Debunking the Pervasive Myths About Medieval Witch Hunts

Comments · 2.2K

• SU

  @sunshineonmars- · 2 years ago

  I just audibly said "oh my god OF COURSE it's the victorians AGAIN "

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• AI

  @aidanfarnan4683 · 2 years ago

  &quot;Imagine being accused of witchcraft because you gave your friend a Benadryl and they saw the hat man...&quot; is a brilliant quote.<br>Also, as archaeologist fascinated by the period 1400-1600, thank you for pointing out that the Renaissance was far more violent and brutish than the medieval period. The Medieval gets a lot of shit for stuff it’s over-achieving younger brother did.

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• DA

  @danaroth598 · 2 years ago (edited)

  The Malleus Maleficarum only exists because Heinrich Kramer was angry that his church superiors correctly pegged him as an unhinged misogynist and intervened on behalf of his would-be victim, which I think tells you a lot about it and him.

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• FI

  @FigburyWitchASMR · 2 years ago (edited)

  I’m a witchcraft historian—and you miss no points here! One of my research areas is how Margaret Murray, as you said, “really didn’t know what she was talking about.” And I’m always so happy when people tackle the hard work of dispelling the burning myth. It’s so hard to escape from 😅

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• RH

  @rhadamanthus10 · 2 years ago

  One related thing I always see is the bullshit story about St. Patrick supposedly committing some genocide of Irish pagans. I new a neopagan girl once who would talk about how “traumatic” St Patrick’s Day was, using the language of actual generation trauma for defendants of genocide victims that I really doubt she got from her WASP parents.

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• HA

  @Hanzatre · 2 years ago

  History of witches here in Finland is its own fascinating thing. Finland being literally nowhere by middle-ages standards so people here were doing their wholly own thing . And here being a &quot;witch&quot; (noita in Finnish) was a legitimate profession, a job, witches were for a long time respected members of their communities, being herbalists, medicine men and ritualists and Finland had practicing witches until the early 20th century. <br>The witch hunts didn&apos;t get that big here, it was mostly those pesky Lutherans who were really keen on eradicating everything pagan (the Catholics didn&apos;t seem to care or just were really bad at the eradication).

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• LI

  @LivingBreathingPoet · 2 years ago

  Thank you SO MUCH for pointing out how &quot;The Burning Times&quot; rhetoric appropriates the Holocaust because you put your finger on the judenhass I have experienced from white witches comparing that directly to Jewish persecution

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• SA

  @sammypsychosis1674 · 2 years ago

  As a longtime Wiccan myself, THANK YOU KAZ for actual FACTS. So tired of hearing “my people were burned” none of them were Wiccans, or witches for that matter.

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• BA

  @Basking_Rootwalla56 · 2 years ago

  There’s an Ursula K LeGuin quote I think about a lot when it comes to people talking about the primal and esoteric nature of women’s knowledge:<br>“But I didn’t and still don’t like making a cult of women’s knowledge, preening ourselves on knowing things men don’t know, women’s deep irrational wisdom, women’s instinctive knowledge of Nature, and so on. All that all too often merely reinforces the masculinist idea of women as primitive and inferior – women’s knowledge as elementary, primitive, always down below at the dark roots, while men get to cultivate and own the flowers and crops that come up into the light. But why should women keep talking baby talk while men get to grow up? Why should women feel blindly while men get to think?”

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• AM

  @amandahuber6639 · 2 years ago

  Its okay to believe in something and then later realize it is inaccurate, it is okay to be wrong, it is okay to change your mind, its okay to be ordinary. It is okay to to larp as a witch on the daily... AND... be wary about making anything external your personal identity.

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• RE

  @resting-witchface · 2 years ago

  I decided I wasn&apos;t a Wiccan after spending only a week in a Wiccan FB group. The amount of gatekeeping and ego was really off-putting. I know it was only a small percentage of members but it was enough that I backed away slowly 😂

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• JH

  @jhudoras · 2 years ago

  as many others say, thank u for calling out neo-paganism lol. being native american &amp; having to watch a bunch of white women overfarm and endanger sage to appropriate smudging and then act oppressed damages me every day. wish wiccans would realize u can be spiritual and attempt to connect to nature without stomping on other ppl but when so many of them come from christian backgrounds i guess its not surprising that the approach is ... colonial

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