Witch-hunt

She stabbed the space between his fingers instead. His laughter stopped entirely, forsaking his smile with something blank, almost lost, in comparison. “You question the role of Fate in your life, Orlana,” he said quietly, but the words resounded in her ears like a sonorous gong. “What if I told you I believed in it beyond words? In Haelios and his deceptive ways of making you think you control yourself, when in reality, everything was decided long ago by forces we cannot truly comprehend?” He…

fasting. This view of men having control over the weather, further enhanced the fears of witches and their ability to control these power. In Wolfgang Behringer explores this fear in his article Weather, Hunger and Fear: Origins of the European witch hunts in climate, society, and mentality, Behringer argues that the high point of witchcraft accusations in Germany was during a period of serious climate change. Behringer also states that when it came to charges of affecting the weather it was a…

Holocaust VS Witch Hunts From 1941 to 1945, Hitler sought out any and all Jews so he could place them in internments camps and eventually kill them. He did this without the factual evidence to convict them, which lead to the massacre of millions of people in Germany at the time. While the Salem witch hunts of 1692-93 were not on such a massive scale, they did involve convicting people without decent evidence and putting them to death, much like the Holocaust. One example of an unjust…

The first article in the course reader is entitled ‘A Narratological Approach to Witchcraft Trials: A Scottish Case’ by Liv Helene Willumsen. The article focusses on the influence the scribe has in documenting witchcraft trials in the 1600’s. The author makes it clear on page nine and throughout the remainder of the article that the scribe can play a key role in colouring the case as they wish, as well as describing people in what could be a biased manner. However, she stipulates that the scribe…

gets to address the problems that are on his mind, without any approval of any other officials. “Thank you all for coming tonight,” he announced in a deep, clear voice.”It is obvious that our first order of business should be discussing the witch trials,” he said. People start shifting in their seats, some seeming a bit edgy or uncomfortable with this topic, mainly the women.” We have to try our best to get rid of the witches in our town so we can have a peaceful and successful life…

In these few weeks of class we began reading through articles with different topics. Two of the articles that got my attention was “ Witchcraft, justice, and Human Rights in Africa: Cases from Malawi” by Adam Ashforth and “Rape as Weapon of War in the Eastern DRC? The Victim 's’ perspective” by Anna Maedl. For each my peers and I have different reactions to what the author is trying to say in their perspective. In Adam Ashforth article, I disagree with the idea that witches do not exist in real…

According to Gaskill, witchcraft is defined as “the practices of a witch or witches, especially the use of magic or sorcery” (1). The gender people typically think of when someone mentions the word “witch” is women. Women have become the image of witchcraft in the pre-industrial era and still wear the façade today. Because of the roles female healers had in the pre-industrial era, their work created relationships and false reputations that made them vulnerable to accusations. Healers would…

those accused of witchcraft were the “-moderately poor” not the poorest women(Karlsen Ch. 3, Paragraph 1). Eunice Cole, for example, was not dirt poor but not middle class filed to receive poor relief yet was denied. Eunice was accused of being a witch after rebuking Hampton about how a man in the same economic status as her was receiving aid. Most women were economically dependent on the male members of their family. Even if a women could get a job a job they were few and far between with…

man is found not having a witch-substance, then that individual does not participate in witchcraft. Yet, recall that the Zande additionally believe that a witch can be "cool," having the "witch-substance" yet not operating as a witch. The idea of a witch being "cool" evades any evident inconsistency when a man who has not been blamed for witchcraft is found possessing a witch-substance. Also, when someone is accused of being a witch, but is not found in possession of a witch-substance the Zande…

This essay with attempt to articulate the cultural phenomenon of “Satanic Panic” that occurred in the United States in the early 1980’s and 1990’s. Satanic Panic refers to the phenomenon of collective moral panic in American society. During this time it was believed that satanic rituals, child and animal abuse, and the infiltration of satanic cults into everyday life, was widespread and an immediate threat (Beard 212). This social panic manifested itself in various ways, primarily in the media,…