Invention of satanic witchcraft by medieval authorities was met with skepticism

Post by ipsum2 » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 4:05 AM UTC

vmception wrote: post #3

paulgerhardt wrote: post #2

One thing that becomes immediately apparent when visiting the medieval witchcraft museum in Iceland[1] was how strategic the use of Witchcraft accusations were by the middling elite. One cunning foreign family with ties to occupying Denmark was able to secure land hold rights for nearly an entire peninsula from local Icelanders on the northwest through the strategic use of witchcraft accusations. During this period o…

Those articles are more interesting than OP's article. When I research a lot of wealthy families I frequently find their level of comfort not possible to replicate because it is something considered impropriety today. Taking advantage of an imbalance in the socioeconomic order that was promptly fixed as soon as anybody noticed.

Post by olivermarks » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 4:16 AM UTC

boomboomsubban wrote: post #7

olivermarks wrote: post #5

Bailey's book he mentions here is called 'Origins of the witches sabbath'. The idea that satanic witchcraft was invented by mediaeval authorities is preposterous IMO. Occult practices go back to ancient Egypt and have been practiced in multiple civilizations as white, grey or black magic respectively. Black magic is what everyone obsesses over (attempts to use supernatural powers or magic for evil and selfish purpose…

How does an announcement of someone's death get off topic and start talking about how LaVey is a Zionist arms dealer and how frequently Ukraine comes up? What the hell is happening in that story?

Post by scarecrowbob » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 4:33 AM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #4

paulgerhardt wrote: post #2

One thing that becomes immediately apparent when visiting the medieval witchcraft museum in Iceland[1] was how strategic the use of Witchcraft accusations were by the middling elite. One cunning foreign family with ties to occupying Denmark was able to secure land hold rights for nearly an entire peninsula from local Icelanders on the northwest through the strategic use of witchcraft accusations. During this period o…

This is essentially the thesis of Silvia Federici’s tremendous book, “Caliban and the Witch.” Witch hunts were pursued to reorganize familial, gender, and labor relations to suit the needs of an emergent Capitalism: >For serfs, who tilled the land in exchange for a share of its crops, home was work, and vice versa; men and women grew the potatoes together. But in capitalism, waged laborers have to work outside the ho…

Post by twsttest » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 4:38 AM UTC

claudeganon wrote: post #10

ertian wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't it be nice if history were actually this simple? The idea here is that Romans, with their pater familias, or the Confucian Chinese, for whom the father was a mini-emperor, were just preparing the way for capitalism, 2000+ years before the fact? Marriage and home-bound women were not an invention of the late medival world. Women may well have been more free in the preceding period, but that was the exception,…

This isn’t a refutation of Federici’s argument. Her’s is specifically that the conditions of European feudalism created an emergent communalism that was then subjugated through witch trials and their mythology in service to the new, Capitalist ordering. She doesn’t argue that gendered forms of subjugation have no prior context in history. And whether or not the changes in women’s social/economic conditions were “temp…

Post by hatenberg » Sat, Jul 04, 2020, 4:46 AM UTC

danans wrote: post #12

ipsum2 wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you give an example of that level of comfort? Servants were more common back then, but not sure what else.

Most likely that you had enough wealth and owned enough productive land or other capital to secure the lifestyle of your progeny for generations to come.