
Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism - Thevet
https://theconversation.com/the-invention-of-satanic-witchcraft-by-medieval-authorities-was-initially-met-with-skepticism-140809
======
paulgerhardt
One thing that becomes immediately apparent when visiting the medieval
witchcraft museum in Iceland[1] was how strategic the use of Witchcraft
accusations were by the middling elite.

One cunning foreign family with ties to occupying Denmark was able to secure
land hold rights for nearly an entire peninsula from local Icelanders on the
northwest through the strategic use of witchcraft accusations. During this
period of occupation nearly 120 trials occurred over a 60 year period[2].

The people weren’t superstitious - they were corrupt.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strandagaldur](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strandagaldur)

[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3n_R%C3%B6gnvaldsson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3n_R%C3%B6gnvaldsson)

~~~
vmception
Those articles are more interesting than OP's article.

When I research a lot of wealthy families I frequently find their level of
comfort not possible to replicate because it is something considered
impropriety today. Taking advantage of an imbalance in the socioeconomic order
that was promptly fixed as soon as anybody noticed.

~~~
arvinsim
I believe that they exist today.

They leverage their power and connections to remain anonymous and away from
public scrutiny.

~~~
quickthrowman
The Cargill/McMillan family is probably the most famous of these in the US.
They’ve kept their company private and have managed to stay under the radar
fairly well considering their level of wealth.

~~~
travmatt
The Sacklers were able to keep their business relatively disconnected from
polite society for a long time as well.

------
kimi
I have been reading a bit of local history, and I came across an interesting
mail exchange in 1500-1600 between the church of Como (far north, large
mountain territory, witch trials) and the central authorities of Rome.
Basically Como was going "Please help! witches are taking over." and Rome was
trying to do damage control by replying "You bunch of clowns cannot possibly
believe that.". Of course in very polite and legalistic church Latin, but this
was the gist of it.

~~~
ithkuil
Reference please, I'd love to read!

------
praveen9920
Don't want to be political on HN but I see lot of parallels between now and
then.

A plague effected region, ruled by conservative parties, opposing science and
logic in the name of religion or freedom. persecution of people who either
look or do something different from their own.

Printing press helped in spreading both lies and truth. Now a days, mainstream
media and social media is being used to spread all kinds of gibberish.

I won't be surprised if our own version of witch hunts starts soon, either in
the name of nationalism or something else.

Sorry about the rant

~~~
CryptoPunk
>>persecution of people who either look or do something different from their
own.

Who is being persecuted now?

The Cancel Culture is much more a modern corollary to witch hunts than
anything conservatives are doing.

Conservatives exhibit witch-hunting tendencies to some extent, in relation to
liberals, where they promote unhinged conspiracy theories about them trying to
subjucate the masses.

But these conservatism inspired forms of persecution are much less pronounced
than something like Cancel Culture, as they are not being perpetrated by
people who control the commanding heights of the cultural landscape.

~~~
ithkuil
Is "cancel culture" new? What happened in the past to people who would say
inconvenient things (swear words or blasfemies in TV, being homosexual, ...)?

Bigotry was always there. It's just that nowadays we have a different cultural
majority.

What's irritating about the present situation is that nominally the current
cultural majority was against the bigots of the past and yet is applying
pressure against who thinks differently and thus becoming bigot themselves
(bigotry: "intolerance towards those who hold different opinions from
oneself."). I'm sure people have opinions about whether the reasons to apply
the corrective pressures are well founded or at least in good faith ( also
have personal opinions about that) but that's not so important IMHO; people
can be wrong: dogmas are dangerous; we should be able to have candid
conversations about things.

That's said, I have the feeling that the critiques of "cancel culture" coming
from the right are not based on the desire for an open dialogue but more a
combination of whataboutism and playing victims to strengthen in-group bonds.

This is driving us apart even more. I want to know how do people who think
differently than I do think.

~~~
CryptoPunk
>>Is "cancel culture" new? What happened in the past to people who would say
inconvenient things (swear words or blasfemies in TV, being homosexual, ...)?

Ostracization/cancellation of the non-conforming doesn't seem to be new. My
point is that this kind of behavior is the modern corollary to witch hunts.

The Left Wing manifestation of it seen in modern times is called Cancel
Culture, but all of its forms, past and present, have beeh types of mob
persection in my opinion.

------
KingOfCoders
What is often missed, the mix of sexes of murdered "witches" depends on the
country. 20% of murdered victims were male, in some countries way above 50%
(not to belittle female victims in any way).

------
aritmo
As ironic as it may be, there are cases of "witchcraft" now in India. Just
like in the Middle Ages, even now it is being used as an excuse to rob the
land of the poor.

There are many videos and documentaries on YT on this.

~~~
chairmanwow1
What is the premise? There are accusations of witches and then what is the
outcome?

~~~
aritmo
"Witchcraft" is an excuse to socially isolate people, and in some cases arrest
or kill them.

------
ogurechny
There's a stereotype that witch hunts were “mass hysteria” (as Wikipedia calls
them) affecting stupid backwards people (another common stereotype) or stupid
believers (a stereotype with a militant atheism flavour). In these cases, we
would see more witch hunts the earlier the age is or the stronger the church
is. People weren't much more stupid than people today are. Moreover, it's a
fairly recent era, I'd even say that the amount of significant differences
between city dweller of that time and traditional peasant of that time might
be bigger that between city dweller of that time and city dweller of today.

Witch hunts were guided by individuals feeling the opportunity, and, like in
more recent purges, bureaucratic and societal structures were abused for some
ends. Similarly, there was little resistance to the runaway machine because of
the lack of alternative structures and ideas. In a way, they are early
examples of dystopian stories realized.

Believing that nowadays we live in a different time and witch hunts are
impossible is an extreme shortsightedness.

~~~
kstenerud
The modern word is "moral panic", and it's used just as effectively to destroy
rivals as it was in times of old. The only difference is that we don't kill
the losers anymore, but rather imprison, harass, fire, and bankrupt them.
Anytime there's a moral shift (good or bad), there's an opportunity to co-opt
it in order to remove rivals, and it works very nicely because all you need to
do is sow seeds of doubt about someone if they happen to be in a vulnerable
group, and then let the mob do the rest:

\- Witch trials

\- Reign of Terror

\- Utah

\- Lynch Mobs

\- Prohibition

\- Kristallnacht

\- Wartime relocations

\- The red scare

\- The Dungeons & Dragons scare

\- The war on drugs

\- The war on terror

\- The pedophile scare

\- #metoo

\- BLM

It's unfortunate about the last two because a lot of good came of them, but
one must not let a moral shift go to waste.

~~~
riffraff
Utah? I am not a US person, how is a whole state a moral panic?

~~~
kstenerud
Sorry, I meant Utah during the mid 1800s, with incidents such as the mountain
meadows massacre. The list is in chronological order.

------
aaron695
This still happens, a recent case of satanic witchcraft trials (2020
Australia) -

At the time it was called as what it was by logical people, the exact same
pattern of hysteria has been seen before, but they still had their lives
ruined.

[https://www.dailymercury.com.au/news/circus-abuse-case-
was-t...](https://www.dailymercury.com.au/news/circus-abuse-case-was-totally-
concocted/3944558/)

~~~
ficklepickle
That has really piqued my interest. How did this happen? The article says
charges were dropped, but does not explain the wider context or how these very
serious charges got so far with no evidence.

I found some more information from an article[0] from 2018. The only evidence
appears to have been the testimony of a young child. The disturbing
allegations, like a needle in the eye and multiple rapes, would have
presumably left physical evidence of injury.

That article I linked makes no update about the charges being dropped. That
falsely accused family has been split up for two years because of this, yet
their exoneration didn't seem to get much coverage at all.

I would really like to understand the sequence of events that initiated this.
I find it unlikely that the kid came home one day and came up with this
completely unprompted.

Do you know of any resources for gaining a better contextual understanding of
this bizarre incident?

Surely somebody has written about this case, but I haven't found it yet. I'm
torn between thanking you for pointing this out and cursing you because I'm
not going to be able to think about anything else until I figure out how this
went on for so long.

[0] [https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/courts-law/bail-
gra...](https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/courts-law/bail-granted-in-
disturbing-circus-rape-case/news-story/fc16cb468c24d900ccf0f1b681b4b43a)

~~~
aaron695
For specifics just keep Googling. But no media wants to pick the real story
up. You will just have to piece it all together.

In general try watching "Capturing the Friedmans" for how this happens.

Satanic rituals hysteria was big in the 80s but no docos stand out. Try
youtube.

Else it's familiar patterns meshed together.

It happened in a "small town" which seems to still matter.

This was a circus which has a story book gypsies feel even though that's
stupid, since it wasn't even a traditional circus. But it kinda shows the
medias roll since it's a good headline not good reality.

------
dukoid
Some time ago, I read an article that the inquisition only really stopped when
the economic incentive structure for the ones driving it was dismantled
(funerals and fees paid by relatives of the accused). Unfortunately, I can't
find it now...

p.s. if somebody is aware of the exact source, would appreciate it very
much...

~~~
fallingfrog
Much like cash bail and civil asset forfeiture..

------
drno123
I don’t know how much the numbers we have today are accurate, but I would like
to see the following stats: 1\. Ratio between men and women executed for
witchcraft. 2\. Number of people executed for witchcraft by century. 3\.
Number of people executed for witchcraft by denomination (catholic, lutheran,
calvinist, etc)

~~~
bobthechef
Witch hunts were largely a Northern European/Protestant phenomenon. The
article doesn't say this explicitly, but in a roundabout way acknowledges this
citing examples of how the Church largely saw witchcraft as superstition
(which itself is a grave sin if done with full knowledge):

"Superstition of any description is a transgression of the First Commandment:
"I am the Lord thy God,-- thou shalt not have strange gods before me. Thou
shalt not make to thyself a graven thing, nor the likeness of anything that is
in heaven above, or in the earth beneath . . . thou shalt not adore them nor
serve them" (Exodus 20:2-5). It is also against the positive law of the
Church, which visits the worst kinds of superstitions with severe punishments,
and against the natural law inasmuch as it runs counter to the dictates of
reason in the matter of man's relations to God. Such objective sinfulness is
inherent in all superstitious practices from idolatry down to the vainest of
vain observances, of course in very different degrees of gravity. With regard
to the subjective guilt attaching to them it must be borne in mind that no sin
is mortal unless committed with full knowledge of its grievous wickedness and
with full deliberation and consent. Of these essential factors the first is
often wanting entirely, and the second is only imperfectly present. The
numerous cases in which the event seemed to justify the superstitious
practice, and the universality of such incongruous beliefs and performances,
though they may not always induce inculpable ignorance, may possibly obscure
the knowledge and weaken the will to a point incompatible with mortal sin. As
a matter of fact, many superstitions of our own day have been acts of genuine
piety at other times, and may be so still in the hearts of simple folk." [1]

Aquinas also devotes question 92 of the Second Part of the Second Part of the
Summa to supersition [0]. However, none of this denies the reality of the
demonic.

[0]
[https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3092.htm](https://www.newadvent.org/summa/3092.htm)

[1]
[https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14339a.htm](https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14339a.htm)

[2] [http://jimmyakin.com/2020/06/thomas-aquinas-on-the-
occult.ht...](http://jimmyakin.com/2020/06/thomas-aquinas-on-the-occult.html)

------
dreen
> Universities were being founded, and scholars in Western Europe began to
> pore over ancient texts as well as learned writings from the Muslim world.
> Some of these presented complex systems of magic that claimed to draw on
> astral forces or conjure powerful spirits. Gradually, these ideas began to
> gain intellectual clout.

So could we say in other words, all that happened as a side effect of
Education? Greater exposure of ideological minefields to people highly
susceptible?

Reminds me of all the conspiracy videos on the internet you know. And people
who spend an insane amount of hours pouring over those.

~~~
empath75
Information without wisdom is a dangerous thing. Merely reading books isn’t an
education.

------
082349872349872
A parallel european change between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries was
the nature of mounted tournaments. In the thirteenth century, tournaments were
not far removed from wargames, occurred over the entire terrain between two
villages, and were generally open to anyone who had the panoply and training.
By the fifteenth century, tournaments were more of a spectacle, occurred in
special jousting lists, and didn't admit participants outside a hereditary
aristocracy.

------
Synaesthesia
I read a recent article about witchcraft and it said that women were also
persecuted for being independent and to resist Alisa the traditional
patriachy.

------
dennis_jeeves
The current corona virus scare mongering can be considered to be in the same
league of witch hunt. It may not be identical but it has similar
underpinnings:

-A seeming know demon: the virus,

\- Somebody's rights are taken away: in this case it's the laymen, and small
business owners etc.

\- It keeps the peasants (the laymen) too engaged with the fear, and
sufficiently distracted to not start revolting against their rulers.

------
lostgame
AFAIK truly organized witchcraft, in the form of the Magickal Orders and
Secret Societies that make up the majority of the study of Western Ceremonial
Magick, is a fairly recent phenomenon, based on my (fairly thorough) research.

I _love_ the study of modern occultism; and Ceremonial Magick, in particular.

------
blackrock
Fun thought. What if in the future, witchcraft and sorcery and magic, is
rediscovered. And it comes to rule the land, and the people.

But in actuality, sorcery is really just applied computer science.

Like, in the future, some engineer manages to tap into the quantum realm,
which allows for all kinds of mystical apparitions to manifest, but instead,
it’s really just another quantum artifact. But our limited understanding of
the quantum probability reality, makes it seem like magic.

And all the hocus pocus incantations, are simply voice recognized commands,
that triggers a quantum computer system, to activate some quantum subsystem
functionality.

~~~
amlozano
If you discard any quantum computing, this is similar to the plot to the
series of novels starting with "Off to Be the Wizard" by Scott Meyer. A fun,
quick little read about a person who discovers the source database of reality,
and then promptly starts messing with it.

------
ascotan
Witches real => true. Earth orbits the sun => false.

------
aronpye
Witch burning, guilty until proven innocent, accuser always believed, now why
does all that sound so familiar?

------
olivermarks
Bailey's book he mentions here is called 'Origins of the witches sabbath'. The
idea that satanic witchcraft was invented by mediaeval authorities is
preposterous IMO. Occult practices go back to ancient Egypt and have been
practiced in multiple civilizations as white, grey or black magic
respectively. Black magic is what everyone obsesses over (attempts to use
supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purposes). Grey and white
are 'do no harm' or curative (health etc) efforts.

Michael Aquino has just died, some may be intrigued by his standing and
history as evidence of 'witch craft' being alive and well today.
[https://burners.me/2020/06/29/michael-aquino-dead-was-
leppo-...](https://burners.me/2020/06/29/michael-aquino-dead-was-leppo-his-
last-interview/)

I think the mediaeval purges were largely political and cynical property grabs
along with a desire for populations to conform to dogmatic religions and drop
ancient customs and beliefs

~~~
boomboomsubban
How does an announcement of someone's death get off topic and start talking
about how LaVey is a Zionist arms dealer and how frequently Ukraine comes up?
What the hell is happening in that story?

~~~
olivermarks
It's definitely not just an announcement of someone's death...or the death of
their 'Khat'... Steve Outtrim will provide you with the deepest rabbit holes,
there are hours of video at the end of that post

------
rxsel
Same power game/struggle, different time.

------
spiritplumber
Satanic witchcraft considered harmful.

~~~
fuzzfactor
It still lives and popped up in the 21st century.

Different curses can have different effects in different situations.

Even computers or equipment can seem possessed sometimes.

In the 90's all we had were IDE hard disk drives with their parallel
connections made using ribbon cables. Floppies for backup booting were
parallel too.

Over ten years ago the serial connections started to show up on HDDs which
otherwise appeared no differently. USB flash drives for backup booting have
always been serial as the name implies, besides being _universal_ (to boot :)
years earlier.

Prayers failed to be answered when today it's more rare for average users to
have removable backup boot media standing by, or easily and quickly whipped up
when needed. Plus USB drives are less _universal_ than floppies and can not
yet be expected to reliably even fundamentally boot on every PC as widely.
Without warning they can easily give you the feeling they switch over to the
dark side simply as a visible manifestation of evil that can remain lurking.

One day my buddy gets a new PC and wants to put his previous HDD in there as
secondary storage.

So he opens it up and does not find the correct parallel connectors available,
calls me up and says "Why is there SATA printed on the plugs of the power
supply connectors?"

We could only both agree it was because there was not enough room for Satan's
full name.

Numerous curses were employed afterward, all to no avail.

And don't get me started on ghost data, after all there's nothing to be afraid
of.

Edit: An effective ritual is to actually zero your drive space appropriately,
every time you get the chance as long as it makes sense. It's actually
superstitious to think you never need to do this. Timely meditation, and
prayer for a fortunate outcome during this period would not seem to be
inappropriate, or even blessing of the device. Not a waste of time going back
to the garden. It does seem to result in less chance of having it run
completely astray and acting absolutely haunted.

------
bediger4000
I'm struck by how the description of witch conventions matches the description
of "elite pedovores" that the Qanon conspiracy people promote:

"horrific assemblies where witches gathered and worshiped demons, had orgies,
ate murdered babies and performed other abominable acts"

The Qanon people are laughably inept, gullible and the thought leaders are
probably grifters, but still, remarkable convergence between the witch cons
described above and "hollywood elite" that keep children in tunnels underneath
central park, killing these "tunnel tots" in horrible ways to harvest
adrenochrome for use as youth potionsl

~~~
krapp
> I'm struck by how the description of witch conventions matches the
> description of "elite pedovores" that the Qanon conspiracy people promote:

Both the medieval fear of witches and the modern fear of "Hollywood elites"
have their roots in anti-semitism. There's a reason witches were often
portrayed with giant hook noses, after all. Judaism has often been negatively
correlated with occult elitism, academia (see the actual origins of the term
"cultural marxism"), Hollywood and left-wing politics. Hillary Clinton
drinking the blood of babies is just a modern retelling of the ancient belief
that Jews secretly did the same.

~~~
flowport
By calling people suspicious of powerful individuals anti-semitic you are
protecting those powerful individuals in a shroud of identity politics despite
evidence and survivor testimony - while simultaneously lowering the reputation
of an entire religion. Also the Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory [0][1] is
not a modern retelling - she's not even Jewish. I'm not sure what your point
is...

[0]: [https://wikileaks.org/podesta-
emails/emailid/15893](https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/15893) [1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EsJLNGVJ7E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EsJLNGVJ7E)

~~~
krapp
>By calling people suspicious of powerful individuals anti-semitic you are
protecting those powerful individuals in a shroud of identity politics despite
evidence and survivor testimony - while simultaneously lowering the reputation
of an entire religion.

I'm doing no such thing. I'm referring to people who believe in the
Pizzagate/QAnon conspiracy theory - these are not merely people who are
"suspicious of powerful individuals." Plenty of people are suspicious of
powerful individuals who don't buy into that nonsense.

They don't need to be antisemitic per se to buy into a conspiracy theory that
is based on antisemitism. Many people who believe in cultural marxism likely
aren't aware of the origins of that term either, but it remains the fact that
antisemitism is the _thematic_ root for fears of neo-marxist influence over
academia. The association of New York and Hollywood with Jews leads to terms
like "New York Liberal" and "Hollywood elite" becoming anti-semitic
dogwhistles among the alt-right, while seeming perfectly benign in context.
These things are so deeply baked into our politics and pop-culture that many
people simply can't see the ingredients, but they're still there.

And as far as lowering the reputation of a particular religion, in this
specific case, blame that on the communities that came up with these
conspiracy theories to begin with, and that turned anti-semitism into a pop
culture meme, and whose dialogue is replete with it.

>Also the Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory [0][1] is not a modern retelling -
she's not even Jewish. I'm not sure what your point is...

You're being purposely obtuse. Hillary Clinton's actual religion doesn't
matter - they draw from the same archetypes and cultural associations.

------
Mirioron
Or in 2020: "China _created_ the virus and must be held responsible!"

Except that viruses jump from other animals to humans all the time. It can
happen in any country.

~~~
throwaway_pdp09
Can and did. I think china are getting it in the neck not so much for its
origins but the way they mishandled it early on.

~~~
riffraff
China is criticized for its handling of the epidemic, but the "it was made in
a lab in China" conspiracy theories are very very common.

~~~
ekianjo
There is always the possibility that it was not created in a lab but that it
leaked from a lab where such viruses were studied. Accidents happen.

~~~
tunap
IIRC, that happened w/ Ebola in a VA monkey lab. The strain just happened to
be Marburg, rather than the more infectious, deadlier Zaire strain.

Good read:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone)

------
Jorge1o1
Grg

