I've just noticed this thread developing, and must
have missed some of the early remarks, so if someone
else has said this already, please forgive me:
Are there Muslim witches? Well, by folkloric
definitions the power of the Evil Eye is classed as a
sub-section of malevolent witchcraft, and Muslim
countries are famous for their wide range of amulets
agaist the Eye, so it would seem clear that Muslims
**believe** that there are witches in their
communities, whether or not there actually are any.
Jacqueline
--- diane yoder <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The interesting thing about it is, that I found,
> when I was in Toronto, and
> also at an American university is that the general
> consensus is among
> scholars that everything we "need" to know about the
> witchcraft trials or
> witchcraft in religion has been found out, and there
> is nothing more to
> study. As a scholar in religion and literature,
> there is a plethora of
> "manuscript" evidence out there, but written by the
> "winners' if you
> will--Sprenger's treatise under the auspices of the
> Catholic Church
> Inquisition (and beliefs) Cotton Mather's under the
> auspices of the Puritan
> church (and beliefs). It seems to me the manuscript
> "evidence" is slanted
> from a historiographical point of view. Take for
> instance, Jean Bodin's "On
> the Demon-Mania of Witches," which as most of you
> probably know was
> published in 1580. This is taken from the scholarly
> notes in the
> introduction "Witchcraft in France:"
>
> "Much has been written on the witch-hunt in Europe.
> Some studies have
> depicted an extended hysteria, in which obsessed
> judges, using savage
> torture on the least pretext, sentence hundres of
> thousands, or even
> millions, to a horrible death in the flames. But an
> important group of
> recent studies (no note to indicate what studies
> these are), based on local
> archival records has helpd to draw a more accurate
> picture of what actually
> transpired. While still horrifying to the modern
> sensibility, the totality
> of witchcraft cases is much less dramatic than
> previously thought (reference
> to Levack's Witchhunt-170-212). It is now clear
> that many of those accused
> of Witchcraft were acquitted or were punished by
> milder means than death.
> Judges did evaluate the quality of the evidence.
> Torture was used to obtain
> confessions, but many judges applied severe torture
> only to those against
> whom the proofs were already quite strong [Does this
> mean it was okay to
> torture, and does this statement mean it's okay as
> long as the person WAS a
> witch? (!!)] ...The judges own beliefs about
> witchcraft were extremely
> important in determining how severely the court
> dealt with the accused [so
> if the judge doesn't believe in witchcraft, you get
> off...if he does, you're
> in trouble]..." (19-20)"
>
>
> The thing that gets me about this introduction, is
> that it is very blase,
> and almost states that torture is justified to
> academic historians if the
> "evidence" was strong enough to implicate someone of
> witchcraft. Yet the
> same historian calls the St. Bartholomew's Day
> Massacre when Catholics
> killed Protestants "a genuinely shameful chapter in
> French history." I sort
> of had to laugh--it's shameful when Catholics kill
> Protestants, but it's
> okay when society kills "witches." The fact that
> such indictments were "up
> to the judges personal beliefs about witchcraft"
> should be a red light to
> any academic worth his salt that something is a
> little slanted with the
> "manuscript evidence." It wasn't like the accused
> were literate,
> always...do we have any manuscript evidence from the
> victims' point of view?
>
>
> I don't know. These are the questions I have been
> asking, and like Kathryn,
> I don't feel as if I am taken seriously studying the
> connections between
> Christianity, literature and witchcraft, but that's
> okay. I am hoping to
> finish my doctoral studies at the University of
> Glasgow...because I feel I
> am taken seriously in European/UK universities..and
> because American
> universities seem to consider their own historical
> brush with witchcraft to
> have been a hiccup--because only 19 people died
> instead of a few thousand.
>
> Well, that's my blurb...I don't mean to sound
> frustrated...it's just that a
> lot of people in academia do seem afraid of this
> topic. Does it surprise
> anybody that in my case, at least American society
> still fears "witches"
> today? In America, the current loudest religious
> voice is right wing
> Protestanism, whose ideologies hark straight back to
> Puritanism in all its
> glory, right down to the "liberal" witchhunts and
> listmaking that have gone
> on during the current administration in the White
> House. The funny thing
> is, George W. Bush's direct descendant (tenth great
> grandson) is Anne
> Hutchison, religious dissenter. [see "American
> Jezebel" by Eve LaPlante, p.
> 243].
>
> Diane Yoder
> MA candidate, Religion and Literature
> Antioch University-McGregor
> Yellow Springs, Ohio
>
> --
> See Religion and Literature at
> http://northropfryefan.googlepages.com/home
>
> Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night,
> God said: "Let Newton be!", and all was light.
> Alexander Pope (1688-1744) English poet.
>
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