Witches- Part Seven- Public Opinion Changes
Normandy, a Catholic Inquisititor was carrying out a witchhunt in 1459. When a mentally ill woman was accused of being a witch, the inquisititor proceeded to torture her. She was accused of kissing a demon and flying on a broomstick. Under torture she admitted to it all. She also named other witches. The Inquisititor presented the confession to his church leaders who in turn reccomended leniency. The Inquisititor wasn't satisfied with this and took matters into his own hands. He had the four women named as witches under torture arrested. Then he had them burned at the stake with help from city officials. Crowds of people came to celebrate the victory over the devil's servants.
In turn, these accused witches had accused other witches and the Inquisititor set about rounding them up. Some of the wealthy accused were able to buy their freedom. Wealthy and powerful people were able to avoid and deny charges. When someone close to them, their mother, daughter, wife or sister was accused, it was always the result of some misunderstanding. Everyone close to the accused witch believed they were innocent but only those of wealth and power could dissuade the mobs from burning their family members. People believed others to be guilty but their own accused family members to be innocent. For a witch to be able to buy her freedom seemed despicable to many people. However, some wealthy people were executed by the Inquisition and when they did execute someone with money, the Inquisition were the ones who split the fortune amongst themselves. During the trials of some unfortunate individual, the inquisition would hold a feast, a feast paid for by the victim. These feasts were often loud parties and wasteful in wine and food. Public opinion turned against the witch hunters. Fellow clergymen urged them to declare forgiveness for repentant witches. Initially, isolated and shunned women in society were accused. Before credit cards, people were able to buy items on credit from merchants that they knew well and pay them back later. The unpredictable nature of witch hunts meant that merchants in the marketplace were less likely to give loans. Too many of the merchants had lost money because an alleged witch had owed them money when they were executed. This made it harder for people to buy things on promises to repay.
407 & 413 demon haunted
Alternative Explanations
Traditionally, people had believed witches had really flown on broomsticks, attended Satanic rituals and made love to the Devil. However, when accused witches had an alibi such as being locked up in jail at the time they were accused of being at a ritual, a new understanding developed. Holy men began to argue that this proved that the events were entirely a result of their imagination. However, others argued that their minds had attended the Satanic rituals in spirit. As time went on, this became a deception of the devil that they had allowed to fool them with their own imagination. Some believed the tricks were real magic. However, as time went on, more people believed it not to be magic but instead, natural tricks of deception that the witch had learnt from Satan. Eventually, the spreading of a new, more compassionate point of view spread through Europe.
Modern Explanations for Accused Witches
Thanks to scientific advancement, mankind now has a better grasp of medicine, psychiatry and the brain. Witch trials came at a time before knowledge of mental illness’ such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, Post Traumatic Disorder, sleep paralysis, sleep-walking, lucid dreams, hallucinogens, bipolar disorder, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s, brain tumors, brain damage, vision disorders, seizures and vision damage, all of which can cause hallucinations.
At the time, these conditions were not understood. They lived in a society where everyone believed in a spiritual war of Good vs Evil. Everyone believed in witches and witchcraft. Both the witch burner and the witch- and often one became the other, had the same mindset. They believed that Satan
was present on the earth, and that his purpose was to corrupt good Christian people by any means necessary. Everything was explained from this point of view. They didn’t understand mental illness, therefore it was demonic possession. They didn’t understand hallucinations, therefore what they saw they believed to be real.
In Durham, a woman was accused of witchcraft after a child in her care had seizures. She was arrested and tortured by burning her feet. She confessed and was locked up, later dying in jail. A doctor examined the child and found that the seizures were caused by tapeworms. The father who accused the innocent woman was arrested for lying, whipped and had his ears cut off. One man with epilepsy claimed to have been a victim of witchcraft.
It’s not just mental illness that can cause hallucinations but also, extreme tiredness, side-effects of medication and false memories.
False memories
Sleep Paralysis
https://youtu.be/HJCIvozCINs?si=TsjDSR4zpAlbjCEo
This is why we need to sometimes suspend our judgements and beliefs. These people didn’t have knowledge of mental illnesses therefore they line of thinking went something like this:
People are acting strange,
I don’t know why they are acting strange
Therefore Satan is controlling them
When you don’t know something, it doesn’t give you the right to jump to conclusions. An absence of evidence is like multiplying by zero.
It’s similar to UFO’s. I don’t know what that thing is, therefore it’s an alien spacecraft.
Supernatural explanations are not needed, where a natural explanation may be possible. The conclusion to weird goings-on is always more likely to be something natural and unknown that something supernatural. Science has continually disproven the supernatural but nothing has ever been proven to be supernatural. It’s always more likely the magician is playing a clever trick on you, than it is that he’s actually doing real magic.
“During many ages there were witches. The Bible said so. The Bible commanded that they should not be allowed to live. Therefore the Church, after eight hundred years, gathered up its halters, thumb-screws, and firebrands, and set about its holy work in earnest. She worked hard at it night and day during nine centuries and imprisoned, tortured, hanged, and burned whole hordes and armies of witches, and washed the Christian world clean with their foul blood.
Then it was discovered that there was no such thing as witches, and never had been. One does not know whether to laugh or to cry....” – Mark Twain
Fortune Cookies, roadside Psychics, party magicians & star signs we shrug off, could have got you killed in the past.
Witches Today
Shockingly today, some people still believe in witches. They tell their children not to watch harry potter in the west but in some lesser developed countries with less access to education, people are still accused of being a witch and killed. For example, people with albinoism in Africa are often treated with fear, accused of being evil and killed by mobs.
Belief in Witches differs from country to country, region to region. In a Gallup Survey, 95% of people in Ivory Coast said they believe in witchcraft. Whereas, in Uganda that is only 15%. Generally, belief in witchcraft correlates with less education, less security, lower life expectancy and higher religiosity.
Historians estimate that between 40,000 and 60,000 people were executed for witchcraft in Europe and the American colonies from the 15th to the early 18th centuries, and up to 75 percent of the victims were women.
Interestingly, some people today have embraced the “witch” image as a form or self-expression, entertainment and empowerment. One of the towns with the highest population of self-identified witches, is now Salem, Massachusetts.
https://youtu.be/6umrtW2pIXU?si=1NdkWYxyXXVjLG62
Flawed Thinking
We have a habit of thinking of people in the past as silly or naive or uneducated or primitive. In truth, biologically we're exactly the same as humans a few thousand years ago. Our brains work the same way. We’re still effectively cave men with internet. We’re still afraid of what we don’t know or understand. We’re still a social species that follows group-think and a greatly influenced by the people around us.
We're all born naked and confused. The world is a confusing place. In the middle ages, the issue of witches was a huge debate. The problem was, the lives of thousands of people lay in the balance. Many poor people attempted to cope with the stress of life. They often tried to feel in control of their chaotic lives. Even in the 21st century, my grandparents kept owl models in the windows of their homes.
Modern people aren’t smarter. We’re just lucky enough to have a foundation of education from a young age and that education includes the steady building up of knowledge from the billions of people who came before. The writings of people of the past, build us up into modern humans. A person with no access to any of histories obtained knowledge would be as misguided as the people of the past. A person given no more than the education of the middle ages, wouldn’t be able to advance beyond a medieval understanding of the world alone. Children who get lost in the jungle and are adopted by wolves or chimpanzees are known as “feral children”. They are biologically the same as us but without the knowledge of language, social expectations and education.
How should we feel about people who think differently from us?
How should we feel about crazy things people believe?
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