Carl Sagan did a great job describing the witch trial phenomenon in "The Demon Haunted World". It discusses how unchecked beliefs without any evidence can wreak havoc on society. If you were accused of witchcraft your only choices were:
1. to deny it and be burned at the stake
2. admit it, implicate others and be put to death in a gentler way
I admire the ones who stood for reason and were brave enough to endure the consequences.
Assuming this is about beliefs would imply the claims were made in earnest. In many (if not the vast majority?) of cases, this seems questionable. For instance during the Salem Witch Trials you even had a Minister [1] executed for witchcraft. His accusers were men who he owed debts to, and the evidence was a farce. It's not like he was executed because of a society, drowned in their own beliefs, stumbled upon passable evidence of his crimes in an otherwise objective fashion. He was executed because some people really didn't like him and simply weaponized the fears of the day, and that was more the rule than exception.
To me the risk seems to be when something becomes so popular to hate that nobody is willing to defend the accused. And this is made even worse due to an opposite bias in the other direction. Demonize and call for even more draconian treatment of the accused and you can signal your own incredible virtue. As his execution, Burroughs had turned the crowd to his side with a moving speech, as well as a recital of The Lord's Prayer, which a witch was not supposed to be able to do. But fear not, along came some power seeking pompous posturing poser who offered his own counter-speech, an event recounted in a book he'd release the following year.
And this is a pattern that has repeated endlessly throughout history. All that changes is whatever one needs to label somebody.
I read the primary sources from the trial. Burroughs was notorious in the community as a serious wifebeater. People testified that he told them not to tell anyone if he accidentally killed his wife. His first wife did end up dying, although not overtly from that.
It made me suspect that maybe Burroughs was one of those people who was notorious for being awful and breaking the law, but which could never be proved legally. So when witchcraft fever started going around...there was a way to get rid of him.
You're right but I think there are those who believe and the charlatans who take advantage of them. It's hard to reason with the mob once it's co-opted by someone who feeds into their beliefs.
I think the people in charge used it to their advantage while harnessing the religious masses to enforce their agenda.
Carl Sagan is an excellent communicator but he relies too heavily on literary tropes and popular fiction.
The issue of witchcraft is not unchecked beliefs, but the combustible mixture of politics and economics.
Early witches weren't old women performing secret rituals in dense forests. They were the bourgeoisie, who found themselves newly rich during a time of political and economic uncertainty.
The "Malleus Maleficarum" never caught on among the religious elite. Why would they care about the imagined threat of witches when Protestants were out in the open and gaining ground amongst all levels of society?
Where the book did catch on was amongst secular courts. The book provided a convenient justification for condemning political and economic opponents. There it was used to great effect.
There is an interesting history thesis that the Inquisition and the Renaissance are actually two faces of the same phenomena: the rise of the idea of nation-states and institutions. That is, power and authority sourced in something impersonal that survives the person vested with it. It's one of the pillars of modernity, and we take it for granted enough that we erroneously view the Medieval period and feudal structures in that way. By the early Renaissance, Inquisition courts became meticulous about following court procedures, evidentiary processes (such as they were), and documenting decisions.
That's not to justify the Inquisition, but rather, it isn't as if how we do things now is all that much better.
> That's not to justify the Inquisition, but rather, it isn't as if how we do things now is all that much better.
a lot of countries don't have capital punishment and people are usually assumed innocent until proven guilty rather than the opposite, as it was back then. It seems a lot better to me.
Currently we have a pervasive purity culture. It seems every group of any sort has its purity tests. And I am appalled by the number of times I witness accusers asking yes or no questions, not allowing for anything but a simple demon-haunted binary answer.
We humans are not currently punishing the wrong answers with death (most of the time). But we have not progressed much beyond that.
..and the consequences: "Witchcraft beliefs around the world: An exploratory analysis [2022-11]"
> Country-level variation in the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs is systematically linked to a number of cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic characteristics.
> Among the documented potential costs of witchcraft beliefs are; disrupted social relations, high levels of anxiety, pessimistic worldview, lack of entrepreneurial culture and innovative activity.
// disrupted social relations, high levels of anxiety, pessimistic worldview, lack of entrepreneurial culture and innovative activity.
Perhaps this was your point anyway but this sounds like a very modern set of problems. Perhaps religious history of "battling" witchcraft and demonism can be understood as societies having witnessed a similar set of social issues brewing and looking for the root cause.
An interesting connection that popped in my mind is women I've met in life who called themselves witches, or were interested in the concept, or even just dressed every day like it's Halloween - these aren't people you easily picture being close to their family, being married with children, being optimistic and entrepreneurial, etc. You kinda picture them at least absent from those things but perhaps more actively seeking to subvert them (eg: r/WitchesVsPatriarchy - by "patriarchy" they basically mean "everything")
So perhaps the religious history of battling witches is just a limited/filtered understanding of the larger (and necessary) social theme of trying to preserve virtuous, energetic, spiritual, values-driven society, during times they were under attack.
The number of "perhapses" in this comment should make it clear that I am just riffing here, but this is what your post inspired.
> popped in my mind is women I've met in life who called themselves witches, or were interested in the concept, or even just dressed every day like it's Halloween - these aren't people you easily picture being close to their family, being married with children, being optimistic and entrepreneurial
Ummmm, wow. You're explaining away old bigotry against witches by extrapolating your current bigotry ...
For what it's worth, most "witches" I've encountered tend to be optimistic and entrepreneurial; often running their own small businesses -- for instance there are several psychic shops near me (tarot readings are very popular now) and all have been in business for the 8 years I've lived here.
For what it's worth, I have a counter-anecdote: all the women I know who are into witch stuff are married with children and several of them are self employed doing arts & crafts kind of stuff.
> Perhaps religious history of "battling" witchcraft and demonism can be understood as societies having witnessed a similar set of social issues brewing and looking for the root cause.
In the US and Europe at least, witch-hunts and the paranoiac ferver around them arose in the context of apocalyptic Christian belief at the time - Christians believed they were living in the "end of days" and that Satanic forces were being arrayed everywhere to infiltrate their communities and corrupt and undermine their values. "witches" weren't simply pagans, but people who actively and willingly entered into contracts with the Christian devil. Modern day witchcraft and neopaganism bears no resemblance to what people of the time recognized witches to be, it didn't even really exist at the time.
In a finer-grained context, this could have been an expression of anxiety over cultural and political change, and very often it manifested as anti-Semitism (it's no coincidence witches were depicted in caricatures similar to Jews and that their meetings were called sabbats.) racism and misogyny, and like many moral panics today, was often employed by the religious and political powers to their own ends.
One can see it today within the right-wing fringes of Christianity and QAnon, and their conspiracy theories about Satanic rites among the "elites" and "leftists" (which has many elements of anti-witch and anti-Semitic beliefs of yore,) within a movement almost entirely defined by fear of the future and the corrupting influence of secularism and "traditional values."
I don't think this is true. A lot of people in the witchcraft scene are entrepreneurs due to persecution. What is likely more correct is that "fantastic beliefs" are associated with bad economic conditions (looking for fantastic solutions to modern problems).
The institution is insulting the members of this religion(again....) by saying they 'lack entrepreneurial culture' and are 'not innovative'. One walk into a witchcraft circle , community gathering, or event will show you that this is plainly and obviously false.
Everyone is misreading the extract. "Witchcraft beliefs" means people who are afraid of witches, not people who are witches. It's not a comment about witchcraft practitioners (esp. in the west) but countries where people routinely blame witches for various issues.
Anyone who wants a great single-volume reference for this kind of thing should check out The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology by Rossell Hope Robbins. Extraordinary collection.
I see nothing wrong with that. I'm a software developer but the first section of the library I tended to visit as a kid was the Paranormal section (this was shortly before personal computers were a thing!). I probably know as much about it as I do about software, and I'm still largely skeptical.
> when an academic person dismisses this type of devilry as fiction
Are you implying that instead all people should align on witchcraft being legitimate? And that if all people align on it being legitimate that it should be viewed as devilry?
Readit News
1. to deny it and be burned at the stake
2. admit it, implicate others and be put to death in a gentler way
I admire the ones who stood for reason and were brave enough to endure the consequences.
To me the risk seems to be when something becomes so popular to hate that nobody is willing to defend the accused. And this is made even worse due to an opposite bias in the other direction. Demonize and call for even more draconian treatment of the accused and you can signal your own incredible virtue. As his execution, Burroughs had turned the crowd to his side with a moving speech, as well as a recital of The Lord's Prayer, which a witch was not supposed to be able to do. But fear not, along came some power seeking pompous posturing poser who offered his own counter-speech, an event recounted in a book he'd release the following year.
And this is a pattern that has repeated endlessly throughout history. All that changes is whatever one needs to label somebody.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Burroughs
It made me suspect that maybe Burroughs was one of those people who was notorious for being awful and breaking the law, but which could never be proved legally. So when witchcraft fever started going around...there was a way to get rid of him.
I think the people in charge used it to their advantage while harnessing the religious masses to enforce their agenda.
The issue of witchcraft is not unchecked beliefs, but the combustible mixture of politics and economics.
Early witches weren't old women performing secret rituals in dense forests. They were the bourgeoisie, who found themselves newly rich during a time of political and economic uncertainty.
The "Malleus Maleficarum" never caught on among the religious elite. Why would they care about the imagined threat of witches when Protestants were out in the open and gaining ground amongst all levels of society?
Where the book did catch on was amongst secular courts. The book provided a convenient justification for condemning political and economic opponents. There it was used to great effect.
That's not to justify the Inquisition, but rather, it isn't as if how we do things now is all that much better.
a lot of countries don't have capital punishment and people are usually assumed innocent until proven guilty rather than the opposite, as it was back then. It seems a lot better to me.
We humans are not currently punishing the wrong answers with death (most of the time). But we have not progressed much beyond that.
3. Ask to see if you weighed the same as a duck
Dead Comment
> Country-level variation in the prevalence of witchcraft beliefs is systematically linked to a number of cultural, institutional, psychological, and socioeconomic characteristics.
> Among the documented potential costs of witchcraft beliefs are; disrupted social relations, high levels of anxiety, pessimistic worldview, lack of entrepreneurial culture and innovative activity.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9683553/
Perhaps this was your point anyway but this sounds like a very modern set of problems. Perhaps religious history of "battling" witchcraft and demonism can be understood as societies having witnessed a similar set of social issues brewing and looking for the root cause.
An interesting connection that popped in my mind is women I've met in life who called themselves witches, or were interested in the concept, or even just dressed every day like it's Halloween - these aren't people you easily picture being close to their family, being married with children, being optimistic and entrepreneurial, etc. You kinda picture them at least absent from those things but perhaps more actively seeking to subvert them (eg: r/WitchesVsPatriarchy - by "patriarchy" they basically mean "everything")
So perhaps the religious history of battling witches is just a limited/filtered understanding of the larger (and necessary) social theme of trying to preserve virtuous, energetic, spiritual, values-driven society, during times they were under attack.
The number of "perhapses" in this comment should make it clear that I am just riffing here, but this is what your post inspired.
Ummmm, wow. You're explaining away old bigotry against witches by extrapolating your current bigotry ...
For what it's worth, most "witches" I've encountered tend to be optimistic and entrepreneurial; often running their own small businesses -- for instance there are several psychic shops near me (tarot readings are very popular now) and all have been in business for the 8 years I've lived here.
Are you sure you're not talking about goths?
In the US and Europe at least, witch-hunts and the paranoiac ferver around them arose in the context of apocalyptic Christian belief at the time - Christians believed they were living in the "end of days" and that Satanic forces were being arrayed everywhere to infiltrate their communities and corrupt and undermine their values. "witches" weren't simply pagans, but people who actively and willingly entered into contracts with the Christian devil. Modern day witchcraft and neopaganism bears no resemblance to what people of the time recognized witches to be, it didn't even really exist at the time.
In a finer-grained context, this could have been an expression of anxiety over cultural and political change, and very often it manifested as anti-Semitism (it's no coincidence witches were depicted in caricatures similar to Jews and that their meetings were called sabbats.) racism and misogyny, and like many moral panics today, was often employed by the religious and political powers to their own ends.
One can see it today within the right-wing fringes of Christianity and QAnon, and their conspiracy theories about Satanic rites among the "elites" and "leftists" (which has many elements of anti-witch and anti-Semitic beliefs of yore,) within a movement almost entirely defined by fear of the future and the corrupting influence of secularism and "traditional values."
The institution is insulting the members of this religion(again....) by saying they 'lack entrepreneurial culture' and are 'not innovative'. One walk into a witchcraft circle , community gathering, or event will show you that this is plainly and obviously false.
You can browse a copy here: https://archive.org/details/the-encyclopedia-of-witchcraft-a...
* https://archive.org/details/Faust00goet_201303
[0]https://www.youtube.com/@TheEsotericaChannel
1/ when an opportunistic person accuses an innocent person of being a witch 2/ when an academic person dismisses this type of devilry as fiction
Are you implying that instead all people should align on witchcraft being legitimate? And that if all people align on it being legitimate that it should be viewed as devilry?