Witch burning

by **biaothanatoi** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 8:58 pm

Freud appears to have come across a case of ritual abuse in a young “hysterical” patient called Emma Eckstein, who described to him memories of sexual torture in which the “Devil” drew blood from her and forced her to ingest it. Jeffrey Mason (“The Assault on Truth”) argues that Freud was writing about Emma in the following passages from letters to friends and colleagues: “I have an idea shaping in my mind that in the perversions, of which hysteria is the negative, we may have before us a residue of a primaeval sexual cult which, in the Semitic East (Moloch, Astarte), was once, perhaps still is, a religion … I dream, therefore, of a primaeval Devil religion whose rites are carried on secretly, and I understand the severe therapy of the witches judges.” Freud goes on to link his experiences with these patients to transcripts of confessions during the European witch hunts: “What would you say, by the way, if I told you that my brand-new theory on the early etiology of hysteria was already well known and had been published a hundred times over, though several centuries ago? … “But why did the devil who took possession of the poor things invariably abuse them sexually and in a loathsome manner? Why would their confessions under torture so like the communications made by my patients in psychological treatment?” We’ve been raised to presume that the witch hunts are a prima faci case of paranoia, however, in a minority of cases, there was physical evidence of ritual and sacrificial activity. In light of the widespread practice of ritual abuse in a variety of social, criminal and religious contexts today, it seems probable to me that ritual abuse was being practiced throughout the Middle Ages. As has been pointed out by others, the allegations of the victims of the ‘witches’ are identical to those of ritual abuse survivors – sexual and ritual torture, marriage to the devil, small ‘marking’ scars, ‘waking up’ somewhere else, ‘possession states’, etc. We also know that the surviving grimoires on demonology and necromancy from the Dark and Medieval Ages were written in Latin and, in some cases, illuminated in gold; they could only have been written by scripturally deviant priests and monks. In “Cult and Ritual Trauma”, Noblitt and Perskin note a historical site in Europe in which an abbey was burnt down by the townspeople, allegedly after years of sexual predation by the monks within. Perhaps the history of the ‘witch hunts’ is more complex then the paradigm of ‘The Crucible’ would have us believe? Perhaps the moral panic was only one element on the witch hunts? Modern ritual abuse perpetrators point the finger elsewhere, blaming the social workers and psychologists who uncover their crimes. Then, as now, perhaps the medieval allegations against innocents were also driven by the bloody hands of the men who controlled the system - the judge, the police officer and the Christian priest?

by **Dreams End** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 9:15 pm

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>Perhaps the history of the ‘witch hunts’ is more complex then the paradigm of ‘The Crucible’ would have us believe? Perhaps the moral panic was only one element on the witch hunts? Modern ritual abuse perpetrators point the finger elsewhere, blaming the social workers and psychologists who uncover their crimes. Then, as now, perhaps the medieval allegations against innocents were also driven by the bloody hands of the men who controlled the system - the judge, the police officer and the Christian priest?<hr></blockquote> This is one area I'm looking toward. However, the suggestion (by this one article I posted, anyway) that witch trials were fiercest where central authority is weakest, would mean that the controllers of the system were not as involved (though who knows what happened behind the scenes.) I also maintain, that the whole burning "ritual" and the torture that led up to it, is the closest fit to "ritual abuse" that we have documentation for! And yes, the "imagery" from the trial transcripts to Freud's patients is eerily consistent. But one can easily argue that much of the imagery comes from the inquisitors (by the way, small 'i' as this was a judicial process...actual Inquisitors, big 'I' didn't do much witch-hunting from what I've read.) The Illumination thing doesn't really bother me too much, as monks transcribed all kinds of stuff, even stuff that was considered heretical...and the abbots simply restricted access to that stuff only to those "spiritually mature enough" to handle it. The article warns that up until 1975, much of what was published about witch trials was based on a very small percentage of cases as there were records from millions of court cases of all types all over the place. As scholars week through these, many of the traditional ideas about the "burning times" are being overturned. I'm going to have to check out Noblitt and Perskin.

by **biaothanatoi** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 9:58 pm

> I also maintain, that the whole burning "ritual" and the torture that led up to it, is the closest fit to "ritual abuse" that we have documentation for! You might want to take a look at the occult network uncovered during the reign of Louis XIV in the 17th century – Satanic curses-for-cash, child sacrifice, a baroness who bathed in blood, and a lot of missing nuns. Or the Dionysian cult that was broken up by the Roman Senate for ritual abuse of children in the first century AD. I agree that torture and ritual abuse have a hell of a lot in common, but don’t get blinded by the similarities - a closer inspection of European history reveals a continuum of ritual abuse. > But one can easily argue that much of the imagery comes from the inquisitors You could argue it, but you’d have to go some way to establishing the argument. There are a number of studies done with children and adults to explore the possibility that ritual abuse memories are somehow ‘implanted’ by improper therapy or forensic interviewing techniques. To my knowledge, none have established any link between implicit messages in interviewing/therapy technique and ritual abuse disclosure. The only way that an inquisitor could elicit such disclosures is through a direct demand (eg victims tortured into a presigned confession) and that’s not what the transcripts show taking place. Some transcripts appear to have victims ‘switching’ between alters and spontaneously disclosing histories of sexual and ritual torture. It’s very strange stuff and the explanation above is not a good fit. Even if we accepted the contention that the imagery comes from the inquisitors, it only raises further questions – Where did they get such imagery from? And why is it that ritual abuse survivors, with no access to such historical material, are disclosing the same memories? > The Illumination thing doesn't really bother me too much, as monks transcribed all kinds of stuff We have 1000-year-old grimoires from priests who called on Satan and Lucifer to raise corpses from the dead or strike down their enemies. The similarities between the doctrines in the books suggests a sort of elite network that shared ritual practice and occult techniques. Meanwhile, various popes of the time were making proclamations against priests who worshipped the devil or who practiced the occult arts. And entire towns were rising up against the abbey on the hill and burning it to the ground so that the monks inside would cease preying on women and children. I don’t think such things can be easily dismissed when exploring the history of ritual abuse.

by **Avalon** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:40 pm

I'll vouch for Jenny Gibbons, whose article on the Burning Times at Chas Clifton's site for The Pomegranate was linked by Dreams End. I know her both in person and from her very active participation on a bulletin board we met on about 10 years ago. She's a meticulous scholar with a master's in history from Cornell. While I don't have enough background in the history she discusses there to be able to comment on it, if Jenny states something I have no problem with trusting it to be accurate. In the years that we discussed a lot of esoteric folklore and religious practice on that board, the one time that I was ever able to correct her on something was when she didn't know about a term for a kind of leather and I did.

by **marykmusic** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:05 am

...by the European witch hunts that included killing off their "familiars", cats. Cats were rounded up and burned, drowned, tortured, nearly causing their disappearance in western Europe in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries. The last big wave of the Black Death coincided with that... imagine how the rats overran the cities and towns! Modern stories such as the Pied Piper of Hamelin and the historic figure of Dick Whittington ("Turn around, Dick Whittington; thrice lord mayor of London") emphasize the huge problems of rats and mice. This is a good angle to search for more information on the witch hunts in general. --MaryK

by **Dreams End** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 9:12 am

<blockquote>Quote:<hr>You might want to take a look at the occult network uncovered during the reign of Louis XIV in the 17th century – Satanic curses-for-cash, child sacrifice, a baroness who bathed in blood, and a lot of missing nuns.<hr></blockquote> Yes, I think that is the case I was interested in...there was one other similar involving allegations of over a hundred child sacrifices. McGowan's book would interest you, actually, as he gets into these (mostly about modern history but some on this.) I don't remember the whole story but Joan of Arc even got pulled into this. What's interesting about the case you cited is that it was (if I have the right case...) a clear situation of Satanic worship...actual Black Masses in which the traditional sacraments are used and profaned. Even if we take many of the highest profile "confessions" at face value, they are really more indicative of an older, pre-Christian cult of some kind, with no emphasis on profaning the sacraments. Another interesting thing about that case is that there was a good deal of physical evidence. A third feature of interest is that rather than involving rural people it was involving the upper classes...getting all the way up to the wife (or consort?) of Louis himself. This case fits our current fears of "Satan worship" to a tee. It would be interesting then to follow this line of reasoning. Black masses are specifically a reaction to and rejection of the Church. There are other cases, however, where these are held WITHIN churches...including monasteries or at least this is alleged during various times of "possession" or "hysteria" by groups of nuns. In other words, this seems to be pretty tightly focused on Christianity...even as it purports to be its opposite. (I'm not saying they are equal...only that one is a dark current within the other.) Not long ago, a child abuse/torture website was busted in Italy. I have seen VERY few stories...in fact, only one. Several of those arrested were priests. <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Priests among 186 arrested over child torture site Italy police uncover Internet pornography site for paedophiles that showed young children being tortured. Tuesday, May 24, 2005 ROME: Italian police are investigating 186 people including three priests after uncovering an Internet pornography site for paedophiles that showed young children being tortured, an official said. Police said the anonymous web site had been protected by a password and was only accessible for nine days last year in an apparent effort to avoid detection. But a tip-off to a child-abuse telephone helpline allowed computer experts to track down the users. Besides the Roman Catholic priests, police also believe a mayor, a teacher and a doctor downloaded illegal videos. "The children on the films were aged between 4 and 8 at most. Some were abused, others were even tortured," said Domenico Di Somma, coordinator for the police computer investigation taskforce. Police have confiscated computers across Italy, but have not yet pressed charges as they continue with their investigation. The head of an Italian child protection organisation said the case, which was centred on the Mediterranean island of Sicily, was just the tip of an iceberg. "Dismay turns to uncontrollable rage when you are confronted by these images which not even the most hardened maker of horror films could bear to watch," Antonio Marziale of the Observatory of Child Rights was quoted as saying by Ansa news agency. "Paedophilia has assumed emergency proportions and should be top of the government's agenda."<hr></blockquote> Note that this is the only story in English I've ever found on this relatively recent story. Never saw a follow up. Now, think about what would be possible before the harsh lights of mass media were around. (Not that the media often shine that light where they should). That is truly a frightening thought. Think about it, if you wanted access to children and total authority over them to do as you wanted, what better place than the church...specifically monasteries and orphanages? Now, I think you are unwise to equate those who question the testimony under torture of the witch hunters with those who are "skeptical" of modern RA abuse. I think the cases are simply not at all comparable. One can begin to look at commonalities in the tortured confessions but ruling out the victim's saying what the torturers expected to hear seems almost impossible after so much time has elapsed. The stories these men expected to hear were widely known and even printed in "manuals." I don't think this attitude at all suggests that RA victims who recover (or never lost!) abuse memories are similarly contaminated. Torture is the difference here. In addition, remember that similar stories of cannibalism and human sacrifice were told of Jews and other religious heretics, so we have to be careful here. In fact, I think it wasn't until later in Inquisitorial times that witchcraft got equated with heresy. Before that, it was based on what the witch was actually doing but after, even a witch attempting to heal others could be burned, as the crime was "commerce with the Devil." I don't know the Roman case you mentioned...a link would be cool. I don't know what to make of it all. I think that more recent scholarship actually pretty much discredited the Murray idea that these torture victims were actually part of a pre-Christian cult . And since I found that article on a website run by Wiccans, the fact that it discredits the very FOUNDATIONAL ideas of Wicca (Gardner borrowed a lot from Murray) makes it rather believable to me. However, the idea that there were such cults around is not unreasonable. We still see vestiges of pagan practice even today in Christian holidays and ceremonies..how much more when Christianity was newer and probably took longer to "filter down" to the masses. In fact, I'd find it hard to believe such vestiges were not around for a long time after Christianity came on the scene. And I'm certainly not going to argue that, by definition, any pre-Christian pagan tradition is automatically "evil" as I don't judge Christianity by the Black Masses. But I imagine all kinds of folk religious traditions were practiced even rather openly in some areas. I may have to back off of this topic for awhile. There's been a little funky malevolence that has descended here in my home as I've been really concentrating on this. I'm not dropping the topic...just gonna take a little break and "clear the air." When I have, I want to get that book you keep citing. If RA is a feature of many different belief systems, well then, I'm sad to think what that means about our species. While human sacrifice has been around forever...I don't automatically equate the two. Sacrificing enemies captured in war, for example, is not moral to me, but I don't accept the logic of war in the first place. And even child sacrifice, as some poster mentioned, could sometimes have been done in times of famine...the mothers not able to find enough calories to keep their children alive and wanting some ritual to give meaning to their deaths (as opposed to just exposing them on a hilltop somewhere.) And the stories of the "wicker man", again repulsive to me (but not really much more so than the electric chair. If they are true...well, it was really a Druid death penalty...again, with ritual to bring meaning to these deaths. As for the witch burnings themselves, no...there was no self understanding of the church that these were sacrifices. I simply offer that they look an awful lot like them. And I say "best documented" simply because we have actual accounts of the deaths and the names of the victims. And if, as you say, RA is a feature of many cultures, then it makes sense that some dark need or dark desire is awakened by sharing in such rituals, whether or not the witchburnings fit all the criteria of human sacrifice. I just keep picturing the children brought to these spectacles...who watched other children burned alive as their parents sang hymns. What effect did this have on that child? What belief system did they adopt? Were they more likely to participate in Black Mass activity or less so? Anytime people are desensitized to such horrific violence the results can't be positive.

by **DrDebugDU** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 11:17 am

For some reason I have never really read this book, but years ago I bought History of Witch Trials by Hemelryck (1982) since it was really cheap second hand. Anyway let's summarize some stuff from first chapter: It started at Concilium of Tours in the year 567 when the Catholic Church outlawed the feast of Janus and blood sacrifices for the dead. However it was only punishable by excommunication or a fine. It wasn't until the Synode of Worms in 829 that torture was added. Some examples: Seven year fine for murder through witchcraft Seven year fine for making your enemy insane Five year fine for consulting fortune tellers Seven year fine plus torture for causing a storm or hail One year fine for enchanting somebody for sex (Five years if it was a monk) However it wasn't until 906 that the first witches were burned, but only for sex with the devil. The first prosecution of witches on a larger scale didn't start until the 12th and 13th century. Edited by: <A HREF=http://p097.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=drdebugdu>DrDebugDU</A> at: 8/9/05 9:20 am

by **Dreams End** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 1:30 pm

Oh, I left off one of the interesting, tangential parts of my search. I started reading in an old book I had, The Encyclopedia of Witchcraft and Demonology. I had gotten the book as a teenager. My mom had found it somewhere...a friend or someone...I can't remember. Despite the ominous title, it's not some kind of "how to" and was really just a compilation of various aspects of the subject. The general tone, for the most part, is that the "witches" in Europe were simply innocent folks swept up in hysteria (with one interesting exception in this volume...already discussed above.) I was really interested in the book and looked it over pretty thoroughly the night I got it. The next day, my mom's friend, who had had weird experiences of her own (I don't think they were ALL drug related) opened the book to a page I swore I'd seen the night before. On that page was a note, carefully printed and unsigned. The note said this: Evil is no mystery. It appears where it is welcome. Evil is. Shun it. 20 years later I still remember it verbatim. Probably good advice.

by **Sokolova** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:01 pm

'It appears where it is welcome'. Yes, I think it does. But what does 'welcome' mean? Sometimes - as I have said before - maybe those who truly deplore evil and think they are fighting it are actually 'welcoming' it by believing in it. Personally I tend to think you can't fight evil by opposing it, because to oppose it is to emphasise it and to emphasise it is to make it grow. I think perhaps you can only fight evil by being its opposite. In every moment of light in your life, in every moment of honesty and true empathy, in every act of real giving and selflessness, in every moment of looking outward and searching for light and life and hope we are fighting evil in the only way possible. Like bringing a torch into the darkness rather than lamenting the lack of light. I think those who think they are hot on the trail of the evildoers and devote acres of space to their evil deeds are in danger of becoming the unwitting barkers at the booth door, where madness and folly and evil are waiting inside. At least maybe so. But what I also see in this stuff Dreams End has posted is the essential elusiveness and Trickster deceptiveness of the Other and how it may be opaque to any form of analysis. It seems to me that in the area of Strangeness, as with every logical or scientific problem, there are the two extreme possibilities - it's all false or it's all true. It's tempting, once we reject the first to leap into the latter, but I have as much problem in accepting that people never lie, or are confused, or are unhinged in this area as in accepting they always are. So I feel forced to accept that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes, viz - there is some truth and some falseness. And this leaves us wiith the problem. How can we tell - ever - whether we are dealing with something objectively real, semi-real, ever-so-slightly real, real in a different dimension of space-time - or totally made up by a crapulously barking mad border-deficient hysteric who wants the attention/book deal/ revenge? Can we differentiate? Do we need to? Suggestions welcome - though maybe on another thread, as I don't want to hijack Dreams' original topic. Ellie

by **Avalon** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:35 pm

I have problems with casting anything as a fight against Evil, rather than a fight against those who do evil things. Then again, I don't do black and white, but see there being a wide range of shades of nuance.. Those who do evil are people, and I don't think we should ever forget that.

by **hanshan** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 3:59 pm

DE - in your examination of the underlying causes/expressions of the witch- burining phenomena, you may find the following of interest: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0226123162/qid=1123611256/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/104-0838007-4818316?v=glance&s=books&n=507846" target="top">Eros and Magic in the Renaissance (</a> ] by Margaret Cook <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1570626502/ref=pd_sxp_elt_l1/104-0838007-4818316" target="top">Out of this World : Otherworldly Journeys from Gilgamesh to Albert Einstein</a> by Ioan P. Culianu <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0415254094/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-0838007-4818316#reader-link" target="top">The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age</a> by Frances Amelia Yates <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0271020458/qid=1123613007/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-0838007-4818316?v=glance&s=books" target="top">Spiritual & Demonic Magic: From Ficino to Campanella</a>, D. P. Walker <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1566634857/ref=pd_sim_b_1/104-0838007-4818316?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance" target="top">The Philosophers' Secret Fire: A History of the Imagination</a> by Patrick Harpur <a href="http://www.meta-religion.com/Psychiatry/Analytical_psychology/jungs_shadow.htm" target="top">Wotan & Jung</a> "We have seen him come to life in the German Youth Movement, and right at the beginning the blood of several sheep was shed in honour of his resurrection. Armed with rucksack and lute, blond youth, and sometimes girls as well, were to be seen as restless wanderers on every road from the North Cape to Sicily, faithful votaries of the roving god. Later, towards the end of the Weimar Republic, the wandering role was taken over by thousands of unemployed, who were to be met with everywhere on their aimless journeys. By 1933 they wandered no longer, but marched in their hundreds of thousands. The Hitler movement literally brought the whole of Germany to its feet, from five-year-olds to veterans, and produced the spectacle of a nation migrating from one place to another. Wotan the wanderer was on the move." (2) Who is this Wotan? "He is the god of storm and frenzy, the unleasher of passions and the lust of battle; moreover he is a superlative magician and artist in illusion who is versed in all secrets of an occult nature." (3) "Wotan disappeared when his oaks fell and appeared again when the Christian God proved too weak to save Christendom from fratricidal slaughter." (4) "I venture the heretical suggestion that the unfathomable depths of Wotan's character explain more of National Socialism than" (5) all economic, political and psychological factors put together. "[T]he gods are without doubt personifications of psychic forces..." (6) And when one is possessed by such a god there is not much one can do about it and in the case of Wotan we're talking about "a fundamental attribute of the German psyche." (7) "Because the behaviour of a race takes on its specific character from its underlying images we can speak of an archetype "Wotan". As an autonomous psychic factor, Wotan produces effects in the collective life of a people and thereby reveals his own nature." (8) But we must remember, cautions Jung, that, "It has always been terrible to fall into the hands of a living god. Yahweh was no exception to this rule, and the Philistines, Edomites, Amorites, and the rest, who were outside the Yahweh experience, must certainly have found it exceedingly disagreeable. The Semitic experience of Allah was for a long time an extremely painful affair for the whole of Christendom. We who stand outside judge the Germans far too much as if they were responsible agents, but perhaps it would be nearer the truth to regard them also as victims." (9)

by **Dreams End** » Tue Aug 09, 2005 4:13 pm

Hanshan, An embarrassment of riches! Thanks.

Witch burning

Re: witchcraft myths

Re: witchcraft myths

Re: witchcraft myths

Jenny Gibbons

The Black Death was made worse...

Re: The Black Death was made worse...

Re: The Black Death was made worse...

Encylopedias talk back

Re: Encylopedias talk back

Dichotomies or no dichotomies?

re: black death/ familiars / shadows

Re: re: black death/ familiars / shadows

Who is online