Re: Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs & Disease (Review)
Infiniti

Sun Oct 11 15:11:40 1998
Jenny wrote,*p*: 1) Literature.  Contemporaries wrote about the persecutions, *br*: and there are thousands of different books out there -- like *br*: witch-hunting manuals, sermons, plays, and popular *br*: literature (there's a whole genre of lurid pamphlets written *br*: about witch trials, sort of the early modern equivalent of *br*: our "True Crime" books and tv shows...)*p*The thing I hate about using this method is the use of propaganda.  Though there may be a tid-bit of accurate information there, propaganda is simply a well developed lie.  This is one of two reasons I have avoided the topic entirely in my religous/historical research.  For instance, on preson I have seen many people quoting for pagan research is Plenty.  Plenty was vastly inadaquate when it came to the facts; after all, his job was to provide evidence that the "savage" people outside the Roman Empire were unfit to rule themselves.  Then you get books written by guys like our Dr. Prejudice, who started this thread.  There is also the example of lack of fact in literature that Beirdd illustrated in his post to the Bruidhean board.  I've seen this method misused for personal agendas too often.*p*: 2) Trial records.  Trials kept a variety of records, *br*: including charges, verdicts, lists of questions asked, lists *br*: of goods confiscated from witches, etc.  We know of roughly *br*: 50,000 or so of these trials, about 13,000 of which ended in *br*: executions.  *p*The thing I dislike about trial records is they do not show who was pagan and who was Christian, because they can't.  I've seen some of these lists, and they lump _known_ Christians in with "pagans", and this seems wrong to me.  It seems like, the more names you can get in there, the better your purpose is served (present company excluded).  We all know Joan d'Arc was Christian, same as for those in Salem.  Citing where the Church bit itself seems to have little to do with "our" religous persecution, save that they used "our" faiths as a means to deal with a political or economic problem.  If you must cite Christians executed under the pagan "name", then they should have their own list (two lists right down the page would be nice); this is an internal Christian problem, not entirely our problem.*p*I also find that most of these sites are run by individuals who absolutely despise the Church.  They truly remind me of children who are throwing a fit against their parents because the parents told them not to do something.  These are generally the same type of people I see who talk the talk, wear the right cloths, have all the merchandise, nice clean alters to whatever pagan God(dess), but when no one is around, the vest goes away.*p*: Believe it or not, the Church has indeed made this *br*: information easily availabe to scholars.  Part of the reason *br*: is, it has little to be ashamed of.  It's not proud of the *br*: fact that it killed witches, but church and inquisitorial *br*: courts were *infinitely* better than secular ones.  You were *br*: almost 100 times MORE likely to survive your trial if you *br*: were tried by the Church.*p*I do believe it.  I've seen Church records before, they were the most thorough dang things I have ever seem.  Yet, if you were most likely to survive a Church trial, why is the Church getting all the blame?  Sounds to me like a country went mad with religious zeal, and the Church got the blame.  Reminds me of this Church/Nazi thing that got cooked up.  It also makes me wonder just how many of these people were actually "pagan".  To me, the truth of it is far more important to me that "the Church slaughtered thousands of pagans for its own means".  That might just be me, I have no agendas that rely on any of this, and my religion was stomped out, mostly, before Christians even had a chance to get it.  Given what I know about the Salem trials, I'd wage a bet that 90% of those executed in the Ingusition and all the other times were Christain.  After all, Church records don't show who got the land after the execution (if not the Church), who was awarded the family heirlooms, who got to watch after the pretty young daughter, or, how many of the spouces remarried shortly after.*p*: In Spain, for instance, the *br*: Inquisition became the foremost opponent of witch trials.  *br*: It forbade secular witch trials and saved several hundred *br*: condemned witches!*p*But, how do we know they were "witches", and not just saddled with the title?*p*_If_ I should find a site that is worth visiting, I will surely let you know.  However, the sites I find tend to be run by overgrown children throwing a fit because they got their hand slapped, or by religious zealots.  Neither of these are helping our cause a bit.*p*I emailed one guy, who had made a comment that Hitler was preferable to the Church, and pointed out that, not only did more people die under Hitler (one man) than in the Burning Times (many, many men), but that the Church wanted the bum outed.  His reply was not nice.  He stated that I was a "plant" by the Church, and I was only out to seed "his People" with discontent before "my gestopoe" comes in to "burn" him and "his kind".  Last I checked, I thought I was his kind, unless he meant, more pointedly, zealots.*p*I like this site better, anyway.  It has far better color coordination and the hostess is prettier. <G>*p*Michael
Re: Witchcraft, Lycanthropy, Drugs & Disease (Review)
Jenny
49
Sun Oct 11 05:48:20 1998