#1: Don't Expect a Pogrom
Jenny
jennyg@compuserve.com
Tue Oct 12 15:42:47 1999
If we want to be able to stop the Burning Times from recurring, we have to be able to recognize them.  And that's harder than it sounds.*p*Most Pagans think that the Great Hunt was a pogrom, a deliberate program of genocide and murder, launched by one distinct group (the Church, the State, witch-hunters) against another distinct group (witches, wise-women, women generally, Pagans).  Therefore today, we watch for deliberate, organized anti-Pagan efforts, like Bob Barr's recent attacks.*p*That's good.  Things like that can create horrific persecution.*p*But that's not what the Burning Times were about.*p*There was no pogrom in the Great Hunt.  The persecution was sporadic.  One German town would kill hundreds of people;  its neighbor, none.  No one group was responsible for the horrors -- witch-hunting was supported by all members of society.  And no one group was its target.  Witches were a very varied group of people, not a homogenous group like the Jews.  There is no generalization we can make about the "average" witch that holds true in all times and places.  The only feature they shared is that they were all accused of witchcraft.*p*So what were the Burning Times?  They were a rumor panic, like America's recent scares over Satanic Ritual Abuse.  People became convinced that a murderous, devil-worshipping cult of witches existed, and that this cult wanted to destroy the Christian world.  No such cult existed, in reality.  But as the fear increased, people began to lash out -- at anyone who bore any resemblence to their idea of a Satanist.  That's why witches had little in common with each other.  Witch hunters weren't attacking a real group of people.  They were trying to destroy a non-existant Satanic conspiracy.  Most witches weren't killed because they were witches;  they were killed because someone thought they were Satanic murderers.*p*Thus the first lesson I draw from the Burning Times is that not all persecution is direct.  Yes, there are bigots who attack our religion, and they need to be stopped.  But we also have to keep our eyes open for rumor panics about evil groups ("Satanic" witches today, or Communists in the McCarthy era).  Public panics can do far more damage than most deliberate pogroms.*p*Jenny*br*