Witch Cult Of Europe

Image: evocative photo from Fritz Lang's film, "Metropolis"

(Conspiracy Nation, 09/17/05) -- Many people have a notion that "witches" were a mass hysteria of bygone times. They have a vague idea, for example, of 1692 Salem, Massachusetts witch trials as only collective madness. Madness, yes; but there are deeper waters.

It is not being advocated here that witches must be hung or burned at the stake. Nor is it being advocated that so-called witchcraft was some sort of "true" religion. What will be purveyed is that many people who think they know history in fact do not.

Prelude

Roman propaganda first created the story of Jesus, "Son of God." (See "Gospel Of Titus," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Titus.html)

The Jesus cult divided the Jewish people into believers and traditional Jews. This served Rome's purpose of maintaining control over the rebellious subjects. It was "divide and conquer."

The Roman emperor Constantine incorporated the Jesus religion into the state, in 325 A.D. It was a sort of mind control to prop up a teetering empire. (See "Evolution Of Christianity," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/EvolChrist.html)

Henceforth, Christianity was The Law. In the cities, the people mostly succumbed to the new tyranny. Still, there were holdouts, for instance in Alexandria, Egypt, where a Christian mob finally murdered Hypatia, a noted philosopher of the time.

But as Revolutionary War hero Ethan Allen once said, "The gods of the hills are not the gods of the valley." (See The Unknown American Revolution by Gary B. Nash, ch. 3) In rural areas there was stubborn resistance to the Trinity religion. The word "pagan" is from the Latin "paganus", meaning "rustic, peasant." It was impossible to completely root out the old beliefs in the pastoral regions.

The "valley" was, in other words, the more densely settled area. Christianity, Rome's propaganda coup, was then mostly a city folks religion. Such persons were "civilized," from the Latin "civitas", meaning "city, state, commonwealth."

But the gods of the hills were not the gods of the city. In the "uncivilized" areas, eruptions occurred. Such dissent, when more or less openly expressed, was brutally crushed by the authorities. (See "Beware The Phrygian Cap," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Phrygian.html, "Rat Zinger Zings Commie Rat," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/RatZings.html, and "The Renunciant," http://www.shout.net/~bigred/Renunciant.html)

So "pagan" dissenters were forced underground. But they did not disappear completely. There began to be rumors of "witches."

The Witches Hammer

The preceding introductory material was necessary in order to explain that what is perceived as a late-medieval witch hunting "hysteria" was not totally irrational. There were "witches." It's just that the authoritative descriptions of them were less than sound.

A main textbook used by the anti-witch authorities was The Malleus Maleficarum a.k.a. "The Witches Hammer," by Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger. It is an erudite work, showing extensive learning and knowledge. This section gives an outline of "educated opinion" of the time. Caveat lector. Reader beware.

As early as 906 A.D. it had been written that, Certain abandoned women turn aside "to follow Satan, being seduced by the illusions and phantasms of demons, believe and openly profess that in the dead of night they ride upon certain beasts with the pagan goddess Diana and a countless horde of women."

It is a "fact that adulterous drabs and whores are chiefly given to witchcraft." And it is the "midwives, who surpass all others in wickedness."

"If we inquire, we find that nearly all the kingdoms of the world have been overthrown by women." Women are weak. "Femina comes from Fe and Minus, since she is ever weaker to hold and preserve the faith."

How true? Were these pagans being literally demonized in "phase one," preparatory to a brutal crackdown? Had the old pagan religion made enough inroads that established clergy became alarmed? Again: these "witches" were no hallucination. However bear in mind that these "pagans" are being described by a competing religion.

"The Witches Hammer" is an erudite book. It contains much which provokes thought even today. Beware of "those who have singularly fiery and baleful eyes," for "in the eyes a certain subtle influence may be concentrated." These baleful influences are strengthened "at the sight of some impurity, such as, for example, a woman during her monthly periods, the eyes will as it were contract a certain impurity."

There are Incubi and Succubi. These are spirits who copulate with mortals while they sleep. (Nocturnal emissions?) It is "just as Catholic a view to hold that men may at times be begotten by means of Incubi and Succubi, as it is contrary to the words of the Saints and even to the tradition of Holy Scripture to maintain the opposite opinion."

Satyrs and Fauns "have appeared to wanton women and have sought and obtained coition with them." These Satyrs "are wild shaggy creatures of the woods, which are a certain kind of devils called Incubi." Again, beware the eyes, which can deceive: there is "a certain delusion of the senses, and especially of the eyes. And for this reason it is also called a prestige, from prestringo... A prestige, properly understood, is an illusion of the devil." Apparently the devilish Incubi were prestiging the eyes of the wanton women, deceiving them into seeing Satyrs and copulating with them.

Alas, since "witches are not put down with the vengeance that is due to them, they seem now to be depopulating the whole of Christianity." (All quotes this section from Kramer and Sprenger, op. cit.)

Witch Cult Of Europe

It is seen that the anti-witch crusade, fomented by propaganda, was not entirely a mass hysteria. A competing religious view was being crushed. Further light was cast on what exactly happened by Margaret Alice Murray in 1921. In The Witch-Cult In Western Europe: A Study in Anthropology (Oxford: Clarendon Press), she showed how "evidence proves that underlying the Christian religion was a cult practised by many classes of the community... It can be traced back to pre-Christian times, and appears to be the ancient religion of Western Europe."

Murray adds, "The so-called conversion of Britain [by the Romans] meant the conversion of the rulers only; the mass of the people continued to follow their ancient customs and beliefs with a veneer of Christian rites."

Among the chief festivals were:

Some ceremonies and festivals still survive, such as Maypole dances and Halloween.

Slowly, the ancient religion was stomped out. Targeted at first were prominent followers, such as Ireland's Lady Alice Kyteler, in 1324 "charged to have nightly conference with a spirit called Robin Artisson, to whom she sacrificed in the high way nine red cocks."

"But now wind drops, dust settles; thereupon
There lurches past, his great eyes without thought
Under the shadow of stupid straw-pale locks,
That insolent fiend Robert Artisson
To whom the love-lorn Lady Kyteler brought
Bronzed peacock feathers, red combs of her cocks."
(From "Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen," by W.B. Yeats)

Also targeted was France's Joan of Arc, the "Maid of Orleans," who "was put to death as a witch, and the conduct of her associates during her military career, as well as the evidence at her trial, bear out the fact that she belonged to the ancient religion, not to the Christian."

The "laws against the practice of certain heathen rites became more strict as Christianity grew in power..." By "the fifteenth century open war was declared against the last remains of heathenism..."

And so commenced the witch trials. Murray gives painstaking attention to details of the various proceedings. Her book, too long out-of-print, is again available, thanks to the work of Kessinger Publishing: "Thousands of scarce and hard-to-find books," http://www.kessinger.net.

Salem Witchcraft

In the New World, one underlying propellant of persecution may have been land disputes and consequent feuds.

When first settled, Salem's property boundaries had been loosely defined. This later caused bitter arguments, fought in the courts. In 1678, Francis Nurse had purchased a farm. It was to be paid for over time.  James Allen held the bond on this farm.

The Nurse family had not been well-off and, according to Charles W. Upham, author of Salem Witchcraft, there "is some reason to suspect that the prosperity of the Nurses had awakened envy and jealousy among the neighbors."

A legal case between James Allen and Zerubabel Endicott, "one of the most memorable and  obstinately contested land-controversies known to our courts," eventually decided against Endicott. The case was closed, but the bitterness simmered beneath the surface.

According to the Wikipedia reference on Rebecca Nurse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebecca_Nurse), "The Nurse family had been involved in several land disputes which could have caused ill-feeling among some of the residents of Salem."

Later, in 1692, it may have been "payback time" when Rebecca Nurse, wife of Francis Nurse, was accused of witchcraft. Based upon hearsay, hysteria, slander, and a dubious "mark of the devil," Nurse was found guilty, excommunicated, and suffered death by hanging on July 19, 1692.

Prestige

Beware the eyes, which can deceive. There is "a certain delusion of the senses, and especially of the eyes. And for this reason it is also called a prestige, from prestringo... A prestige, properly understood, is an illusion of the devil." (Kramer & Sprenger, op. cit.)

A glamour (a magic spell) tricks the perception into seeing what is not there. But who can face that what they "know" is misperceived?

"The gift of speech," wrote Upham, "by which the parent can convey information to the child, is an indication that it is the design of the Author of our being that we should receive from those passing away the narrative of their experience..." But what if that narrative has been distorted by conniving meddlers? What then?

A people without a past has no future. A lack of identity is replaced by a prestige, a glamour. We think we know who we are, but we don't. Instead, we repeat by rote whatever the meddlers and half-wits have inserted into the dialogue. Where are the ancestors? Not honored, they are gone to the stygian shore.

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Conspiracy Nation
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