Witches - Part One- Origins
(Bias Language/Perspective/Context)
It’s the winter of 1612. Europe is bleak, full of scared people dying of disease and starvation You know nothing about germs and sanitation. Half of all children die before adulthood. A never-before seen disease causes the body to consume itself. Villagers tell tales of a previously unknown new world, not known to any man or even mentioned in the bible. Truth is under attack. The all-powerful Church is being attacked by heretics, blasphemers and dissenters. You hear of violence against your fellow Christians. Society seems to be crumbling. Unknown people conspire treason against your King, God’s chosen ruler and seek to murder him. There’s no respect for authority these days. You’ve heard stories about strangers performing unusual rituals in the woods. Fear hits you, causing you to sweat. An impending doom hangs heavy in your heart. You pick up a book that reveals Satan is making pacts with evil people in your country. Then you remember the strange old widow who lives outside your village and only seems to talk to her cats. The authorities arrest her on suspicion of being a witch and she confesses to it all. She was responsible for the crop failure, the satanic rituals in the woods and sowing discord among the villagers. She names her accomplices, thirty one of them. A shiver goes down your spine. Who are they? Do you know them? Are you under-attack?
How does this make you feel?
What makes you think that?
Setting
Paganism
Paganism is a word used to describe any belief that isn't one of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Christianity came into being in Ancient Greece during a time when the pantheon of Greek Gods were worshipped. Christianity started off as a minor religion. Once Emperor Constantine made it the official religion of the empire, the Greek Gods became the minority. Freya, goddesses of prophesy, flew through the air on a chariot. In ancient Greece, the beautiful goddess Circe had a vast knowledge of potions and herbs. She could turn her enemies into animals with her magic wand.
In northern Europe, Christians fought and converted Norse people who had historically worshipped Thor and Loki instead. The word "witch" comes from the Norse word, Wiccan which means sorcerer. In Norse culture, female figures known as Valkyrie fly through the air. Christianity hadn't reached Finland until 1157, 800 years after it was adopted as the official religion of Rome.
Many of these dying religions endured in rural areas and in secret. The lost traditions of worship to Norse, Roman and Greek Gods happened on the fringes of Christian society. The Catholic Church viewed everything as either Godly and Christian or Pagan and Satanic. Knowledge of small local and tribal religions weren't well understood. However, the Christian community knew the practices to be non-Christian and therefore interpreted them as Satanic.
Some of these superstitions included:
Fortunate telling - palm reading, reading the flight of birds in the sky, reading tea leaves
Astrology (fortune telling using the stars)
Casting spells (Using the powers of their God's to sway outcomes.) Sometimes performed alongside animal sacrifice. (To appease their God.)
By the standards of the day, star signs and fortune cookies would’ve been considered demonic and punishable by death.
These traditions and beliefs were tolerated for many years and even practiced by fellow Christians. However, times were changing and fears about those changes were creating a perfect storm for scapegoats.
Fastly Changing World
For 1,000 years life in Europe changed very little. During the “Dark Ages” new knowledge was slow to develop. However, by the late middle ages life was changing and this scared people.
The Atlantic explorers had discovered the new world in the Americas and brought all kinds of new food, animals and diseases to Europe. Europeans enjoyed tomatoes and potatoes and corn but also Syphilis and other diseases. They ran rampant during a time before people knew about germs, sanitation and nutrition. New struggles and death constantly brought fear of the apocalypse.
This upset the idea that the world was known and understood. Galileo and Newton were discovering new truths about reality. However, the vast majority of civilization still lived in a world of superstition and fear. How could the earth go around the sun when everyone believed otherwise for all mankind? How could there be invisible laws of physics when nobody had understood that for thousands of years? If gravity was an invisible force then so could the supernatural.
Spreading of Information
The Printing Press (1436) was churning out books for the masses, spreading ideas throughout Europe. Books spread great ideas about mathematics and science but also spread ideas about demons, witchcraft, monsters and magic. Popular stories created popular ideas for many people. They held this stories with fear. Fear that these things might be real convinced them that they could be real. If they didn’t believe it they were afraid of being caught by surprise. Better to believe it to be safe.
“Why we say Bless you.”
Church Schisms
The most printed of these new printed books was the bible. For the first time in thousands of years it was possible for every day people to read the words of the bible. This lead to many people disagreeing with the approved opinions of the Catholic Church. To disagree with the Catholic Church was considered Blasphemy and Heretical. The Catholics had waged wars and killed millions to protect it over more than a thousand years. It had taken 1,000 years for the first major split between the Catholic Church and Orthodox Church. However, now that the bible was available for all, many more sects sprang up.
Martin Luther caused a large breakaway from the Catholic Church during the Reformation of 1517. To most Catholics, these defectors were following a false region and had been mislead by the devil. To the newly independent Protestants, the Catholic church had become that false religion and mislead by the devil and that’s why they had left. This created a lot of tension and suspicion. In 1536, the Calvinists broke away. In 1534, Henry VIII broke away and formed the Church of England. For the first time, the Church was vulnerable and this scared a lot of people and felt like spiritual warfare.
Divine Right of Kings
Another major change of the times, was that historically Kings had enjoyed unquestionable allegiance because of their divine right to rule. It was believed that God himself had chosen them to rule. Therefore, many people believed that rebellion against the King was rebellion against God. However, during the middle ages, the exploitation of power and authority lead to rebellion against the Kings. People detested their Kings so much that they refused to believe that God would have appointed them. King Charles I of England was executed in 1649 on the eve of the great witch hunts of England. French Kings Henry III and Henry IV were both assassinated during the French Wars of Religion. Royalty was no longer safe. They feared assassination and losing power and therefore reacted strongly to any suspicion. Those who supported the King and believed they ruled on behalf of God, believed that they were the victims of a demonic conspiracy.
Together these changes created a new world, nervous of others and believing the worst out of fear. Then along came the witch hunts.
Basis language in opening statement? Perspective?
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