Witchcraft, witches and witchcraft: what I know about the origins, history, and the various types

By Anna_M | News in the World | 22 Feb 2020


In one of my previous articles I dealt with the theme of witches and how these figures were called such. In this article I will deepen this topic, also talking about witchcraft, history and various types.

 

What is "witchcraft" and when was it born?

Today it is not possible to give a general definition. What initial

ly identified the "witches" was essentially the pact with the devil that they made and everything else (making evil, cooking children, flying on magical brooms) was only an idealized consequence of society towards witchcraft.  However, before the fourteenth century there were already magical cults in the history of different civilizations, just think of the Celts and their central figures, the sorcerers / priests called Druids.

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Often these practices were not at all divided by religion and science and all three were in a continuous connection (the Egyptian funeral rites, the Greek treatises that combined magic and medicine and the premonitions of the Roman augurs in times of war) demonstrate this. We could say that the whole ancient world was focused on magic in its most varied diversifications, but something in the modern age separated the forms of "practical magic" from religious rites. From here the non-ceremonial magic was configured as a demonic act, banished by the Church and the inquisitors.

 

What changed in the world of magic?

Inquisitors and preachers, they modified folkloric traditions twice: the first by denaturalizing pagan agrarian cults and the second by repressing them, bringing them closer to the figure of the devil, to increase their negativity and increase Christian religious practices. It is not difficult to understand why; yet there are those who, like G.Zilboorg, also provide a psychological justification for the birth of witchcraft.

 

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According to the famous psychiatrist, many types of behavior described in the witchcraft treatises (the most famous being the Malleus Maleficarum) speak to us of symptoms similar to those of today's mentally ill people. At the time, however, the various types of psychosis were configured on some negative characters that society rejected, in this case, the heretical thoughts or those of people who rejected the thoughts of their religion. It was therefore not difficult that, during the Inquisition period, mentally ill people were identified (and identified themselves) as satanic subjects and witches.

 

What gave the Church the opportunity to create these thoughts?

Historical studies can help us hypothesize various causes: from the fourteenth century onwards the Church had to deal with the famous rural heresies. From the sixteenth century, Protestants and the various diversifications of the Christian creed had to face. Moreover, in these centuries, the Arab threat was ever more pressing and, after the fall of Constantinople in 1453, they repeatedly threatened to besiege Rome (in fact, they reached as far as Vienna, in 1683). New social changes were also emerging with the emergence of the sciences and the spread of the press, which led to more freedom in every field, from politics to art, from free will to sexuality. The traditional values ​​of Christian asceticism lost value and the result (natural or imposed) on society was the creation of a mass paranoid psychosis.

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So here's how to explain the spontaneous confessions of alleged witches (often also manipulated and falsified through violent torture by the Inquisition). The people questioned at the time were therefore really against religious thought not because they were possessed by satan, but because of the fact that they suffered from serious diseases such as schizophrenia and neuroses, which were not yet understood.

 

Why are we only talking about female witches and not about men?

The historian Càrcel explains that the central figures of the time, for fear of a loss of prestige and being undermined by the middle class, channeled the common hatred towards women, the most submissive but in the process of emerging elements of society. Most of the rebel women became witches and many class struggles were avoided in doing so. Malleus Maleficarum himself, the most famous treatise on witchcraft practices, repeatedly cites fragments of classical texts (from Cicero to Seneca, up to Greek or Jewish sources) exalted to hatred for women because of some of their characteristics " malevolent ": their evident bipolarity, their envy, the evident jealousy capable of making them perform cruel revenge, etc.

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In short, women were much more likely to "become witches" for all these characteristics, believed to be true by most of the population of the time because of the choice of the authoritative sources mentioned. Trust in classical texts was in fact enormous in the Middle Ages and in the modern age. Instead, it was one of the greatest works of manipulation. It is known for sure, in fact, that the Roman Church had a great deal of difficulty over the centuries in evangelizing and keeping under control cities and countryside all over Europe and this method could serve for greater control, from a psychological point of view. By spreading irrational fear, even the simple minds of the most remote European countryside could convert to the most powerful and pervasive religion in the world, always looking for new "religious subjects" to exploit.

 

And today? Witchcraft and cinema

The spread of witchcraft became worldwide, creating different ideologies. Over time the characters of witchcraft differed and slowly changed. Still today, in very traditional Italian countries, legends circulate that are believed to be true of some female witches. Currently, however, the film industries have dominion over what has now become, in my opinion, "the horror business" and it is precisely through myths and legends (which often have little to do with the oldest traditions of witchcraft) that horror films have their pungent attraction today on the young masses passionate about cinema and its history.

 

The image of the witch

In people's imaginary minds, witches are ugly women, dressed in rags, capable of flying on brooms handles; in reality the witches were very common women, whose life had nothing to do with the supernatural or with the devil.

  351665157-9fcc752d69d90a56be1b614a3dddf02d8b79893392d504035c51986b20ad7d6f.jpeg     The woman in the Middle Ages resulting in ideology on witchcraft

A contribution to the construction of the witch figure has certainly given him the role that women played in medieval society. For churchmen the woman identified herself with Eve, the sinner; she was the devil's daughter and could lead man on the way to perdition (exactly as Eve had done with Adam). For society she was basically an inferior creature, submitted first to her father and then to her husband. The marriage itself was mostly a contract; almost always the choice of the spouses was made by the parents and in many cases the young people didn't even know each other. No decision was allowed to the bride; the Church allowed that a marriage agreement could be made at the age of 7, to be celebrated at the twelfth year of age. It is therefore clear that there was no decision by the bride. Once she became a wife, the weight she had within the home was zero. Some municipal statutes of 1300 authorized husbands to punish their wives.

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It becomes easy, during the Middle Ages, to load negative elements on a creature already prone to sin. In a world that must face daily famines and terrible diseases such as ergotism and the black plague, find a common responsible, a scapegoat, save from mass delirium.

 

The witch woman

It is above all in the countryside that the image of the witch is spreading. The name, in all probability, derives from stryx, striga, nocturnal bird which was thought to suck the blood of children in the cradle; he was considered a kind of vampire. For this reason, in the beginning the name witch was assigned to women believed to be responsible for abortions or the killing of children. In reality these women were only the expression of popular beliefs; they were trusted to heal people and animals in the community in which they lived or to practice abortions or ask for advice on contraceptive methods.

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Since medicine did not respond to the many evils that affected people, witches were used.

To this was added the fact that doctors were very expensive and only those who had a lot of money could afford a home visit. This, however, did little to save the sick, given that the doctor often limited himself to making a summary analysis of the patient's appearance to which a urine test was added. There were no real medicines; it was mostly medicinal potions, made from herbs. Among the most famous and expensive the triaca, a compound of fifty elements, which was believed, erroneously obviously, to be able to heal from leprosy.

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Most people could not afford to call a doctor and therefore resorted to these healing women. If they managed to heal they were sanctified if they failed they were considered evil spirits.

 

Popular beliefs

Among popular beliefs there was also that which believed that witches could turn into animals, in particular cats, the animal par excellence associated with the devil. Others believed that they could turn into werewolves by wandering around at night in search of prey.

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It was also thought that they had power over the elements of nature, which could trigger thunderstorms and lightning. In reality, what were commonly considered witches were often elderly women, frowned upon for various reasons, future wives rejected by their husbands, no longer virgin women, midwives and curators who could not exercise in public, mentally ill women. Everything that went beyond "normal", the different, was looked upon with suspicion and was a source of fear. Women who met with other women in the house could have been considered dangerous, because in their encounters they could invoke the devil.

 

             

 

 

 

 

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News in the World
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