Ok so in school we're taking a look at The Crucible. This story was about the real people involved in the real witchcraft trials. One of them is Mr. Hale. A doctor guy of some sort. Well it is known that Mr. Hale has books on witchcraft. Giving ways of detecting it, learning it, how one goes about it. But my question is, how accurate were those books? Did they fail to mention the fact that witchcraft needs a great deal of meditation? Were the judges and the court so blind to see this? Im just confused on why there was no knowledge of witchcraft and why it was so easy for the girls to fool everyone with the exception of john proctor and those few who knew what was going on. Id like to hear your views on this.
Ok stevie
U raise a good question. Lol the judges back then were so arragent and cloudied they wouldn't have known a spell if one entered their arse and stoped his heart
I think this is a very good site for the subject:
http://shanmonster.net/witch/index.html
She has to put disclaimers everywhere that it's not about Wiccans or Pagans, but what witch-hunters of the time thought they were hunting... witches. That is, mostly innocent villagers who would tell their fellow Christian brothers anything they wanted to hear, because these more powerful Christian fellows put them under torture.
So, the image of Satan as a mutated Pan (folk Christianity, not even the Bible says that Satan looks anything like Pan), that you can sell your soul for automatic power (most discussions I've read of people I consider, well, hardcore practitioners... don't actually believe that it's possible,) that moles are "teats" through which familiars drink blood-- these all came from "confessions" of tortured people sometimes high on ergot fungus, so are probably a shaky tradition to carry on.
Of course, if you wanted to find a reason to execute people, these confessions were too perfect to be false. But, with so much misinformation from the confessions, I can't believe there were any real witches burned at stake.
Still, it's the thought that counts. How eager people are to persecute anybody who's different continues today:
http://shanmonster.net/witch/accuseme.html
(above, an article concerning the modern-day perils of knowing Greek, playing fantasy cards... and wearing black because it matches with everything, is warm and slimming, and doesn't show coffee stains. -___-")
I'd say they just used that excuse to rid someone they hate.
I mean, come on, witch trials, the poor human wouldn't stand a chance.
Dunk in water trial
-> Drowned, not a witch
-> Lived, witch, burn her
Exactly. So it was a lose lose situation. And that wasn't right. So Men and Women were persecuted as witches but weren't exactly practitioners of witchcraft. But if there was any real knowledge of witchcraft back than, than there wouldn't have been many executuions. Learning about this subject in school is kind of sensitive knowing that so many innocents died because of something that is widely practiced today. And I think back christians of that time were extremely insensitive and arrogant to think their religion was dominant over others.
