-Caveat Lector-
The following post confirms my leanings of late, that we should all become
witches..It is a craft that uses all the "new age" techniques, split into
it's factions as a way to isolate each of the crafts.
With witch craft you will replace Religious Faith with Magic..
If you are to study one thing, let it be wicca..
Peter
From: "Kim Lambert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
OFFICE OF NEWS AND INFORMATION
3003 N. Charles Street, Suite 100
Baltimore, Maryland 21218-3843
Phone: (410) 516-7160 / Fax (410) 516-5251
October 11, 1999
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Leslie Rice
WHY ARE THERE WITCHES? For Halloween, a History of Belief in Witchcraft and
Demons
Without the theologians, there would be no witches.
That is one of the major conclusions of Walter Stephens' forthcoming book,
"Demon Lovers: Witchcraft, Sex, and Belief" (University of Chicago, 2000).
Stephens, the Charles S. Singleton Professor of Italian Studies at The Johns
Hopkins University, has researched and published extensively on medieval and
modern literature. In his latest book, he traces the first century of belief
in witches (ca.1430-1530) and its relevance to the present day.
Until now, most historians have held that witch hunts, which began in
earnest around the 1450s, were either a tool of repression, a form of
reining-in deviant behavior, a backlash against women or a tool of the
common people to name scapegoats for spoiled crops, dead livestock or the
death of babies and children.
But Stephens, who has studied writings about sorcery and magic by
theologians and intellectuals dating back to the 11th century, argues that
the belief in witches filled the need for a different kind of scapegoat.
"I think witches were a scapegoat for God," Stephens says.
Until the 1400s, clerics ridiculed the belief in witches as ignorant
superstition. But by the 1430s, the Christian intelligentsia had begun
producing treatises that "proved" the existence of witches.
Stephens holds that theologians went to great lengths to prove that women
could consort with demons because the theologians were repressing their own
spiritual doubts. They couldn't find a physical means to prove that the
world of spirit exists. But by "proving" that witches caused real damage,
and received the power of witchcraft from their demon lovers, theologians
could demonstrate the reality of the spiritual world. How can you have sex
with an imaginary being? And how can a mere woman cause so much harm without
demonic aid? The "reality" of witches not only explained why bad things
happen, but, through witches' connections to demons, also provided inverse
physical proof of the existence of God.
"Otherwise, late medieval Christians were left facing their questions as to
why bad things happen," Stephens says. "In their pre-scientific,
Biblically-based world view, the only alternative to witches and demons as
an explanation of misfortune is a God not powerful enough to stop bad things
from happening or not good enough to try. In just about any period of
history where theologians repress those questions, you tend to find witch
hunts. It's very Freudian at the bottom: The thoughts that you refuse to
think, you will act out in some violent, seemingly illogical way."
So how did theologians prove that women could consort with demons?
Confessions.
According to the "Hammer of Witches" (1487), the fundamental handbook of
witch hunting, witches, through their confessions, became "expert witnesses"
to the power, both sexual and magical, of demons. Historians estimate that
in Europe and North America, between 1450 and 1700, at least 30,000 people,
three-fourths of them women, were forced to confess participation in
witchcraft or consorting with demons and subsequently executed. And who, the
defenders of witch hunting asked, would confess to impossible crimes,
knowing the confession would cost their lives?
Today, there are modern "good witch" movements, like Wicca. Stephens argues
that voluntary participation in "witchcraft" is the same old question asked
in a new way. It is another attempt, by people who find Christianity
unsatisfying, to make the spirit world seem real. The difference between
inquisitors of yore and modern witches is that the latter are unafraid --
indeed eager -- to admit their dissatisfaction with Christianity.
http://www.newswise.com/articles/1999/10/WITCHES.JHU.html
We are about to go on a Journey. All Aboard
http://sites.netscape.net/gsussnzl/homepage
Bargain Books
http://bn.bfast.com/bfast/click/mid1349732?siteid=10734186&bfpage=b
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