The turn of that century, i.e. c. 1300, saw the start of the fourth phase in the Church's 100% conversion technique - direct attack to physically eliminate the opposition and gain total supremacy for Christianity, a religio-political correlation of "Join the crew or walk the plank!"  And the start of the 14th century is generally looked upon as the inception of persecution.

Pope John 22nd, Pope from 1316 - 1334, issued some of the earliest decrees against this so-called 'witchcraft'.  One of the first recorded slayings was in 1323 in Ireland where Petronilla de Meath was burned as a heretic.

In 1374 Pope Gregory 11th exhorted the inquisitors of Paris to wage total war against witchcraft.  1401 saw the statute 'De Haeretico Comburendo ' which recommended the burning of those convicted of heresy and in 1484 a vicious invective on heresy came from the hand of Pope Innocent 8th - the Papal Bull 'Summis Desiderantes '.

Two years later came the trigger for all out persecution - 'The Malleus Maleficarum ', a work written by Jacobus Sprenger, Prior of the Convent of Cologne and Prior Heinrich Kramer.  By this time every crime possible was ascribed to the pagans and the hangings, burnings and torturings were rationalised and public opinion swayed to accept these events as pious justice.

The persecution was maintained by propaganda until the public firmly believed that pagans, or witches as they were now termed, caused illness and plague, epilepsy and mental illness, storms at sea, blight of crops, swine fever, abortions in cattle and humans and were the instigators of practically every evil that afflicted the human race.

And through it all a scriptural text from the Pentateuch was held out to substantiate the morality of the offensive.  "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

The text is from Exodus chapter 22, v.18.  The text contains a word which they printed in translation as the inspired word of their god!  The word used is kashaph, not mekashah (sorceress) or mekashef (sorcerer). Kashaph is one who deals with herbs in a negative way - a poisoner.  To live is khayah, which most often means 'to dwell'.  So the correct idiomatic translation of the Hebrew is "Thou shalt not suffer a poisoner to dwell among you".  Here, as may be done with scriptural texts, the words are manipulated to suit the ends of the interpreter.  So much, then, for "the word of God that liveth and abideth forever"!

Nevertheless, let us return to the Malleus Malificarum to gain insight into the type of minds which produced the publication.  Perhaps a survey of the questions and their subdivisions raised therein will suffice.

Part 1 questions whether children may be begotten by incubi or succubi (male and female demonic entities whose sole purpose is seduction) and whether semen may be moved from one person to another by the Devil.  It raises the problem of identifying the individual devils by which seduction may be achieved.

Witches who have sexual relations with the devil are discussed in addition to the problem of witches who can cause impotence, frigidity and infertility through the power of the Devil.  Here the ability to perform sexually with other partners while remaining incapable of the matrimonial act appears to be an escape clause for adulterers.  Witches too are charged with being able to make the male organ of generation appear to be separate from the body and with inducing abortions.

Although one should be satisfied with the arguments in Part 1 of the Malleus, Part 2 continues the obsession with the various ways witches copulate with incubi, the method of obstructing procreation and how they are able by enchantment to cause a man to believe he has lost his "virile member".

Then follows recommendations for resisting incubi or succubi and how one may be cured of impotence or of believing that his generative organ has been lost.  As the supposedly lost organ is simply imperceptible to touch and sight by the application of some evil spell, the afflicted person, prior to the medical intervention of salves, must first avail himself of the sacrament of confession, thus ensuring the continuing necessity for the apparent power of the church in cases of witch cursing, together with the pucuniary gain for such services.

The remainder of this work is similar and also relates to the methods of trial, torture and sentence to be employed and makes an admirable sado-sexual treatise.  Such was the depths of depravity in the minds of the Church fathers!

The 1541 Witchcraft Act in Britain was passed in the reign of Henry VIII and, shortly after, the Church standardised its tenets effectively as from 1545 - 1563 The Council of Trent defined almost the whole of the Catholic Faith.  In 1547 the Act of Henry VIII was repealed but in the reign of Elizabeth I a further act stipulated the pillory for a first offence and death for a third conviction.

In 1563 the Parliament of Mary Queen of Scots categorically laid down the death sentence for witchcraft and in the following 39 years (the remainder of her reign) the approximate number executed annually was 200, giving us c. 8,000 in all for that short period of Scottish history.

Irrespective of the accusations in the trials of that time, during which perhaps some were genuinely pagan but the vast majority innocent of the charge of heresy, any involvement in matters of the Mysteries was punishable by death, as the execution of an Ayrshire woman will demonstrate.  Bessie Dunlop of Ayr was burned at the stake in 1576 merely for healing the sick by ancient cures.

James I/VI published in Edinburgh in 1597 a treatise on demonology and witchcraft, thereby giving royal approval for witch hunting.  It is commonly thought that burning was the method of execution in all cases of conviction, but in England hanging was always the rule - burning being prevalent in Europe and Scotland.

1604 brought the Witchcraft Act of James I, the most stringent yet encountered and during the first 80 years of the 17th century, the number executed annually was 500, a total of 40,000 for a portion of one century in Britain alone - the continent of Europe continuing to compound its own abominable statistics.

I shall not trouble to give the usual account of trials or executions in Britain, as this is a subject in its own right and may have some limited interest to students of the development of our legal system.  Many trials have become well known, the majority being similar.  As works like the Malleus Maleficarum guided authorities in the confessions they should expect, torture was maintained until the poor wretches told what the inquisitor wanted to hear.  By and large the entire survey is depressingly unsavoury and barbaric in the extreme.

What I shall relate as a point of interest is one example of torture enacted during the 'burning time'.  This was a continental case which was recorded by König in his 'Ausgeburten des Menschenwans '.

The torture demonstrates not only the lowest stratum of moral perversion and sadism on which mankind can function when protected by an ill-defined job specification - the "I was only obeying orders" scenario prevalent in Third Reich rationalisiations, but also the total absence of any regard for human rights at that period of history.  One wonders when the Roman Catholic Church will be brought to trial for its lengthy abuses and contravention of human rights.

The captive in this case, where a confession to either witchcraft or heresy was being sought, was female and pregnant.

She was bound and affixed to a rack to be stretched and tortured by pincers.  This appeared to be the most mundane of the torture process and was employed only three times by the hangman/torturer of Dreissigacher.

On six occasions the woman was pulled up to the roof and suddenly dropped.  To exacerbate the suffering, weights were applied to her feet or upon her back which implies she was raised in the prone position causing maximum stress to her spine.  This method of torture was to last for hours.

On three occasions, fire was favoured by the hangman and his henchmen.  Her head was first shaved and covered with brandy, the same spirit later being poured on the unfortunate woman's back.  This was ignited on each application.  To vary the torture, sulphur was employed in similar fashion, but to the woman's armpits.

Towards the end of the torture, a vice was brought into use, first of all to mangle the lower extremities.  We are informed that the screws were tightened to such a degree that blood started to ooze from the toes.  The second session of crushing was to last for six hours.

Immediately before this six hour agony, a horsewhip had been the weapon of choice and had obviously been applied with such vigour that the torturer was delighted to resort to the vice once more to regain his strength for the final onslaught.

He ended by horsewhipping the woman without mercy - such was his evident frustration.  The two tortures omitted in the record bring the total to eighteen performed within one day!

The Puritans of Britain maintained the persecution with relentless enthusiasm and between 1644 and 1647 the infamous Witchfinder General, Mathew Hopkins, made a profitable career from the practice.  Such places as Stowmarket are recorded as having raised a special tax to pay the witchfinder and his sadistic cohorts.

By the late 17th century, the logical thinking of the masses was causing greater awareness of and nausea at the carnage, and the philosophy concerning witchcraft was being doubted.  At such times of enlightened thinking, however, we find continued propaganda and exhortation to continue the holocaust by such as Joseph Glanvil who, in 1681, penned 'Sadducismus Triumphatus ' - a protest against the disbelief in witchcraft.

The last trial in England in which the death sentence was pronounced was in 1711 when Jane Wenham of Walkern was tried and condemned, but later released by the judge who reversed the decision of the jury because of unbelievable evidence.

1722 brought the final execution in Scotland - that of Janet Horne who was burned to death at Dornoch.

The Witchcraft Act of George II's reign which was passed in 1735 stated in general terms that witchcraft did not exist.  However, anyone who claimed to possess supernatural powers could be prosecuted for doing so.  This Act was eventually repealed in 1951 and replaced by The Fraudulent Medium's Act.

Throughout Britain and the Continent of Europe during the persecution, that is 1300 - 1700 (some 400 years), it is estimated that some nine million souls perished because of the charges of witchcraft, paganism or heresy.  This figure is being doubted today, some saying two million.  However, if we can be guided by the 200 per annum in Scotland in the reign of Mary Queen of Scots and the 500 per annum in the first 80 years of the 17th century in England, then an estimate of 800 per annum in Britain may be nearer the truth.  If we add a further 3,000 per annum throughout the Continent of Europe, then c. 4,000 per annum may be a more realistic estimate - i.e. just over 1.5 million in total over the four centuries.

Perhaps the inflated figure is really worldwide and takes into account the Spanish Conquistadors who invaded South America committing genocide and spreading physical diseases.  Let us not forget the Christian Crusaders who butchered 'heathen' Muslim women and children in the cities of the Holy Land, wading ankle deep in blood as they rampaged through the streets - all in the name of Christ.  Add the bloody times of the Spanish Inquisition with the slaughter of heretics, plus the massacres of the Albigenses and Cathars.  Remember the destruction of Hawaiian culture and the genocide of the American Indians and Britain's own persecution of 'heathen' Hindus when they stole the subcontinent of India from the indigenous peoples.

Perhaps 9,000,000 worldwide may just be about the correct figure to satisfy the blood lust of the God of the Christians with his vicious, destructive, irascible, malevolent and psychopathic nature!  Mind you we have not taken into account his responsibility for the genocide of the Amorites, Canaanites, Hittites, Perizzites, Hivites, and Jebusites et al., as reported in detail in the Books of Exodus and Joshua from the Holy (?) Bible.  Or do these latter atrocities reflect the minds of those who originally thought this deity into existence?

Perhaps few of those gave their allegiance to the Elder Deities, the majority being innocents caught up in a web of social or family contact where the trial of one person immediately caused friends and relatives to be brought to the torture.  Very many of the spurious charges would also have been motivated by jealousy, malice or the lusting after another's spouse or possessions.

As a postscript to this section we should remember the following unfortunate souls:-

1. Josephina Arista of Ojinaga, Mexico, who was burned at the stake on charges of witchcraft.  This was performed without any trial whatsoever and on the orders of the local parish priest.  The sentence was implemented by the alcalde and the local police force on .............. 3rd July 1955!

2. Christina Trajo and Benita Sabina who were charged with witchcraft then hacked to pieces and thrown upon a bonfire at Alfajayucan, Mexico, in order that "their souls be purified" on ......8th September 1956!