New developments in Witch History

[alexxkay]

Just came across this article. Haven't had time to flly read it, but it's clearly of general interest.

"Since the late 1970's, a quiet revolution has taken place in the study of historical witchcraft and the Great European Witch Hunt. The revolution wasn't quite as dramatic as the development of radio-carbon dating, but many theories which reigned supreme thirty years ago have vanished, swept away by a flood of new data. Unfortunately, little of the new information has made it into popular history. Many articles in Pagan magazines contain almost no accurate information about the "Burning Times", primarily because we rely so heavily on out-dated research."

Recent Developments in the Study
of The Great European Witch Hunt

Comments

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

That's a great article. I remember posting it on the Rialto some years back (or its predecessor with much the same conclusion; hey, it's medieval, therefore relevant, and someone had brought it up) and recieved several emails from self-identified neopagans who were irate that I'd accepted the anti-burning-times propaganda, and they KNEW it couldn't be an accurate conclusion.

[oakleaf-mirror.livejournal.com]

Interesting article. I never really grokked the focus on the 'burning times' that so many pagans seem to get into. Even if you believe the old numbers, it always seemed that the things people were being tried for had so little (or nothing) to do with what we did in modern times. There's enough bigotry and intolerance in the here and now that we'd be far better to work against.

One thing that irked me about the article was the term 'the Great Hunt.' However you slice what really happened, that seems far too benign and romantic a name for what went on.

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

Righto.

I've oft said that one of the problems with the whole neopagan thing is the using of the term "witch" (for those who use it). There's nearly no evidence for any sort of continuity of tradition, and it is such an emotionally weighted word for some folks (bible literalists, for example) that even if you do believe there's continuity, it still shouldn't be used.

It's like someone decided to start an organization and called themselves the Pederasts, no, not like those old evil Pederasts that you hear about in stories, but friendly ones that wouldn't hurt anyone or do anything illegal; we've really just been horribly misunderstood all along. Right off you're starting from a bad position.

[siderea]

I think for some wiccans, that was (is?) a feature, not a bug: it was an expression of rebelliousness against Christianity. (I make no comment on whether or not that was prudent.)

That also suggests why some wiccans are so into the story of the Burning Times; it's a narrative which casts the Church as the villian and their putative spiritual ancestors as righteous martyrs.
o

[alexx-kay.livejournal.com]

That seems to me an example of the general phenomenon of oppressed minorities "reclaiming" terms formerly used to abuse them. Compare the usage (in our social circles) of "geek".

[siderea]

But Cynthia's point -- and I agree with her -- is that it is, at best, a problematical example, if it is an example of that phenomenon at all.

There is an important difference between reclaiming an epithet that has been applied to you by others (e.g. "geek", "queer"), and identifying yourself as being referred to by an epithet that was never addressed towards you or your kind.

Nobody was running around calling any modern Americans "witches" for their nature-worshipping beliefs, the way smart too-enthusiastic people were called "geeks". Instead those nature-worshippers decided to call themselves "witches", a term not associated previously with them and what they were doing, much to the utter surprize of everyone else.

They argued that the people the epithet of "witch" had been applied to historically (e.g. in the middle ages) were people who met their new, modern definition of "witch". That is questionable, and increasingly, with more historical study, does not seem to be true.

The only other example I know of, of this situation is a very localized one. At MIT, after Scott Krueger's death by drinking at a frat party, there was a lot of scrutiny of residential fraternities. MIT, however, has a weird situation where there are "ILGs", of which some are referred to in common parlance as "fraternities" and others are not. Those ILGs which were not fraternities -- some of which are "dry" -- were not at all under the same sort of public scrutiny and condemnation. Yet for some reason I never figured out, these "non-frat" ILGs took great umbrage at the charges laid at the fraternities. They identified themselves publically as fraternities in their letters to the editors, and made much of how "Not all fraternities have drinking parties, mine doesn't." It was very strange, and, frankly, counter-productive. If they had stood apart from the "greek" system -- which normally they do -- and worked from the position "not all ILGs are frats", they would have been in a position to argue in the defense of the ILG system (that non-frat ILGs should not be punished for the conduct of frats). An awful lot of people were very surprized to hear of pika and ET referred to as "frats", since they are co-ed and don't have drinking parties. It was as if they had gone looking for oppression. I couldn't figure out why they identified as "frats" when actual frats' behavior -- which they never indulged in -- was being quite reasonably condemned.

[jducoeur]

It's like someone decided to start an organization and called themselves the Pederasts, no, not like those old evil Pederasts that you hear about in stories, but friendly ones that wouldn't hurt anyone or do anything illegal; we've really just been horribly misunderstood all along.

Well, consider that there are groups that call themselves Satanists, and use more or less exactly this line...

[cvirtue.livejournal.com]

From what little I understand of Satanists, their intent is to shock/upset. So the choice was made intentionally. Whereas neopagans were probably just not thinking things through. Although I could be wrong, of course.