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Witchcraft History

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#10. Modern witchcraft/magick/wicca is a direct descendent of those practices done by people during the Witch Hunts of 1400-1800. FACT: ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Witchcraft History


1
Witchcraft History
  • Witchcraft History Ancient Times

2
  • Witchcraft as sorcery has existed since humans
    first banded together in groups.
  • Prehistoric art depicts magical rites to ensure
    successful hunting.
  • Western beliefs about witchcraft as sorcery grew
    out of the mythologies and folklore of ancient
    peoples, especially the Greeks and Romans.

3
  • When Christianity began to spread, witchcraft
    came to be linked with worship of the Devil.
  • In Europe, beginning about A.D. 700, witchcraft
    was increasingly associated with heresy
    (rejection of church teachings).

4
  • The Christian church began a long campaign to
    stamp out heresy.
  • Beginning in the 1000s, religious leaders
    sentenced heretics to death by burning.
  • The Inquisition, which began about 1230, was an
    effort by the church to seek out and punish
    heretics and force them to change their beliefs.

5
  • Eventually, the secular (non-religious) courts as
    well as all Christian churches were involved in
    the persecution of witches.
  • Especially after the 1500s, most people accused
    of witchcraft came to trial in secular courts.

6
  • The witch hunt reached its peak in Europe during
    the late 1500s and early 1600s.
  • Many victims, who were mostly women, were falsely
    accused of witchcraft.
  • Many accused witches were tortured until they
    confessed and then faced imprisonment,
    banishment, or execution.

7
  • In American Colonies, a small number of accused
    witches were persecuted in New England from the
    mid 1600s to the early 1700s.
  • The most famous witch hunt began in 1692 in
    Salem, Mass., where a group of village girls
    became fascinated with the occult.

8
  • The girls began to act strangely, uttering weird
    sounds and screaming.
  • Suspicions that witches were responsible for the
    girls behavior led to the arrest of three women,
    with more arrests to follow.
  • Thus, mass trials were held and nearly 150 people
    were imprisoned on witchcraft charges.

9
  • Nineteen men and women were convicted and hanged
    as witches.
  • Anyone who refused to plead either innocent or
    guilty to the witchcraft charge was pressed to
    death with large stones!

10
Ten Theories of Witchcraft
11
  • The "theories" for the causes of the Witch Hunts
    listed below are drawn from what various
    historians have suggested.
  • They are called theories, because they are based
    on reasonable information (or were, when they
    were first proposed), and make some sense in
    explaining the phenomena.

12
  • No one explanation or theory will suffice to
    explain all Witch Hunts in Europe from 1400 to
    1800.
  • To understand the Witch Hunts in their totality,
    we must keep all of the theories in mind, and
    even look for more still.

13
  • 1. Illness Theories
  • These are variously related to physical and
    mental conditions of people involved in the
    hunts.
  • According to one theory, peasants went a little
    wacky, becoming clinically neurotic and even
    psychotic, and in a group panic went after the
    witches.

14
  • According to another theory credence given to
    childrens fantasies and psychosomatic illnesses
    are some sources for the panic.
  • Yet another theory suggests suggests syphilis or
    ergotism (caused by mold on rotten bread) as
    causes for mental instability.
  • Similarly, a final theory suggests that the
    effects of consuming bad mushrooms, herbs like
    deadly nightshade or henbane, or bufotenine from
    the skin of some toads could have affected
    peoples minds.

15
  • 2. The Geographic Origins Theories
  • The Witch Hunts originated in specific locations,
    for example first in mountainous regions of the
    Alps and Pyrenees.
  • Economic differentiation between regions which
    were normally self-sufficient suddenly caught in
    new competition because of the commercial
    revolution should also be considered.

16
  • 3. The Greed Theory
  • Elites initiated the hunts in order to confiscate
    property of others.

17
  • 4. The Religious Rebellion Theories
  • These theories are of two kinds
  • A. First, the Satanic Religious Rebellion Theory
  • Devil worship actually existed, in particular as
    a subversive attack on the ruling Christian
    order.

18
  • B. Second, the Pagan Religious Rebellion Theory
  • Certain forms of worship from the ancient world
    continued through the Early Modern period and was
    misinterpreted by the Christian hunters as
    Satanic.

19
  • 5. The Confessional Conflict Theory 
  • Reformation and its resultant fights between
    Protestants (mainly Lutherans, Calvinists and
    Anabaptists, as well as Anglicans) and Roman
    Catholics led each to use witchcraft to attack
    one another.

20
  • 6. The Disaster Theory
  • As actual misfortunes struck (plague, famine,
    war, storm), people blamed supernatural forces
    and found scapegoats in witches.

21
  • 7. The (Mistaken) Conspiracy Theory 
  • In the Late Middle Ages, religious elites created
    a new, and mistaken, intellectual framework out
    of Christian heresy and theology concerning
    demons.
  • They linked the idea of witches to an imagined
    organized sect which was a danger to the
    Christian commonwealth.

22
  • Thus authorities sincerely believed in and acted
    against this Satanic threat, even though it did
    not really exist.

23
  • 8. The Social Control or State-building Theory
  • Early modern governments exploited the fear of
    witchcraft in order to centralize authority,
    increase bureaucratic jurisdiction, impose
    cultural uniformity, and dominate the Church.
  • The Church Oppression Theory, popular in the
    19th century but held by few today, according to
    which the Church fraudulently invented witches so
    as to crush its opponents and grow rich.

24
  • 9. The Social Functionalist or Social Accusations
    Theory
  • Witch accusers acted on a psychological need to
    blame others for their own personal problems.
  • Supporters of this theory argue that witch hunts
    were therapeutically beneficial for society,
    since they defined what was right and wrong and
    rid society of its troublesome marginalized folk,
    like the old and the poor.

25
  • 10. The Misogyny Theory
  • The Witch Hunts embodied a social hostility
    toward women.
  • Such theories are often tied with popularizing
    feminist writers, who might also see in
    witchcraft a source of empowerment for women.
  • The majority of accused and executed were female,
    yet also old, living alone (whether widowed or
    spinster), and poor. 

26
Ten Common Errors and Myths about the Witch Hunts
  • Corrected and Commentedby Brian A.
    Pavlac, Ph.D., Professor of History

27
  • 1. The Witch Hunts were an example of medieval
    cruelty and barbarism.
  • FACT While frequently cruel, the Witch Hunts
    took place after the Middle Ages and were
    conducted by civilized people.

28
  • 2. The Church was to blame for the Witch Hunts.
  • FACT While Christianity clearly created the
    framework for the Witch Hunts, no single "Church"
    was to blame, and many secular governments hunted
    witches for essentially non-religious reasons.

29
  • During the Middle Ages, the predominant Christian
    view of witchcraft was that it was an illusion.
  • People might think they were witches, but they
    were fooling themselves, or the Devil was fooling
    them.
  • Most authorities thought that witchcraft could do
    no serious harm, because it was not real.

30
  • Ultimately in 1484, Pope Innocent VIII, in his
    Summis desiderantes, let the Inquisition pursue
    witches.

31
  • 3. The Witch Hunts specifically targeted women.
  • FACT While many witch hunters explicitly went
    after women, very often men fell victim to the
    witch hunts.
  • Men were often accused of being witches, and
    executed for it.

32
  • 4. The Witch Hunts were an attempt at "femicide"
    or "gendercide," meaning the persecution of the
    female sex, equivalent to genocide.
  • FACT The necessity for women to be involved in
    procreation of our species prevented any
    realistic approach toward genocide.

33
  • 5. The Witch Hunts are/were all alike.
  • FACT While the Witch Hunts share some essential
    similarities, they were enormously different
    depending on time and place.
  • Most witch hunts involved government authorities
    deciding that a problem with witches existed.

34
  • Usually the danger was seen in an organized
    conspiracy led by the Devil.
  • The authorities then pursued an investigation
    that often included secret informants and torture
    to acquire information and confessions.
  • Finally, convicted witches were often executed.

35
  • 6. Millions of people died because of the Witch
    Hunts.
  • FACT While millions of people might have been
    affected, the best estimates of recent historians
    range from 50,000 to 200,000 dead.
  • The earlier estimates, too often the figure of 9
    to 10 million dead is cited, were grossly
    exaggerated

36
  • 7. People condemned during the Witch Hunts were
    burned at the stake.
  • FACT While indeed governments did burn many
    witches at the stake, most were executed by other
    means.

37
  • The most common form of execution, though, was
    hanging.
  • Admittedly, burning was important in many of
    these cases also, since to further protect
    against any malevolence from the dead witch,
    authorities often burned the remains afterward.

38
  • Other popular forms of execution for witches
    included beheading, drowning, and breaking on the
    wheel.
  • Witches were rarely buried alive, boiled alive,
    impaled, sawed in two, flayed, drawn and
    quartered, or disemboweled, as other contemporary
    criminals were.

39
  • 8. During the time of the Witch Hunts, witches
    actually existed and worked magic.
  • FACT While some people have claimed to be able
    to work witchcraft, there is no scientific,
    empirical, reasonable proof that any actual
    witches existed or that the magic they claimed to
    perform actually did what it was supposed to do.

40
  • Most of the crimes of witches sprung from the
    imaginations of the hunters, the ravings of the
    insane, and the agonies of the tortured. 
  • Even those who confessed to witchcraft crimes
    could not prove a cause and effect relationship
    between their witchcraft and actual events.

41
  • 9. In modern usage, the term "Witch Hunt" can be
    applied to any organized persecution of a group
    of people.
  • FACT While the term "Witch Hunt" does involve
    persecution of a group,  that group may or may
    not exist in an organized fashion  and the
    proper use of the term especially requires that
    the targeted group is not a real threat to
    society.

42
  • Literally, a "witch hunt" is an organized attempt
    to identify and eliminate people who are believed
    to be able to use supernatural powers to harm
    society.
  • The great tragedy of the Witch Hunts is not only
    was there no conspiracy of witches, but even if
    there were, they could do no serious harm to
    society.

43
  • 10. Modern witchcraft/magick/wicca is a direct
    descendent of those practices done by people
    during the Witch Hunts of 1400-1800.

44
  • FACT While modern witches and pagans have tried
    to resurrect witchcraft activities described by
    witch hunters, there exists only a very tenuous
    connection between modern witches and those
    before 1800.
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