Tag: witchcraft

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“With research sourced by the world’s greatest libraries, Robbins has compiled a rational, balanced history of 300 years of horror concentrated primarily in Western Europe. Spanning from the 15th century through the 18th century, the witch-hunt frenzy marks a period of suppressed rational thought; never before have so many been so wrong. To better understand this phenomenon, Robbins examines how the meaning of “witch” has evolved and exposes the true nature of witchcraft—a topic widely discussed in popular culture, though remarkably misunderstood.

First published in 1959, Robbins’ encyclopedia remains the most authoritative and comprehensive body of information about witchcraft and demonology ever compiled in a single volume. Lavishly acclaimed in academic and popular reviews, this full-scale compendium of fact, history, and legend covers about every phase of this fascinating subject from its origins in the medieval times to its last eruptions in the 18th century. Accompanying the text are 250 illustrations from rare books, contemporary prints, and old manuscripts, many of which have been published here for the first time.

Rossell Hope Robbins (1912-1990), an acknowledged authority on witchcraft, was one of the half-dozen Americans ever elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He authored over a dozen books and nearly 200 articles, including the definitive introduction to the catalogue of the Witchcraft Collection at Cornell University Library in 1979. He was a Commonwealth Fellow, Canada Council Professor, and he received grants from the Modern Language Association of America and from the American Council of Learned Societies. He also served as Chairman of the Middle English Division of the MLA, President of the Medieval Club of New York, research associate at Harvard and Columbia Universities. Robbins has lectured extensively on medieval topics and witchcraft at universities throughout the world.”

The Medieval Crushing of the Cathars and Sexualizing of Witches

Many Christian writers identified the gods and lesser spirits of the Greek and Roman world with demons. This ushered in the Christian practice of demonizing those they perceived as their opponents. One of those opponents to the Catholic Church was the Cathars, whose persecution set the stage for many of the horrors committed by the church – in the name of God.

Who were the Cathars?

In the 12th to 14th century, the Cathars emerged as a medieval sect, who questioned many tenets of the Catholic Church. For instance, they believed that there were two gods: one a god of good, and the other a god of evil. They also preached about poverty, and rebelled against the Catholic Church’s corruption and exploitation of the poor. As a result, they were first branded as heretics, and ultimately as devil worshippers and practitioners of witchcraft. The tales circulated about the Cathars would make Frankenstein look like a comedian. All the horrors and sexual fantasies imaginable by a Bosch or Bruegel were heaped on these miscreants, who dared to follow too closely in the steps of Jesus.

According to some medieval writers, the susceptible were lured into a religious building and introduced to the devil. Those who agreed to join his following were made to take an oath of fidelity. They vowed to kill as many children under the age of three as possible, and take their bodies to the religious building. They swore to impede sexual intercourse among married people wherever possible, and to bequeath some part of their body to the devil at their time of death. So was said by the medieval propaganda machine.

To celebrate new members, the sect supposedly ate a meal prepared from the flesh of dead children. After dinner, the devil ordered the lights out. Then, at his command, the witches engaged in orgiastic sex: men with women or men or in groups, sometimes father with daughter, mother with son, or brother with sister. When the party was over, people were given a jar of magic ointment, supposedly made from the fat of incinerated children, to rub on the tip of their walking sticks and speed them on their journey home (Almond, 98).

These were the reasons given by the Church to torture the Cathars, and confiscate, destroy, and appropriate their property, along with that of others.

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Medieval ‘curse tablet’ summoning Satan discovered at the bottom of a latrine in Germany

Archaeologists in Germany have discovered a rolled-up piece of lead that they think could be a medieval “curse tablet” that invokes “Beelzebub,” or Satan. 

Upon first glance, the researchers thought the “inconspicuous piece of metal” was simply scrap, since it was found at the bottom of a latrine at a construction site in Rostock, a city in northern Germany, according to a translated statement.

However, once they unfurled it, archaeologists realized that the 15th-century artifact contained a cryptic message etched in Gothic minuscule that was barely visible to the naked eye. It read, “sathanas taleke belzebuk hinrik berith.” Researchers deciphered the text as a curse that was directed toward a woman named Taleke and a man named Hinrik (Heinrich) and summoned Beelzebub (another name for Satan) and Berith (a demonic spirit).

While researchers may never know who these people were, they did offer some ideas for the reasoning behind the bad blood.

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Magic and Mystical Warfare in World War II

All throughout the history of war enemies have constantly tried to one-up each other. From fist, to stick, to stone, to spear, to guns and nuclear weapons, there has always been constant one-upmanship. In the old days, people often would turn to magic and dark paranormal forces to try and change the tide of conflict, but far from mere ancient superstitions and lore, this has persisted well into the modern day. During the brutal trial by fire that was World War II there were certainly those who sought to harness supernatural powers to their own ends, and both friend and enemy alike absolutely turned to magic to try to gain an upper hand.

When talking about using magic and World War II it is inevitable that we start with the Nazis. The Nazis have always made great villains and for good reason. Their twisted philosophies, seemingly all-encompassing presence during World War II, their ruthlessness, and their numerous secret projects have all sort of wreathed them with this ominous air of evil and inscrutable mystique. Throw in stories of unleashing top secret super weapons, occult powers, secret underground lairs, and quests for powerful ancient artifacts and you have the perfect recipe for a mysterious villainous organization. Yet the movie portrayal of Nazis is not always as completely so far removed from reality as one might think. Indeed, the Nazis were deep into research, expeditions, and experiments that are just as fantastic and at times downright absurd as any fiction involving them, and they were often involved in the dark world of the weird and the occult to a degree many might not be aware of. Truth is indeed sometimes stranger than fiction, and man’s propensity for evil knows few boundaries. It is a potent combination that makes the reality of the Nazis something at once stranger and far more terrifying than any movie depiction of them.

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Lucretia Brown and the last witchcraft trial in America, May 14, 1878

In 1878, the last charge of witchcraft in this country was brought to trial in Salem. Lucretia Brown and her sister never married and lived with their mother in this house. Lucretia had been an invalid since she injured her spine in a childhood accident, but when she was in her 50s she became a disciple of Mary Baker Eddy and was convinced that Christian Science had healed her. She even began calling on neighbors at the other end of the Green.

When poor Lucretia suffered a “relapse” in 1875, Mrs. Eddy convinced her that Daniel Spofford of Newburyport, whom Mrs. Eddy had recently excommunicated, was exercising mesmeric powers upon her. Hearing of her illness and concerned about the charges being made against him, Mr. Spofford decided made a surprise call on his old friend, whereupon Miss Brown became agitated, believing he had come to do her further harm.

Mrs. Eddy became obsessed that Spofford was an enemy of her church and tried unsuccessfully to publish an attack against him in papers throughout the county. She directed twelve of her students to spend two hours each every day around the clock in concentrated thought against Mr. Spofford to prevent him from doing further harm to her patients.

She had her lawyer in Lynn draw up a bill of complaint in Lucretia Brown’s name, setting forth the injuries that Spofford had supposedly inflicted and petitioning the court to restrain him from exercising his powers against her.

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Pennsylvania Police Charge Metaphysical Shop Owner With Practicing Witchcraft and No, We Aren’t Kidding

We have become accustomed in modern times to the term “witch-hunt” being metaphorical but a practicing witch with a retail shop has become an actual target of the police for “suspicions of witchcraft” charges, despite the fact that this is the year 2023. Her crime? Fortune-telling, in the form of tarot readings. The state has a history of persecuting witches though, back to the very founder William Penn who participated in hearings against two women accused of bewitching livestock to not produce and appearing in spectral form. Basically, in the years between 1683 and right now nobody has bothered to ask if this law is useful, so it remains there to be enforced whenever the police feel like some good ol’ fashioned religious persecution.

The shop owner, @thestitchingwitch, received an email from the Borough Manager alerting her that a recent article about her business had alerted the Chief of Police himself to her allegedly illegal activities. Social media became instantly outraged on her behalf because Americans expect to have religious freedom to practice whatever they choose. It’s also very specifically targeted from the perspective of those at all familiar with the Keystone State, famous for having a groundhog predict the future weather every February 2nd. 

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The Coven of Witches That Fought the Nazis During World War II

These weren’t the “double, double toil and trouble” kind of witches Shakespeare wrote about in “Macbeth.” They were Wiccans, led by Gerald Gardner, the man whose writings would revive the pagan belief system to the modern era. In 1940s Britain, his beliefs were far from the mainstream, but like the rest of the country, he knew he might soon find himself under Nazi domination.

Gardner may have been 55 years old and leading a coven of witches, but he was still a patriotic Briton with a stiff upper lip. So the man who would be remembered as “The Father of Witchcraft” and his followers were going to do their part to defend the island, casting a spell that would target Adolf Hitler personally and end the threat of a Nazi invasion.

Gardner grew up in a wealthy English family that ran a timber company for the British Empire. He was a sickly boy who spent more time with his nursemaid than his parents. He spent much of his young life traveling and educating himself, eventually gaining a keen interest in spirituality, religious rituals and the occult. He would return to Britain as an older man, still sickly, but took up a career as a civil servant and amateur archeologist. Meanwhile, his interest in the occult only grew.

After Britain declared war on Germany in 1939, Garder settled in Highcliffe-on-Sea and joined the New Forest Coven, a group of pagan witches in southern England that he believed were continuing a pre-Christian religious order that had been kept secret for centuries. As 1939 turned to 1940, Gardner’s affection for his coven grew, as did the coven itself. They practiced folk magic in tune with their beliefs and he began writing books that would later form the foundation for the brand of Wicca that still bears Gardner’s name.

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Abuse trial told ‘witches pointed wands’ at child

Eleven people are on trial at the High Court in Glasgow accused of sexually abusing a number of children and causing them to participate in seances to communicate with spirits and demons.

They deny all the charges against them.

The children were said to have made allegations to a man who took notes and then sent them to police and social workers.

The man said he had got to know the children through his work and church and often saw them with his wife.

The girl, who would have been of pre-school age at the time of the alleged abuse, is one of a number of complainers who are aged under 13.

She was alleged to have said in her statement to the man: “I didn’t like it when all the witches pointed their wands at me.”

The older alleged victims said there was a large group of witches and wizards in a room who put a spell on the girl every day to make her a different animal.

They were also said to have claimed that a line of people blew drug smoke onto the girl’s face.

According to the man, the girl also alleged that she had been locked in a cupboard and trapped in an oven and a fridge freezer.

In his notes, the man said that the older children helped her to get out of the oven.

He also wrote that the older children said they adjusted the temperature of the fridge when the child was not in it so it was not too cold as it happened so often.

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As witchcraft becomes a multibillion-dollar business, practitioners’ connection to the natural world is changing

Witches, Wiccans and other contemporary Pagans see divinity in trees, streams, plants and animals. Most Pagans view the Earth as the Goddess, with a body that humans must care for, and from which they gain emotional, spiritual and physical sustenance.

Paganism is an umbrella term that includes religions that view their practices as returning to those of pre-Christian societies, in which they believe the Goddess was worshipped along with the gods and the land was seen as sacred. Wicca focuses specifically on the practice of the British Isles.

Witchcraft has also become a multibillion-dollar business. As a sociologist who has been researching this religion for more than 30 years, I have witnessed this growing commercialization: Witch kits are sold by large companies and in stores – something unheard of when I began my research in 1986.

This surge in popularity has changed these communities in some subtle and not-so-subtle ways. Groups called covens were the norm when I began my research, but as my own research shows, most Pagans now are solitary practitioners. Even while the Goddess continues to be revered, the practitioners’ connection to the natural world, at least for many, is also changing.

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The astonishing story of the last British woman jailed for witchcraft – just 80 years ago

It’s November 25 1941, and off the Egyptian coast, HMS Barham explodes after a U-boat torpedo strike. Jets of steam, smoke and iron fragments are thrown into the sky; the ship sinks within minutes; over 800 Navy men are killed almost simultaneously. All news of the sinking is censored. Yet, in Barham’s home port, Portsmouth, the sailors’ families soon hear rumours; and visitors to the séances of Helen Duncan, a spiritualist medium, apparently witness a miracle. Helen – known as Nellie – speaks with the ghost of a Barham sailor, and reveals the ship’s loss. She makes it public long before the official announcement of the sinking.

How did Duncan know Barham had sunk? Or was her revelation just a guess, a fraud in which she charged the bereaved to listen to nothing better than gossip? In 1944, prosecutors would judge her magical knowledge to be fake, and the Barham story would be told at the end of her trial for defrauding her customers. Even so, however, instead of facing straightforward allegations of deception and theft, Duncan had been charged under the 1735 Witchcraft Act. The British public was gripped by a modern witch-trial, shocked that a 200-year-old law had been revived. In what way, people asked, could Nellie Duncan be a witch?

Duncan had flirted with the supernatural her whole life. She was born in Callander, near Stirling, in 1897, and as a child claimed the magical ability called “second sight”. On becoming an unmarried mother at 17, she was disowned by her parents, and found dusty, dangerous work in a jute mill. More hopefully, in 1916 she married a cabinetmaker, Henry Duncan – but, trapped by poverty and overwork, the couple fell chronically ill. Soon they had eight children – contraception was considered sinful – and a mountain of debt. 

Nellie Duncan took in washing as well as labouring in a bleaching plant, and in spite of all their troubles, she claimed joyful contact with God and the afterlife. As she fell into apparent trances, ghostly spirits would speak through her lips. She and Henry set up a darkened séance room where white gloop – “ectoplasm” – appeared before paying visitors, flowing out of Nellie’s mouth and nose to manifest spirits’ bodies. It looked awfully like muslin cloth, but her customers loved it.

In 1930, Duncan went to Edinburgh and London for appointments with psychic investigators. They tested her mediumship, strip-searching, photographing and X-raying her. Some observers confirmed her claims, although celebrity investigator Harry Price accused her of regurgitating muslin to fake materialisations. Nonetheless, her efforts paid off. Being accepted by the London Spiritualists’ Alliance meant the opportunity to go on séance tours of Britain, bringing fame and wealth.

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