The Burning Times
The witch hunting mania that
convulsed many parts of the world over the centuries may not have
revealed the existence of supernatural demons but it did generate
an exterordinary array of human monsters ~ the witch hunters ~ a
pathological righteous brotherhood that devoted itself to
ferreting out suspected handmaidens of the devil.
The bible of these macabre killers was the infamous Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches), a book written by two fanatical Dominican priests and published in 1486. For the book's authors no deceit was too devious, no torture too extreme to be used in the pursuit of confessions. Nor was there any room for skepticism or moderation; "Not to believe in witchcraft," read the book's motto, "is the greatest of heresies."
The Witch Persecutions. Edited by George L. Burr
"The belief in witchcraft and the persecution of those supposed to practice it have been almost universal in human history. Christianity inherited both the belief and the persecution from the religions, Jewish and pagan, which preceded it. But, under the influence of its monotheistic faith and its humane spirit, it was long before the belief became throughout Christendom a panic and the persecution an epidemic."
Investigator's Guide to Allegations of "Ritual" Child Abuse
"The statistical odds are that such abusers are members of
mainstream religions. If 99.9% of satanists and 0.1% of
Christians abuse children as part of their spiritual belief
system, that still means that the vast majority of children so
abused were abused by Christians.
Until hard evidence is obtained and corroborated, the public
should not be frightened into believing that babies are being
bred and eaten, that 50,000 missing children are being murdered
in human sacrifices, or that satanists are taking over America's
day care centers or institutions."
Aradia, Gospel of the Witches. Or The Gospel of the Witches By Charles G. Leland
"If the reader has ever met with the works of the learned folk-lorist G. Pitr?, or the articles contributed by "Lady Vere De Vere" to the Italian Rivista, or that of J. H. Andrews to Folk-Lore, he will be aware that there are in Italy great numbers of strege, fortune-tellers or witches, who divine by cards, perform strange ceremonies in which spirits are supposed to be invoked, make and sell amulets, and, in fact, comport themselves generally as their reputed kind are wont to do, be they Black Voodoos in America or sorceresses anywhere."
A History of the Inquisition In The Middle Ages. Volume One. By Henry Charles Lea
"No Christian could hope for salvation who was not in all things an obedients on of the Church, and who was not ready to take up arms in its defence; and, in a time when faith was a determining factor of conduct, this belief createda spiritual despotism which placed all things within reach of him who could wield it."
Witch-Cult in Western Europe by Margaret Alice Murray"The subject of Witches and Witchcraft has always suffered from the biassed opinions of the commentators, both contemporary and of later date. On the one hand are the writers who, having heard the evidence at first hand, believe implicitly in the facts and place upon them the unwarranted construction that those facts were due to supernatural power; on the other hand are the writers who, taking the evidence on hearsay and disbelieving the conclusions drawn by their opponents, deny the facts in toto. Both parties believed with equal firmness in a personal Devil, and both supported their arguments with quotations from the Bible. "
Important Note: nothing described in this book should be taken as representative of contemporary Neopagan practice.
The Discovery of Witches. By Matthew Hopkins, Witch-finder
"He seekes not their bloud, as if he could not subsist without that nourishment, but he often repairs to them, and gets it, the more to aggravate the Witches damnation, and to put her in mind of her Covenant; and as he is a Spirit and Prince of the ayre, he appeares to them in any shape whatsoever, which shape is occasioned by him through joyning of condensed thickned aire together, and many times doth assume shapes of many creatures."
Irish Witchcraft And Demonology by St. John D. Seymour. 1913
"...the article on "Witchcraft" in the latest edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica mentions England and Scotland, then passes on to the Continent, and altogether ignores this country; and this is, in general, the attitude adopted by writers on the subject. In view of this it seems very strange that no one has attempted to show why the Green Isle was so especially favoured above the rest of the civilised world, or how it was that it alone escaped the contracting of a disease that not for years but for centuries had infected Europe to the core."
The Malleus Maleficarum of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger 1486
"It has been recognized even from the very earliest times,
during the first gropings towards the essential conveniences of
social decency and social order, that witchcraft is an evil
thing, an enemy to light, an ally of the powers of darkness,
disruption, and decay. Sometimes, no doubt, primitive communities
were obliged to tolerate the witch and her works owing to fear;
in other words, witchcraft was a kind of blackmail; but directly
Cities were able to to co-ordinate, and it became possible for
Society to protect itself, precautions were taken and safeguards
were instituted against this curse, this bane whose object seemed
to blight all that was fair."
Please be
aware that the Malleus Maleficarum of
Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger is one of the very few
sections on my site that I've rated as adult only. The fact that
most of the witch hunters sincerely believed in the rightness of
their murderous pursuits does not make their perverse logic,
immoderate prejudice and inhumam methods any less horrifying
today.
Witchcraft and Devil Lore in the Channel Islands, by John Linwood
"Barrington estimates the judicial murders for witchcraft in England, during two hundred years, at 30,000; Matthew Hopkins, the "witch-finder," caused the judicial murder of about one hundred persons in Essex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, 1645-7; Sir Matthew Hale burnt two persons for witchcraft in 1664; about 1676 seventeen or eighteen persons were burnt as witches at St. Osyths, in Essex."
The History of the Devil And The Idea Of Evil. By Paul Carus
"The horrors of Devil worship, of the Inquisition, and of witch-prosecution were the natural consequences of a misconception of the nature of evil. They were the visitations that necessarily followed in the footsteps of a most abandoned ignorance."
The Witchcraft Delusion In Colonial Connecticut (1647-1697), by John M. Taylor
"May it please yr Honble Court, we the Grand inquest now setting for the County of Fairefeild, being made sensable, not only by Common fame (but by testamonies duly billed to us) that the widow Mary Staple, Mary Harvey ye wife of Josiah Harvey and Hannah Harvey the daughter of the saide Josiah, all of Fairefeild, remain under the susspition of useing witchecraft, which is abomanable both in ye sight of God and man and ought to be witnessed against."
The Amber Witch By Wilhelm Meinhold.
"In laying before the public this deeply affecting and romantic trial, which I have not without reason called on the title-page the most interesting of all trials for witchcraft ever known, I will first give some account of the history of the manuscript."
The Witch Mania by Charles MacKay
"A misunderstanding of the famous text of the Mosaic law, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live," no doubt led many conscientious men astray, whose superstition, warm enough before, wanted but a little corroboration to blaze out with desolating fury. In all ages of the world men have tried to hold converse with superior beings; and to pierce, by their means, the secrets of futurity."
Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft, by Sir Walter Scott
Sir Walter Scott's "Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft" were his contribution to a series of books, published by John Murray, which appeared between the years 1829 and 1847, and formed a collection of eighty volumes known as "Murray's Family Library." The series was planned to secure a wide diffusion of good literature in cheap five-shilling volumes, and Scott's "Letters," written and published in 1830, formed one of the earlier books in the collection.
Dæmonolgie By King James VI of Scotland, I of England
"The fearefull aboundinge at this time in this countrie, of these detestable slaves of the Devill, the Witches or enchanters, hath moved me (beloved reader) to dispatch in post, this following treatise of mine, not in any way (as I protest) to serve for a shew of my learning and ingine, but onely (mooved of conscience) to preasse thereby, so farre as I can, to resolve the doubting harts of many; both that such assaultes of Sathan are most certainly practized, and that the instrumentes thereof, merits most severely to be punished."
Elizabethan Demonology, by Thomas Alfred Spalding
"An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils, and the Powers Possessed By Them, as It Was Generally Held during the Period of the Reformation, and the Times Immediately Succeeding; with Special Reference to Shakspere and His Works"
Salem Witchcraft, by Charles W. Upham
"It is necessary, before entering upon the subject of the witchcraft delusion, to give a particular and extended account of the immediate locality where it occurred, and of the community occupying it. This is demanded by justice to the parties concerned, and indispensable to a correct understanding of the transaction. "
The Superstitions of Witchcraft, by Howard Williams
'The Superstitions of Witchcraft' is designed to exhibit a consecutive review of the characteristic forms and facts of a creed which (if at present apparently dead, or at least harmless, in Christendom) in the seventeenth century was a living and lively faith, and caused thousands of victims to be sent to the torture-chamber, to the stake, and to the scaffold. At this day, the remembrance of its superhuman art, in its different manifestations, is immortalised in the every-day language of the peoples of Europe.