1. The Azande are a group of people that live on the Nile-Congo line. They are huge believers in witchcraft, oracles, magic, and other ritual performances. The Azande believe that witches can bring harm to them through psychic acts. The Azande believe that if something atrocious happens to them that the witches are the ones accountable. It can be a colossal coincidence that they got hurt or sick, but they hold the witches accountable for everything undesirable. In Zandeland an old granary collapsed. It killed and injured many that were underneath it. They blamed it on witchcraft, but things like this would happen all the time, in Zandeland and can happen now in the present day. If something like this occurred today, witchcraft would not …show more content…
Heraclitus is a strong believer in flux. He explains that the perceptible world is flux, but he is also saying you are free but with some kind of restraint. Heraclitus is saying that you are free to do whatever you want in the world, but they are certain rules and guidelines you have to follow in the world. So therefore you are not as free as you think you are. An example that everyone always comes back to is freedom of speech. In this country you are free to say whatever you want according to the first amendment, but you can go to jail for doing so. If you are in the city of Chicago participating in a protest you can get arrested for disruption. You can have freedom but within a certain limit. This can get in the way of having a perceptible world. For example, Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream and he had to break a lot of laws to get to where we are today. Flux absolutely came first there was a time when laws were non-existent. People had common-sense to know what was right and wrong, but there was not a law to say they could not commit certain actions. It is common-sense to try to understand human law so we can all be on the same terms. If some people do not agree with human laws the world can get messy. We need to all understand each other to live
Witchcraft is the most illogical and despised practices involving the supernatural power. “It implies the ability to injure others. A witch usually acquires his power through an inherent physical factor or through the power of another witch. Witch possess a special organ called mangu, located somewhere behind the sternum or attached to the liver.”[11] Woman/man may become a witch through the influence of another witch or contact with another witch. Witches do not intend to do harm; they are as much the victims of witchcraft as those upon whom they practice it. They have innate power and often don’t know what they are doing. The belief in witchcraft helps people explain the causes of illness, death and misfortune experienced by a person or a group when no other explanations can be found. Most of the time when witches create injury and calamity, they were punished by death, sometimes by exile. They also were forced into admission of guilt by torture, fear, or the hope for lighter punishment. “Most witches work by night, are capable of covering long distances very rapidly, tem...
At first glance, the picture of justice found in the Oresteia appears very different from that found in Heraclitus. And indeed, at the surface level there are a number of things which are distinctly un-Heraclitean. However, I believe that a close reading reveals more similarities than differences; and that there is a deep undercurrent of the Heraclitean world view running throughout the trilogy. In order to demonstrate this, I will first describe those ways in which the views of justice in Aeschylus' Oresteia and in Heraclitus appear dissimilar. Then I will examine how these dissimilarities are problematized by other information in the Oresteia; information which expresses views of justice very akin to Heraclitus. Of course, how similar or dissimilar they are will depend not only on one's reading of the Oresteia, but also on how one interprets Heraclitus. Therefore, when I identify a way in which justice in the Oresteia seems different from that in Heraclitus, I will also identify the interpretation of Heraclitus with which I am contrasting it. Defending my interpretation of Heraclitean justice as such is beyond the scope of this essay. However I will always refer to the particular fragments on which I am basing my interpretation, and I think that the views I will attribute to him are fairly non-controversial. It will be my contention that, after a thorough examination of both the apparent discrepancies and the similarities, the nature of justice portrayed in the Oresteia will appear more deeply Heraclitean than otherwise. I will not argue, however, that there are therefore no differences at all between Aeschylus and Heraclitus on the issue of justice. Clearly there are some real ones and I will point out any differences which I feel remain despite the many deep similarities.
In the early winter months of 1692, in colonial Massachusetts, two young girls began exhibiting strange symptoms that were described to be "beyond the power of Epileptic Fits or natural disease to effect (examiner.com)." Doctors looked them over, but could not come up with any sort of logical explanation for their ailments. Therefore, the girls were accused of taking part in witchcraft. Soon, other young women in the village started showing similar symptoms. This "illness" of sort slowly made its way through the village to many of the residents. Soon, people started coming up with possible theories as to what started all the madness.
As we may already know, the town of Salem was subject to an epidemic of the accusations of witchcraft that lasted over ten months. Witchcraft of this time period was not taken lightly. In England alone over 40,000-60,000 people were killed after being found guilty of witchcraft. Needless to say the people found witchcraft as a virus that infected the town. The first cases started off with the daughters of Samuel Parris, the town minister, accusing his slave, Tituba, of being a witch. She claimed that she and others in the town were witches and there was even a wizard. The town broke out in hysteria in further months. Over 100 people were put in jail because of accusations. The council that were to find these people’s innocence or guilt were corrupted as well because to claim innocence meant you were guilty and if you were to claim guilt you could be redeemed. Many of the items found incriminating were pins and voodoo dolls. Many of these people faced the psychological terror of being pressured into claiming guilt to a crime, you didn’t commit in front of a committee and scared the community to death that they were going to be subjected to. Many of the witnesses to these trials were said to have undergone physical distress or act inhumanly. Many historians say to these records that since their body was put under so much strain and fear of the witchcraft that surrounded them all the time, their bodies going through strange changes such as paralysis or temporary blindness with no real cause rather than stress. But many historians also believe the witnesses were voluntarily acting and committing fraud against the others. But why was this such an enigma to understand why this small town in New England was all of a sudden becoming a cen...
During the early winter of 1692 two young girls became inexplicably ill and started having fits of convulsion, screaming, and hallucinations. Unable to find any medical reason for their condition the village doctor declared that there must be supernatural forces of witchcraft at work. This began an outbreak of hysteria that would result in the arrest of over one hundred-fifty people and execution of twenty women and men. The madness continued for over four months.
The Salem Witch Trials, a series of horrifying events that occurred over 300 years ago, comprise one of the darkest chapters of American History. They began as two Salem girls lit the spark for a wildfire of hysteria and confusion that would consume the innocence of Salem Village. A year and twenty needless deaths later, the trials were put to a sudden stop. In addition, many theories behind the horror relate to events still taking place in the world today. Although this American tragedy occurred hundreds of years ago, the underlying reasons are still not fully understood.
1 Nachman Ben-Yehuda The European Witch Craze of the 14th to 17th Centuries: A Sociologist’s Perspective. The University of Chicago, 1980. 15. 2 Levack! 123.3 Levack 164.
...y saying that, “isn’t to produce justice to establish the parts of the soul in a relation of mastering, and being mastered by, one another that is according to nature, while to produce injustice is to establish a relation of ruling, and being ruled by, one another that is contrary to nature?” (444d). Isn’t it better to lead a just life if doing so prevents internal chaos and maintains order in the soul? It seems that answer is yes, but the question rests on a fallacy. The connection between injustice in a city as chaos among the classes, and injustice in a man as chaos in the soul has never been sufficiently shown. Socrates has failed his demonstration.
During the early modern period Europe experienced a phase of vicious prosecution of the people accused of the crime of ‘Witchcraft.’ There has been an estimated death toll of up to 50,000 people during these Witch-hunt crazes, although the exact figures are unknown. What is known is that overall 75-80% of those accused were woman although this varies in different states. In this essay I will discuss the role of gender in witchcraft and why the majority of people executed as Witches were women.
Outdating Christianity and Judaism, Paganism and witchcraft are a few of the oldest religions known to man. Although many people use Paganism as an umbrella term for any other religions other than Christian or Judaic, witchcraft and Paganism are not the same thing (Lokken). Wicca and witchcraft has been practiced by many cultures in many different parts of the world. The people who practice some of the magick that Wicca has to offer may not define themselves as witches, but it has been practiced. Evidence of Africans using witchcraft has been found; however, it is not the witchcraft that follows the Wiccan Rede, or the Three-fold Law (“What). The Wiccan Rede is summed up in just a few words “an it harm none, do what ye will” (Zimmerman 63). Furthermore, the Thrice Fold Law is the law of karma; where whatever someone does, good or bad, it comes back to them thrice fold. Due to this Thrice Fold Law and the Wiccan Rede, most witches do not want to harm anyone because they know it will come back to them
A second characteristic of witches - and what witches are most commonly known for - is that they cause horrible misfortune to their neighbors and others close to them. Death, sickness, and weather disasters are examples of natural occurrences that witches cause are often blamed for, especially when the occurrences seem strange or out of the ordinary. They can cause this harm simply by willing it to happen. "The witch only has to wish you harm, and the harm is as good as done" (Mayer 56). In Slovakia, Mramuch, who killed his neighbor Anna Tomkova, did so because he suspected the woman of casting a spell on his granddaughter. It was the only answer Mramuch had to counter his granddaughter's sudden suffering of epileptic seizures (Whitmore). In South Africa, Mmatiou Thantsa was accused of witchcraft and summoning lightning (Keller).
vulnerable to the Devil’s blandishments. A lurid picture of the activities of witches emerged in the popular mind, including covens, or gatherings over which Satan presided; pacts with the Devil; flying broomsticks; and animal accomplices, or familiars. Although a few of these elements may represent leftovers of pre-Christian religion, the old religion probably did not persist in any organized form beyond the 14th century. The popular image of witchcraft, perhaps inspired by features of occultism or ceremonial magic as well as by theology concerning the Devil and his works of darkness, was given shape by the inflamed imagination of inquisitors and was confirmed by statements obtained under torture. The late medieval and early modern picture of diabolical witchcraft can be attributed to several causes. First, the church’s experience with such dissident religious movements as the Albigenses and Cathari, who believed in a radical dualism of good and evil, led to the belief that certain people had allied themselves with Satan.
The book begins with a brief history of the colonial witchcraft. Each Chapter is structured with an orientation, presentation of evidence, and her conclusion. A good example of her structure is in chapter two on the demographics of witchcraft; here she summarizes the importance of age and marital status in witchcraft accusations. Following this she provides a good transition into chapter three in the final sentence of chapter two, “A closer look of the material conditions and behavior of acc...
Sidky, H. Witchcraft, lycanthropy, drugs, and disease: an anthropological study of the European witch-hunts. New York: Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 1997.
Belief in witchcraft is the traditional way of explaining the ultimate cause of evil, misfortune or death.” The African worldview is holistic. In this perception, things do not just happen. What happens, either good or bad, is traced back to human action, including “ancestors who can intervene by blessing or cursing the living.” Witches, on the other hand, harm because they want to destroy life.