"WITCH HUNT"

Today you quite often hear the word witch hunt by the media when someone may feel that they are being victimised. Can you imagine how it would have felt in days gone by when witch hunting was in progress by the Christian church, it cost you your life?

In days of old the bible says there were witches. The bible commanded in Exodus 22:18 "You shall not permit a sorceress to live." On the strength of this the New Testament Church (Christianity) gathered up its ropes, racks, thumbscrews, and firebrands and set about its Holy work in earnest and with gusto. The Church worked hard day and night for many centuries, as they imprisoned, tortured, and executed women and some men who were supposedly possessed by the devil and transformed into witches.

In the Middle Ages Christian theology had developed an elaborate hierarchy of angels who were associated with God, and fallen angels or demons who were led by Satan. Satan himself was considered the original fallen angel, and Satan according to the church used to use demons to possess people.

Between 1550 –1650 c.e. 100,000 individuals were executed. Three quarters of these executions took place within the Holy Roman Empire, and were carried out in both Catholic and Protestant lands alike.

In order to force a confession from the lips of their victims, they pulled out their fingernails, they burnt their breasts (women) with red hot irons, stretched their bodies on racks, violated their private parts, then they either hanged or burnt them alive at the stake. Whole groups of supposed witches washed the Christian world clean with their blood.

Pope Innocent VIII in 1484 issued the Papal Bull Summis Desiderantes. It was included in the preface of the book Mallcus Malefirarum. (The hammer of witches) This book apparently describes vividly the satanic and sexual abominations of witches, published by two Dominican inquisitors in 1486 c.e. This work was translated into many languages and went through many editions in both Catholic and Protestant countries, outselling all other books except the bible.

A common belief of that day and time was that humans were plagued by demons. Demons sat on thrones, they hovered around cradles, they hid in rocks, they caused all diseases, sickness and infirmities, and they turned life into a living hell.

The great apologist Justin Martyr was impressed with demonology to the degree that he believed that the Messiah Jesus had been made mortal to destroy demons.

Question. Why didn’t the "compassionate " and "wise" Jesus teach his subjects that demons did not cause sickness, sin, and death? And since he was also God Almighty, why, instead of walking on water, etc, did he not provide them with some of the true miracles to come? Such as the wood and graphite invention known as the pencil, or the match that only needed scratching to provide a flame, or should we assume that that this wonder working Christ was not created by God for Man, he was created by man for man.

In modern times it has been discovered that witches who were supposedly possessed by the devil in medieval times with several epidemics occurring, were people who were ill with a disease from eating contaminated rye bread that contained an ergot fungi. This fungi is a mold that infects rye and other cereals and grasses

Ergot fungi produces a disease in humans and animals, when consuming bread stuffs made from infected flour, and in cattle by eating ergot infected grain or grass. Ergot poisoning is charactised by mental disorientation, muscle cramp, and convulsion.

In the 1960s one of the psychoactive drugs of recent years the psychedelic drug L. S. D. which produces changes in perception and mood is chemically related to the ergot alkaloids.

Christianity has much to answer for in her ignorance at she went on a rampage of torture and executions of innocent victims.

There are so called witches today who claim to be Adherents of an ancient religion, the one to which Christianity is regarded as a counter religion. Modern witchcraft is entirely different than the witchcraft imagined by the Church persecutors of past centuries. Today they seek secure and public recognition of their activities by appealing to the modern values of religious tolerance. These people are by all accounts sincere but misguided people much like those who are within the church.

The Pope’s confession on March 12,when he visited Jerusalem this year when he made a public apology and repented for the past sins of the Church, I wonder if this included the past murders of all those innocent women and men in the name of Christianity. By all accounts, according to media articles his confession was seen as rather vague and inadequate.

Jim Lee. 12/7/00