is

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Speaker 4: pretty much every movie. There's a place that vaguely resembles

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Speaker 4: medieval Europe or the early European founded American colonies, and

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Speaker 4: things go bad for the town, right, they're bad signs.

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Speaker 4: People are all increasingly poor, and children or or livestock

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Speaker 4: or still born or born cursed, you know, which means

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Speaker 4: having some sort of physical or mental ailment. The well

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Speaker 4: what runs dry, that's always a big thing. The crops fail,

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Speaker 4: or most of the crops, and people are scared, and

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Speaker 4: they're hungry and they're tired, and they pray in the

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Speaker 4: church and God leaves them on red.

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Speaker 3: Isn't it funny? That meant that's not funny.

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Speaker 6: It's horrifying that just how many things that were entirely

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Speaker 6: based around ignorance were blamed on witches, you know, and

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Speaker 6: demonic forces.

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Speaker 3: It's tale as old as time.

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Speaker 6: And now we use the term witch hunt to describe,

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Speaker 6: I mean, it's been politicized obviously, but describe somebody being

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Speaker 6: you know, heckled or you know, gone after, you know,

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Speaker 6: for something they supposedly didn't do. But now again it's

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Speaker 6: been used kind of as like almost a dog whistle

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Speaker 6: for something they probably did do. But it's a witch hunt,

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Speaker 6: so everyone's after me.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: Well, and it's weird how similar and different simultaneously those

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Speaker 5: fictional versions are to reality, right, like, because there really

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Speaker 5: were bad things happening all the time in medieval Europe

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Speaker 5: or in the American colonies, or you know, in Scotland

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Speaker 5: or wherever you were in the world. Bad stuff was

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Speaker 5: happening all the time in medieval ages in the sixteen hundreds.

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Speaker 4: Oh yeah, are you kidding? The lack of sanitation alone. Eventually,

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Speaker 4: this fright ferments both in the real world and in fiction,

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Speaker 4: and let's stay in fiction for now. Eventually the fight ferments,

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Speaker 4: as it often does, into anger, the town authorities feel

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Speaker 4: their credibility is under question, and so they put someone

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Speaker 4: else to the question. For any fans of the inquisition,

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Speaker 4: and they look for someone to blame, or the town

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Speaker 4: does it themselves. They start spreading rumors, they start saying, hey,

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Speaker 4: I saw so and so walking by the day before

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Speaker 4: all those cattle were still born, et cetera. And there's

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Speaker 4: not really there's not really any proof of this, as

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Speaker 4: we'll see in any kangaroo court of a witch trial. There,

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Speaker 4: especially in the Nissan American colonies, there was this directive

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Speaker 4: that spiritual evidence or perspective or experience was admissible. So

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Speaker 4: you didn't have to talk about something you could prove

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Speaker 4: if you were a witness, you could talk about something

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Speaker 4: you believed, and you could be forthright in saying, well,

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Speaker 4: she's got a weird hat. You know. In fiction, there's

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Speaker 4: you know, in fiction, the witch is almost always a woman,

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Speaker 4: overwhelmingly so, and gets arrested by the ecclesiastical authorities, the

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Speaker 4: church powers, and she's put on trial for any number

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Speaker 4: of bizarre crimes. You get testimony from victims, stuff like

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Speaker 4: old widow Hammerschmidt put a hex on my farm, or

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Speaker 4: she put a magic bridle on me and turned me

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Speaker 4: into a horse against my will, and we went to

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Speaker 4: midnight sabots meetings of witches. And then it's usually implied

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Speaker 4: that there was some sort of fornication with other witches

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Speaker 4: or with the devil. Stuff that's a little too fast

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Speaker 4: and loose, and sometimes devil's in the form of a goat.

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Speaker 4: So you got best reality, that's scandalous. And in fiction,

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Speaker 4: very few of the witches ever get their charges dismissed.

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Speaker 4: Oh and in fact as well, very few people accused

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Speaker 4: of witchcraft ever got their charges dismissed then and today.

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Speaker 6: Well, because it's also like hard to prove a negative,

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Speaker 6: you know what I mean, when there's no actual proof

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Speaker 6: for the thing other than things that are made up

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Speaker 6: by the folks that are trying to convict these people.

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Speaker 6: It all goes back to doesn't all go back but

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Speaker 6: a great you know, I guess parody of this is

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Speaker 6: in Monty Python, where it's like, is she made of wood?

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Speaker 3: Is she then she's a duck? What else floats? Or whatever?

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Speaker 6: Like it's that absurd, the you know, the factors they

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Speaker 6: used to prove these things, and in fiction as well

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Speaker 6: as fact, no matter how bizarre the accusations, how scant

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Speaker 6: or manufacture, the evidence, how solid the defendants alibi.

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Speaker 4: These were always what we would call kangaroo courts. They

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Speaker 4: were I would argue, more public theater than legal proceedings.

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Speaker 4: So the witch was almost always found guilty. In the

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Speaker 4: world of fiction, novels, play short stories, films, they almost

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Speaker 4: always show a violent execution, drowning, death by asphyxiation, being

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Speaker 4: crushed by rocks, burning at the stake as the witch,

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Speaker 4: with her dying words utters a terrible curse that will

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Speaker 4: haunt the town for generations, and a full franchise of

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Speaker 4: film to come cool. I mean, if you live in

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Speaker 4: the US, you're probably most familiar with the Salem witch

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Speaker 4: trials because fiction spends a lot of time and money

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Speaker 4: on them. But the issue, the genuine conspiracy, goes far,

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Speaker 4: far beyond Salem. Maybe we talk about the fact versions here, because,

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Speaker 4: as you pointed out, Matt, there are commonalities. These breathless

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Speaker 4: fictional adaptations did not come from a vacuum.

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Speaker 5: No, No, people have been studying witchcraft and trials of

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Speaker 5: witchcraft for god. I mean, it's been three hundred and

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Speaker 5: thirty one years since the Salem witch trials, and well

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Speaker 5: before that, hundreds of years before that, human beings were

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Speaker 5: obsessed with witches, like in the fifteen hundreds in Scotland.

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Speaker 5: I mean, it's just it goes way, way, way back.

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Speaker 4: So fourteen hundreds in Germany. Oh, yeah, witch hunts were

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Speaker 4: so hot, you know, such an industry.

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Speaker 5: And you're right, you guys are so right that it

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Speaker 5: goes back to fear, it goes back to religious belief

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Speaker 5: and a bunch of other things. I think all of us. Well,

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Speaker 5: I don't know, did you guys have to read The

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Speaker 5: Crucible like as.

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Speaker 4: Part of your.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I really great piece of work.

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Speaker 4: I took several classes on the history of witchcraft and

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Speaker 4: witch hunts college Nice.

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Speaker 2: Well you know what I mean. Well, that's cool.

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Speaker 3: I did.

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Speaker 2: I didn't have that. That would have been awesome. I

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Speaker 2: would do that. Jeez.

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Speaker 5: We just you know, when we made Unobscured, we talked

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Speaker 5: to Aaron Manke. We were in Boston and all over

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Speaker 5: the place. They are like talking to people who've spent

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Speaker 5: their lives researching the Salem witch Trials alone, just that

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Speaker 5: one section of history, right to try and find the

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Speaker 5: best understanding of what actually occurred and why, right, and

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Speaker 5: it is it It is a weird mixture of all

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Speaker 5: the stuff we just talked about, the fictional things with Again,

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Speaker 5: it's it's like with politics and hardened religious belief and

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Speaker 5: people controlling towns and countries with that religious belief as law.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 4: And while the fictional stuff is cool, right, one of

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Speaker 4: I think one of our collective favorite recent horror films

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Speaker 4: is literally The Witch, The Witch. While that's all cool,

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Speaker 4: the factual versions are unfortunately severely uncool. Accusations of practicing

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Speaker 4: illegal or damaging magic, left hand path stuff, for any

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Speaker 4: of the initiated in the audience this evening, Those accusations

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Speaker 4: are found in every single ancient culture, all throughout history,

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Speaker 4: all around the world, zero exceptions. Like you were saying, Matt,

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Speaker 4: it's not just Salem, it's not just Europe, it's not

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Speaker 4: just the global West. But there is a difference. The

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Speaker 4: focus on the West comes from something relatively distinct. Accusations

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Speaker 4: of witchcraft in other cultures were openly often a means

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Speaker 4: to express or resolve social tensions, but they had different

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Speaker 4: consequences from those in Western society. And the eleventh century

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Speaker 4: witchcraft and sorcery, the attitudes toward it began to change,

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Speaker 4: and this part of this was due to ecclesiastical authorities.

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Speaker 4: It's a process that transforms the Western perspective on witchcraft

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Speaker 4: and immediately associates it with heresy, with chetat right, with

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Speaker 4: the devil. It's a lucifer and by the fourteenth century,

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Speaker 4: this fear of heresy, heretical blasphemous thought, and this fear

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Speaker 4: of Satan coming into your home. Right, this added charges

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Speaker 4: of diabolism of devil worshiping to the usual indictment of witches.

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Speaker 4: Before this time, in most of the world, it would

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Speaker 4: have been trafficking with evil spirits. It would have been

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Speaker 4: using the technology of magic in an incorrect or deleterious way.

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Speaker 6: Yeah, as opposed to like, you know, the wizards and

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Speaker 6: witches of King Arthur's court, you know, some of which

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Speaker 6: are like hanging out and like they're part of the

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Speaker 6: team and they're like doing you a solid. That did

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Speaker 6: not spring from this kind of thinking, although of course

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Speaker 6: that is some of the earliest forms of Christianity back then.

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Speaker 6: But this version that we're talking about was a way

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Speaker 6: of weaponizing this and othering people by putting them in

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Speaker 6: you know, the camp of practicing some of those those

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Speaker 6: things that you were talking about then.

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Speaker 5: Well, don't don't forget there are learned people in these

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Speaker 5: times that do things like design temples and you know,

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Speaker 5: do stonecraft work, who practice some pretty some things that

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Speaker 5: you might find pretty strange at the time, that people

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Speaker 5: might have found to be magical or alchemical, right, and

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Speaker 5: who there were beliefs going around, but it was this

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Speaker 5: like that was the magic for good kind of thing.

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Speaker 4: Right until it was politically convenient to target those people,

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Speaker 4: the hedge doctors, the you know, like if you'll you'll

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Speaker 4: know when you've entered a witch hunt phase of society

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Speaker 4: when like your local doc in a box or minute

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Speaker 4: clinic starts getting targeted. Well, I'm kidding, it's not gonna

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Speaker 4: be them, It's going to be your local smoke shop

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Speaker 4: or alternative medicine shop.

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Speaker 5: Well yeah, and like a shaman, a shaman who is

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Speaker 5: very it's very distinct and different from someone practicing witchcraft.

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Speaker 5: But depending on the viewer, right, and the beliefs of

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Speaker 5: that viewer, it could be the same thing.

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Speaker 4: It could be a synonymous, right, because any it's othering, right,

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Speaker 4: anything that is not me is some antagonistic amorphous them.

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Speaker 4: And this this is important because in the West, what

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Speaker 4: happened is that people began associating any esoteric, non Christian

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Speaker 4: belief or practice with witchcraft, with worship, with maleficium, which

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Speaker 4: is malevolent sorcery. And there's a famous book about that

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Speaker 4: which we'll talk about. That book is responsible for a

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Speaker 4: lot of deaths. This combo meal sorcery being inherently associated

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Speaker 4: with the Christian concept of the devil is what made

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Speaker 4: witchcraft unique in the West from the fourteenth century all

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Speaker 4: the way to the seventeen hundreds, which is, were believed

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Speaker 4: to inherently hate the idea of Christianity. They were making

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Speaker 4: pacts with the devil. They could call upon demons to

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Speaker 4: accomplish magical deeds, but unlike Solomon, when they did it,

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Speaker 4: it was bad. When Solomon did it, it was just

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Speaker 4: sort of dope, right, yeah, yeah, that give it thumbs

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Speaker 4: up on that one. And then they would be accused

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Speaker 4: of specific symbolic acts of disrespect, desecrating the crucifix, talking trash,

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Speaker 4: or doing mean stuff to the Eucharist, consecrated bread and wine. Oh,

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Speaker 4: and then they know they had sex outside of marriage

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Speaker 4: was the idea. They could change shapes. They kidnapped and

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Speaker 4: murdered children to eat them or to use parts of

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Speaker 4: their body in magic rituals, and that one. Oh, remember

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Speaker 4: that that comes in at the end of tonight's episode.

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Speaker 4: But our point is that's a lot. And the reality

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Speaker 4: is that while some people, because thousands and thousands of

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Speaker 4: folks died as a result of witch hunts, while some

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Speaker 4: of those people probably did practice what was considered sorcery,

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Speaker 4: and while some of them may have practiced it with

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Speaker 4: the intent to harm another person or living thing, some

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Speaker 4: may have even thought they were worshiping the devil, in reality,

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Speaker 4: if you look at it, not a single victim of

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Speaker 4: a witch hunt ever fit the fictional depiction of a

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Speaker 4: real witch. Which witch which sounds surprising, because, believe it

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Speaker 4: or not, folks, there is a conspiracy afoot, a hoof

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Speaker 4: never mind, I yes, yeah, a cloven hoof in the

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Speaker 4: world of witch hunts. Believe it or not, it was

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Speaker 4: not the witches who were conspiring.

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Speaker 5: And really quickly, guys, I want to shout out an

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Speaker 5: historian in a book that ties directly back to the

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Speaker 5: things you were talking about, Ben where women were often

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Speaker 5: targeted and sexuality was often kind of at the heart

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Speaker 5: of this, like especially a woman who was taking sexuality,

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Speaker 5: her sexuality into her own hands, and wasn't you know,

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Speaker 5: living by all of the rules that were being imposed

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Speaker 5: on her. There's a book titled Six Women of Salem,

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Speaker 5: The Untold Story of the Accused and their accusers in

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Speaker 5: the Salem Witch Trials, is written by Marilyn Roach, and

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Speaker 5: it is It is just a fascinating book that it

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Speaker 5: does look at six individual women and goes deep into

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Speaker 5: their lives and stories to look at why they were

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Speaker 5: accused and like all of the social stuff going on

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Speaker 5: around them and in especially inner social relationships that they

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Speaker 5: had and onlookers, and how they became involved in the

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Speaker 5: Salem witch Trials.

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Speaker 4: I really appreciate you pointing that book out, Matt. I

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Speaker 4: enjoyed it as well. And perhaps we are launching a

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Speaker 4: bit of a defense of those accused of witchcraft again,

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Speaker 4: not just in Salem, but in the world entire Believe

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Speaker 4: it or not, Folks, while this conspiracy is afoot, it

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Speaker 4: was not the witches conspiring. It never has been. We're

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Speaker 4: going to pause for a word from our sponsor and

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Speaker 4: then we're gonna I think we'll nerd out on some

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Speaker 4: more books. Here's where it gets crazy, all right, Back

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Speaker 4: in the day. The ancient civilizations took the existence of spirits, good,

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Speaker 4: evil and neutral as fact. Magic was considered a kind

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Speaker 4: of technology, and the idea was that if you were

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Speaker 4: a responsible member of society, you needed both religion and

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Speaker 4: magic to defend yourself from spirits, to appease those spirits,

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Speaker 4: to like Solomon, occasionally control them. And this all changed

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Speaker 4: with the rise of Christianity. God in the Christian theology

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Speaker 4: is seen as the sole source of all good things,

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Speaker 4: and therefore to practice tactics that are not expressly condoned

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Speaker 4: in greenlit by biblical texts became heresy and blasphemy, no

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Speaker 4: matter the intention of the magician.

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Speaker 6: And there are passages in the Bible that condemn that

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Speaker 6: kind of stuff right like. So it's like the rules

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Speaker 6: are set forth in the holiest of holy texts for

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Speaker 6: this particular belief system.

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Speaker 5: Oh I'm gonna do it, guys, real fast, ready, Exodus twenty.

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Speaker 5: I am the Lord, thy God, which have brought thee

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Speaker 5: out of the land of Egypt, out of the house

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Speaker 5: of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

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Speaker 5: Thou shalt not make unto the any graven image or

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Speaker 5: any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or

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Speaker 5: that is in the earth beneath, or that is in

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Speaker 5: the water under the earth.

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Speaker 6: No merch got it to ask matt who is meant

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Speaker 6: to be speaking there, who is meant to have interpreted?

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Speaker 2: But like, who talking to Moses?

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Speaker 3: He's talking to Moses.

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Speaker 6: Okay, so this is all coming from Moses saying, God

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Speaker 6: spoke to me, and he's said this.

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Speaker 5: Stuff on Mount Sinai one of the six or seven

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Speaker 5: times Moses went up to the mountain and said.

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Speaker 3: Hey, guys, the tablets right, the commandments well in the sea.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, but there's a series of like hanging outs that

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Speaker 5: Moses had with God on Mount Sinai where he literally

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Speaker 5: said to everybody else, don't come up here. God said,

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Speaker 5: he will literally kill you with the sword if you

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Speaker 5: come up here. Don't come up here.

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Speaker 3: Hey, no attention to the man behind the curtain.

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Speaker 4: A little bit of silent information, a little.

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Speaker 5: Bit maybe, but anyway, Yeah, Exodus goes on in all

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Speaker 5: of the commandments of the Ten Commandments that you know,

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Speaker 5: as well as a bunch of other rules and laws

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Speaker 5: that God communicated to Moses according to the Bible, that

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Speaker 5: have to do with that very thing. Do not worship

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Speaker 5: anything that is not me, and also don't hurt any

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Speaker 5: fatherless children or widows or it says literally in the Bible,

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Speaker 5: in the King James version, that God will kill you

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Speaker 5: with the sword and leave your children fatherless.

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Speaker 3: Oh that's fun.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, there's also there are also multiple mentions in the

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Speaker 4: Bible of magic of not practicing magic, right dude.

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Speaker 2: Yes.

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Speaker 4: And the idea then again, is that magic is now

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Speaker 4: defined in Christian theology as anything that is not God,

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Speaker 4: no matter if it's helpful, like anything that is the

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Speaker 4: only spells you are allowed to do are prayers.

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Speaker 6: Well, heck, I mean it reminds me of like, what

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Speaker 6: is it Christian scientists that don't believe in medicine or

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Speaker 6: there's certain you know, subsets of Christianity that won't put

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Speaker 6: anything external into their body because I mean, in some ways,

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Speaker 6: the modern form of magic, I guess is things like

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Speaker 6: medicine and surgery and stuff that is a way of

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Speaker 6: controlling the narrative, you know, beyond what God hath you know,

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Speaker 6: ordained to be the case.

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Speaker 4: And this is an odd reversal of history. Just a

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Speaker 4: side note, you know, the so the Christians and we

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Speaker 4: have a lot of Christians in the audience here, we

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Speaker 4: know that you are not launching which hunts. We got

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Speaker 4: your back, folks, don't worry. But back in the day

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Speaker 4: when Christians were functioning as a state force to repress descent,

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Speaker 4: you have to wonder whether they were aware that Roman

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Speaker 4: civilization had earlier done the exact same thing to them.

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Speaker 4: And of course Jewish communities were always going to be

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Speaker 4: targeted whenever it was politically convenient. We'll see microcosmic version

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Speaker 4: of this when we look at witch hunts. The real

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Speaker 4: conspiracy behind witch hunts was on the part of the

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Speaker 4: witch hunters, not their victims. To get a better understanding

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Speaker 4: of this, Matt I would recommend, in addition to six Women,

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Speaker 4: folks who are interested should check out a fantastic book

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Speaker 4: by doctor Carol F. Carlson, which is called The Devil

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Speaker 4: in the Shape of a Woman. This thing was published

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Speaker 4: in nineteen eighty seven, but take our word for it, folks,

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Speaker 4: it's a banger because Carlson is one of the first academics,

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Speaker 4: the first researchers to do a serious, intense interrogation and

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Speaker 4: Puritan history in the early American colonies. And as a

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Speaker 4: result of this investigation and which also applies to Europe. Later,

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Speaker 4: Carlson found that there were specific predictable demographic dimensions to

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Speaker 4: people accused of witchcraft in New England. Those dimensions were

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Speaker 4: the three big ones were the age of the victim

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Speaker 4: or the accused, their marital status, and their social class.

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Speaker 4: This again, it applied to the European theater, and the

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Speaker 4: European theater set the tone in the thirteen and fourteen eleven,

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Speaker 4: in the eleven hundreds to like the fourteen hundreds, it's

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Speaker 4: set the tone for everything that happened in Salem, the

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Speaker 4: tragic events, which kind of pale in comparison to the

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Speaker 4: to the murder programs of Europe is nuts. Because even

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Speaker 4: Pope Alexander the Fourth outlawed witchcraft trials in twelve fifty eight.

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Speaker 4: It was like, ah, it gets out of hand?

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Speaker 3: How out of hand?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, how long can a church exist if we kill

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Speaker 4: everyone that we want to show up?

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Speaker 6: You know, well, with fear of God is one thing,

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Speaker 6: but like fear of pain, of death, you know, at

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Speaker 6: the hands of these purveyors of the Word of God,

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Speaker 6: starts to really erode trust in your leaders after a while, right.

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Speaker 5: Think about the paranoia that would exist in any small

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Speaker 5: village right where like you're looking around at everybody, trying

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Speaker 5: to make sure you're never doing anything that could ever be,

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Speaker 5: even in the most remote way, associated with witchcraft.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, trying to outhollly roller each other.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, oh yeah, it's a Puritan Olympics over here, and.

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Speaker 3: There we go.

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Speaker 4: I love that, well done. Yes, And so the Pope

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Speaker 4: who is like the Grand Puba, the big authority, he's

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Speaker 4: got the hat and everything. For people practicing Catholicism, this

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Speaker 4: is a direct spiritual ideological descendant of everything that you

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Speaker 4: Christ wants you to do. So when this guy says

434
00:27:04,600 --> 00:27:08,160
Speaker 4: stop or go, you're supposed to stop or go. However,

435
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:12,720
Speaker 4: in this case, after he makes that decree in twelve

436
00:27:12,840 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 4: fifty eight, that papal bull in that case, his decision

437
00:27:18,200 --> 00:27:23,440
Speaker 4: gets thrown out. A few centuries later, you know, the

438
00:27:23,480 --> 00:27:28,720
Speaker 4: Malleius Maleficarum comes out, which is the the gold standard

439
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:33,199
Speaker 4: on how to torture and execute and convict witches. It

440
00:27:33,240 --> 00:27:36,200
Speaker 4: doesn't spend much time on figuring out whether they're innocent.

441
00:27:36,400 --> 00:27:37,600
Speaker 4: Just spoiler, have.

442
00:27:37,600 --> 00:27:40,320
Speaker 6: You guys seen that movie Drag Me to Hell? Yes,

443
00:27:41,160 --> 00:27:43,960
Speaker 6: it's a little problematic on hindsight.

444
00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:45,320
Speaker 3: It came out in like two thousand.

445
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,520
Speaker 6: And nine is like a Roma woman who is the

446
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:51,120
Speaker 6: you know, the villain who basically curses this woman who

447
00:27:51,160 --> 00:27:53,800
Speaker 6: totally doesn't deserve it. But the way they portray the

448
00:27:53,880 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 6: Roma culture is a little problematic. But there is a

449
00:27:57,000 --> 00:28:00,600
Speaker 6: book presented at some point by like a seer figure.

450
00:28:00,880 --> 00:28:04,200
Speaker 6: It's called like the Sacrifice of Animals in the Service

451
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 6: of a Deity. And I bet books like that exist

452
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:09,639
Speaker 6: with those like woodcut kind of like prints, you know,

453
00:28:09,800 --> 00:28:12,440
Speaker 6: of like here's exhibit a how you slaughter the goat

454
00:28:12,480 --> 00:28:13,439
Speaker 6: and do all the things.

455
00:28:13,520 --> 00:28:15,840
Speaker 4: You know, check out our Grimoar episode.

456
00:28:16,000 --> 00:28:19,920
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, for sure. But again, sorry guys, that's an

457
00:28:19,920 --> 00:28:24,199
Speaker 5: exodus of how you need to sacrifice animals on my

458
00:28:24,560 --> 00:28:29,320
Speaker 5: very specific stone altar that you're not even supposed to

459
00:28:29,320 --> 00:28:31,680
Speaker 5: touch with a hammer or something or you're gonna mess

460
00:28:31,720 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 5: it up, but don't sacrifice them on non stone altars.

461
00:28:35,680 --> 00:28:40,440
Speaker 4: Yeah. It's also related the animal sacrifice in particular, which

462
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 4: is a magical ritual, right. It's also closely related to

463
00:28:47,760 --> 00:28:51,920
Speaker 4: keeping kosher, to kashrut, to Islamic laws about what is

464
00:28:51,960 --> 00:28:56,840
Speaker 4: halal or haram, and so we we see this all

465
00:28:56,960 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 4: occurs concurrently. Why did people ignore the Pope will get

466
00:29:01,360 --> 00:29:04,880
Speaker 4: to that. One big part of it was the Protestant Reformation.

467
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:10,560
Speaker 4: That lead single from Martin Luther went viral, absolute banger

468
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:13,040
Speaker 4: in the early fifteen hundreds when he wrote ninety five

469
00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:16,840
Speaker 4: Theces you know, which is clearly what Jay Z is

470
00:29:16,880 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 4: referencing when he says ninety nine problems about it. There's

471
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:21,360
Speaker 4: a lot of doctrine in there and.

472
00:29:21,400 --> 00:29:24,720
Speaker 5: So but a witch is not one right?

473
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:25,680
Speaker 4: Which is not one?

474
00:29:25,920 --> 00:29:26,280
Speaker 2: Love it?

475
00:29:26,440 --> 00:29:29,360
Speaker 4: Okay, that's in the mixtape. So both of these camps

476
00:29:29,360 --> 00:29:33,680
Speaker 4: at Christianity, Protestants and Catholics beat me here again, Paul,

477
00:29:33,720 --> 00:29:38,480
Speaker 4: I'm sorry, I'm cursing Lott. These groups hate each other.

478
00:29:39,040 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 4: They think the other one is basically a devil worshiper

479
00:29:43,120 --> 00:29:48,320
Speaker 4: with more steps. And because they had this intense beef

480
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,840
Speaker 4: with one another, they needed to recruit folks. They needed

481
00:29:51,880 --> 00:29:55,040
Speaker 4: butts and seats, they needed hearts and minds, and they

482
00:29:55,120 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 4: realized quite quickly. It was very cold, but they realized

483
00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:02,440
Speaker 4: quite quickly one of the best ways to convert people

484
00:30:02,640 --> 00:30:04,960
Speaker 4: was to show the power of your God and your

485
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,080
Speaker 4: belief on the ground in the field. You know what

486
00:30:08,120 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 4: I mean. Burn some witches show people that there are

487
00:30:12,520 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 4: real world consequences for joining the wrong team.

488
00:30:16,320 --> 00:30:18,959
Speaker 5: Yeah, or just hang them or pillary them, you know,

489
00:30:19,200 --> 00:30:21,760
Speaker 5: leave them, leave their body there for a little while,

490
00:30:22,000 --> 00:30:24,200
Speaker 5: so everybody got to see.

491
00:30:24,240 --> 00:30:27,960
Speaker 4: Everybody can afford rocks, you know what I mean. And

492
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,160
Speaker 4: drowning of course, if there's a convenient water source. And

493
00:30:31,200 --> 00:30:33,560
Speaker 4: if she floats, she's a witch. If she dies, you.

494
00:30:33,480 --> 00:30:35,520
Speaker 3: Know, meant to be.

495
00:30:35,880 --> 00:30:40,320
Speaker 5: Yeah, let's talk about just really quickly that the ordeal

496
00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 5: of the like the what is it, the swimming what

497
00:30:43,000 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 5: do they call the swimming test?

498
00:30:44,520 --> 00:30:45,360
Speaker 2: I think back in.

499
00:30:45,360 --> 00:30:48,000
Speaker 4: The dunking stool things like that.

500
00:30:48,200 --> 00:30:52,480
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, okay, So there's a great article. It's I

501
00:30:52,480 --> 00:30:55,240
Speaker 5: think a blog that's a part of the Library of

502
00:30:55,320 --> 00:31:01,800
Speaker 5: Congress where Nathan Dorn goes through back in twenty twenty two.

503
00:31:01,840 --> 00:31:04,440
Speaker 5: He goes through and looks at the swimming test in particular,

504
00:31:05,520 --> 00:31:11,200
Speaker 5: and my goodness, you guys. He cites the legal arguments

505
00:31:11,440 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 5: that were occurring about this swimming test. If this person

506
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:17,880
Speaker 5: is a witch, will put them in the water. If

507
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 5: they float, they're a witch. If they don't float, they're

508
00:31:20,720 --> 00:31:23,080
Speaker 5: not a witch. And all things are great. But they're

509
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:27,120
Speaker 5: going back and forth saying, like one guy will say, oh, well, god,

510
00:31:27,320 --> 00:31:29,800
Speaker 5: surely will show us the witch is true nature if

511
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:32,280
Speaker 5: we throw her to the water and another says, well,

512
00:31:32,440 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 5: do you presume to demand a miracle of God every

513
00:31:35,280 --> 00:31:38,200
Speaker 5: time you, you know, do this? And the one says no,

514
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:41,080
Speaker 5: the water itself will reject the witch's body.

515
00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:44,800
Speaker 6: I mean, is of God? He hath brought that. I

516
00:31:44,840 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 6: screwed it up earlier. The monty python bid as a

517
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:51,040
Speaker 6: duck floats in water. If the woman weighs the same

518
00:31:51,080 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 6: as a duck, then she is made of wood. The

519
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:55,920
Speaker 6: woman weighs the same as a duck, therefore the woman

520
00:31:56,040 --> 00:31:59,160
Speaker 6: is a witch. That's the round up. But it's obviously

521
00:31:59,360 --> 00:32:01,960
Speaker 6: inspired by what you're talking about, because it's so absurd.

522
00:32:02,360 --> 00:32:06,800
Speaker 4: And the ducking stool that was the predecessor of this

523
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:12,840
Speaker 4: specific type of execution was at first just a form

524
00:32:12,880 --> 00:32:17,600
Speaker 4: of social humiliation and punishment, similar to a pillory. You

525
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:21,760
Speaker 4: would be you would be punished for being something like

526
00:32:21,840 --> 00:32:26,240
Speaker 4: a disorderly woman or complaining too much, or a tradesman

527
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:30,880
Speaker 4: who swindles, and they'll dunk you and everybody will be like, hahha,

528
00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,880
Speaker 4: look at you. You're wet and your life sucks. But

529
00:32:34,160 --> 00:32:37,040
Speaker 4: the people who are laughing most of the time their

530
00:32:37,080 --> 00:32:40,800
Speaker 4: lives also sucked, and eventually they weaponized this just to

531
00:32:40,800 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 4: finish this lab. Eventually they weaponize this to kill people.

532
00:32:45,000 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 6: And isn't it funny slash terrifying that the remnants of

533
00:32:49,240 --> 00:32:51,840
Speaker 6: that are at like a local fair or a state

534
00:32:51,920 --> 00:32:54,959
Speaker 6: fair with like the dunk tank that is totally a

535
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 6: modern Bread and Circus's version without killing.

536
00:32:58,440 --> 00:32:59,960
Speaker 3: Of exactly what we're talking about.

537
00:33:00,280 --> 00:33:02,640
Speaker 6: For people to be able to like have schadenfreud of

538
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 6: watching someone get you know, humiliated publicly, but you know,

539
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:08,440
Speaker 6: with less consequences but lower stakes.

540
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,200
Speaker 4: Yeah, we'll see. It depends on how the rule of

541
00:33:11,280 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 4: law functions going forward, which is another twist at the

542
00:33:14,880 --> 00:33:17,880
Speaker 4: end of this episode. So in short, folks which need

543
00:33:17,960 --> 00:33:22,440
Speaker 4: to know is that witch hunts were a decentralized on

544
00:33:22,760 --> 00:33:27,040
Speaker 4: and off again industry, an early version of satanic panic,

545
00:33:27,080 --> 00:33:30,880
Speaker 4: but they're also a business and business, dear friends, was

546
00:33:31,000 --> 00:33:34,560
Speaker 4: quite good when it was happening. The groups who were

547
00:33:34,640 --> 00:33:38,560
Speaker 4: most vulnerable to being accused of witchcraft, and thanks again

548
00:33:38,640 --> 00:33:42,000
Speaker 4: to Carlson's fantastic research, they're going to be women and

549
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:46,640
Speaker 4: these women are going to be over forty and the

550
00:33:46,920 --> 00:33:49,480
Speaker 4: data we can find is kind of mixed when it

551
00:33:49,520 --> 00:33:54,200
Speaker 4: goes to marriage status, but the main thing is social

552
00:33:54,280 --> 00:33:58,200
Speaker 4: position social class. Women who were in line to inherit

553
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:03,360
Speaker 4: land or asset from fathers and husbands who had passed

554
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 4: away often fell under suspicion, especially if they didn't have

555
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:11,080
Speaker 4: a child right because if they had a child, they

556
00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,359
Speaker 4: could be kind of like a SuSaA, you know, they

557
00:34:13,360 --> 00:34:18,760
Speaker 4: could they could rule their property and then fall back

558
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,319
Speaker 4: on the kid, especially if it's a young boy, for

559
00:34:23,200 --> 00:34:25,520
Speaker 4: to keep everything right in the eyes of the law.

560
00:34:25,600 --> 00:34:28,759
Speaker 4: But without that, and especially if they did if they

561
00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,000
Speaker 4: could no longer bear children, or if they were too

562
00:34:31,080 --> 00:34:35,600
Speaker 4: powerful and patriarchal communities, then they were targeted. They were

563
00:34:35,680 --> 00:34:39,360
Speaker 4: stripped of their livelihoods because you can't take it with you.

564
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:42,719
Speaker 6: I can only imagine that the inability perhaps to have

565
00:34:42,800 --> 00:34:46,160
Speaker 6: children was even used as proof they've been stricken barren

566
00:34:46,400 --> 00:34:49,239
Speaker 6: by the infernal One, you know, stuff like that. I'm

567
00:34:49,280 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 6: sure that was said at times.

568
00:34:52,360 --> 00:34:57,120
Speaker 4: And matter being a mother who has a stillborn child

569
00:34:57,320 --> 00:35:02,280
Speaker 4: or child that dies shortly after being born, and experiencing

570
00:35:02,880 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 4: one of the most unspeakable traumas of human existence, only

571
00:35:07,239 --> 00:35:10,279
Speaker 4: to have the authorities in your town say it is

572
00:35:10,400 --> 00:35:13,560
Speaker 4: proof that you worship the devil when it rains, it poors.

573
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:18,239
Speaker 5: Indeed, man, it all goes back to the biblical traditions.

574
00:35:18,280 --> 00:35:21,080
Speaker 5: The stuff that's written in there about what.

575
00:35:21,200 --> 00:35:21,839
Speaker 2: Literally the.

576
00:35:23,520 --> 00:35:25,160
Speaker 5: I don't even know how to put it, the stuff

577
00:35:25,200 --> 00:35:28,840
Speaker 5: that shows that the male, the man, is in charge

578
00:35:28,840 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 5: of all these things, right and as you said, Ben,

579
00:35:30,719 --> 00:35:33,960
Speaker 5: the child, if it is a male, then it becomes

580
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:37,800
Speaker 5: the next bearer of all of the importance in that family.

581
00:35:38,160 --> 00:35:43,080
Speaker 5: But absolutely, you know, nothing is granted, especially two wives

582
00:35:43,440 --> 00:35:47,600
Speaker 5: to daughters, and you know it. In Exodus it talks

583
00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:49,800
Speaker 5: about selling daughters off.

584
00:35:49,880 --> 00:35:52,880
Speaker 4: Basically that means you possess with your right hand.

585
00:35:53,120 --> 00:35:58,839
Speaker 5: Yeah, your possessions. So you yeah, it's just again, it's

586
00:35:58,880 --> 00:36:03,600
Speaker 5: so deeply root in that stuff. I really appreciate the

587
00:36:03,840 --> 00:36:06,680
Speaker 5: book Bend, because that The Devil in the shape of

588
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:12,240
Speaker 5: Woman's just a perfect book to show exactly how deeply

589
00:36:12,320 --> 00:36:14,120
Speaker 5: rooted all of this stuff is.

590
00:36:14,400 --> 00:36:18,480
Speaker 4: Quick correction, that which you possess the right hand is

591
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:22,480
Speaker 4: a reference to the Koran, which also, by the way, surprise,

592
00:36:22,640 --> 00:36:23,520
Speaker 4: Bads witchcraft.

593
00:36:23,800 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, is it also a reference to the right

594
00:36:26,520 --> 00:36:28,760
Speaker 6: hand of God, the Father and all of that stuff.

595
00:36:28,800 --> 00:36:30,839
Speaker 3: And is that to tiede in in any way?

596
00:36:30,880 --> 00:36:33,920
Speaker 6: I've always wondered, like the left hand path versus the

597
00:36:34,000 --> 00:36:34,560
Speaker 6: right hand.

598
00:36:34,760 --> 00:36:38,840
Speaker 4: It's like a microcosmic I think echo of that. The

599
00:36:38,920 --> 00:36:42,839
Speaker 4: idea of possessing something with one's right hand is that

600
00:36:43,040 --> 00:36:47,759
Speaker 4: it is ethically just and sound for you to be

601
00:36:47,880 --> 00:36:52,400
Speaker 4: the person controlling this thing, whether it is whether it

602
00:36:52,520 --> 00:36:55,920
Speaker 4: is a tool, a handheld tool, whether it is property,

603
00:36:56,200 --> 00:37:01,240
Speaker 4: whether it is a family member, or you know, again,

604
00:37:01,480 --> 00:37:05,560
Speaker 4: also people a slave. It's talking about slavery as well.

605
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:06,520
Speaker 2: Dude.

606
00:37:08,239 --> 00:37:10,920
Speaker 4: Yeah, we don't have to get into we don't have

607
00:37:10,960 --> 00:37:14,480
Speaker 4: to get into the Antebellum theology that got weaponized in

608
00:37:14,520 --> 00:37:17,399
Speaker 4: the US a few centuries after Salem. But we got

609
00:37:17,400 --> 00:37:22,160
Speaker 4: to tell you, the commonality of demographic is important here.

610
00:37:22,200 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 4: The people most likely to be accused of witches didn't

611
00:37:25,480 --> 00:37:29,560
Speaker 4: really change in the West for a very long time.

612
00:37:29,920 --> 00:37:32,640
Speaker 4: And the folks who the folks who were prosecuting this,

613
00:37:33,239 --> 00:37:40,240
Speaker 4: Protestant denominations as well as Catholic officials. A lot of times,

614
00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 4: they were not experts in theology or law. They just,

615
00:37:45,480 --> 00:37:50,120
Speaker 4: like ancient societies, believed magic was a fundamental scientific reality.

616
00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:53,920
Speaker 4: They believed witches were reality the way that we would

617
00:37:53,960 --> 00:37:57,719
Speaker 4: consider the speed of light a constant today. You know,

618
00:37:57,760 --> 00:38:00,760
Speaker 4: you might disagree with people, but you're like, h yeah,

619
00:38:00,800 --> 00:38:04,040
Speaker 4: you know, light that's the thing. Gravity that's the thing.

620
00:38:04,320 --> 00:38:08,640
Speaker 4: You know, the periodic table, that's pretty non controversial. And

621
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:12,600
Speaker 4: you know, picture them having these conversations and saying like, well,

622
00:38:13,080 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 4: the papist are bad, but witches are real though, right,

623
00:38:17,640 --> 00:38:21,720
Speaker 4: And then everybody's like, oh, yeah, totally yeah, I mean witches. Yeah, dude.

624
00:38:22,160 --> 00:38:24,919
Speaker 6: It's just so fascinating to think of like such an

625
00:38:25,040 --> 00:38:30,640
Speaker 6: unprovable constant like that guiding so much of history, and

626
00:38:30,719 --> 00:38:32,600
Speaker 6: the rule is kind of being made up by the

627
00:38:32,600 --> 00:38:34,839
Speaker 6: ones with all the power every step of the way.

628
00:38:35,440 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 3: Sounds like no way to.

629
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:40,160
Speaker 4: Live, you know, jeez, a lot of people didn't live

630
00:38:40,480 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 4: exactly true, And weirdly enough, this is something I think

631
00:38:44,560 --> 00:38:50,880
Speaker 4: surprises a lot of people. Puritans in in general were

632
00:38:51,400 --> 00:38:56,160
Speaker 4: comparatively more progressive than the European counterparts, especially when they

633
00:38:56,200 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 4: went to the colonies.

634
00:38:57,239 --> 00:38:57,400
Speaker 5: You know.

635
00:38:58,800 --> 00:39:02,360
Speaker 4: And when we say progressive, no we don't mean the

636
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:05,120
Speaker 4: modern version of progressive. We mean they were a little

637
00:39:05,239 --> 00:39:10,759
Speaker 4: less crappy toward women. European clergy typically believed women were

638
00:39:10,880 --> 00:39:14,319
Speaker 4: innately given to evil, and as such they would be

639
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:20,839
Speaker 4: more vulnerable targets if infernal actors, the devil turned them

640
00:39:21,200 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 4: against the mission of God, and.

641
00:39:23,800 --> 00:39:26,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, because the serpent did it in Eden right.

642
00:39:26,640 --> 00:39:33,520
Speaker 4: Classic classic and said sarcastically so and very anti reptile,

643
00:39:33,760 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 4: you know what I mean, the whole tenor of that.

644
00:39:36,080 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 4: But Puritanism, in contrast, viewed women as naturally good and

645
00:39:42,560 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 4: godly capable of doing one of the most godlike things

646
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 4: you can do, which is to create life. And they

647
00:39:49,920 --> 00:39:54,960
Speaker 4: were better than dudes asterisk so long as they stayed

648
00:39:54,960 --> 00:39:57,680
Speaker 4: within their strictly defined roles determined by the church.

649
00:39:58,400 --> 00:40:01,880
Speaker 6: I think that's probably largely why women have been so

650
00:40:01,960 --> 00:40:06,960
Speaker 6: demonized throughout history, because they have the most fundamental power,

651
00:40:07,520 --> 00:40:11,000
Speaker 6: you know, to produce male heirs or whatever, just to

652
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 6: create life, a thing that nobody else can do. So

653
00:40:14,080 --> 00:40:16,640
Speaker 6: it makes sense to target them, you know, at such

654
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:19,440
Speaker 6: a fundamental level and try to control them, because they

655
00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:23,600
Speaker 6: have this power that nobody else has, you know. I

656
00:40:23,640 --> 00:40:27,040
Speaker 6: mean historically that's what you do when someone's more powerful

657
00:40:27,080 --> 00:40:30,120
Speaker 6: than you, You try to subjugate them as best you

658
00:40:30,160 --> 00:40:30,879
Speaker 6: possibly can.

659
00:40:31,400 --> 00:40:35,799
Speaker 4: Hm. I mean, it's true that any women who deviate

660
00:40:36,239 --> 00:40:40,919
Speaker 4: from these social norms foisted upon them from birth, they

661
00:40:41,040 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 4: were immediately open to accusations of witchcraft. And we're not

662
00:40:45,760 --> 00:40:49,520
Speaker 4: just talking about sex outside of marriage. We're not just

663
00:40:49,600 --> 00:40:53,600
Speaker 4: talking about raising your voice in the public square to say, hey,

664
00:40:55,040 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 4: make life better for everyone. We're talking about stuff like literacy,

665
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:02,120
Speaker 4: like reading other than the Bible. Now we get you

666
00:41:02,160 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 4: in trouble in this progressive environment. The odds are stacked. Yeah,

667
00:41:07,040 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 4: the odds were stacked against women from the beginning and

668
00:41:13,280 --> 00:41:15,879
Speaker 4: continue to be so today. I would argue, but look

669
00:41:16,239 --> 00:41:19,600
Speaker 4: there's a conspiracy. Right at this point we got to again.

670
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,680
Speaker 4: We might say, all right, look, no one involved in

671
00:41:23,719 --> 00:41:29,160
Speaker 4: a witch hunt, victim, persecutor audience. None of them were

672
00:41:29,280 --> 00:41:32,080
Speaker 4: stupid people. In fact, a lot of them were good

673
00:41:32,120 --> 00:41:37,240
Speaker 4: faith actors, and they were rationalizing the arrest, the torture,

674
00:41:37,440 --> 00:41:40,920
Speaker 4: the executions as a matter of fighting for the greater good.

675
00:41:41,280 --> 00:41:46,560
Speaker 4: But just like an evil spell, the well of their

676
00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:51,080
Speaker 4: cognition was poisoned. They had ulterior motives which were inseparable

677
00:41:51,400 --> 00:41:56,000
Speaker 4: from their ostensible mission. Their accusations came from economic, familial,

678
00:41:56,160 --> 00:41:59,960
Speaker 4: and community disagreements. Look at almost any witch hunt throughout

679
00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:04,520
Speaker 4: Western history and you can trace a rise in problems

680
00:42:04,920 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 4: to a rise in accusations of witchcraft.

681
00:42:08,960 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 6: Right, for example, as the European colonies in New England

682
00:42:12,200 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 6: started to grow. Land was at a premium, you know,

683
00:42:16,920 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 6: it's a finite resource. It became more scarce. People were

684
00:42:19,840 --> 00:42:24,200
Speaker 6: like just scooping it all up, and economic inequality became

685
00:42:24,320 --> 00:42:27,800
Speaker 6: much more of a concern with each of these new

686
00:42:28,080 --> 00:42:31,440
Speaker 6: kind of problems that were you know, introduced because of

687
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:35,759
Speaker 6: these changing circumstances, These accusations.

688
00:42:34,719 --> 00:42:38,200
Speaker 3: Began to grow as a result of disputes.

689
00:42:38,520 --> 00:42:41,680
Speaker 6: Right, It's like my neighbor is possessed by the devil

690
00:42:41,800 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 6: because he won't respect my property line, that kind of stuff,

691
00:42:45,080 --> 00:42:45,359
Speaker 6: you know.

692
00:42:46,760 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 4: One hundred percent. It's also it's also weird because this

693
00:42:53,760 --> 00:42:59,440
Speaker 4: to the point about control you're making, this solidifies, this

694
00:42:59,480 --> 00:43:05,000
Speaker 4: solidified stability for the given hierarchy of the time. You know,

695
00:43:05,239 --> 00:43:09,799
Speaker 4: it's like a solid witchcraft prosecution, one that looks good.

696
00:43:11,000 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 4: It justifies the existence of the leadership structure. You know.

697
00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:20,480
Speaker 4: It's like, let's just say the quiet part out loud.

698
00:43:21,640 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 4: War is almost always great for the career of a

699
00:43:24,840 --> 00:43:29,160
Speaker 4: US president. It is extremely rare for those guys not

700
00:43:29,280 --> 00:43:31,680
Speaker 4: to get re elected. If enough people.

701
00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:35,160
Speaker 2: Die in any country in any conflict.

702
00:43:35,440 --> 00:43:39,319
Speaker 6: Yeah, yeah, most of them because it solidifies some sort

703
00:43:39,320 --> 00:43:42,840
Speaker 6: of national pride or mourning kind of or like I

704
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:44,520
Speaker 6: would think it'd be the opposite, or it's like, look

705
00:43:44,520 --> 00:43:46,840
Speaker 6: with this jerk dead. He killed our boys, you know,

706
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:49,439
Speaker 6: he sent them out to their deaths. But somehow it's

707
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:50,960
Speaker 6: this counterintuitive results.

708
00:43:51,000 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 3: It's very interesting.

709
00:43:52,040 --> 00:43:55,319
Speaker 5: Well, it's the need if a belief, right. I think

710
00:43:55,400 --> 00:43:59,719
Speaker 5: maybe that's inside of humans or is evolutionary or something

711
00:43:59,760 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 5: where if we are in a time of war, we

712
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:05,560
Speaker 5: don't want to change guard. We don't want to you know,

713
00:44:05,600 --> 00:44:07,000
Speaker 5: the people are in charge us. We don't want to

714
00:44:07,000 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 5: switch everybody out. No, that team is already on alert.

715
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 5: They're the ones in charge, are there, right. I don't

716
00:44:13,000 --> 00:44:14,560
Speaker 5: know if that in my mind that's.

717
00:44:14,440 --> 00:44:16,360
Speaker 3: One hundred percent. It's about certainly part of it.

718
00:44:16,440 --> 00:44:21,560
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, and this is all right. So this is

719
00:44:21,600 --> 00:44:26,400
Speaker 4: the issue. Just like you could say a president or

720
00:44:26,440 --> 00:44:30,400
Speaker 4: a political leader may be incentivized by certain things that

721
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:34,800
Speaker 4: are terrible for innocent people. The witch hunters, the judges,

722
00:44:34,920 --> 00:44:41,920
Speaker 4: even the civilian accusers were incentivized to find witches and

723
00:44:42,040 --> 00:44:45,120
Speaker 4: not to give them a fair shake to convict them.

724
00:44:45,320 --> 00:44:50,240
Speaker 4: The accusers in allegations of possession especially, they often themselves

725
00:44:50,280 --> 00:44:53,000
Speaker 4: were acting out of self defense. They were young women

726
00:44:53,120 --> 00:44:56,200
Speaker 4: from what you would consider the working poor strata of

727
00:44:56,239 --> 00:45:00,160
Speaker 4: their given society. And they were terrified that because as

728
00:45:00,239 --> 00:45:02,600
Speaker 4: they were on the outs, they might get accused of

729
00:45:02,640 --> 00:45:05,200
Speaker 4: being witches. So how do you do that? You get

730
00:45:05,200 --> 00:45:10,200
Speaker 4: in front of it. And then they were expressing frustrations

731
00:45:10,400 --> 00:45:15,280
Speaker 4: with a terribly unfair world, and sometimes they would adopt

732
00:45:15,360 --> 00:45:19,640
Speaker 4: the wild, uncontrollable mannerisms, at least according to Carlson, and

733
00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:23,160
Speaker 4: they would claim this was a case of possession at

734
00:45:23,160 --> 00:45:26,920
Speaker 4: the hands of a witch, not me her. And this

735
00:45:27,160 --> 00:45:29,680
Speaker 4: was one of the only forms, at least in New England,

736
00:45:29,800 --> 00:45:34,680
Speaker 4: of acting out that was acceptable to puritanical society. And

737
00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:40,200
Speaker 4: of course numerous other similarities throughout the world. Exorcisms in Islam,

738
00:45:40,440 --> 00:45:42,840
Speaker 4: the case of the Screaming Girls of Malaysia. Check that

739
00:45:42,880 --> 00:45:43,520
Speaker 4: episode out.

740
00:45:43,800 --> 00:45:46,080
Speaker 6: Oh yeah, And what you're describing is a big plot

741
00:45:46,080 --> 00:45:48,759
Speaker 6: point in the Crucible, you know, where it's like these

742
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 6: young girls that are you know, doing all this crazy

743
00:45:51,480 --> 00:45:54,359
Speaker 6: stuff and it gets not blamed on the girls, but

744
00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:57,759
Speaker 6: blamed on someone who has communed with the devil to

745
00:45:57,880 --> 00:45:59,719
Speaker 6: have them influence, you know what I mean.

746
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:00,480
Speaker 3: It's a way.

747
00:46:00,520 --> 00:46:04,359
Speaker 6: And also the person that gets targeted is already an

748
00:46:04,360 --> 00:46:07,040
Speaker 6: other is a is a black woman, you know, who

749
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:11,400
Speaker 6: is already seen as being a little problematic in our society,

750
00:46:11,440 --> 00:46:14,440
Speaker 6: you know, the society of the very white, you know,

751
00:46:14,560 --> 00:46:16,840
Speaker 6: colony that's portrayed in The Crucible.

752
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,560
Speaker 5: One more book recommendation, because you know, we're saying these things,

753
00:46:21,600 --> 00:46:27,880
Speaker 5: but not all historians agree with a lot of the things,

754
00:46:28,280 --> 00:46:31,279
Speaker 5: which is which is really cool because you kind of

755
00:46:31,320 --> 00:46:33,719
Speaker 5: get to see the truth and reality and everything we're

756
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:35,960
Speaker 5: talking about here. But then there are also counterpoints that

757
00:46:36,000 --> 00:46:39,239
Speaker 5: you can explore. And I would just recommend in the

758
00:46:39,280 --> 00:46:43,520
Speaker 5: Devil's Snare the Salem witch Craft Crisis of sixteen ninety

759
00:46:43,520 --> 00:46:46,600
Speaker 5: two by Mary Beth Norton, another amazing historian that like

760
00:46:47,239 --> 00:46:50,319
Speaker 5: will kind of break down, like say, yes, that is

761
00:46:50,360 --> 00:46:54,480
Speaker 5: true in these like certain instances, and then there's this

762
00:46:54,520 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 5: other weird thing that was happening over here. I think

763
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:59,200
Speaker 5: it's just worth it, worth your time if you're really

764
00:46:59,239 --> 00:47:00,000
Speaker 5: interested in this stuff.

765
00:47:00,600 --> 00:47:05,200
Speaker 4: And in Norton's defense, she is far from a one

766
00:47:05,280 --> 00:47:10,480
Speaker 4: trick pony historian. Her speciality is colonial history overall, OK,

767
00:47:10,880 --> 00:47:14,880
Speaker 4: And I think she tuned into a zeitgeist with exploring

768
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:21,320
Speaker 4: the Salem witch trials, which I understand why they get

769
00:47:21,560 --> 00:47:26,520
Speaker 4: such intense examination, especially in the United States. It is

770
00:47:26,600 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 4: important to remember, of course, that there's a precedent set

771
00:47:31,520 --> 00:47:34,799
Speaker 4: there another book recommendation. You want to see the mentality

772
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:36,680
Speaker 4: of where a lot of these folks were coming from,

773
00:47:36,719 --> 00:47:39,799
Speaker 4: not just in Salem, but in New England overall. Check

774
00:47:39,800 --> 00:47:43,680
Speaker 4: out Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. That is,

775
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:48,480
Speaker 4: oh man, the way it's written. Still, I totally disagree,

776
00:47:48,520 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 4: by the way, And I hope if you're hearing this

777
00:47:51,719 --> 00:47:55,759
Speaker 4: show and you've read this book or this screed, I

778
00:47:55,800 --> 00:48:00,160
Speaker 4: hope you disagree to But we have to admit that

779
00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:03,520
Speaker 4: guy could write. Mather could write, He knew how to

780
00:48:03,520 --> 00:48:04,200
Speaker 4: move a crowd.

781
00:48:04,600 --> 00:48:06,279
Speaker 3: Why is God so angry all the time?

782
00:48:06,320 --> 00:48:10,719
Speaker 4: You guys, Well, if you asked Mather, he has some

783
00:48:10,760 --> 00:48:15,799
Speaker 4: pretty specific opinions on that one. And they didn't. They

784
00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 4: also did not practice what we would call metaphor right.

785
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:23,799
Speaker 4: They did not practice analogy or simile or any of

786
00:48:23,840 --> 00:48:26,760
Speaker 4: that stuff. So like there was a snake that came

787
00:48:27,040 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 4: into the chapel or Mather was preaching one time, and

788
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:33,560
Speaker 4: he killed the snake in front of the in front

789
00:48:33,600 --> 00:48:37,000
Speaker 4: of the crowd, in front of the church, I should say,

790
00:48:37,360 --> 00:48:40,879
Speaker 4: and to the crowd, this was not just a weird coincidence.

791
00:48:41,000 --> 00:48:46,880
Speaker 4: This was not a cool analogy. The devil came and

792
00:48:47,000 --> 00:48:49,680
Speaker 4: with the power of God, Mather killed him in front

793
00:48:49,719 --> 00:48:52,400
Speaker 4: of everybody. You just can't get a live show like

794
00:48:52,440 --> 00:48:53,520
Speaker 4: that in a lot of places.

795
00:48:53,560 --> 00:48:55,080
Speaker 2: His boot was involved as well.

796
00:48:55,120 --> 00:48:58,839
Speaker 6: I think, yes, yeah, just so I will crush these

797
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:04,920
Speaker 6: sepent under my boot heel pretty much vanquish thee it was.

798
00:49:05,160 --> 00:49:08,319
Speaker 4: It was a revival energy, I mean. Okay. So as

799
00:49:08,320 --> 00:49:11,880
Speaker 4: for the hunters and judges, here is the genuine conspiracy

800
00:49:11,920 --> 00:49:15,000
Speaker 4: that doesn't get talked about often enough in Europe. In

801
00:49:15,080 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 4: the Nisse and US as well, these folks worked on commission.

802
00:49:19,880 --> 00:49:23,480
Speaker 4: If someone's legally convicted of witchcraft and sentenced to death,

803
00:49:23,840 --> 00:49:28,400
Speaker 4: almost always based on a confession derived from torture any Land,

804
00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:32,600
Speaker 4: any assets they possess are automatically up for grats. The

805
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:37,120
Speaker 4: Church Protestant or Catholic gets its vig and some of

806
00:49:37,160 --> 00:49:43,520
Speaker 4: the rest goes to these persecutors. Prosecutors, judges, sometimes even

807
00:49:43,560 --> 00:49:48,080
Speaker 4: witnesses themselves as a payment as recompense for their good deeds.

808
00:49:48,360 --> 00:49:52,440
Speaker 5: So dude, yeah, The Church of England, in the form

809
00:49:52,640 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 5: of local magistrates, would pay monthly wages to witch hunters

810
00:49:58,040 --> 00:50:02,000
Speaker 5: in England in like the sixteen hundre, like almost like

811
00:50:02,080 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 5: you said, on a commission basis, Like here's a monthly

812
00:50:04,200 --> 00:50:07,120
Speaker 5: wage for that witch you put away. Thanks for doing that, which,

813
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:12,080
Speaker 5: my god, if that's not a motive, Holy mackerel and ps.

814
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:15,000
Speaker 5: You're getting paid by the way often in firewood. That's

815
00:50:15,040 --> 00:50:17,000
Speaker 5: one of the major's that was.

816
00:50:17,080 --> 00:50:19,399
Speaker 4: Very it was. It was the bitcoin of its day.

817
00:50:19,600 --> 00:50:19,960
Speaker 3: All right.

818
00:50:20,000 --> 00:50:23,200
Speaker 4: So let's do a thought experiment. Imagine you're a person

819
00:50:23,440 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 4: living during one of these satanic panics during the time

820
00:50:27,600 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 4: of witchcraft hunters. You know, let's make it tough for

821
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:34,840
Speaker 4: you in this situation. What do we need? What do

822
00:50:34,880 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 4: we need to make someone a target of witchcraft accusations?

823
00:50:39,320 --> 00:50:42,200
Speaker 4: You got to be widowed, right, No kids, those are

824
00:50:42,360 --> 00:50:43,240
Speaker 4: checking the boxes.

825
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:46,279
Speaker 2: No always, but yes, that's very good, right, I.

826
00:50:46,239 --> 00:50:50,840
Speaker 4: Mean, you know, not a profile, but but yeah, that

827
00:50:50,840 --> 00:50:53,279
Speaker 4: that makes you. These are the factors that make you

828
00:50:53,400 --> 00:50:57,400
Speaker 4: increasingly likely to be considered a witch widowed, no kids,

829
00:50:58,480 --> 00:51:04,440
Speaker 4: you got money, he got land. You know, other farms

830
00:51:04,800 --> 00:51:07,879
Speaker 4: weren't doing so well the past season, but you, through

831
00:51:08,320 --> 00:51:13,200
Speaker 4: some inexplicable circumstance, you had a pretty bumper crop. People

832
00:51:13,239 --> 00:51:16,920
Speaker 4: increasingly envy your success they start to ask some questions,

833
00:51:16,960 --> 00:51:21,640
Speaker 4: reasonable questions at first. They always are why her? Why

834
00:51:21,719 --> 00:51:24,240
Speaker 4: not me? Why that farm? Why not mine?

835
00:51:24,560 --> 00:51:28,600
Speaker 5: Because she has a cat and a birthmark? Obviously, surely

836
00:51:29,440 --> 00:51:32,839
Speaker 5: it can't just be luck. God has a plan, And

837
00:51:33,320 --> 00:51:35,760
Speaker 5: weren't we all supposed to be in the same boat?

838
00:51:35,920 --> 00:51:40,360
Speaker 5: Why is this person not? Also, wasn't she saying something

839
00:51:40,440 --> 00:51:44,520
Speaker 5: kind of controversial within earshot of the chapel maybe a

840
00:51:44,560 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 5: few years back. I can't remember exactly what it was,

841
00:51:47,280 --> 00:51:50,920
Speaker 5: but I think it was something like this, and then

842
00:51:50,960 --> 00:51:54,960
Speaker 5: boom boom boom, rumor spread you get arrested. What's your

843
00:51:55,000 --> 00:51:57,640
Speaker 5: experience in court going to be like if the judge

844
00:51:57,719 --> 00:52:02,960
Speaker 5: is sentencing you, the prosecutor adjudicating your case, and even

845
00:52:03,000 --> 00:52:05,680
Speaker 5: a few of the witnesses all know in advance that

846
00:52:05,760 --> 00:52:08,680
Speaker 5: they get a piece of your farm and a payment

847
00:52:08,719 --> 00:52:13,120
Speaker 5: from the church upon your conviction and death. Dude, Well,

848
00:52:13,160 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 5: so the question is, then, how do you prove without

849
00:52:16,560 --> 00:52:19,200
Speaker 5: evidence that this person that you want all their stuff

850
00:52:19,560 --> 00:52:21,760
Speaker 5: is a witch so that you can take all their stuff?

851
00:52:22,040 --> 00:52:24,799
Speaker 5: And that's how you get stuff like the swimming method, right,

852
00:52:26,160 --> 00:52:28,080
Speaker 5: Because now we've got a way that we can prove

853
00:52:28,120 --> 00:52:29,799
Speaker 5: in the eyes of the law, Oh, this is in

854
00:52:29,840 --> 00:52:33,000
Speaker 5: fact a witch, and she must.

855
00:52:32,800 --> 00:52:35,359
Speaker 2: You know, all of her land is bestowed upon us.

856
00:52:35,440 --> 00:52:40,200
Speaker 4: Now, while we're talking about the legal proceedings, Matt, do

857
00:52:40,200 --> 00:52:42,120
Speaker 4: you want to talk a little bit about compregators.

858
00:52:42,960 --> 00:52:46,160
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, this is a vocabulary word for me at least.

859
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:50,719
Speaker 5: A compregator a sworn witness to the innocence or good

860
00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:53,640
Speaker 5: character of an accused person. And the reason why this

861
00:52:53,840 --> 00:52:55,799
Speaker 5: comes up for me at least is because I was

862
00:52:55,840 --> 00:52:59,719
Speaker 5: reading that article from Nathan Dorn. I'll just read a

863
00:52:59,760 --> 00:53:03,319
Speaker 5: quick part of it here. There were some crimes this

864
00:53:03,480 --> 00:53:09,600
Speaker 5: is talking about like seventeen, sixteenth, seventeenth century England. Okay,

865
00:53:10,280 --> 00:53:12,480
Speaker 5: Nathan says there were some crimes that were simply not

866
00:53:12,880 --> 00:53:16,880
Speaker 5: amenable to other forms of judicial proof, namely crimes for

867
00:53:16,920 --> 00:53:20,239
Speaker 5: which there was no witness for which the defendant could

868
00:53:20,239 --> 00:53:24,399
Speaker 5: not find compregators or witnesses to their good character, or

869
00:53:24,440 --> 00:53:28,160
Speaker 5: for which the defendant's oath was held to be unreliable.

870
00:53:28,480 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 3: Right.

871
00:53:29,160 --> 00:53:32,360
Speaker 5: And he's citing Bartlett here, which I don't have the

872
00:53:32,400 --> 00:53:36,000
Speaker 5: exact site citing for, but I know that author. I

873
00:53:36,120 --> 00:53:39,399
Speaker 5: just can't connect the data here. But just one last thing.

874
00:53:39,920 --> 00:53:42,480
Speaker 5: In these cases, what was needed was evidence from an

875
00:53:42,520 --> 00:53:47,440
Speaker 5: absolute or divine point of view. So things like this,

876
00:53:47,640 --> 00:53:51,520
Speaker 5: the ordeal stuff, the trials that witches would go through,

877
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:55,279
Speaker 5: was a way to supply that point of view in

878
00:53:55,320 --> 00:53:58,160
Speaker 5: a way that a lot of people. Not everybody in

879
00:53:58,200 --> 00:54:01,080
Speaker 5: a village or a town or city would believe, but

880
00:54:01,360 --> 00:54:04,279
Speaker 5: enough of them would believe it because it matches up

881
00:54:04,320 --> 00:54:05,800
Speaker 5: with their pre existing.

882
00:54:05,440 --> 00:54:08,680
Speaker 4: Beliefs one hundred percent, you know. And and here's the

883
00:54:08,719 --> 00:54:13,080
Speaker 4: other part of it. Witch hunters like the notorious Matthew

884
00:54:13,160 --> 00:54:16,160
Speaker 4: Hopkins he was for in his day. He was sort

885
00:54:16,200 --> 00:54:19,080
Speaker 4: of the Drake of witch hunting or the Kanye of

886
00:54:19,080 --> 00:54:24,040
Speaker 4: witch hunting. The ya excuse me, and he and his

887
00:54:24,160 --> 00:54:29,560
Speaker 4: team and his croney crony's, his goons. They were krone. Interesting.

888
00:54:29,880 --> 00:54:34,160
Speaker 4: They were not paid just for doing their job, right,

889
00:54:34,440 --> 00:54:38,919
Speaker 4: They were paid upon conviction. And this meant that every dismissal,

890
00:54:39,120 --> 00:54:42,600
Speaker 4: every single person accused of witchcraft and later found innocent,

891
00:54:43,280 --> 00:54:48,040
Speaker 4: directly weighted to money and time out of their collective pockets.

892
00:54:48,040 --> 00:54:50,879
Speaker 4: So we have to ask ourselves how much work did

893
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:55,480
Speaker 4: these people really want to put in to investigating innocence?

894
00:54:55,960 --> 00:54:56,040
Speaker 3: Right?

895
00:54:56,120 --> 00:54:56,440
Speaker 2: Dude?

896
00:54:57,120 --> 00:55:00,000
Speaker 5: Can we say he he had over three hundred women

897
00:55:00,120 --> 00:55:00,680
Speaker 5: execute it.

898
00:55:00,920 --> 00:55:02,920
Speaker 4: He's a terrible person three.

899
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:06,319
Speaker 5: Hundred month salary for each one of those.

900
00:55:07,600 --> 00:55:07,880
Speaker 3: Wow.

901
00:55:08,160 --> 00:55:10,080
Speaker 5: You can read his book by the way. He wrote

902
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:13,480
Speaker 5: a book in sixteen forty six is titled The Discovery

903
00:55:13,520 --> 00:55:19,440
Speaker 5: of Witches An Answer to Several Queries Lately Help and

904
00:55:19,520 --> 00:55:22,760
Speaker 5: he calls himself Matthew Hopkins witch Finder.

905
00:55:23,200 --> 00:55:26,480
Speaker 4: Ah, yes, witch finder too. Also, while we're at it,

906
00:55:26,480 --> 00:55:31,359
Speaker 4: in book recommendations, there is a fantastic series from the

907
00:55:31,400 --> 00:55:35,319
Speaker 4: hell Boy universe. I think it's Edward Gray Witchfinder. So

908
00:55:35,400 --> 00:55:37,560
Speaker 4: if you dig hell Boy, check that one out. Yeah,

909
00:55:37,600 --> 00:55:41,960
Speaker 4: it's super good, super good. And these witch hunts, we

910
00:55:41,960 --> 00:55:45,800
Speaker 4: do have to say they overwhelmingly targeted women, but men

911
00:55:46,160 --> 00:55:50,120
Speaker 4: were also not immune, and people who were non binary,

912
00:55:50,400 --> 00:55:52,840
Speaker 4: although they wouldn't have been called that at that time,

913
00:55:53,160 --> 00:55:57,320
Speaker 4: they were also not immune. While women were over whelmingly targeted,

914
00:55:58,160 --> 00:56:01,520
Speaker 4: other people would be targeted, especially they were socially isolated

915
00:56:01,600 --> 00:56:06,560
Speaker 4: again unmarried, if they had controversial public opinions, or if

916
00:56:06,560 --> 00:56:10,600
Speaker 4: they suffered from a mental or physical ailment like Peter Stump,

917
00:56:11,280 --> 00:56:16,239
Speaker 4: which is an entrance to a rabbit hole. You can

918
00:56:16,440 --> 00:56:20,439
Speaker 4: search of your own accord, folks, And what better time

919
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:23,480
Speaker 4: to do that than now as we take an ad break.

920
00:56:29,920 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 4: Of course, it's our pallem that Frederick can assure you folks.

921
00:56:34,080 --> 00:56:38,640
Speaker 4: There are no longer actual witch hunts in Salem, Massachusetts.

922
00:56:38,719 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 4: There's a ton of tourism.

923
00:56:40,719 --> 00:56:44,120
Speaker 5: I don't think so. I don't think there anymore right now.

924
00:56:44,400 --> 00:56:47,399
Speaker 5: But that doesn't mean there aren't witch hunts all over

925
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:50,400
Speaker 5: the planet every year, like all the time.

926
00:56:50,719 --> 00:56:53,960
Speaker 3: They're all into Washington, d C. Mainly. No, they're everywhere.

927
00:56:53,960 --> 00:56:58,319
Speaker 6: Everywhere there is descents or you know, contradicting opinions. It's

928
00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:03,000
Speaker 6: very easy to use the same concept, you know, dismissed

929
00:57:03,000 --> 00:57:05,880
Speaker 6: of any of the supernatural trappings, and just you know,

930
00:57:06,520 --> 00:57:08,919
Speaker 6: do the same exact thing, but instead of like being

931
00:57:08,920 --> 00:57:11,560
Speaker 6: a actual witch, it's like you did this thing or

932
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:13,600
Speaker 6: you've got the secret agenda or whatever.

933
00:57:13,680 --> 00:57:13,920
Speaker 3: You know.

934
00:57:14,360 --> 00:57:17,640
Speaker 4: When people talk about witch hunts today, they are usually

935
00:57:17,760 --> 00:57:20,440
Speaker 4: going to be in the realm of politics. They're going

936
00:57:20,520 --> 00:57:25,200
Speaker 4: to be political opponents attempting to delegitimize a criticism of

937
00:57:25,240 --> 00:57:29,200
Speaker 4: themselves or their associates, kind of a dog whistle, as

938
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:32,200
Speaker 4: someone mentioned earlier. But no one's accusing each other of

939
00:57:32,280 --> 00:57:35,960
Speaker 4: practicing malfesium. And we'll get to that modern day turn

940
00:57:36,080 --> 00:57:37,480
Speaker 4: at the very end you mentioned.

941
00:57:37,520 --> 00:57:40,560
Speaker 2: Oh okay, yeah, like I mean, but they are right.

942
00:57:40,640 --> 00:57:43,720
Speaker 5: Like I was reading a Scientific American the over a

943
00:57:43,840 --> 00:57:47,480
Speaker 5: thousand people every year are charged with witchcraft.

944
00:57:48,000 --> 00:57:53,040
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, Why are there not actual occult witch hunts

945
00:57:53,440 --> 00:57:59,800
Speaker 4: or diabolist hunts here in the US today? It's because

946
00:57:59,800 --> 00:58:02,720
Speaker 4: it's It's not like the authorities one day said, okay, nice,

947
00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:07,120
Speaker 4: we got the last one high five freeze frame roll credits.

948
00:58:07,520 --> 00:58:11,560
Speaker 4: What happened is that life got better overall. That's exactly

949
00:58:11,600 --> 00:58:17,320
Speaker 4: what happened. Those socioeconomic factors were removed, people felt less

950
00:58:17,360 --> 00:58:20,480
Speaker 4: of a squeeze, and as a result, the hunts began

951
00:58:20,600 --> 00:58:23,280
Speaker 4: to die out. But because this is not a single

952
00:58:23,320 --> 00:58:26,880
Speaker 4: set of events, because it's a collection of tactics triggered

953
00:58:26,920 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 4: by socioeconomic pressures, the result in the deaths of innocent people.

954
00:58:31,800 --> 00:58:34,520
Speaker 4: Like you said, Matt, witch hunts do continue in the

955
00:58:34,560 --> 00:58:36,840
Speaker 4: modern day. They're not in the news as much unless

956
00:58:36,880 --> 00:58:39,720
Speaker 4: you look for it, but innocent people do continue to

957
00:58:39,800 --> 00:58:44,760
Speaker 4: die due to these false accusations and allegations. Modern witch

958
00:58:44,840 --> 00:58:47,439
Speaker 4: hunts right now have resulted in a much higher death

959
00:58:47,560 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 4: toll than the old school ones in Europe and the colonies,

960
00:58:51,120 --> 00:58:54,200
Speaker 4: particularly if you're looking at the hot spots you're looking

961
00:58:54,200 --> 00:58:58,240
Speaker 4: at India, the Amazon, a lot of Sub Saharan Africa,

962
00:58:58,320 --> 00:59:00,160
Speaker 4: and Papua New Guinea.

963
00:59:00,200 --> 00:59:03,720
Speaker 6: So why you might be asking yourself is this the case?

964
00:59:04,600 --> 00:59:07,800
Speaker 6: Without painting with too broad a brush here we can

965
00:59:08,000 --> 00:59:13,040
Speaker 6: see a lot of similar socioeconomic factors at play, starting

966
00:59:13,080 --> 00:59:19,000
Speaker 6: off with the economic inequality, differences about ruling powers and

967
00:59:19,080 --> 00:59:23,360
Speaker 6: conflicts between those in power, a need for control, a

968
00:59:23,440 --> 00:59:27,160
Speaker 6: need for on the individual level to avoid feeling out

969
00:59:27,200 --> 00:59:30,800
Speaker 6: of control. In fact, if you want to go into

970
00:59:31,040 --> 00:59:37,360
Speaker 6: actual belief here, perhaps exercising some control by blaming external forces,

971
00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:41,840
Speaker 6: you know, for certain events that are troubling to you

972
00:59:42,240 --> 00:59:42,840
Speaker 6: in the world.

973
00:59:44,280 --> 00:59:49,760
Speaker 4: Yeah, the idea of taking agency, right, I can alter

974
00:59:49,920 --> 00:59:53,400
Speaker 4: the world such that I set it at my community,

975
00:59:53,480 --> 00:59:54,600
Speaker 4: my personal existence.

976
00:59:54,760 --> 00:59:55,000
Speaker 3: Right.

977
00:59:55,520 --> 00:59:58,080
Speaker 4: However I get to that point, I am fighting for

978
00:59:58,240 --> 01:00:01,360
Speaker 4: greater good, and indeed I am fighting for my continued

979
01:00:01,680 --> 01:00:06,600
Speaker 4: existence and prosperity. We have notable cases, each of which

980
01:00:06,640 --> 01:00:11,080
Speaker 4: could be their own episode. There are tons of witchcraft

981
01:00:11,080 --> 01:00:16,160
Speaker 4: accusations every year on the African continent Sub Saharan Africa

982
01:00:16,200 --> 01:00:22,400
Speaker 4: in particular, often against children. See also our earlier mentions

983
01:00:22,480 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 4: of the mutilation of children who have albinism. For magical purposes.

984
01:00:28,800 --> 01:00:32,440
Speaker 4: So there's kind of a both sides argument, because there

985
01:00:32,440 --> 01:00:36,800
Speaker 4: are also as evil and unclean as it is, there

986
01:00:36,880 --> 01:00:42,440
Speaker 4: are people engaging in the murder of children for magical purposes,

987
01:00:42,720 --> 01:00:47,440
Speaker 4: which is something like Hopkins of old often accused people

988
01:00:47,480 --> 01:00:50,880
Speaker 4: of but it is actually happening in some parts of

989
01:00:50,920 --> 01:00:54,000
Speaker 4: the world. And if you go to rural India you

990
01:00:54,040 --> 01:01:01,040
Speaker 4: see a similar, somewhat paradoxical thing. People go to local

991
01:01:01,040 --> 01:01:07,360
Speaker 4: holy figures, practitioners of traditional magic or esoteric beliefs. But

992
01:01:08,000 --> 01:01:13,120
Speaker 4: those same societies will also target women for witchcraft. And

993
01:01:13,160 --> 01:01:16,080
Speaker 4: it's even worse than it was in Salem or in

994
01:01:16,120 --> 01:01:19,280
Speaker 4: Europe back in the day. In these cases, the women

995
01:01:19,320 --> 01:01:24,440
Speaker 4: accused are often knowingly framed and attacked without trial and

996
01:01:24,600 --> 01:01:28,560
Speaker 4: sometimes murdered, and the cases go on and on and on,

997
01:01:29,120 --> 01:01:33,360
Speaker 4: and to be completely honest, they're conspiracies. They're likely going

998
01:01:33,440 --> 01:01:38,439
Speaker 4: to continue because we're talking about parts of civilization where

999
01:01:38,480 --> 01:01:42,400
Speaker 4: belief in magic as a weapon has itself become weaponized

1000
01:01:42,560 --> 01:01:45,960
Speaker 4: as a tool of material gain and ideological control. And

1001
01:01:46,000 --> 01:01:49,040
Speaker 4: that's crazy, right, but it's true.

1002
01:01:49,800 --> 01:01:50,720
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1003
01:01:50,840 --> 01:01:54,280
Speaker 5: Check out the article how social turmoil has increased witch

1004
01:01:54,360 --> 01:01:58,760
Speaker 5: hunts throughout history from Scientific American. It's written by Sylvia

1005
01:01:58,880 --> 01:02:01,960
Speaker 5: Fi I think is how you'd say it, and Alice

1006
01:02:02,000 --> 01:02:05,919
Speaker 5: Markham canter. It's really interesting and they point to over

1007
01:02:05,960 --> 01:02:12,160
Speaker 5: a thousand people who are accused of witchcraft every year.

1008
01:02:12,440 --> 01:02:16,280
Speaker 5: So that's like people who get expelled out of their homes,

1009
01:02:16,320 --> 01:02:19,520
Speaker 5: people who get as you said, been killed or you know,

1010
01:02:19,640 --> 01:02:24,280
Speaker 5: tortured basically because they're being accused of witchcraft. And I

1011
01:02:24,280 --> 01:02:27,440
Speaker 5: would also recommend listening. We made an episode guys a

1012
01:02:27,480 --> 01:02:29,600
Speaker 5: while back. I think it was called is Witchcraft on

1013
01:02:29,640 --> 01:02:33,560
Speaker 5: the Rise? And there's a video Modern Witchcraft something like

1014
01:02:33,560 --> 01:02:36,520
Speaker 5: that that speaks directly to this subject.

1015
01:02:37,200 --> 01:02:40,000
Speaker 4: And that's how I'm glad you mentioned that Scientific American article,

1016
01:02:40,040 --> 01:02:42,920
Speaker 4: Matt because that came out this year, folks, that came

1017
01:02:42,960 --> 01:02:47,480
Speaker 4: out in May of twenty twenty three. So the conspiracies

1018
01:02:47,480 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 4: are real. Don't ever forget. It goes deeper than the

1019
01:02:50,720 --> 01:02:53,560
Speaker 4: government's debt, you know what I mean. At this point,

1020
01:02:53,600 --> 01:02:57,080
Speaker 4: we want to pass the broomstick or the mortar and

1021
01:02:57,160 --> 01:03:00,640
Speaker 4: pestle to you. Thank you for joining our or sabat.

1022
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:04,400
Speaker 4: What do you think, folks? Have you or someone you

1023
01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:08,960
Speaker 4: know ever been involved in a case of ostensible witchcraft?

1024
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:13,240
Speaker 4: Do you believe there may have at any point in history,

1025
01:03:13,680 --> 01:03:18,280
Speaker 4: then some real sand to these accusations. Send us the

1026
01:03:18,400 --> 01:03:21,880
Speaker 4: spookiest stories you can find. We try to be easy

1027
01:03:21,920 --> 01:03:23,120
Speaker 4: to find online.

1028
01:03:23,560 --> 01:03:24,040
Speaker 3: That's right.

1029
01:03:24,080 --> 01:03:27,280
Speaker 6: You can find us at conspiracy Stuff on all of

1030
01:03:27,280 --> 01:03:32,480
Speaker 6: the social media platforms of choice x FKA, Twitter, Facebook,

1031
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:36,600
Speaker 6: and YouTube where conspiracy stuff show on Instagram and TikTok.

1032
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:39,000
Speaker 5: Hey, we have a phone number. It's one eight three

1033
01:03:39,120 --> 01:03:44,480
Speaker 5: three std WYTK. When you call in, give yourself a

1034
01:03:44,560 --> 01:03:47,160
Speaker 5: nickname and let us know if we can use your

1035
01:03:47,200 --> 01:03:50,960
Speaker 5: message on the air. Guys, I forgot to mention something. Well,

1036
01:03:50,960 --> 01:03:55,520
Speaker 5: we're gonna do it right here and doesn't matter. Danvers, Massachusetts.

1037
01:03:55,920 --> 01:03:58,080
Speaker 5: There's a place that the three of us need to go.

1038
01:03:58,480 --> 01:04:01,760
Speaker 5: It's called the Danvers Arc Center. It's at the Peabody

1039
01:04:02,040 --> 01:04:09,959
Speaker 5: Institute Library. They have actual writings, so like actual artifacts

1040
01:04:10,040 --> 01:04:13,080
Speaker 5: and books and letters that were all written around the

1041
01:04:13,120 --> 01:04:16,560
Speaker 5: Salem witch Trials at the time, and they've got a

1042
01:04:16,600 --> 01:04:20,240
Speaker 5: whole section there on the Danvers State Hospital for the Insane.

1043
01:04:20,840 --> 01:04:25,920
Speaker 5: Do you guys know that place heard of but never visited. Guys,

1044
01:04:26,120 --> 01:04:29,120
Speaker 5: we need to we need to take a trip out

1045
01:04:29,160 --> 01:04:34,640
Speaker 5: to Danvers to do stuff on that place. No Massachusetts, Massachusetts, Sorry,

1046
01:04:35,080 --> 01:04:38,080
Speaker 5: like it is at some of the oldest American history

1047
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:44,560
Speaker 5: that exists. And man, just that stuff about how society

1048
01:04:44,680 --> 01:04:50,240
Speaker 5: treated people in a more modern time who were dealing

1049
01:04:50,320 --> 01:04:53,240
Speaker 5: with mental illness, Like oh, man, we should do this.

1050
01:04:53,760 --> 01:04:54,800
Speaker 2: Oh but if you.

1051
01:04:54,720 --> 01:04:57,280
Speaker 5: Don't want to call our number, why not instead to

1052
01:04:57,320 --> 01:04:58,960
Speaker 5: send us a good old fashioned email.

1053
01:04:59,160 --> 01:05:02,840
Speaker 4: We are to read every email we get. Conspiracy at

1054
01:05:02,840 --> 01:05:23,120
Speaker 4: iHeartRadio dot com.

1055
01:05:23,280 --> 01:05:25,320
Speaker 5: Stuff they don't want you to know is a production

1056
01:05:25,440 --> 01:05:29,959
Speaker 5: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1057
01:05:30,040 --> 01:05:33,280
Speaker 5: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.